Volume Two: The Boy of a Thousand Faces, False as Truth. Chapter Eighty-Eight: Huo Ye, Calamity Wilds.

In the morning, it was class time, and Huo Ye and the others, as usual, had to go to Ke Zhen for lessons. The parking lot Ke Zhen had commandeered seemed to have become his private property. Unconcerned whether the academy might hold him accountable, he had made a killing and then splashed out on a batch of ready-made training equipment. Other items that had to be preordered had not yet arrived, but the once-empty lot was now filled with an array of sleek, high-tech machines.

However, when Huo Ye caught sight of a corner where several devices that were obviously not meant for training had been placed, he walked over to take a closer look. It did not take long for his temper to flare. He suddenly felt an urge to beat Ke Zhen to death, because the damned machine was an automatic vending unit, and where the drinks should have been stocked, there were now all kinds of alcohol. Not just one or two brands, either, but more than twenty, of different kinds and labels, sharing only two qualities in common: they were reasonably priced and had a decent reputation. If this was not the private custom order of that booze-loving bastard, he would bet his life on it.

With a dark expression, Huo Ye asked, “What’s today’s lesson? I hope you give me a reason to stop paying attention before I actually hit you.”

Patting his beer belly, Ke Zhen said, “Relax. I guarantee you’ll be satisfied. During this period, I’ve compiled a summary of all your combat data. If one wants to grow stronger, the best way is not to reinforce what is already strong, but to make up for what is weak. So I’ve prepared a training plan tailored to each of your weaknesses.”

“Well, what are we waiting for? Start already,” Huo Ye urged.

Ke Zhen then arranged an unusually styled form of training for the three of them. This was not combat practice inside the VRF, but highly targeted exercises. It was much like the training of professional esports players: they do not spend all their time simply playing the game, but make extensive use of small programs to train their concentration, reaction speed, and ability to respond to sudden changes.

Just like now, Ke Zhen had found a comfortable recliner-style sofa chair for Lei Limi and had him put on a pair of immersive VR goggles, with some unknown audio playing through the headphones.

“What the hell are you trying to do?” Huo Ye asked.

Ke Zhen simply handed Huo Ye a pair of headphones and motioned for him to try them on himself.

Once Huo Ye put them on, strange music and a voice began to sound in his ears. “You are the greatest. You are the most brilliant genius in the world. No hardship can ever defeat you...” The voice was soft and murmuring, and even the music was strangely soothing. But Huo Ye simply could not endure it.

He did not even wait for the rest before yanking the headphones off and asking with a black face, “What the hell is this? This is f---”

Inside, he was in complete turmoil. As a bestselling author, he could not even find the right words to describe that audio. What on earth was this shameful, brainwashing pep talk?

“Heh. As Lei Limi’s childhood friend and big brother, you should know his shortcomings better than I do,” Ke Zhen said, offering no explanation at all, and instead throwing the question back at Huo Ye.

Huo Ye rubbed his chin and thought for a moment. Then he handed the headphones to Alice, who had been tugging at his sleeve and wanted to hear them too, and said, “Lei Limi has talent. If he could really go all out, even I would have a headache. But he’s just too lacking in confidence. The moment he starts using his real skills, he gets flustered, makes all kinds of mistakes, and by now he may not even be using half of his true strength.”

Ke Zhen chuckled. “Exactly. That’s Lei Limi’s weakness: inferiority. What he needs now is confidence. We’re using video and audio for immersive psychological suggestion, to build that confidence from the ground up. Don’t underestimate this audio. I got it from the academy’s psychological counselor, and he said it’s the fastest way to build confidence. Just one hour a day for a month, and a person will feel brand new.”

Huo Ye narrowed his eyes. “Why does this feel so absurdly mystical?”

At the same time, Alice had already taken off the headphones and was clutching her stomach with laughter. “Hahaha, I can’t anymore. What even is this ridiculous crap? Is Lei Limi really not going to die laughing? Hahaha, no, my stomach hurts from laughing.”

Ke Zhen’s forehead was covered in black lines. “Is it really that embarrassing?”

The three of them did not continue discussing that topic. Next came Alice’s training.

“So... what exactly is my training?” Alice asked suspiciously, afraid that he would also set her up with some bizarre, unserious-looking exercise. In front of her sat two crystal computers, tower-style units, with no keyboards attached and only two wireless mice.

Ke Zhen said, “You do not really have any especially glaring weakness. The only thing is that since you have defined yourself as a support gunner who can cover the whole battlefield, you should have a good overall sense of the situation and the ability to split your attention. So you’ll be training your divided focus with these two crystal computers.”

