"Someone's searching Zhou Zhong's body?"
Inside the tent, the wariness in Su Chen's eyes slowly faded as he looked at Hu Xiang. When the man suddenly came looking for him, Su Chen had thought he'd figured something out and was about to attack.
But instead, he'd furtively told him that someone was searching Zhou Zhong's body.
"Yeah, something's very wrong with this," Hu Xiang said, his expression grim.
Su Chen stared at him. "Two things. First, why are you coming to me about this?"
"Second, you said you were patrolling the perimeter. How are you so well-informed about what's happening inside the camp?"
"What does that have to do with the corpse?" Hu Xiang frowned, but seeing Su Chen's guarded posture, he understood.
'This kid still doesn't trust me.' He could only explain, "I came to you because Zhou Zhong's death is more or less related to you..."
"Don't pin that on me," Su Chen said, his face impassive.
Hu Xiang ignored him and continued, "I was supposed to be patrolling the perimeter, but I was worried about the camp, so I kept an eye on both."
Su Chen reluctantly accepted the explanation. A thought suddenly struck him. "Let's go see the corpse."
"I already brought it over." Hu Xiang turned and dragged the Corpse Bag in from outside the tent.
Su Chen was left speechless.
"You should leave first." Su Chen rubbed his chin as he pulled open the zipper and looked at Zhou Zhong's corpse.
Hu Xiang hesitated, but seeing Su Chen staring intently at him, he had no choice but to step out of the tent.
"A little further..." Su Chen called out. Hu Xiang had no choice but to shuffle a bit farther away. Then he saw the light in the tent go out, plunging it into darkness.
'Fuck, that's creepy...' he cursed under his breath.
Inside, Su Chen used his Mental Perception to search Zhou Zhong's corpse.
A moment later, he paused, his eyes narrowing. 'Well, what do you know. There really is something.'
He took out a small knife. With a RIIIP, Su Chen tore a thin, paper-like object from the inner lining of the clothes on Zhou Zhong's left chest.
Su Chen's expression was a sight to behold. This was the very document detailing the [Space Storer] Professional Ability—the item stolen from Southwind Academy.
'He smuggled it out just like that?' Su Chen's mind raced with possibilities.
Yuan Chenyang's inspections were thorough. Under normal circumstances, this item should never have made it out.
But the patrol outside the city provided a loophole. On the day they left, Yuan Chenyang just so happened to be away chasing a thief. The one who saw them off was none other than Zhou Zhong's father.
'Zhou Zhong probably didn't know, or he wouldn't have kept it hidden this long. They have people among the City Patrol Guard, too...' Su Chen felt the situation was becoming thorny. 'This is clearly a quagmire.'
"But..." he murmured to himself, "perhaps it's also an opportunity."
He was about to turn on a temporary light source when his gaze fell back on Zhou Zhong. He murmured, 'Still, out of all the students, why did it have to be on Zhou Zhong...?'
As he spoke, he reached out his demonic claws again, searching even more meticulously this time.
'Unbelievable, there's actually more...'
Su Chen looked astonished, staring at the two small, black metal cubes in his hand.
Zhou Zhong had been turned into a mule.
These things, hidden in a secret compartment in the heel of Zhou Zhong's shoe, were only the size of a fingernail. This wasn't something that could have been planted on him casually.
With a slight twist, the metal casing popped open. Hazy, colorful light seeped from the crack. Su Chen quickly wrapped it in a piece of clothing before carefully opening it completely.
It was a small, irregular, multicolored crystal.
The panel didn't display any information; it wasn't a finished item.
'This stuff...' He frowned, glancing back at the thin document. A sudden theory formed in his mind.
He immediately opened the panel, found the [Space Storer] profession, and expanded its acquisition requirements.
Sure enough, one of the requirements, [Space Crystal], was now marked as complete.
He'd only had a hunch that since this thing was hidden along with the document, it might be related to the [Space Storer] profession.
"This is a Space Crystal?" Su Chen stared at the crystal in his hand, his heart pounding with excitement.
'So the most baffling requirement for this profession... was fulfilled just like that?'
And he'd gotten two of them, no less.
But after a brief moment of excitement, Su Chen realized that it might be useless for him to have them.
Zhou Zhong's father most likely knew about the items hidden on his body. With his son dead and the items missing, everyone would probably be searched, especially him.
'I can't just throw them away,' Su Chen muttered, unconsciously stroking the metal cubes. 'It seems my only option is to turn them in.'
He was extremely reluctant. Who knew when he'd ever see something like this again.
[Detecting Host's intent to discard the Space Crystals, the Space Storer profession is willing to accept two Space Crystals as the cost for partial acquisition.]
[The profession can be fully unlocked by completing the remaining requirements later.]
Huh?
Staring at the panel that had popped up, Su Chen froze. 'Partial acquisition?'
'Not bad, not bad at all. Look at how considerate this profession is. If it's hard to acquire, you can just do a partial acquisition. Get your foot in the door first and pay the rest of the fare later, perfectly reasonable...'
Su Chen grinned, directing several compliments to the empty air, but no new notifications appeared on the panel.
