436: Chapter 422 May I come along?

The door opened halfway into the room, and Tevan poked his head through the gap, blinking as he looked at the group.

"It's you guys. Come in and talk." He pulled the door fully open and stepped aside to make way.

"Good afternoon, Senior Tevan."

The five of them entered the house one by one, nodding in greeting as they passed Tevan.

Passing through the foyer, the five arrived in the living room. Concerned about violating the host's taboos, they didn't dare walk around freely and could only look around to ease their tension.

Tevan closed the door and walked over. "No need to be formal, take a seat."

After speaking, he sat on the single sofa in the middle of the living room, and the five each found a seat. There weren't enough sofa spots—only a three-seater remained—so the other two brought over two wooden chairs from the wall.

"How have you been lately?" Once the five were settled, Tevan leaned against the back of the sofa and asked with a smile.

The three young girls weren't familiar enough with Tevan and nodded politely to indicate life was fine, while the Young Woman poured out her grievances without reservation.

"Senior Tevan, I've been put through the wringer!"

"Oh? Tell me in detail."

She recounted the difficulties she had encountered after entering Seventeen, then widened her eyes, staring at Tevan expectantly.

"I see..." Tevan pondered for a moment. After a while, he said, "My apologies, it was indeed an oversight on my part. I forgot that you had never been in contact with 'Arts' before."

Farid shook his head. "I hold an official position, so I know a bit about the study and life of Hogwarts freshmen. They all rely on themselves to adapt to the transcendent world. You have no obligation to solve our learning problems."

"Haha—" Tevan laughed cheerfully, then changed the subject. "Do you know why I called you here?"

Without waiting for the five to answer, he continued, "I went out a few days ago. When I returned, I heard your vacation had been postponed."

"Hmm, I went to ask the teacher why. As a result, the teacher looked very angry and left without saying a word. So that's what happened."

The five looked embarrassed, hiding their hands in their pants pockets before taking them out and placing them on their thighs, sitting up straight.

Tevan looked at the five. "As for the 'Arts' language teacher, I'll solve that for you. However, it's too late for the first semester. Hmm... I have to look outside, which will take some time. I should be able to find one before the start of next semester."

Farid asked in confusion, "Senior Tevan, as far as I know, except for the five of us, the other students' vacations are almost over. Is this amount of time enough?"

"The vacation I'm talking about has nothing to do with the other students."

Seeing the five of them bewildered, Tevan explained, "Your study schedule is planned separately and does not interfere with the normal curriculum of Seventeen. That's why the teacher postponed your vacation."

"In other words, the number of days in our vacation won't be reduced?" the Young Woman said excitedly.

"Big sister really cares about vacations a lot, doesn't she?" Tevan laughed in spite of himself.

"Hehehe—"

After Tevan finished laughing, he continued the previous topic. "Anyway, leave the matter of finding an 'Arts' language teacher to me. You guys just enjoy your holiday with peace of mind."

"We can go on break now?" the Middle-aged Man said in surprise.

"Yes." Tevan nodded and scanned the five faces. "Although you shouldn't be lazy in your studies, you also need to balance work and rest. Blindly studying hard won't lead to rapid progress; proper rest is equally important."

"I've already reported to the teacher. Your vacation starts tomorrow."

"As for whether to go home or stay at school, you decide that according to your own needs. Seventeen will not interfere."

The young girl remembered what Tevan had said when they first enrolled and asked, "If we stay at school, can we bring our parents over?"

"Of course, just be careful not to enter rooms that are off-limits."

Upon hearing this news, everyone became happy. After bidding farewell to Tevan, they hurried back to the study room in the dormitory building to discuss their respective plans.

The Middle-aged Man had a family and had originally planned to go home to visit his wife and children. However, since Seventeen allowed family members to visit the school, it was no longer necessary.

The Young Woman, Farid, and the young girl were all the same; they were going back just to see their families. Since they could reunite while staying at school, they naturally wouldn't go back. The few days spent waiting for their families could also be used for studying.

To everyone's surprise, the young man who had expressed indifference about staying or leaving actually intended to leave school and return to his country.

The four asked for his reason in surprise. For some reason, the young man looked troubled. He opened his mouth as if to speak but hesitated, and in the end, he said nothing.

Seeing this, the four didn't feel right pressing him. They got up to go to the dean's office to apply for family visits, while the young man went back to his room to pack his luggage.