His meaning was very clear. Alice’s training was nothing more than something like Zhou Botong drawing a square with one hand and a circle with the other, training herself into a mind of exquisite, many-topped cleverness.

“Hey, the one on the left died. The one on the right is... huh? What is this, what even is this stuff?” Alice was clearly stumped by the little game used for training, but she did not give up. Instead, she grew more and more spirited. In the Halls family’s dictionary, the word give up simply did not exist.

“This style is much more normal,” Huo Ye said as he looked at the focused Alice with some emotion. Then he turned to Ke Zhen and said, “So it’s my turn now. What’s my training?”

Ke Zhen smiled and asked, “Do you still remember what I told you about using your individual ability?”

A bad feeling suddenly welled up in Huo Ye’s heart. “You’re not going to make me eat something, are you?”

Ke Zhen said, “You got half of it right.”

---

Jin Puxian woke up in a hospital bed, his body wrapped in bandages that had been changed several times before the bleeding finally stopped. A member of the club responsible for keeping watch in the Truth Between said with delight, “President, you’re awake! Wait here, I’ll go call the doctor to take a look at you.”

The moment Jin Puxian opened his eyes, the only thing he felt was thirst. Last night’s battle had been such an overwhelming defeat that his brain was still somewhat frozen. It took him more than ten seconds to remember the three ultimate questions: Who am I? Where am I? Why am I here?

In the end, Huo Ye had shown mercy. Given Jin Puxian’s own strength, as long as he received timely treatment, there would be no major problem, nor would there be any lasting aftereffects that might affect future battles. Even so, Huo Ye still paid the Holy Ring Light a sum of money for medical expenses. Yet this gesture of courtesy seemed to have been taken by Holy Ring Light as an insult, and the entire club had begun to nurse a deep resentment toward Huo Ye.

The ward was empty now. Jin Puxian’s internal organs had been injured by that strike, Evening Drum, Morning Bell. The anesthetic from the surgery had worn off, and all he could feel was as if tens of thousands of steel needles were stabbing through his viscera, as though countless little insects were crawling around inside. The pain was truly bone-deep.

“Huo... Ye! This isn’t over!” Jin Puxian finally forced out the words between his teeth, though it seemed that simply saying them had already used up all his strength.

“Not willing to accept it?” A voice suddenly came from outside the door. Jin Puxian turned toward it and saw a man standing there, wearing a mask and a hood. Just from the fact that he had concealed everything but his eyes, the man already looked highly suspicious, and Jin Puxian did not think this could be anything good.

“I asked you if you’re unwilling to accept it,” the man said again when Jin Puxian did not answer.

This time, his words seemed to carry some strange power. After hearing them, Jin Puxian’s head heated up, and then he felt dizzy and dazed. In a fog, he replied, “That’s right. I’m not willing. Why is it that once he was hit by my illusion, he got promoted? And once he got promoted, he wanted to put me to death? My grudge against him is now completely settled!”

The man then asked, “Good. Then let me ask you this: do you desire power?”

“Of course! I want... power strong enough to defeat him! I want to crush him beneath my feet!”

“In that case, I’ll give you power!”

The man walked up to the excited Jin Puxian, whose veins seemed ready to burst, and raised his hand before his face. From his palm flowed a black liquid, which seeped slowly into Jin Puxian through his nose and mouth.

Jin Puxian cried out in agony, but his mouth had already been covered, so how could he make a sound?

Qi Mu removed his hood, paid no further attention to Jin Puxian, and said to himself, “There was no mistake about the surge of ability I sensed at the illegal race last night. The instant that wave flashed, the ocular technique was broken. I should have thought of it sooner. Huo Ye... or perhaps Huo Ye, the misfortune-fated one. If there really is someone here at this academy whom the King is searching for, the most likely candidate is Huo Ye. So, Huo Ye, I’ll make a little trouble for you, and then I’ll see for myself whether you truly are that person.”

“Doctor, you need to take good care of our president. I think he’s badly injured; when he first woke up, he could not even speak.”

“Don’t worry, that’s my duty... Is this what you meant by badly injured?”

The club member was also extremely surprised. “President, are you all right?”

Inside the ward, the sunlight of nearly noon streamed through the window. Facing the light, the two people outside could not make out Jin Puxian’s expression. They could only see that all of his bandages had been removed, revealing skin beneath that bore not even a scar, as though the person who had seemed on the verge of death last night had never been him at all. Smiling, he clenched his fist and said, “Me? I’ve never felt better!”