Player Reload

As the saying goes, "That’s not a dark past, that’s the road I came from."

These big shots from the slum, always surrounded by a crowd and able to influence the world with a wave of their hand, once had their humble beginnings too.

We don’t even need to mention the head of the Evil Science Alliance, Side of Truth, who got rich from running a nightclub,

Whale Song’s [Matrix] once took programming jobs on platforms like Fiverr, Codementor, Toptal, and Programmer Inn, working day and night without sleep for three days coding for popular mobile games.

Of course, Matrix has made it big now, but perhaps even he thought his original code was too lousy, so he transformed into an electronic ghost and secretly snuck into the game company to optimize it.

That optimizations caused a stir among millions of players,

who flooded forums to ask the developers why entering a particular map suddenly improved the frame rate and graphics quality, enabling even an old Qualcomm Snapdragon 680 phone to run at 4K240HZ, defying the laws of physics.

In addition to these two, Mistletoe of the [Thousand Throats Beast] once engaged in horse breeding,

and Dir of the [Witch Alliance] sold beauty, cosmetic, and weight-loss magic potions,

while Harley, president of [Mechanical War Thunder], sold bootleg figurine models whose quality surpassed the official ones—because the official ones were also outsourced to domestic factories.

As an old-timer who personally witnessed the barbaric era, Wanli Sealed Blade could casually leak some juicy tidbits, like "I remember an amusing story about Michael."

"Hornheim once had five arch-enemies; four of them are dead now. Do you know who the last one is?"

That would be enough for a month’s worth of headlines in the slum’s tabloids.

"Sorry for being late."

The door to the room was pushed open again, and a brown-skinned man in a top hat and tails walked in with a spring in his step.

The area around his eye sockets was empty, his upper and lower eyelids fused together, and an eyeball embedded in each of his palms, spinning around.

[Destiny Peeping Carlos] [Level 29]

Hmm...

Li Cheng raised an eyebrow; this title was much classier than Sunset Melting Gold’s [Hairstyle Can’t Be Messed Up].

If memory serves, he should be a member known for prophetic abilities in the Navigator Guild.

"It’s you."

Wanli Sealed Blade recognized Carlos, "Eye..."

"Just had surgery on my eyes, much better than before. Thanks for your concern, Brother Blade."

Carlos, with his prophetic ability, knew in advance what Wanli Sealed Blade was going to say, smiled, and pulled up a chair to sit down. He took a gift bag from thin air and passed it over, "A little token for your children."

"What’s this?"

Wanli Sealed Blade opened the bag in confusion,

Gray Rain curiously peeked over and saw that the gift bag contained a workbook for second graders.

"WTF?"

Wanli Sealed Blade was stunned for a moment, "My kid is going to third grade this year, why give a second-grade workbook..."

Ring, ring,

His phone rang in his pocket, and he answered it, "Hi, honey. What? The kids failed their exams, and the teacher suggests they repeat the grade?"

Li Cheng lowered his voice and explained to Gray Rain,

This Carlos, even among the Navigator Guild full of talents, is considered quite a weirdo.

He was just an ordinary small employee in a Prometheus mechanical arm store, who accidentally got caught in a rift while driving home after work, falling into a killing field entity and into a mysterious pool of water.

When he climbed out, his eye sockets had melted, and his eyeballs had moved to his palms. Since then, his left eye could see part of the past, and his right eye could see part of the future, but he couldn’t see the present.

Gray Rain was amazed, "What do you mean by not seeing the present?"

"It means my left eye can see the history of this restaurant being built, and my right eye can see that in ten seconds, I’ll get burned. But I don’t know why I’ll get burned or how to prevent it..."

Before Carlos could finish speaking, a waiter came in carrying a tray with a bowl of French lobster bisque, tripped, and sent the tray flying, splashing hot soup all over Carlos.

"Like that. There’s nothing you need to do here, no worries, I won’t complain."

Carlos took a sharp breath, removed a lobster claw from his face amid the waiter’s frantic apologies,

and used the towel he’d prepared to wipe the soup off, sending the waiter on his way.

His prophecy ability is useful, but only to a degree.

He can foresee the past and the future, more effectively than praying to gods or Buddha, and with a significantly higher accuracy rate than the [Suicide Notebook] pages that Li Cheng had.

Then again, it’s not useful, because even if Carlos sees the future, he can’t change it.

For example, he predicted the exact outcome of the 2026 World Cup final—betting 1,000 US Dollars could earn him a million,

but in predicting the future, he also anchored the fact that he didn’t manage to place the bet in time.

"This ability is quite the joke."

Gray Rain smacked his lips, then patted the still-crestfallen Wanli Sealed Blade on the shoulder, "Don’t panic if your kids are falling behind in school temporarily; I had to repeat the test several times moving from second to third grade myself.

Even Einstein scored a 1 in math when he was young."

Wanli Sealed Blade rolled his eyes, "My kids are Sub-humans with cat demon bloodlines; technically speaking, they’re only one year old and already a child prodigy, you know."

"How much longer until White Horse Tombstone arrives?"

Lulina frowned and asked. High-level Transcendents trust their strength more than the prophecy of a Divination Master teammate.

Carlos glanced at his watch, "Almost here, five, four, three, two, one."

"Sorry, sorry, got held up with something at home."

In hurriedly rushed White Horse Tombstone, who, without hesitation, picked up the strong liquor on the table and drained it in one go to show his apologies, "Everyone’s here? Oh, there’s still one more."