Complete the Set!

There were far fewer people in the cafeteria.

Mealtime was over.

The teacher in charge of logistics stood in the middle of the cafeteria, formed a Spell Seal, and channeled Spiritual Power into it.

The Magic Array patterns covering the entire cafeteria lit up. A powerful force swept across the floor, the tables, and every bowl and pair of chopsticks at the dish return station.

In an instant.

Everything was spotless and smelled of lemons.

A filthy black sphere hovered above the teacher's hand.

"Job done! Time to eat!"

The teacher called out, tossed the sphere into a waiting waste barrel, and waved toward the kitchen.

The students had finished eating.

Now it was the logistics staff's turn.

Xu Yuan watched the whole process before getting up to collect a meal and take it to the hospital.

He sat with his mother for a little while, then returned to school.

The classroom.

He sat in the back row and took a pen from the desk drawer.

His classmates had either gone to eat or were taking their lunch breaks.

The classroom was empty. No one else was there.

Sitting in the back row, Xu Yuan took out the blank slip of paper. After a moment's thought, he wrote:

"I obtained the ring and its matching set piece long ago."

His pen stopped.

Would this Historical Side Quest hold?

He waited a moment.

All the writing vanished.

The slip was blank again.

A new prompt flashed across his vision:

"Please write a wish that accords with reality."

It didn't hold!

Xu Yuan tried again:

"Yesterday, I finally obtained the Final Enlightenment Ring, completing two pieces of the set."

Would this one hold?

The first half had already happened, so surely it had a better chance.

His pen stopped.

The words on the slip vanished.

Another prompt flashed across his vision:

"Please write a wish that accords with reality."

Still no!

It had to accord with reality...

How was he supposed to manage that?

The reality was that he didn't have the other piece.

Xu Yuan stared at the silver ring.

For a long time.

Then an idea surfaced.

The Final Enlightenment Ring had a special note:

"—When the time is right, the ring will guide your way."

Perhaps he could work with that.

To receive its guidance, he needed—

"The right time."

Given his situation, where was he most likely to find the other item?

...The shop.

Of course.

The shop could refresh its stock.

Why couldn't he buy the other set piece there?

He absolutely could!

After all, he had gotten this ring from a beginner's gift pack!

The shop offered a far wider range!

There was every chance the other piece could appear!

—The odds were just tiny, and the difficulty enormous!

But however small the chance, as long as it existed, it was consistent with reality!

Other people won lotteries worth hundreds of millions!

So it was perfectly normal for him to refresh the shop and luck into a matching set piece.

His spirits lifted. Xu Yuan wrote swiftly on the slip:

"In the Qi Refiners' Combat Prep Room, I refreshed the shop and found an item, though I didn't yet know it belonged to the set."

"But the Final Enlightenment Ring guided me."

"So I bought it."

The moment he finished, new lines appeared beneath his writing, joining seamlessly to it.

"The Historical Side Quest has been established."

"This Historical Side Quest was born of your will and has not affected anything that occurred in the past."

"Congratulations."

"Your Final Enlightenment Ring has acquired a little-known personal history:"

"Your shop was deployed to the Border City Battle ten years ago, where you happened to refresh a mysterious item."

"The ring released a brilliant light upon the item, alerting you to its unusual nature."

"You spent 244 gold to purchase it."

"And thus."

"By sheer chance, you completed this mysterious pair of set items!"

Once all the words had appeared, the slip vanished.

Xu Yuan's heart jolted.

It worked!

That was it.

Only something that could happen in reality qualified as a Historical Side Quest!

At the same time.

Countless images surfaced in his mind.

Just moments ago.

He had refreshed the shop over and over, heedless of the cost.

At last.

A rust-covered pendant had appeared on the shelf.

He had been about to examine it when the silver ring on his hand suddenly lit up.

A brilliant ray shot from the ring toward the pendant, pointing it out unmistakably.

There was no doubt.

He had struck gold and refreshed the other set piece in one go!

There had been no reason to hesitate.

He had poured all his gold into buying the pendant.

—He had gotten it!

As Xu Yuan turned the memory over in his mind, he suddenly felt something in his hand.

He looked down.

It was the dingy pendant.

A strange finger bone hung from a dull silver chain.

"You obtained the Final Truth Emblem."

"Effect: Each time your cultivation rises by one level, your agility gains +1. Only effective in the Qi Refining Realm."

"Equip it?"

Like the Final Enlightenment Ring, it only worked in the Qi Refining Realm!

That was rather limiting.

Xu Yuan sighed, but quickly rallied.

No—that was the wrong way to look at it!

It might only work in the Qi Refining Realm, but that realm had nine levels.

Which meant—

He could gain at least nine points of agility!

A +5 sharpness bonus let the Qiong Jia Sword cut through an ordinary longsword.

Agility +9 was an even more terrifying number!