Probably because Tevan had arranged it, the application was approved smoothly. The staff member responsible for transporting students told the four that they would pick up their families and bring them to Seventeen in a few days.

...

Russia.

Lately, the President had been following the progress of the spacecraft project, handling sudden changes during construction in a timely manner.

It was another early morning. After getting up and walking into the office to prepare for work, he was surprised to see a letter sitting on his desk.

According to the normal procedures of the Kremlin Palace, all letters would be received and checked by an assistant before being personally handed to the President. They would never be sent directly to the office to wait for opening.

A few seconds later, a large group of fully armed guards rushed into the office, fanning out to conduct a rigorous search of the room. Once they determined there was no danger, three were sent to approach the desk where the letter lay.

The three guards walked carefully to the desk. First, they used various instruments to scan the envelope. Only after ruling out the possibility of chemical toxins did they open it.

After reading the contents, the solemn expressions of the three guards relaxed. They turned and said, "It's a letter from Seventeen."

Having not been in contact with Seventeen for a long time, the President immediately pushed aside the guards in front of him, grabbed the letter paper covered in writing, and read it silently.

"What happened?" The assistant arrived a step late.

"A misunderstanding." He raised his hand to wave the guards away, then handed the letter to the assistant who had closed the door and was walking toward him. "Take a look."

The assistant took it and, after reading for a while, said in surprise, "Outsiders can enter Seventeen?"

"With conditions."

The President continued looking down, then said with realization, "Only family members of students are allowed. What a pity. I thought I could ride on the students' coattails and visit Seventeen together."

Showing no disappointment at all, he sat behind his desk and said enthusiastically, "We are a country supported by Seventeen; we have some history. If we make a request, we might get an affirmative answer."

"In any case, Seventeen has to come to Russia to pick people up. It wouldn't be much trouble to bring two more people along."

As he spoke, his heart grew more and more fervent. This could work!

The assistant seemed to hold a pessimistic view. After a slight hesitation, he said tentatively, "I think... well... it might not work."

"Why?"

"This time, outsiders entering Seventeen was requested by the students. I think if there's no one inside Seventeen to help, outsiders definitely won't be able to get in."

Hearing the assistant say this, the President also became somewhat uncertain.

After a moment of contemplation, he ordered, "Speculation is meaningless. When the people from Seventeen arrive, we'll know if it's possible by asking them."

"First, notify the students' families to prepare for boarding."

"The letter says the stop is in Mosco. Two students live out of town, right? Send people to pick up their parents."

"Additionally, the arrival of Seventeen's vehicle might cause a commotion. Post an announcement on the official website to remind the public not to gather and watch when the time comes."

"Yes."

The assistant was very efficient. An hour later, all residents of Mosco learned that Seventeen's train—or rather, high-speed rail—would be coming to Mosco soon to pick people up.

The public immediately boiled over, contacting family and friends to discuss the train's arrival time and whether they could sneak into Seventeen as a stowaway by hopping the train.

This topic was quickly dismissed. It wasn't that they were afraid of being caught and severely punished by Seventeen, but rather...

That high-speed rail flew in the sky. Its flight altitude was unknown, but visually, it wouldn't be lower than several hundred meters. They didn't think they had the ability to jump from the ground to a height of several hundred meters.

Someone was having a flight of fancy and suggested they could fly a helicopter near the high-speed rail and try to jump onto it.

He finished speaking confidently, only to be met with merciless ridicule from his friends.

Fly a helicopter over Mosco?

Believe it or not, you'd be shot down by a missile as soon as you took off.

After a whole day of enthusiastic discussion within families and social circles, the public helplessly concluded that hopping the train was pure fantasy.

After the disappointment, everyone immediately perked up again.

If they couldn't hop the train, taking some videos should be fine, right?

Among the four countries with transcendent powers, Russia's transcendence appeared the latest, and videos of transcendent feats and various divine artifacts and items were also the fewest.

The Russian public had suffered quite a bit of ridicule from smaller countries for this.

As one of the Three Permanent Members, Russia was known for its tough style in international exchanges. The other permanent members, relying on their own status and strength, wouldn't take the abuse, but many small countries with weak national power suffered. They were often bullied but powerless to strike back.

Now that the other 'permanent members' all had transcendence while Russia alone was lagging, the people of the small countries naturally seized the opportunity to mock them relentlessly.

When transcendence finally arrived, the Russian public thought they could hold their heads high, but little did they know the small countries would find a tricky angle to continue their verbal attacks.

