133: Chapter 133 A Mission from Rongcheng

Evening, the Tripod Hall.

This conference room was located on the highest floor of the Navigator Academy administration building, and it was the only room on the entire floor.

Dark golden runic inscriptions were embedded into the three walls, and each inscription slowly flowed with a faint blue light.

A ring-shaped chandelier hung in the center of the dome, casting a warm, amber light that made the entire room look like it was immersed in an old photograph.

Three people sat around the long table.

Mei Wushuang held a steaming cup of tea, her gaze fixed on a light screen floating on the desktop, which displayed the final ranking of the monthly exam points.

The name at the very top had a point total significantly higher than everyone else's.

"Did you all see the results of the selection student monthly exam today?"

The old man sitting opposite her frowned.

Mo Zhan, Dean of the Tiangong Institute.

His gray-white hair was a tangled mess, his dean's robe was worn crookedly, and there were even a few oil stains on his cuffs.

Next to him was a palm-sized metal box, its shell engraved with dense, microscopic runes—a new gadget he had just tinkered with that afternoon and hadn't had time to send back to the workshop yet.

"I'm an old man; why would I usually pay attention to such things?" Mo Zhan leaned back in his chair and waved his hand. "Just tell me directly."

Mei Wushuang didn't respond, turning her gaze to Principal Xue Zhenting on the other side of the long table.

Principal Xue Zhenting was the Dean of the Martial Arts Institute. His build was the most robust of the three; his shoulders and back were as broad as a door panel, and even while sitting, he was a head taller than the other two.

Principal Xue Zhenting spoke up.

"Are you talking about... that Lu Cheng?"

He remembered the name; at the beginning, this student had withstood his pressure.

"I saw the point rankings today and found a student with over two thousand five hundred points. I even thought the central system had malfunctioned."

Principal Xue Zhenting's voice was deep and slightly hoarse.

Mei Wushuang finally set down her teacup.

The bottom of the cup clicked against the saucer with a crisp sound.

"Yes," she nodded. "He reached the ninth floor."

Mo Zhan, who had been fiddling with the runes on his metal box, stopped his fingers upon hearing this.

"What?"

The old man leaned forward, his gray eyebrows nearly reaching his hairline.

"Haven't these children only been here for a month?"

Mei Wushuang's tone remained as calm as ever.

"That's the terrifying part."

She reached out and swiped across the light screen, pulling up Lu Cheng's combat data from the ninth floor of the Simulation Tower.

Mo Zhan stared at the data for a full three seconds, his mouth hanging open, unable to close it.

"Source Gathering Realm initial stage... defeated five peak Hua Hai Realm monsters?"

"This can no longer be described as genius." Mo Zhan's voice dropped; the laziness on the old man's face vanished completely.

"I've lived for seventy years and have seen at least eight hundred, if not a thousand, martial arts geniuses in the Human Federation. For someone in the Source Gathering Realm to defeat someone at the peak of the Meridian Opening Realm is the limit."

"To defeat five at the peak of the Hua Hai Realm? That cannot be explained by talent alone."

He stopped halfway through, noticing that Mei Wushuang's expression hadn't changed from the start.

"This child..."

Mei Wushuang's voice paused.

"Is the descendant of Lu Changfeng."

The air in the Tripod Hall sank within two seconds.

The amber light still shone warmly, but the expressions on the three faces beneath the light had all changed.

Principal Xue Zhenting's back, which had been leaning against the chair, slowly straightened, and the muscles in his shoulders tightened bit by bit.

His right hand subconsciously pressed against the old scar on his right arm.

The scar had been left many years ago and hadn't hurt for a long time, but the moment he heard the name Lu Changfeng, the muscles beneath the scar twitched slightly.

Mo Zhan pulled his hand back from the metal box.

The old man fell silent for several seconds; the wrinkles on his face looked exceptionally deep in the light.

"Lu Changfeng."

He recited the name, his voice very soft.

