Chapter 6 : Chapter 6
Chapter 6: Don’t Tell Me He Scammed Me Out of the Enrollment Welcome Package?
After finishing his comprehension of the Flowing Cloud Triple Shock, it was already noon.
Li Mu’s phone rang. It was his mother, telling him to hurry back to his aunt’s Blacksmith Shop for lunch.
So Li Mu left Blackwater High School and headed straight home.
He still lacked a proper weapon anyway, so there was no point wasting time at school.
The Blacksmith Shop faced the street, and beyond the front hall was a small courtyard.
Single-story rooms stood on all three sides of the yard.
Inside were a stone table and stone stools, all with an old-fashioned charm. Flowers and plants had been carefully arranged around the place, and even a few vegetables had been planted, filling the courtyard with life.
By the time Li Mu got home, the smell of food was already drifting through the air.
As soon as he arrived, his uncle closed the shop first thing.
It looked like they were definitely going to talk about some major family matter today.
“Cousin!”
“Cousin!”
Chen Jiaqi was only a year younger than Li Mu. She was lively and youthful, with delicate, pretty features, the very image of a refined young girl.
Chen Jiafeng was two years younger than Li Mu. He was tall and skinny, with big ears and a pair of large, quick-witted eyes.
Usually, the two of them were little bundles of joy.
But today, when they saw Li Mu, both of them wore long faces.
Chen Jiaqi in particular had red-rimmed eyes, as if she had just been crying.
The two of them came up to greet Li Mu pitifully, but they clearly had no idea how to comfort him.
Yang Suying and Yang Yourong were extremely close as sisters, and they had always kept in frequent contact.
Li Mu had come here many times, so he had always gotten along very well with them.
The day before yesterday, when Li Mu had awakened an S-rank talent, they had bragged about it all over school.
Then yesterday, they heard the terrible news: Li Mu’s S-rank talent had been taken away.
But the Li Family was influential, and there was no way they could interfere.
What they had not expected was that early this morning, they would hear that Li Mu had also been expelled from the family.
Only after coming home did they learn what had happened last night, and every one of them had cried their eyes out.
Having an S-rank talent stolen away—what kind of agony was that?
“Alright, enough with the pouting. Let me tell you a secret—my current talent is even stronger!”
Grinning, Li Mu pinched Chen Jiafeng’s cheek and comforted the two of them.
“You’re lying!” Chen Jiafeng pouted, looking like he was about to cry again.
“Whether I’m lying or not, you’ll all see it for yourselves in a few days during the First Abyss Battle.”
The First Abyss Battle was not a public event.
But schools and students’ families were allowed to attend and watch.
“What? You’re going to take part in the First Abyss Battle?”
His aunt happened to hear that sentence and cried out in alarm.
Yang Suying, still wearing an apron, rushed out of the kitchen and stared at her son in shock.
Li Mu repeated himself once more, this time with complete seriousness.
“Mom, Aunt, Uncle, I really do have to take part in the First Abyss Battle.”
The First Abyss Battle allowed people to withdraw.
Besides combat, there were many other branches of study for martial artists.
One could become a rear-line support worker in society and spend an entire lifetime without ever entering the Abyss.
What would be wrong with living out one’s life safely and steadily like that?
For someone with an F-rank talent to venture into the Abyss, the mortality rate was beyond merely “high.”
You could only go at noon—because if you went sooner or later, you were dead either way.
But now, no one dared to open their mouth and try to persuade Li Mu otherwise.
Even Yang Suying did not know how to say it.
What was she supposed to say?
Child, you’re F-rank now. You’re trash.
Accept reality and stop trying to get yourself killed.
If she really said that, Li Mu would probably kill himself on the spot.
“I know what you’re all thinking, but my F-rank talent really is powerful.”
“Maybe something strange happened to my Transfer Talent. I’ve gone through some changes that I can't even explain.”
Li Mu could feel how oppressive the atmosphere had become. If he did not make something up, there was no way through this.
Besides, sooner or later, he was going to have to keep living with this lie anyway.
“Jiafeng, go get me a staff weapon.”
“I’ll do it!”
Instead, his uncle personally ran into the shop and brought back a black iron weapon.
“Big nephew, this is a black iron—”
His uncle held out a black staff and was just about to explain it.
Li Mu spun it in a flourish, then tucked it into his ear.
WHOOSH!
The iron staff instantly shrank and disappeared into his ear.
“Oh my god!”
His aunt jumped in fright.
“A storage ring?”
“How could I possibly afford a storage ring? This comes with my talent.”
“It comes with your talent?” his mother asked in shock as well.
Li Mu’s talent was supposed to be Heavy Strike. How could it possibly come with spatial storage?
Where had such a huge staff been hidden?
Li Mu spread his hands.
“That’s why I said it mutated. It’s no worse than an S-rank talent, so don’t worry.”
“Uncle, this weapon’s mine now, alright? I just so happen to be short on weapons.”
The second half was directed at his uncle.
“Ah… alright…”
His uncle was so shaken that he did not know what to do with his hands. A single weapon did not matter. Their family business was smithing, after all.
