151: Chapter 152 After the restart button was pressed, Thirteen disappeared from the world.

[Reset]

The seventh seal flipped out completely from the back of the black lever.

It did not turn into a chair.

Nor did an owner appear.

The seal simply fell on its own, stamping heavily onto the very end of the maintenance report.

Bang!

The lights in the entire maintenance passage suddenly went out.

The next second, all the old-fashioned light bulbs lit up simultaneously with a blinding golden light.

[Major deviation detected in system core]

[Name custody rights lost]

[Personality master template living dependency released]

[Six maintenance permissions detached from the host]

[Seventh candidate relationship canceled]

[Current version stability: 0%]

[Executing system-wide emergency reset]

[Restore point: Day one of the National Class Transfer System's official operation]

[Countdown: 180 seconds]

Cheng Du's expression changed drastically.

"Turn off the lever!"

He lunged at the console, grabbing the black lever with both hands.

But the lever seemed welded to the entire Career System, remaining completely motionless.

Countless sparks instantly burst from the half of Cheng Du's body that was connected to the pipes.

"This isn't a normal startup!"

"It wants to restore the entire world to the initial version from twenty years ago!"

Chen Ye grabbed his shield.

"Skill levels reset to zero?"

"Skills can be trained again."

Cheng Du gritted his teeth.

"It wants to clear everything from the past twenty years that isn't in the initial career templates!"

Just as he finished speaking, the first golden light swept over everyone.

The burn marks on Chen Ye's shield, the cracks caused by the White Tower, and the rivets he had personally added all began to disappear at the same time.

The shield rapidly reverted to its standard form from when he had first awakened.

Smooth.

Intact.

Without any trace of use belonging to Chen Ye.

Right after, an old file floated up in front of Chen Ye's chest.

[Name: Chen Ye]

[Class: D-Class Shield Warrior]

[Initial Personality Template: Obey commands, prioritize protecting high-value classes, make sacrifices when necessary]

The anger on Chen Ye's face was fading.

He looked at Lin Jin, his gaze beginning to automatically calculate based on class value.

F-Class Repairman.

Low combat contribution.

Should not be a prioritized target for protection.

Chen Ye suddenly raised his fist and smashed it hard against the bridge of his own nose.

Blood trickled down.

"Who I protect—"

"Is my own choice!"

The initial template on the file flickered, but it did not stop overwriting.

On the other side, the Ice Key in Shen Tingxue's hand rapidly reverted to its original ordinary staff.

The return Records, Yu Xing's testimony, and the 1,204 voices hidden inside by Shen Qingshuang were all judged as "new data added after operation" and were being stripped from the weapon layer by layer.

Shen Qingshuang's body was also dragged back toward the hidden execution cabin by golden lines.

[Restoring historical post: Master Template Cleansing Executor]

[Restoring initial duty: Periodically cleanse Personality No. Zero]

Shen Tingxue grabbed her.

But frost rose between their wrists, attempting to forcibly sever their familial connection.

[In the Records of the first day of operation, Shen Tingxue's participation in the No. 9 Forbidden Zone incident does not exist]

[This relationship does not affect the Executor's duties]

"It didn't exist on the first day."

Shen Tingxue held onto Shen Qingshuang in a death grip.

"But it exists today!"

Ice Lines stabbed into the ground, pinning them both down.

In front of Zhou Heng's chest, the standard template of the Thunder Spear Knight also began to restore.

The hesitation, detours, and mistakes he had experienced were all categorized as invalid deviations by the system.

The Thunder Spear pointed once again to the only correct route recommended by the system.

The end of that route was the black lever.

[Barrier-breaking classes should assist in clearing obstacles to the reset]

Zhou Heng raised his spear.

But before the tip of the spear could fall, he forced it aside.

Purple lightning grazed past the lever, shattering the wall next to it.

"I've walked too many wrong paths."

"I'm actually not used to the standard answer anymore."

The body Yu Xing had just obtained rapidly became transparent in the golden light.

[In the restore point, No. Zero has not yet formed an independent name]

[Deleting "Yu Xing"]

[Restoring form: Divine Brain Cultivation Source]

Her legs turned into neural filaments of light.

Her body was dragged bit by bit back into an incubation capsule that did not exist here.

Yu Xing grabbed the edge of the console, only to find herself starting to forget the reason she had chosen her name just now.

"The remaining..."

Her lips trembled.

"The remaining what?"

Thirteen immediately held her hand.

"The 'Yu' of remaining."

"The 'Xing' of awakening."

But just as he finished speaking, his own voice suddenly stopped.

His hand passed right through Yu Xing's palm.

He wasn't hurt.

It was just that his entire being was fading.

