113: Is Lu Chen starting to question the meaning of life?

Nighttime.

When Ning Xiwei, clutching her history textbook, knocked on Lu Chen's teacher's apartment, she found the walls covered in photos of Sanxingdui artifacts.

Lu Chen living here was entirely the Dean's arrangement.

He couldn't stay in the student dorms.

So, he was given a detached teacher's apartment.

Upon entering, she saw Lu Chen using his skeletal fingers to draw a star map on a tablet, while the Biluochun tea on the coffee table had already gone cold.

"Little Skeleton... do you really know the truth about the Battle of Muye?"

Lu Chen let out a deep sigh!

How could he say that before his Transmigration, he had worked as a temp for an archaeological institute?

However, why did things that happened in his previous world...

...count as ancient history in this world, even if they didn't reach back to the primordial era?

At least it was considered the late ancient period here?

Or at least the near-ancient period?!

Lu Chen manifested an object from his storage space.

It looked like a mobile phone.

Then, he found an archaeological photo from this world inside it.

But the phone was actually something Lu Chen had shaped based on his memories.

"Last year... no, this, at an archaeological site in Shaanxi, a researcher dropped his phone right at my feet." Lu Chen pulled up a WeChat chat history in the photo album; the pinned contact was named "Old Hu." "He took this photo of the bronze sword secretly."

Ning Xiwei suddenly pointed at a group photo from the construction site. "This person in the straw hat is..."

"The body I had when I transmigrated." Lu Chen rubbed the edge of the photo. "But the memories regarding a hundred thousand years ago are like an old photo that's been Photoshopped."

Lu Chen clicked on the image editing history, and the scene of the Battle of Muye was fading layer by layer. "Every time I'm about to remember, some power erases the traces."

At that moment, a bell sounding like an air-raid siren suddenly rang outside, and the barriers on all seventy-two floating peaks lit up simultaneously.

Lu Chen had an illusion that he had transmigrated here to confront one thing—Heaven!

This was the last bit of obsession he could be certain of.

Lu Chen's skeletal palm pressed against the windowsill, his gilded Soul Fire illuminating the night sky. "It seems some old friends don't want me to remember how I once dug a pit for 'Heaven'."

...His days at the academy.

Lu Chen was comfortable and enjoying himself.

But he spent every day studying.

Even though the whole world was discussing him.

He still remained indifferent to outside affairs.

His only focus was seeking the truth.

One day, as the dawn of the Kunlun Academy of Magic pierced through the mist between the floating peaks, the seventy-two martial arts arenas were also gilded with golden light.

Today was the day of the Academy Tournament.

Lu Chen stood before the main "Vientiane Renewal" arena, looking at the scrolling schedule on the holographic projection—[Sword-Flying Racing], [Elemental Obstacle Relay], [Alchemy Creative Workshop], [Heavenly Secret Deduction Arena]... Every event was a Fusion of magic and cultivation elements. On the real-time odds board below the light screen, the "Undead Skeleton Team" was conspicuously ranked dead last.

Fuck!

They're actually opening a public betting pool?

Is gambling even allowed in the academy?

At that moment, the fiery voice of an angry girl came from beside him.

“These guys actually think we’ll lose to those medicine jars from the Alchemy Department?!” Ignis’s fingertips ignited with lava flames, and molten patterns flickered under her gym shorts!

Lu Chen couldn't help but steal a glance!

She comes with natural tattoos?

Actually, those aren't tattoos, right?

Are they more like... seductive markings?

Ignis was beyond furious!

“Little Skeleton! No, Brother Chen! I want to burn down the bookie's stand for you!”

Lu Chen’s skeletal fingers slid familiarly across her exposed waistline, pulling her hot, slender waist toward him to soothe her. “Save your Qi for the ‘Heavenly Secret Deduction’.”

The molten patterns on Ignis’s skin vanished instantly.

As Lu Chen turned around, an automatically generated QR code appeared on the back of his tracksuit—if you scanned it, you'd find the contestant profile created by the student council.

Lu Chen, Specialty column, read: [Proficient in obscure knowledge from 100,000 years ago].

