Chapter 180: Master

The electronic screen on the front door was installed with a smart mode.

Li Shutong said, "ONE, switch to sleep mode."

As soon as the command fell, the house instantly darkened, illuminated only by a few dim yellow light strips on the floor, which emitted a very soft glow.

Li Shutong said, "ONE, switch to white noise sleep mode."

The next moment, Qing Chen saw raindrops falling on the glass of the floor-to-ceiling window. The low but clear sound of rain soon pervaded the house.

Coupled with the temperature in the room, Qing Chen felt as though he was on a rainy day in autumn, a time most suitable for sleeping under a layer of thin and breezy blanket.

"Change to another white noise mode," Li Shutong said.

The floor-to-ceiling window transformed from its transparent state into a huge holographic screen, changing the scenery from a rainy day to a fireplace.

Firewood was burning in the antique fireplace, and a soft crackling sound resounded inside the room.

Li Shutong looked at Qing Chen with a smile. "The neuron connection technology developed by the Qing Family has prolonged the waking time of human beings, but the irony is that the yearning for sleep has instead increased among the people in this era. Sleeping has now become a luxury for many."

"Master, these aren't cheap, right?" Qing Chen asked, "When I came here, I saw that most buildings in District 6 were relatively old, and the sanitation wasn't very good. The furnishing in this house is quite incompatible with the buildings outside."

"Yes." Li Shutong nodded. "I want to give you a house, but the problem is that I can't buy you one in a place that'll arouse too much attention. District 6 is just right—it's not in the lower three districts, and you can go to the upper three districts anytime you want from here. It's quite embarrassing that the first house I'm giving you is so ordinary, so I asked Li Dongze to find someone to renovate this place so that it doesn't look too dilapidated."

Qing Chen fell silent.

His father in the Outer World had just sold his own house, yet his master in the Inner World actually bought him one.

"Master," Qing Chen asked, "Why did you suddenly buy me a house?"

"Hmm, if you're asking about this..." Li Shutong thought for a while before replying, "Actually, Heng Society has also captured some time travellers. Although we haven't figured out what to do with them yet, we can't just let them go around and stir up trouble. I had Li Dongze help me ask those time travellers about what fathers in the Outer World usually do for their sons when they turn into adults. Eighty nine of them said that fathers should prepare a house for their sons so that they can find a wife... Most of the young people in the Inner World usually live in rented places, so although I don't know why you can only find a wife if you have a house, it doesn't hurt to prepare one for you."

Qing Chen blankly stared at the middle-aged man in front of him.

He originally thought that his master secretly brought him back to City 18 to do some kind of earth-shattering mission. He never expected that it was merely because he wanted to show him his newly bought house.

Shouldn't a person like Li Shutong be able to overturn the mountains and seas just by pulling a few strings?

How could he waste his time on such domestic trivialities?

Qing Chen recalled what his master had said to him by the bonfire on that night before they entered Forbidden Land No. 002. "Anything other people have, my student must also have it."

After he heard that Qing Chen had cut connections with his own father, he took the initiative to assume the responsibility of a father for him.

Other organisations captured time travellers in order to carry out the elimination plan, but the time travellers captured by the organisation under his own master were actually asked such a trivial question.

Those time travellers probably felt very shocked at that time.

Qing Chen looked at Li Shutong. His master seemed to feel a little guilty because the house he gave to him wasn't good enough.

Li Shutong said, "You live in this house for now. You'll need to keep a low profile in the future, so this place is more suitable. But I've also prepared a safe house for you in District 1, in unit no. 2013 of Qingyang Building. If you encounter any danger, you can go and hide there. The password is 010101, your prison cell number."

After saying that, Li Shutong took out an ID and placed it on the shoe cabinet. "Your new ID card. Don't carry it around with you, just leave it in this room. Both houses are listed under the name on this ID card."

"Thank you, Master." Qing Chen's nose was sore. He didn't know what else to say.

Li Shutong smiled. "That's enough. You'll be an adult soon, don't need to be so dramatic."

"Um, I won't."

...

The master and disciple sat by the French window. Li Shutong took out a bottle of beer from the refrigerator and looked out the window.

Qing Chen pointed to a red building and asked, "Master, that building with a red cross sign, is it a hospital? Why is the hospital building so tall?"

"It's not a hospital," Li Shutong shook his head, "it's a birth centre."