Principal Xue Zhenting and Mo Zhan looked at each other.

Lu Changfeng.

This name was an old wound at Navigator Academy.

Back then, Lu Changfeng was the most dazzling student since the founding of Navigator Academy.

His martial arts talent was unmatched by anyone in the younger generation of the Dragon Nation at the time.

Principal Xue Zhenting was the first to break the silence.

"So... what are you planning...?"

He looked at Mei Wushuang.

Mei Wushuang stood up and walked to the only window in the Tripod Hall.

This window faced the direction of the academy's Simulation Tower. The halos on the tower had already gone out, leaving only a row of faint blue outline lights shining quietly in the night.

"You all know what happened with Lu Changfeng back then."

She didn't turn back; her silver-blue hair shone with a cold luster in the dark golden runic light by the window.

"I think his son is the contingency plan he prepared."

Mo Zhan's brows were tightly knitted.

"Are you sure?"

"Otherwise, there is no way to explain such terrifying combat power." Mei Wushuang turned around, her back to the night outside the window, her gaze sweeping over the faces of her two old friends.

"Reaching the ninth floor in the Source Gathering Realm—this has no precedent in the martial arts history of the entire Human Federation, let alone Navigator Academy."

Her voice lowered by half a degree.

"Therefore, we need to start paying attention."

"Especially those students with high talent... it is very likely that... their figures have infiltrated."

As soon as these words fell, the expressions of Principal Xue Zhenting and Mo Zhan changed simultaneously.

Principal Xue Zhenting grinned, but there was no mirth behind that smile.

"My wound is throbbing again."

His fingers were still pressing on the old scar on his right arm, rubbing the uneven surface of the scar with his fingertips.

"Those traitors to humanity... I hope the reckoning comes quickly." Principal Xue Zhenting clenched his fist, his knuckles making a slight cracking sound.

"This time won't end just like that."

Mo Zhan pulled three ancient copper coins from his pocket and scattered them on the table. The coins bounced twice on the dark golden surface before settling in strange orientations.

The old man looked down at the divination, a smile pulling at the corner of his mouth.

"I'm just an old man with a worthless life."

He picked up the three copper coins one by one and clenched them in his palm.

"If I were to just die of old age like this, I really wouldn't be satisfied. But it seems fate has given me this chance."

He raised his eyes to look at Principal Xue Zhenting and Mei Wushuang.

A spark flickered in his cloudy old eyes—a light rarely seen in the eyes of someone at the twilight of their life.

"What about the Principal?" Mo Zhan asked suddenly. "Has that old thing not come out of seclusion yet?"

"The Principal is attempting to break through to the Heavenly Fate Realm." Mei Wushuang replied.

Mo Zhan fell silent.

"The Heavenly Fate Realm is so difficult..." Mo Zhan counted on his fingers.

"The Dragon Nation has two, the Dragon Emperor and the Mountain God; the Eagle Country has one, the Nordic Union has one, the Bear Nation has one, and that's it for the rest."

In the entire Blue Star, there are only five people in total.

"There must be more, whether it's difficult or not." Principal Xue Zhenting spoke up. "The Human Federation seems calm now, but it could return to the state of a hundred years ago at any moment. If we don't have more Heavenly Fate Realm experts sitting in command... no one can say for sure when that crisis will arrive..."

All three agreed on this point... without more Heavenly Fate Realm experts, they could only use the lives of mid-level martial artists to fill the gap...

Meanwhile.

In the academy's residential area, on the south side of the garden.

Lu Cheng crouched beside a row of low shrubs, carefully flipping over a leaf.

A black beetle the size of a fingernail was crawling under the leaf, gnawing on a tender shoot.

Lu Cheng narrowed his eyes, slowly raising his right index finger, aiming the tip at the beetle's shell.

"Don't run. Just one tap... it'll be quick..."

He tapped his finger down.

The beetle was pressed into the soil.