"The Mountain Gate has Kunpeng soaring in the sky, Hogwarts has Owls delivering letters, what does your Russia have?"

The Russian public tried to retort, but their own transcendence indeed hadn't displayed any similar transcendent creatures, so they could only endure the ridicule with dark faces for as long as a year.

In fact, Seventeen had revealed a 'transcendent creature' once—the high-speed rail that transported students.

It was just that it came so suddenly and stayed for such a short time that the caught-off-guard residents didn't even have time to pull out their Mobile Phones before the rail flew away.

Therefore, the Russian public, knowing that the high-speed rail would soon arrive in Mosco again, would definitely not miss this opportunity.

In this way, the President made the same fatal mistake as Neo; the announcement not only failed its purpose but pushed the situation in the completely opposite direction.

To film Seventeen's high-speed rail, people spent large sums of money to purchase camera equipment while searching all over the city for filming locations with excellent views, such as rooftop balconies as high as possible.

There were many balconies that met the requirements, but they couldn't satisfy the massive crowd. When two hot-tempered people set their sights on the same balcony, they inevitably came to blows.

The situation escalated. When the assistant returned to Mosco with the families of the two students, the city looked as if it had experienced a great battle.

He settled the families and then ran to the Kremlin Palace in a daze to ask for the reason. After hearing the explanation, he didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

The President didn't seem anxious, leisurely strolling in the garden. "Previously, I planned to deploy the army to suppress it. Later, a neighboring country shared some of their experience in handling similar incidents, and I thought it made a lot of sense."

"What did they say?"

"Guidance is better than obstruction. The presence of transcendence on Blue Star will gradually increase, its frequency will get higher and higher, and the scale of people involved will grow larger and larger. Instead of waiting for uncontrollable chaos to erupt then,"

"It's better to let the public adapt to living alongside transcendence while it doesn't appear frequently now."

The assistant pondered for a moment and nodded. "That's right. If we always use forced control, there will be big trouble sooner or later."

"Yeah, so just ensure that no criminal incidents occur."

"Understood, I'll go arrange it now."

...

Under the assistant's direction, Mosco's security system quickly swung into action, and a large number of police officers in black uniforms spread out across the city.

The public initially thought the authorities intended to control the increasingly frequent physical conflicts over balconies.

However, the police only patrolled the city's streets and alleys, arresting criminals who took advantage of the chaos to steal or rob, while ignoring the brawls over balcony rights, letting both sides have at it unless lives were at stake.

Under this operation, although Mosco still appeared chaotic, the security situation did not worsen.

Half a month later.

Two police officers were performing patrol duty on a certain street. Passing an apartment building, they heard a burst of arguing from inside through a first-floor window.

Their expressions turned solemn. Their right hands unbuckled the leather straps of the holsters at their waists as they approached the main door. Arriving at the door, they saw three people standing in the middle of the lobby behind it.

Two of them were shoving each other, accompanied by verbal abuse. The last person seemed worried about being accidentally injured and stood a bit further away by the bar counter with hands on hips, watching with a face full of helplessness.

They had seen this scene countless times over the past half month. The two officers relaxed, their right hands leaving their sidearms. They shouted to the three, "Go to the hospital if you get hurt, just don't kill anyone," then turned and left, continuing their patrol along the straight street.

Nothing was happening around them; people were busy with their own affairs. A peaceful environment easily makes one drowsy. One officer yawned, feeling sleepiness welling up, and started a conversation with his partner to stay alert.

"Who do you think will win between those two guys?"

"The one on the left. Didn't you see his size?"

"Strength isn't the only factor that determines the winner of a fight. I think the small guy on the right has very high skill."

"No matter how great the skill, it can't offset an absolute gap in strength." The partner raised both arms, making a gesture to show off his biceps.

The officer glanced at the bulging muscles on his partner's arms and smiled disdainfully. "Decorations trained in a gym; useless for anything but looking good."

The partner's eyes narrowed. "Are you trying to challenge my muscles again? Can I take it that way?"

"Of course."

"Heh." The partner stopped in his tracks and crossed his arms over his chest. "Then, shall we have a contest between men?"

"How?"

"Arm wrestling."

"No problem. When?"

"After work."

"Fine."

Seeing him agree so decisively, the partner immediately sneered repeatedly. "Don't forget, I already beat you—"

Mid-sentence, both of them suddenly froze at the same time and instinctively looked toward the sky.