Du Cheng barely escaped Avril’s gaze, heavy with unspoken sorrow, and let out a long breath. He ducked into a public latrine, half-buried underground like a small bunker. Compared to the pristine facilities of the noble district, South Saint John’s sanitation was abysmal. A pungent stench stung his eyes, but Du Cheng had no time to care. The itching on his backside, the dizziness in his head, and the oily slickness on his skin made him want to claw out his own heart for relief.
He yanked down his trousers and craned his neck to inspect his left buttock. The second lotus had fully bloomed, and the eight-trigram pattern was still evolving. The third lotus, aligned with the triple Qian hexagram, was quietly unfurling its petals.
Du Cheng let out a soft cheer, watching the third lotus’s transformation.
Its initial changes were swift, but the blooming slowed. Du Cheng understood: the Lotus Treasure Mirror grew harder to cultivate as it progressed. “Grape” had said that by the eighth hexagram, he’d need to save all of humanity to advance further. Though his charitable ventures continuously did good, their impact on the Treasure Mirror was diminishing.
Finally, when the third lotus was seven or eight parts bloomed, its progress became imperceptible. The latrine’s stench intensified, now mingled with a foul odor from Du Cheng himself—a layer of black impurities seeping from his skin, worse than the privy’s reek.
But Du Cheng was elated. This was the fabled “cleansing of marrow and meridians.” His energy sea—the lotus inner strength on his backside—had surged to the thickness of a pinky finger, several times its prior size.
Unbeknownst to him, his physique was now exceptional among mortals. Though still unable to cultivate battle aura, he was robust, immune to illness, and brimming with vitality.
What was his strength now? From Steve, Du Cheng knew the benchmarks for low-tier War Gods. A Level 1 Red-Robed Fighter could wield basic battle aura and holy artifacts, while a Level 2 Orange-Robed Fighter manifested tangible aura visible on their body.
Du Cheng was confident his lotus inner strength rivaled Level 2 battle aura, but he couldn’t project it outward as a tangible force. In this, the Lotus Treasure Mirror fell short of battle aura—it lacked the flair.
Wiping the grime from his body with his undergarments, Du Cheng slipped out of the latrine in just his outer robe. From a distance, he spotted Avril still lingering at the alley’s mouth, lost in thought.
He sighed. Avril was beautiful, her character admirable, but his mutated celibate technique bound him, and who knew when he’d master it?
He couldn’t ruin her future.
Sneaking away via another route, Du Cheng washed his face in a horse trough outside a shop before returning to Saint Kain Manor.
October 13, the date of the War God Academy’s Lanning Parish exam, was seven days away. During this time, Du Cheng spent his days doing good deeds and his nights studying. He discovered another perk of the Lotus Treasure Mirror: after the second lotus bloomed, it not only cleansed his body but sharpened his mind, granting near-photographic memory. He memorized a thick stack of Holy Church doctrines in just seven days.
The methods of immortals were truly extraordinary!
On the night of October 12, 1277, in the Fallen God Calendar, Steve and old Foye nagged Du Cheng for hours. The War God exam was fully sequestered, they warned, requiring candidates to live at the testing grounds for days. He needed to take care of himself.
Du Cheng’s ears rang from their lecturing, but he couldn’t bear to shoo away those who cared for him, so he endured the “torment.” When the timekeeping bird announced midnight, Foye, exhausted, finally rose to leave. “Young Master Steve, you have your exam tomorrow too—rest early. Young Master, are you sure about taking Ariza as your attendant? He’s not the sharpest. Shall I head to the Mercenary Guild tonight and hire a strong fighter?”
“No need,” Du Cheng replied. “Big brother said I’ll ace the written test, and I’m surrendering in the martial test. No need to waste coin. Better to buy you a few new outfits, Uncle Foye!”
Amid Foye’s gratitude, Du Cheng saw them out, then lay on his bed, mulling over the next day’s exam.
Drifting into a hazy slumber, he was jolted awake by a chilling, inhuman voice in the silent night of Saint John’s, where even Saint Kain Manor’s lights were extinguished.
“Francis!”
Du Cheng sprang up, scanning the room, and froze in shock.
At his bedside, inches from where his head had rested, a gleaming dagger was embedded, pinning an envelope. The room was still, devoid of any presence.
Yet the dagger proved someone had been here, leaving only that eerie, otherworldly growl before vanishing.
Gripping the dagger, Du Cheng tried to pull it free, but its handle was icy, biting his skin. On closer inspection, it was an ice blade, already melting.
Discarding it, he grabbed the envelope. Inside was a letter and a necklace, its pendant adorned with a thumb-sized blue orb, weighty in his hand.
Unfolding the letter, written in the common tongue of the Ains Continent, he read a few terse lines:
“Never retreat in battle. Never shy from an enemy. In desperate straits, forget life. Face certain death without surrender! As a descendant of a titled War God, never forget the Four Precepts. Tomorrow, wear this necklace to the exam. Do not surrender!”
Below, smaller text instructed him to smash the pendant in danger to save his life.
Who sent this? Cold sweat beaded on Du Cheng’s brow. Whoever it was could have taken his life with ease.
“Are you still here?” he whispered.
No reply. By the moonlight streaming through the window, he examined the necklace. The chain was ordinary gold, studded with a dozen tiny diamonds—valuable, but mundane. The blue orb pendant, however, was anything but.
Its deep azure hue seemed vast, like glimpsing an ocean. Staring longer, Du Cheng saw a single transparent droplet within, like… a tear.
The more he looked, the more it resembled a tear. His gaze grew unfocused, and a wave of inexplicable sorrow flooded his mind. His tear ducts stung, and two streams trailed down his cheeks.
A woman’s weeping echoed in his head—plaintive, anguished, tender, and haunting. It conveyed a single message: this tearful woman was heartbroken, as if she’d lost everything she cherished.
“Damn it!” Du Cheng flung the necklace onto the bed. This thing had a spirit, far stronger than the one in the Storm Warhammer, capable of swaying emotions.
Rereading the letter, he found no mention of the necklace’s name, only that wearing it would keep him safe.
“Who sent this? Big brother? No, if Steve wanted to give me something, he’d do it openly, not like this. Then… could it be my Guardian War God?”
After much thought, only the mysterious Guardian War God seemed likely. But why not meet him in person?
This body he’d inhabited held more secrets than he’d imagined.
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