[In the restore point, the independent life "Thirteen" does not exist]

[System identification core detected as detached from prototype]

[Executing data merge]

[Merge target: Lin Jin]

A black rift appeared in Thirteen's chest.

Countless memories flew out of the rift, surging toward Lin Jin.

Eighteen years of waiting.

Opening his eyes for the first time.

Seeing the real world through the White Tower for the first time.

Being called Thirteen for the first time.

All of these were judged by the reset as redundant data generated during the split.

Thirteen's feet completely vanished.

Chen Ye lunged forward, but only hugged cold air.

"Thirteen!"

Thirteen looked down at his increasingly transparent body, no fear on his face.

Only uncontrollable anger.

"I've only lived for a few days."

"And it wants to take even these few days back?"

Lin Jin rushed in front of him, placing the chipped rusty wrench horizontally between them.

The Hand of Rules was already closed.

There was no prompt to tell him where to repair.

He could only watch as Thirteen's memories flowed into his own body along the golden lines.

The golden lines came from the seventh seal.

After passing through the black lever, they dispersed into the entire career network.

"This isn't time turning back."

Lin Jin suddenly said.

Cheng Du was still struggling with the lever.

"What do you mean?"

"Time hasn't changed."

Lin Jin grabbed one of the golden lines.

"It's just using files from twenty years ago to overwrite the people of today."

Restoration.

It doesn't actually send the world back to the past.

It simply deletes all changes that are inconsistent with the initial version.

As long as Thirteen is not in the first day's files, the system deems that he shouldn't exist today either.

[Countdown: 126 seconds]

Teacher Xu Wenzhou raised 002 and aimed it at the seventh seal.

The tool did not react.

"It's not a post."

"There is no holder, and no connection between anyone and the seal."

Cheng Du kicked the base of the lever.

"A reset was originally the final resort to prevent the system from going completely out of control."

"Before official operation, it was only used once."

"What were the original rules?"

Lin Jin asked.

"Unanimous consent from all affected parties."

Cheng Du panted.

"Because a reset deletes personal data generated during operation."

"As long as a single person refuses, it cannot be executed."

Chen Ye wiped away his nosebleed.

"Then how can it still be activated now?"

"Default consent."

Shen Qingshuang was dragged half-kneeling to the ground by the golden lines, but she still stared at the bottom of the seal.

"The Six Seats changed the terms after taking over."

"If class holders do not actively refuse, it is deemed as accepting the system restoration."

Chen Ye cursed.

"Who in the world even knows this thing is counting down?"

Lin Jin followed the golden lines with his eyes to the black lever.

There were seven rows of contact points beneath the lever.

The first six rows connected maintenance permissions.

The seventh row led to every class emblem.

The silence of countless people was converging here along the lines, becoming the authorization for the reset.

It wasn't that the world chose to reset.

It was the system taking their lack of opportunity to speak as consent.

[Countdown: 103 seconds]

Only Thirteen's upper body remained.

His memories were still pouring into Lin Jin.

Lin Jin could feel another life taking shape in his mind.

But once they merged completely, Thirteen could never be separated from him again.

"Teacher Xu, forget the seal."

Lin Jin knelt at the base of the lever, using the wrench to quickly pry open the casing of the seventh row of contact points.

"Chen Ye, guard the door!"

"Shen Tingxue, freeze the restoration lines! Drag it out for as long as you can!"

"Zhou Heng, connect the national network!"

Zhou Heng didn't ask how.

The Thunder Spear stabbed directly into the golden main line behind the wall.

Electrical light surged along the maintenance passage toward the entire nation.

Before the eyes of all class holders, an unprecedented emergency prompt popped up simultaneously.

[System is about to restore to the first operational version]

[Individual experiences, personality changes, and independent relationships generated after operation will be deleted]

[Those who do not make a choice will be deemed as consenting]

At the very bottom of the prompt, there was only a single gray button.

[Refuse Reset]

But the button appeared for only a split second before being covered by the seventh seal.

[Reset is an emergency maintenance procedure; individual authorization is not required]

"It's not letting people choose!"

Zhou Heng's Thunder Spear cracked from the reverse current shock.

Lin Jin disassembled the seventh row of contact points.

There were no complex divine spells inside.

Only two wires.

One was labeled [Confirm].

The other was labeled [Silence].

The two wires were forcibly merged, both leading to [Consent].

Lin Jin jammed the wrench into the interface and pried outward with force.

Golden current instantly surged through his right arm.

Having already lost the Hand of Rules, his hand—which was already close to being useless—completely lost all sensation.

The wrench slipped from his hand.

Cheng Du kicked the wrench back to his left side.

"A Repairman has to know how to use both hands!"