"Birth centre?" Qing Chen wondered, "Is it a specialised hospital for birth?"

Li Shutong answered with a straight face, "It's a place where women are provided with artificial wombs. The couple can extract their eggs and sperm for artificial insemination, and then the birth centre will select the healthiest embryo and plant it into a bionic artificial womb. This way, women can avoid the nine-month burden of pregnancy."

Qing Chen was shocked. "There's already such a technology? Then women won't have to suffer from childbirth anymore."

"Yes," Li Shutong nodded. "The babies will be born after staying in an artificial womb for nine months, but what you probably don't know is that this technology was invented by the corporations in order to allow women to have the same labour output and time as men."

Li Shutong continued, "This technology has been around for hundreds of years. At first, the women rejoiced for it, but more than ten years later, under the manipulation of the Chen Family, the federal senate passed the bill to shorten the length of maternity leave. Since then, women are only permitted seven days of maternity leave and every new family would have to bear a new imposed expense. It's become a choice—either quit your job to give birth to your own child, or pay for an artificial womb."

Qing Chen sank into thoughts. This technology was certainly a good thing for the rich, but for the poor, not only would they lose their maternity leave, they would also have to shell out an extra expense.

For him, a time traveller from the Outer World, this was too mind-boggling.

"By the way, master," Qing Chen asked, "Why didn't you tell me before that the Marionette Strings will change after I meet its containment condition?"

Li Shutong lifted Qing Chen's arm and looked at his wrist under the light. "This time, you must've killed thirteen people in the Outer World without sacrificing their bodies, right? After completing the first stage of the containment condition, the second-stage form of the Marionette Strings will be unlocked by 1 cm whenever you kill someone with your own hands. For each corpse you sacrifice, it'll be unlocked by 10 cm."

Qing Chen nodded. "So master already knew from the start. Seems like you didn't tell me on purpose."

"None of the previous owners of this Forbidden Item met a good end. They either went insane or were led astray." Li Shutong looked at Qing Chen. "That's why when those old guys gave you this thing, I was actually a little angry. But later I thought about it—what if your heart is strong enough to withstand its influence? As a teacher, it's only right for me to trust you."

"What's the maximum number of people that can be controlled by the Marionette Strings?" Qing Chen asked.

"No one knows its upper limit," Li Shutong replied.

Qing Chen was stunned. It turned out that this item could really control a lot of people. "But master, there's something I've always been curious about. Although this kind of temptation can indeed give you the urge to continue killing to unlock its power, it shouldn't be to the extent that can drive you crazy, right?"

"When you use this thing, won't you feel the emotions of the people who have been controlled?" Li Shutong asked, "The madness, fear, repentance and despair they felt while being controlled, the most intense and darkest emotions in the world, these will slowly eat away at a person's heart."

"I didn't feel any of that," Qing Chen was surprised.

Li Shutong was also surprised. "How can it be?"

"Master, it's true," Qing Chen seriously replied.

Li Shutong stared at his student with a bewildered look. He always felt that there were too many strange things about him.

First, he broke free from Lin Xiaoxiao's nightmare as an ordinary person.

He also showed signs of turning into a superhuman before his gene lock was even opened.

Then, immediately after opening his gene lock, he reached an initial level that was higher than all other previous Knights.

And now, he discovered the latest addition to the list of strange things.

The description he just mentioned was the personal experience of a senior Knight after using the Marionette Strings. After only using it once, the senior stored the item in Forbidden Land No. 002, not wanting to let it see the light of day again.

But now, in Qing Chen's hands, the Marionette Strings had turned into real marionette strings without the transmission and backlash of emotions.

Qing Chen asked, "Aren't they just strings? How can mere strings make you feel those emotions? Master, have you made a mistake?"

Li Shutong sighed, "Don't talk to me that way, let me think about this first..."

Li Shutong knew that when the giant Ding Dong walked out of the hinterland, he actually had a Forbidden Item in each of his hands. Those old guys told Ding Dong to have a look at Qing Chen and decide which of the items to give him.

In the end, Ding Dong chose to give out the Marionette Strings in his right hand.

At that time, Li Shutong still found it strange—why would he give him the Marionette Strings?

Thinking about it now, after using his double pupils to look at Qing Chen, Ding Dong should have felt that it would be alright to leave the Marionette Strings in Qing Chen's hands.