[War Treasure · Triggered]

[Obtained: Gold Nugget × 5g]

A gold nugget the size of a fingernail dropped into Lu Cheng's palm out of thin air.

The gold nugget was slightly warm, and its surface was surrounded by a faint golden-white halo, looking quite extraordinary.

Lu Cheng's eyes lit up. He skillfully tucked the gold nugget into his pocket and stood up to stretch his waist, which had gone numb from crouching.

For the past two days, Lu Cheng had become completely addicted to farming the [War Treasure] passive.

Last time, in the Simulation Tower, he had fought tooth and nail, killing so many exotic beasts, but because it was a simulated environment, it didn't even drop a single fur.

He had almost forgotten about this matter.

But the next morning, when he went out, he inexplicably stepped on an ant.

And then...

[War Treasure · Triggered]

[Obtained: Gold Coin × 10g]

In that instant, Lu Cheng looked at the dead ant by his feet and remained silent for a full three seconds.

Immediately after, he realized.

Killing Polluted Exotic Beasts is killing.

Why isn't killing bugs also killing?

It's just that most areas of Navigator Academy have cleaning barriers and ecological purification arrays; mosquitoes can't even fly into over sixty percent of the areas.

Only in the remaining small parts—gardens, woods, and near the artificial lake—could one occasionally see some small bugs, ants, moths, and other ordinary life forms.

So, in the past few days, many students in the academy have witnessed a rather bizarre scene.

The student ranked first in points seemed to be catching bugs everywhere...

Some even saw him with their own eyes, crouching next to a trash can, staring at a cockroach for a full ten seconds, and when he finally stepped on it, a smile of almost harvest-like satisfaction appeared on his face.

Lu Cheng didn't care at all what others thought.

Are you kidding?

In just these two days, he had farmed two hundred grams of gold, three hundred points of vitality, forty points of Source Power, and two A-grade pieces of equipment just by killing bugs.

Are these bugs?

These are clearly moving resource points.

Lu Cheng was just about to go to the small woods for another sweep to see if he could optimize the academy's ecological chain again tonight, when the terminal on his wrist suddenly vibrated.

Beep, beep, beep, beep...

A series of rapid notification sounds rang out incessantly.

Lu Cheng looked down.

"Who is it... tagging me constantly."

He tapped on the terminal screen.

It was the Shengwu Society group chat.

The red dot in the top right corner of the group chat had already jumped to 99+, with a bunch of people tagging him crazily inside.

"Hey, isn't Rong City Brother Lu's hometown?"

"Yes, yes, I remember Lu Cheng's file says he came from No. 3 High School in Rong City."

"Damn, isn't this mission tailor-made for Brother Lu?"

"@Lu Cheng Brother Lu, come out and take the mission!"

"@Lu Cheng There's a pollution invasion in your hometown; aren't you going back to take a look?"

"Thirty Source Gathering Realm polluted entities; with Brother Lu's current strength, he could clear them in an afternoon, right?"

Lu Cheng frowned slightly.

He scrolled up through the chat history and quickly found the initial mission sharing link.

[Mission Issuer: Rong City Defense Bureau]

[Mission Level: A-grade]

[Mission Type: Pollution Entity Clearance]

[Mission Content: In the ruins south of Rong City, there are remnants of Polluted Exotic Beasts. Preliminary judgment is about thirty, mostly Source Gathering Realm, with a small number of Meridian Opening Realm polluted entities. We are now issuing a cooperative clearance mission to all major martial arts institutes and related societies.]

[Mission Reward: Basic 50 points, with additional settlement based on the number of kills and the integrity of the pollution core.]

[Remarks: This area once experienced a relic pollution leakage accident, the degree of pollution is unknown, it is recommended to form a team of four or more to accept.]

Lu Cheng stared at the screen, his previously somewhat lazy expression tightening bit by bit.

Rong City... he had been out for a month.

It was time to go back and take a look.