He pursed his lips. Normal acquisition only required one crystal, but partial acquisition cost two.
The two Space Crystals in his hand radiated a dazzling light and began to melt like ice. The space around them rippled faintly as the two streams of light merged and then vanished abruptly.
[Partial acquisition of Space Storer successful. Acquired Professional Ability—Storage Space: A Personal Space concealed within a sub-dimension.]
[Other Professional Abilities will be unlocked upon fulfilling the remaining acquisition requirements.]
Storage Space?
Su Chen gulped. He focused his senses, and as his Spiritual Power rippled, he could faintly perceive a small, empty space. It was only one cubic meter—not very large.
Su Chen casually picked up one of the empty metal cubes and tried to mentally will it into the space. The cube vanished from his hand without a sound, reappearing inside the small dimension.
'It consumes Spiritual Power... No wonder one of the requirements is to have a Tier Two Top Mental Profession,' Su Chen noted as he carefully observed the process.
"Ha... not bad at all." He couldn't help but grin. In his eyes, even the corpse of Zhou Zhong on the floor, missing half its head, started to look quite handsome.
He searched the body carefully one more time to ensure he hadn't missed anything, then mangled the shoes beyond recognition before turning on his lamp and calling Hu Xiang back in.
Hu Xiang glanced at the corpse on the floor. The zipper was only open around the torso, and he didn't see any obvious changes. "Did you figure anything out?" he asked.
"Maybe..." Su Chen answered evasively. Hu Xiang pressed, dissatisfied, "What do you mean, 'maybe'?"
"Are you sure you want to know?" Su Chen retorted.
Hu Xiang faltered, staring at him suspiciously. The question sent a nervous jolt through him.
"Forget it." He shook his head decisively.
"You'd better keep a close eye on the person who was searching his corpse," Su Chen stressed.
Hu Xiang nodded, then asked worriedly, "Is this serious?"
Su Chen's reply was cryptic. "Hard to say."
Hu Xiang hesitated for a moment before heading over to Tang Chen to tighten the guard. Meanwhile, Su Chen left his tent and found Bai Fengxi.
"What is it?" Bai Fengxi asked, stepping out of her tent. Su Chen jerked his chin toward the tent's entrance.
Bai Fengxi hesitated for a moment but led Su Chen inside. The two of them sat cross-legged, very close to each other.
"I want to ask you something..." Su Chen leaned closer, looking into Bai Fengxi's eyes. "What kind of person is Old Yuan?"
Bai Fengxi's eyes flashed with suspicion. "Just for that? Did you really need to be so secretive to ask me this?"
"Yes," Su Chen said grimly.
Bai Fengxi was silent for a moment, then began, "He's..."
...
From the shadows, Hu Xiang finished tying up Tang Chen, making sure even suicide was impossible. He turned his head just in time to see the young man and woman disappear into the tent. 'What a fine girl,' he thought with a sigh of pity.
He'd asked the other students. It was true that Jiang He had been the one to get Su Chen into Southwind Academy; it wasn't just a rumor.
He had also heard of that woman Jiang He's reputation.
The image of an unscrupulous Su Chen, one who would stop at nothing and use any means to climb the social ladder, leaped to his mind.
That girl, Bai Fengxi, had probably fallen for his trap as well. And she was supposedly Yuan Chenyang's student.
'Truly impressive,' he thought.
However, he had a nagging feeling there was more to the story. With Su Chen's level of strength, he shouldn't have needed to rely on someone like Jiang He to get ahead.
As he was speculating, his expression suddenly turned grave, and he snapped his head up.
Out of the darkness, a City Patrol Guard on night watch came running over.
In a flash, Hu Xiang intercepted him, asking urgently, "What is it? Another attack?"
"N-no..." the City Patrol Guard stammered, shaking his head and pointing into the darkness behind him.
A low hum grew closer. Several bright, eerie blue lights pierced through the mist, and a number of five- to six-meter-tall, Crimson, tracked war machines emerged from the fog. Their slightly rusted armor plates were inscribed with glowing blue runes.
Hu Xiang's brow twitched as a wave of oppressive power washed over him.
At the head of the procession, several figures were slowly approaching. Hu Xiang's grave expression twisted into shock. "Ci-City Lord?!"
The arrivals were none other than a contingent of Southwind City's top brass, led by Zhang Hongbo, who had clearly rushed to get here.
"Inspector General Yuan..." His eyes swept across the group, and his expression suddenly changed drastically. He stammered, "Min-Min... Minister Zhou... W-why are you here?"
Zhou Xian found this baffling. 'This Hu Xiang seems even more shocked to see me than to see Zhang Hongbo. He didn't even greet the City Lord, just asked why I came. Isn't he just asking for Zhang Hongbo to get the wrong idea?'
'Why is a City Patrol Guard like you being so respectful to me?'
Hu Xiang's mind raced. Zhou Zhong's corpse was still in Su Chen's tent. The situation was already difficult to handle, and now Zhou Xian would undoubtedly fix his sights on Su Chen.
'This is a mess,' he lamented internally. 'Why did this whole group of VIPs suddenly show up?'