But right at this moment, Li Shutong was actually thinking about how great it would be if they gave both Forbidden Items to Qing Chen...

Those old guys were too stingy!

The right way to treat this kind of genius successor was to give him more good things!

"Will all Forbidden Items have a second stage that can be unlocked?" Qing Chen curiously asked.

"No," Li Shutong shook his head. "I've always thought that this might be determined by the level of the superhuman from which it was born. Forbidden Items would only be produced by the deaths of superhumans at level B and above. Those that come from A-level superhumans will have a second stage, and those from S-level may even have a third stage."

Different from superhumans, Forbidden Items only had three levels in total.

Qing Chen was curious. "Master, have you ever seen an S-level's Forbidden Item?"

"Perhaps I'll see it soon," Li Shutong said with a smile.

Qing Chen looked at his master and realised that he might already have an S-level Forbidden Item in his possession!

"Wait," Qing Chen suddenly asked, "Master, I just remembered a very, very important thing. After being promoted to a Knight, will I still be able to have children?"

"Of course you can!" Li Shutong was surprised. "...But with your personality, do you still worry about this kind of thing?"

"Master, please don't make a personal attack on me." Qing Chen raised his eyebrows. "I heard that people who've been injected with genetic medicine will become infertile. What's the difference between them and Knights? Why aren't Knights implicated by this side-effect even after the genetic change?"

"Because these two are completely different paths," Li Shutong dumbfoundedly said, "The path of the Knights is to perfect their genes as human beings and step closer to the god."

"What about genetic soldiers?" Qing Chen asked.

"Genetic medicine is created by the corporation researchers by extracting non-human genes from who-knows-where and implementing them to the human bodies." Li Shutong said, "In a sense, you can even call them half-beasts, so of course they won't be able to have any offspring with humans."

When his master put it that way, Qing Chen suddenly felt like the status of those genetic soldiers had dropped by a ton...

Li Shutong explained, "Other superhumans have always looked down on genetic soldiers. Even though their combat power may not necessarily be as good as genetic soldiers, this notion has already become a natural prejudice."

"Then why doesn't the genetic medicine from the Taboo Tribunal have this side-effect?" Qing Chen wondered.

"You sure know quite a lot. Seems like you've plenty of communication with other time travellers." Li Shutong glanced at him. "The genetic medicine from Taboo Tribunal is special because the genes they extracted came from the god."

This information shocked Qing Chen. "There's really a god in this world? But why did the god agree to have their genes extracted?"

"Perhaps they have a good relationship with the god," Li Shutong sighed, "I don't know the details. The Taboo Tribunal has always been mysterious. There are very few records about them."

"Oh right, master, I have another doubt." Qing Chen looked at Li Shutong, "Is it possible for a Knight to become an awakener?"

"Of course not," Li Shutong said, "It's impossible for cultivators to become awakeners."

"Why?"

"Because awakeners unleash their potentials through the breakout of emotions from extreme situations, whereas cultivators use their respective method of cultivation to unleash their potentials," Li Shutong explained. "Since their potentials have already been unleashed, then they naturally won't have another awakening."

"Then I have another question." Qing Chen theorised, "For a normal Knight, the first breakthrough corresponds to level F, and the seventh breakthrough corresponds to level S. Since I'm already an E-level after my first breakthrough, does it mean that I'll surpass level S after my seventh breakthrough?"

"No," Li Shutong shook his head. "The threshold from level B to level A and the threshold from level A to level S are two completely different matters. It might look like a mere difference in letters, but to cultivators, it's akin to scaling the road to heaven because reaching level S puts you in the realm of demigod."

"Surpassing level S would mean that you become a real god, an entity who could turn the world upside down with a single thought. After you've completed all eight Life and Death Stages, perhaps you'll have a hope of surpassing that threshold, but before that, it won't be very likely. There might be some quantitative improvement, but there won't be any qualitative change."

Having said that, Li Shutong suddenly frowned.

According to the previously established theory, Qing Chen would be able to reach level S after completing his sixth Life and Death stage. If so, what would happen when he completed the seventh?

No one among the Knights had ever experienced such a thing before!

However, since Qing Chen's case was unprecedented, did it mean that his potential had yet to be fully unleashed even after embarking on the path of the Knights?

Translator: Zee