Lin Jin grabbed the wrench with his left hand.

"How do I connect the original wiring?"

"Silence doesn't mean refusal."

Cheng Du roared.

"Silence means unconfirmed!"

"The reset must wait for everyone to answer!"

Lin Jin looked at the third small interface that had been welded shut.

Words long blurred were engraved upon it.

[To Be Confirmed]

He pried the silence wire away from the consent interface bit by bit.

The seventh seal vibrated frantically.

[Default authorization is necessary for system stability]

[Modification prohibited]

The Six Divine Seats smashed through the iron door simultaneously.

Chen Ye raised his shield to meet them.

The standard protection template was still overwriting his judgment, yet he did not protect the black lever.

Instead, he blocked the way in front of Lin Jin and Thirteen.

"I refuse!"

The shield clashed with the recycling seat.

The bones in Chen Ye's arms let out a crisp cracking sound.

"Do you hear me?"

"I refuse the reset!"

Shen Tingxue stabbed the fragment of the Ice Key into the restoration line.

"Shen Tingxue, refuses."

Zhou Heng's Thunder Spear snapped, losing a section.

"Zhou Heng, refuses."

Teacher Xu Wenzhou raised 002, blocking the Record Seat that was smashing down toward Lin Jin.

"Teacher Xu Wenzhou, refuses."

With only half of her face remaining, Yu Xing still spoke word by word:

"Yu Xing."

"Refuses to be restored to No. Zero."

Shen Qingshuang also grabbed the executor tubes reaching toward her once again.

"Shen Qingshuang, refuses to return to her post."

Lin Shoushan reached out from the treatment capsule and gripped Cheng Du's shoulder.

"Lin Shoushan, refuses the reset."

Cheng Du let out a laugh.

"Cheng Du."

"The files say I've been dead for twenty years."

"But I refuse to accept that."

Thirteen had only one eye left.

He looked at Lin Jin.

"Thirteen."

"Refuses to merge."

[Countdown: 14 seconds]

Lin Jin exerted sudden force with his left hand.

Crack!

The silence wire completely detached from [Consent] and was plugged into [To Be Confirmed].

Before the eyes of the nation's class holders, the obscured buttons reappeared.

This time, it wasn't just refusal.

[Agree to Reset]

[Refuse Reset]

[Do Not Choose For Now]

Countless people didn't even have time to read the full content clearly.

But as long as they did not actively agree, the authorization could not be completed.

[Explicitly agreed: 47,961]

[Explicitly refused: 118,403]

[To be confirmed: Uncountable]

[Unanimous authorization condition not met]

[Countdown: 01 second]

The seventh seal hung in midair, unable to fall that final inch.

[Emergency reset authorization failed]

The golden light suddenly went out.

Thirteen's transparent body paused for a moment, then began to separate from Lin Jin's body inch by inch once again.

His legs.

His hands.

The heart in his chest that belonged to him.

He dropped to the ground, and the very first thing he did was kick the seventh seal.

"Who else dares to say silence is consent—"

"I'll sew their mouth shut!"

The seal was kicked into the wall, cracking open a seam.

Yu Xing restored her body once more.

The executor tubes on Shen Qingshuang's body also completely retracted.

Everyone's files stopped overwriting.

Chen Ye looked at his crack-filled shield and let out a long sigh.

"The old one still looks better."

Outside the maintenance passage, the Six Divine Seats suddenly stopped their attacks.

The Sixth Seat [continuation] let out a low chuckle.

"The reset failed."

"It seems humanity is no longer willing to return to the most stable version."

"Then let them see—"

"The price of losing the stable version."

Although the seventh seal did not complete the full system restoration, it had already sent a command to a deeper module in the final second.

The black box popped out a new execution receipt.

[National Class Transfer System Reset: Failed]

[Class dependency decreased]

[Activating emergency dependency maintenance protocol]

[Restoring the Abyss to its first operational state]

The smile on Cheng Du's face vanished instantly.

"On the day of the first operation..."

"None of the Abyss entrances had been sealed yet."

The national map forcibly expanded.

The seventy-two Abyss entrances that had been sealed for many years simultaneously underwent a version rollback.

The City Defense Center.

The Abandoned Hospital.

Beneath the White Tower.

Even in the training grounds of Jiangcheng Academy, a dull cracking sound could be heard.

At the very center of the map, beneath the No. 9 Forbidden Zone, a giant door even older than the Golden Delivery Room slowly opened.

There was no roaring of monsters behind the door.

Only a voice completely different from the Mother of All Things asked softly through the twenty-year seal:

"Is the Career System finally broken?"

"Then now—"

"It's the Abyss's turn to hand out classes to humanity."