But he still had not recovered from the shock of Li Mu’s mutated talent.
Chen Jiaqi and Chen Jiafeng, on the other hand, were fooled by Li Mu almost immediately.
They gathered around him and bombarded him with questions.
The atmosphere became much lighter than before.
At the dining table, Li Mu’s mother was afraid they would be imposing on the family if they stayed here.
She planned to move out with Li Mu and find another place to live.
Not only did his aunt and uncle strongly object, but even his younger cousin and cousin sister refused to allow it.
His aunt said only one thing:
“It’s just as well. Back when you were at the Li Family, I worried about you every single day.”
“You’re the only elder sister I have. For the rest of your life, you’re staying with me!”
Yang Suying could no longer refuse.
That very day, the whole family cleaned out two rooms on the western side of the house.
Li Mu and his mother settled in there.
…
The next morning.
Today was the first day of military training.
The fortress at the Abyss entrance was already bustling with activity.
More than a hundred years ago, countless enormous sinkholes had suddenly appeared all over the world.
Monsters poured out of them, and humanity came to call those sinkholes “the Abyss.”
Humanity had only managed to stabilize the situation after transitioning away from hot weapons and seeing the rise of martial artists, who drove the monsters back into the Abyss.
After that, humanity built fortresses around the Abyss and began entering it on their own initiative to explore.
Only then did they discover that the Abyss was not merely a demonic pit, but also a treasure trove.
The Abyss held endless supernatural phenomena, monsters, energy sources, and resources—too many to count.
One crystal discovered in the Abyss could supply a city with electricity for over a thousand years.
One certain plant, when eaten directly, could allow a living being to regenerate severed limbs.
A single mineral vein could contain seven chemical elements beyond the scope of human knowledge.
Of course, the terror and strength of the monsters within it also kept exceeding the limits of human imagination again and again.
Humanity was devoured by the Abyss, yet it also greedily plundered the Abyss.
And over the past hundred years, humanity’s exploration of the Abyss was estimated to have covered…
Possibly less than 1%!
It was a horrifying calculation, because it meant the Abyss was even larger than Blue Star itself!
Much larger!
Humanity built fortresses at the entrances to the Abyss.
As a result, every industry related to the Abyss and martial artists had become exceptionally prosperous within the fortress zone.
Trading markets, the potion industry, the weapons industry, the energy industry, even military garrisons—all of them were concentrated here.
All kinds of levitating elevators and passenger airships moved up and down through the Abyss.
They transported martial artists entering the Abyss.
Above the Abyss entrance, countless overpasses and aerial rails intertwined like roots and branches.
They spread outward in a web toward the enormous ring-shaped city surrounding the fortress: Ironhand City.
Li Mu had never seen any other Abyss.
But according to the original owner’s memories, the Abyss entrance guarded by Ironhand City was said to be only a low-level Abyss entrance.
At eight in the morning, Blackwater High School’s dedicated aerial rail train arrived like a gust of wind and came to a smooth stop above the fortress.
On the massive plaza atop the fortress, there was already a sea of people—all of them senior high school students from the East District taking part in this year’s First Abyss Battle.
There were more than twenty high schools in total.
The First Abyss Battle was held four times a year, divided among the east, west, south, and north districts, all completed within a single month.
It was jointly organized by the Department of Education, the Department of Resources, and the military.
It could be called a grand event for the educational world.
The East District, where Li Mu belonged, was this year’s first group.
The moment Blackwater High School’s students got off the train, the logistics personnel who had long been waiting there began maintaining order.
They directed the students from their school to register in an orderly fashion and prepare to enter the Abyss.
“Old Zhao! Old Zhao!”
The head of the Student Records Office greeted Zhao Qingshan with a cheerful smile.
“Hey, Old Ma! Hard at work, huh!”
Zhao Qingshan was tall and heavily built, with rugged features and a face full of stubble. He was even yawning as he greeted the department head.
“Well? I’ve been pretty decent to you, haven’t I, brother?”
Old Ma moved closer to Zhao Qingshan and asked with a grin.
“Huh? Decent how?” Zhao Qingshan froze.
“Tch? Playing dumb? You thought I was trying to take the chance to squeeze those two bottles of good liquor out of you, didn’t you? You’ve underestimated me, I’m telling you!”
“I assigned Li Mu to your class entirely out of consideration for our pure brotherly friendship!”
Old Ma said this while patting Zhao Qingshan’s chest with the back of his hand.
Zhao Qingshan blinked.
“No… wait… now you’ve got me confused. What do you mean, you assigned Li Mu to me?”
“Hm?” Old Ma looked puzzled.
“Hm?” Zhao Qingshan looked even more puzzled!
“Yesterday! A transfer student came to our school yesterday—late Yellow Rank, First Grade. I personally handled his enrollment, then assigned him to your class! I told him to report to you!”
Old Ma was speaking so fast that his words practically tripped over each other.
“May lightning strike me if I’m lying! No one came to find me!” Zhao Qingshan swore on the spot, raising his fist.
“What the hell…”
Old Ma swayed where he stood, his eyes going vacant. “That little bastard… don’t tell me he scammed me out of the enrollment welcome package?”