The competition began.

The first event was the racing competition.

At the starting line, Murong Bai, the top student of the Cultivation Department, stood atop his Azure Nether Sword, with the Chu Imperial Dynasty emblem tied to the sword tassel.

He glanced sideways at Lu Chen’s second-hand Flying Sword. “Brother Skeleton, do you need to borrow some lubricant? I’m afraid that rust won’t even make it across the sea of clouds.”

“In 213 BC, according to the records I saw, the National Master of the Great Qin Immortal Dynasty, Xu Fu, improved the core technique of sword-flying by—” Lu Chen suddenly grabbed Ning Xiwei’s hand and pressed it onto the sword hilt, the nether moon pendant glowing with an eerie light, “—using the Power of the Undead to resonate with the sword soul.”

Lu Chen was certain that he must have been the one who taught this a hundred thousand years ago.

He was becoming more and more convinced that he had transmigrated here once before, a hundred thousand years ago.

Following Lu Chen's words, the rust-covered Flying Sword suddenly vibrated, and patterns of Terracotta Warriors appeared on the blade.

The moment the starting bell rang, the sword light transformed into the phantom of a bronze war chariot, carrying Lu Chen as it directly crushed through Murong Bai’s Sword Qi.

With a whistle, it shot toward the finish line!

In the stands, an archaeology professor suddenly stood up in excitement!

“This—this is! This is the carriage specification of the First Emperor’s Eastern Tour!”

The livestream comments exploded instantly:

[Skeleton Senior turned the sword-flying race into a history class!]

[Murong Bai’s sword tassel was crushed by the First Emperor’s chariot wheels, hahaha!]

[666666666! Wuhu, taking off!]

[(￣▽￣)／ I'm just asking, are you guys impressed by our Brother Skeleton or not?]

[(oﾟ▽ﾟ)o I'm totally convinced!]

[ヾ(ﾟ∀ﾟゞ) I'm already his fan!]

[The main vibe is abstract. Can your imagination keep up with our Brother Skeleton? Respect! ٩(๑❛ᴗ❛๑)۶]

At the competition site, watching Lu Chen leave everyone in the dust.

Murong Bai stood frozen in place!

Bewildered in the wind.

When it came to the elemental relay race, Shelley’s ice crystal high heels froze a path across the surface of the lava pool.

When it was Ignis’s turn, a Chu Clan specially-made “Weak Water Bomb” was suddenly hurled from the opposing stands—this was North Sea Mysterious Ice Essence, specifically designed to counter Flame Demons.

“Playing dirty?” Ignis’s flame-red lips curled up, and the molten patterns spread from her thighs to the corners of her eyes.

She was getting serious!

Ignis actually caught the ice bomb with her bare hands and, amidst the crowd's gasps, refined it into a whip of blazing fire!

“Let your grandma show you what real heat is!”

Wherever the whip lashed, the weak water turned to steam, condensing into a large character for “Flame”.

The judging panel’s Alchemy telescope suddenly sounded an alarm!

—“Elemental purity 999‰! Breaking the school record!”

Morning Dew was also competing.

Inside the creative workshop, Morning Dew’s wings of light enveloped her workstation.

She was injecting Holy Light into the Pill Furnace.

However, while some competed seriously, there were always those doing disgusting things.

Suddenly, she smelled a pungent, rotten odor!

She frowned and looked for the source!

—The neighboring team had secretly added Nether Sand into her furnace.

This substance would cause the Medicinal Pill to explode, but exposing it now would only lead to team point deductions.

In this moment of extreme peril.

Lu Chen’s voice suddenly came through the communication talisman!

“Don’t panic, my Little Priestess. The seventh volume of ‘Shennong's Classic of Immortal Herbs’ records...”

“...using three grams of Light Bird feathers to reverse-refine the nether attribute.”

Morning Dew had a sudden flash of inspiration and inserted her Divine Staff into the Pill Furnace.

The Holy Light and the Nether Sand collided to form a taiji diagram, actually refining the long-lost “Yin-Yang Nirvana Pill”.

This was an ancient item recorded in the Pill Formulas of the library.