In a circular glass room filled with the fragrance of flowers.
“General Officer Croft.”
Leaning on his hand by the window, a strange man gazing at the vast expanse of flowers outside raised the corner of his eye and turned his head to look at the Gong Huanwu behind him.
In a slightly sharp voice, he said:
“So, these little ones’ works have arrived. Hmm, let me see if there are any promising talents among them.”
Two people entered from behind Gong Huanwu, holding thirty copies of Leader Credentials in their hands.
Though the one-meter-five strange man was not tall, he exuded an aura akin to a sovereign ruler.
Faint energy flickered and rose around his body, yet these anomalies would not be noticed without paying close attention.
His skill in suppressing his aura was far superior to that of higher-ranking officers like the Editor-in-Chief.
Looking at each one in turn, Croft let out a sigh of dismay.
“What rubbish all these are.”
“Please, we ask for your guidance in teaching them.”
“Alright, for now, I’ll give you a construction plan. But mind you, this won’t be yielded by the amount of time sequence you filed in the application with the Council. It comes from my friend’s private collection.”
“Your friend?”
“Yes, my friend,” Croft said, setting down one of the Leader Credentials in his hand.
“I can guarantee that this construction plan has never been used to build any Demon Palace, and all assessment contents are kept confidential. Moreover, what matters most is that it has passed the Council’s rating review.”
Croft lifted his gaze to sweep across Gong Huanwu.
That look clearly conveyed that this act was already an extraordinary leniency on his part.
“Approved?” Gong Huanwu’s face lit up. “At how many sequences does your friend plan to sell it?”
“One million five hundred thousand Virtual Zero Sequences. Although it’s very low, I think considering that he’s helping these candidates, he should accept such a low price. You understand, just having it approved alone is already worth at least two hundred thousand Virtual Zero Sequences.”
“I understand, I understand. This is indeed the discount your Excellency has graciously offered.”
Gong Huanwu breathed a sigh of relief. This person hadn’t budged for so many days, but today he finally revealed he was open to negotiation.
One million five hundred thousand Virtual Zero Sequences, after all—surely the two general directors could scrape that together from their own pockets.
……
In the afternoon, even more people had gathered in the bustling venue.
“Fellow colleagues, please quiet down. I want to announce some good news to you.”
As the session began, Gong Huanwu stood by the table, beaming with joy.
At the center of the table, Huan Bao’er leaned back in her seat, her expression calm as she supported her chin with her hand, revealing no particular emotion.
But Jiaoma felt that her godmother’s mood was probably not so good that afternoon.
She wondered if it was because the assignments everyone had submitted that morning were too poor.
“What good news could it be?”
The murmuring crowd gradually fell silent, looking toward the front.
Many group leaders had already guessed they likely wouldn’t be selected and now gave up any hope as they stared ahead.
“Due to the sudden request to construct Demonic Hero Halls, we’ve applied to the Fate Track and secured an official to come help everyone with the teaching of their construction.”
Gong Huanwu raised his hand in a gesture of celebration, as streamers manifested by psychic power drifted down from the sky.
Amid the astonished gazes of the crowd, a figure about one and a half meters tall, clearly not human, walked out from the wings with hands folded behind its back and came to the center of the table.
Pointing at him with both hands, Gong Huanwu said:
“This is the Grand Artificer who has built over three Coliseum Cities—the esteemed Executor Croat!”
The crowd erupted with enthusiasm.
Croat spoke in a sharp, shrill voice:
“No need for such formalities, everyone. Though I come from above the Fate Track, a long time ago, I too started from the very bottom of the Lost Illusion Company, just like you all.”
He paced a couple of steps in front of the table, then stood still and declared:
“I know you are unfamiliar with the knowledge related to Mizosceptre Halls. That’s because the Mismatched Fields are manifestations of the former old world, whereas this kind of arena, even entire Coliseum Cities, are filled with artificially constructed illusions.
‘Why is that? Why build something like this?’
He raised a finger.
‘Because of secrets.’
‘Secrets?’ Everyone gazed at him.
Yang Zicang hadn’t expected that this person would announce a grand secret right from the start.
He suddenly felt a bit panicked, but it was already too late to use the ‘bathroom escape’ excuse.
“The Mizosceptre Hall is a path passable only by those with supreme combat prowess — it is a form of selection. Only those who pass its trials will be qualified for conducting New Possibility Guidance on the old world. When that time comes, precious bloodlines, and other resources, will be directed by these talented individuals.”
His voice gradually grew more impassioned:
“A new future for the world will also be authored with them as protagonists.”
Many people nodded in admiration, with expressions of “I see” dawning on their faces.
“See? You feel the weight of responsibility on your shoulders now, don’t you?”
