A junior? A parallel world?

[Grassland/0090-1144-3656: Friend from Snow Mountain, are you doing okay?]

Just as Ye Fei was searching for any prey nearby, his one and only friend sent him another message.

[Me: Did you just wake up? I'm doing pretty well.]

Ye Fei replied, then continued scanning the snow around him.

After waking up earlier, he had forgotten to message his friend from Grassland.

[Grassland/0090-1144-3656: Yeah, I just woke up. I couldn't sleep at all last night. I kept worrying something might happen, so I stayed up watching. Luckily, the volcano didn't erupt. When I went outside just now, I found that really tall mountain had disappeared. Lots of people here are saying they can't see it anymore, but it looks like everyone who lost their houses last night is still alive...]

Apparently, his friend had awakened some sort of chatterbox trait, because he sent Ye Fei an enormous message.

The gist was that he had been too worried to sleep last night, so he had watched the chat channel, seeing how people panicked after losing their houses. Then he had discovered that there wasn't much of a problem after all, and that people were still safe within their courtyard walls.

As for the volcanic crater, it had still been there before he went to bed. Only after waking up had he noticed it was gone.

[Me: Maybe the map was updated. Things haven't really changed here. Hardly anyone froze to death last night, either. Not having a house just makes you feel unsafe, but I guess everyone was still given a chance to keep living.]

Ye Fei had also checked the chat channel several times that morning. Most people were saying that without a house, they had nothing and couldn't feel at ease.

Still, sleeping without a house left them cold. They wouldn't freeze to death outright, but plenty of people complained that they had caught colds and that all their physical stats were getting worse.

Their health slowly dropped, their stamina barely recovered, and their energy declined as well.

A house was a safe place that sheltered them from the wind and rain.

A bed wasn't just somewhere to sleep, but also somewhere to rest and recover stamina and energy.

The pot and stove were crude, but in a world of ice and snow, a bite of hot food was always comforting. Besides, those meals even had a few special effects.

[Grassland/0090-1144-3656: Maybe. We can hunt here now. I can see flocks of sheep and wild wolves out on the grassland when I lean over the courtyard wall. Too bad I don't have a weapon. How about your side? Is there any way to get weapons or things like that? I haven't seen anyone selling them in the trading section...]

After reading the message, Ye Fei pictured his friend leaning over the wall to watch the sheep. It was a pretty amusing image.

Weapons, though...

[Me: I haven't seen anyone selling weapons, either. I just hacked a rabbit to death with my woodcutting axe. It looks like hunting isn't strictly limited to a particular weapon type.]

His friend seemed rather lively. Ye Fei smiled and shared that bit of information.

Whether it would work well or feel comfortable to use was another matter.

But when he remembered his friend's nine points of combat power, he figured this person was probably no pushover. Catching a wild rabbit barehanded might even be possible.

[Grassland/0090-1144-3656: Got it, bro. Thanks! Oh, right, you are a guy, aren't you?]

It seemed his friend had only just remembered to check whether he was male or female.

They could only see each other's combat power and race. There was nothing else.

[Me: Yeah. Male, 25.]

Ye Fei replied and gave his age as well.

[Grassland/0090-1144-3656: Hey, big bro! I'm a guy too. I'm 19 this year and just started university. I was in Q Province before coming here. I'd only been at school a few days and hadn't even met the infamous old witch before I got sent here.]

Nineteen years old, a young man who had just started university.

But the old witch?

Q University?

[Me: Don't you mean the old wizard?]

As luck would have it, Ye Fei had graduated from that university too.

He remembered a professor from his school days who was nicknamed the old wizard because his surname was Wu and the students found him rather unpleasant.

This Junior Schoolmate hadn't experienced the old wizard's brutality. He didn't even deserve to call himself a Q University student!

What a letdown. That was one of Q University's signature experiences.

[Grassland/0090-1144-3656: No way! Did I run into an alumnus? What year did you graduate? The old wizard was his old nickname. I heard he got sick and they used a lot of hormones to treat him, so he started looking more and more like a kindly old lady. But the upperclassmen all say he's actually only in his fifties.]

The reply came quickly, and its contents left Ye Fei momentarily stunned.

So this really was a Junior Schoolmate from his university. What was this, fate?

[Me: He'd been sick for a long time. He left it too long, so they could only use hormones to keep him going for a while. He's not in his mid-to-late fifties. He should have only just turned fifty.]

Remembering that stern old professor, Ye Fei couldn't help feeling a little nostalgic.

Although he had been in the school of design and hadn't been one of the old professor's students, the memory still made him shudder. After all, not everyone could handle being used as an example during lectures, especially when every example was of what not to do...

[Grassland/0090-1144-3656: So he was that young! I thought he'd be really old. Anyway, enough about him. What level did you reach back then? Why do you only have three points of combat power? Were you in the academic department? They admit so few students. I wanted to apply there, but the academic score requirement was way too high. I couldn't meet it at all...]

Ye Fei found a dead tree and stopped beneath it. Looking at the message, he suddenly had no idea how to reply.

The academic department?

What did that mean?

Had he only been out of school for a year or two and already lost track of what departments it had?

What was wrong with having three points of combat power? Back in the dorm, he'd been the best at arm wrestling!

[Me: I'm suddenly starting to think the Q University I attended might not be in the same world as yours.]

Ye Fei felt a pang of frustration, but he kept replying.

[Grassland/0090-1144-3656: Huh? What do you mean? Calm down, senior. I know you academic types love coming up with weird topics like this. Don't tell me you study parallel worlds too?]

His friend thought Ye Fei was suffering from some sort of academic affliction.

[Me: Back when I was there, we never heard of an academic department.]

Ye Fei opened his friend's information and looked at his only friend's ID, along with the combat power beside it, which had quietly risen to ten at some point.

Once again, he wondered whether he really was chatting with a Junior Schoolmate from a parallel world.

[Grassland/0090-1144-3656: No way... But your combat power really is too low. I doubt you could find many people that weak at our school. Even the upperclassmen in the academic department rarely skip physical cultivation.]

His friend seemed to realize that Ye Fei's stats really didn't match his impression of an alumnus.

The two had chatted back and forth for a long time, but only now did they realize that they might be separated by the distance between worlds.