What more could he ask for?

The emblem could give him a full nine points of agility. That was already incredible!

He had no need to hope for anything else!

—At least not while he was in the Qi Refining Realm!

Xu Yuan put the pendant around his neck without hesitation.

In an instant.

Countless tiny, glowing words burst forth, updating wildly in the air:

"You equipped the Final Truth Emblem."

"You gained agility +2."

"You now possess both the Final Enlightenment Ring and the Final Truth Emblem."

"Truth Set complete (2/2)."

"Set effect activated:"

"You have gained the identity Apostle of Truth, along with the Apostle of Truth's inheritance: Azure Heaven Draws Yellow Springs (Soul Art)."

"This Soul Art must be activated at a specific ritual site."

"Keep trying."

What did this Apostle of Truth identity mean?

Not only had he gained the identity, he could also learn a Soul Art outright!

Xu Yuan sat at his desk, unable to calm the shock in his heart for a long time.

The line about activating the Soul Art at a specific ritual site was stating the obvious.

Many Soul Arts required particular rituals.

Granted.

He had no idea what that "specific ritual site" was.

But that was fine.

The next time he obtained a "blank destiny branch," couldn't he use it on this, just as he had with the Netherworld Passage Art?

Soul Arts were notoriously obscure, profound techniques tied to the human soul.

Even the senior-year textbooks covered them only in theory.

Students who had awakened their sense of qi had no proper Soul Arts to learn either.

There was just one—

"Soul Projection."

That one was nothing special, and using it too often left a person mentally drained.

But look at the Apostle of Truth's skill—

"Azure Heaven Draws Yellow Springs"!

Now that sounded impressive!

...He'd hit the jackpot.

Once he learned this Soul Art, perhaps he would understand more about what an Apostle of Truth actually was.

Xu Yuan stretched and stood up.

He had refreshed the shop repeatedly just now.

He had bought both a note worth 100 gold and the Final Truth Emblem.

Besides.

His swordsmanship had become Flying Sword swordsmanship.

There was no room for further improvement in the short term.

He had made every preparation he could.

Only 50 gold coins remained.

He had to save some for a rainy day.

It was only half past one in the afternoon.

With nothing else to do,

after a morning of fierce fighting and a promise to meet the Little Boy again,

not to mention using up a Historical Side Quest,

he really was a little tired.

There was still plenty of time before afternoon classes.

The classroom was empty.

From his seat at the back, all he could see ahead were stacks of exercise books piled on the desks.

Beside the blackboard, the words "190 days until the College Entrance Examination" were still written.

Quiet.

"What a beautiful day."

Xu Yuan murmured to himself. He pulled a meditation cushion from his desk, set it on his chair, crossed his legs, and began regulating his breathing.

Perhaps it was the ring's effect of "increasing cultivation speed by thirty percent."

The Spiritual Power within him felt unusually lively. Each time he circulated his cultivation technique through a full cycle, it grew a little stronger.

At this rate, he was not far from Qi Refining Third Layer!

Time passed slowly.

In the classroom,

students gradually began to arrive.

By the time class was about to start, nearly everyone was there.

Except Li Tao.

Apparently, he had originally been paired with Jiang Xueyao.

But during the warm-up, he had failed to block even one of her moves and had been sent straight to the infirmary.

Everyone sighed over it.

The College Entrance Examination was still half a year away.

If his injuries healed soon enough...

he should make it in time.

The sky was a brilliant blue. Warm autumn sunlight streamed through the window and fell across Xu Yuan's face.

A faint smile touched his lips. Lost to the world, he focused only on cultivating.

Several girls stole one glance at him, then another.

Zhao Afei rushed into the classroom, eager to talk to him. Seeing him circulate his energy, though, he had to hold back for the moment.

The bell rang.

Only then did Xu Yuan open his eyes and stretch his arms and legs.

Their homeroom teacher had not arrived yet.

Some students were reading, others were working on problems, and a few were chatting quietly.

Xu Yuan was about to pick up his pen and work on some problems when he discovered it was gone—

Who had taken it?

He looked around.

His deskmate, Fan Yan, was known as the "Sleeping Immortal."

The fellow had tucked a Silence Talisman into his collar beneath his neck.

That way, his snoring made no sound.

He had also stuck an Appearance-Enhancing Talisman on each cheek. They worked rather like illusions.

From a distance, he looked wide-eyed, alert, and attentively smiling.

Then he tipped his head back and slept sitting upright.

Any teacher who came to class would think that although this student sat in the back corner and his grades were nothing special, he listened quite earnestly.

It had been over a week since Fan Yan invented this trick.

And not one teacher had noticed!

That was something else.

Xu Yuan did not want to disturb him, so he poked the girl in front of him with a finger and whispered,

"Wen Xiaoning, have you seen my pen?"

(End of chapter.)