“You are not just the examiners setting the questions; you are the gatekeepers of the world’s new future.”
Kroft swept his sharp gaze across the room.
“If an incompetent person slips through, it will mean the ultimate destruction of a world, of billions of living beings!”
Everyone felt the formidable nature of the task.
Yang Zicang had assumed that Kroft would elaborate on the secrets of the old world, but instead, he was relieved to find that wasn’t the case.
“Alright, next up is the content for you little guys to judge. To be honest—”
The officer casually picked up a team leader’s credential from the box.
“Things like this, in my eyes, are nothing more than kindergarten doodles. You still remember what elementary school is, right?”
A circlet glowed on his chest, sending out dark-gold rays of light that shot into the void, swiftly outlining a towering phantom in the assembly hall.
Looking up, everyone saw a trapezoid-like structure covered with innumerable fine lines; upon closer inspection, they were countless paths.
[Demon Hero Hall Arena City——Fortress of Myriad Paths]
[Creator: Dwight·Kroft]
“This is an early work of mine, you can draw inspiration from it.”
He controlled the image decomposition so people could see the internal structure.
It was truly a labyrinthine complex design.
Yet for teams entering individually, it wouldn’t be overly chaotic.
“A very harmonious design.”
“A work as perfect as the Crown of Lotus Leaves.”
Kroft sat down to rest.
Gong Huanwu said:
“Following the suggestion of the esteemed Director Croft, we hereby announce that the group leaders who have obtained the qualification for senior group leader are: Group 3 – Group Leader Zhixu, Group 7 – Group Leader Qiu Bai, Group 12…”
With each announcement, people excitedly offered congratulations, as the Advisors’ speech made them realize that this was no ordinary mission.
What everyone was taking on were tasks that could earn experience toward constructing the Hall of Magic Heroes—something that 99.99% of the Electors in this world would never have access to!
“Group 18, Group Leader Jiaoma.”
“Yeah!” Her colleagues in the office softly cheered and congratulated her.
Kroft glanced over with a blank expression, then looked away.
……
After the meeting, Huan Bao’er returned to her residence, and her spirit companion, the Radiant Order, spoke through their mental connection:
{Should we buy that guy’s design draft for the Hall of Magic Heroes? I caught a glimpse of it earlier, and it seemed like just some design concepts.}
“Just a concept, yet he dares to ask for one hundred and fifty thousand Virtual Zero Sequences? Hah, he sure has some nerve.”
{But I’m afraid it’s not realistic for our little team to build a Demon Hero-level arena within four months.}
Huan Bao’er threw herself onto the soft bed, rubbing her smooth forehead with her hand. Her beautiful eyes lost a hint of coldness, gaining more softness as she gazed at the crystal chandelier on the ceiling.
“There’s one more way, though not much of one.”
{What?}
“We’ll renovate the Green Lotus Crown, then spend a bit more Virtual Zero Sequence on fines to get the council to remove its information from this year’s Demon Hero Reference Catalogue.”
The Radiant Order clearly hadn’t expected Huan Bao’er to be plotting such a scheme.
“Anyway, those country bumpkins here have never seen it before.”
{Just let them start building it. I’ll go negotiate with the Council to see if Croft can lend a hand. He doesn’t want to come all this way and leave without earning a single moment’s pay, does he?}
“Then you better work hard. I’m exhausted these past two days. Time for a bath.”
A playful smile curled at the corners of her lips. “Want to watch me take a bubble bath?”
Without hesitation, the Mental Link was severed outright.
……
“Group Leader… are we just supposed to work with this?”
In the large office of the Jiaojiao Team, the nearly forty-member crew stared at the text documents in their hands.
Woven through long stretches of description were some hand-drawn illustrations.
The sound of rustling pages echoed intermittently.
“First do this, then that… and this is built just like that?”
The group exchanged uneasy glances.
“Is this really written by that executive on the Fate Track? It’s way too sloppy.”
Yang Zicang and Zorro sat in their seats, dizzy from reading these text materials.
Not that it was entirely useless, but it was far too abstract. It was as if Croft had dumped his entire notes from years of construction projects, then split them into countless bits and handed them out randomly to more than 370 people.
Building a qualified Demon Elite Hall based on these guiding thoughts within four months? That’s going to be tough.
Wang Dingshan snorted and threw the documents down onto the table.
“What kind of nonsense is this? Teaching us two strategies—‘borrow a knife to kill someone’ and ‘hide the truth from the heavens’—just for us to unify the Eurasian continent?”
Yang Zicang smiled:
“I think we don’t have to be so pessimistic. If several groups join forces, we might as well cut down on personnel. Alternatively, we could enter in batches. All of us possess the Right of Mental Manifestation, so modifying the mental wave bands is relatively easy.”
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