Master of the Stars

"The hell are you talking about?" Old Du baffled Xie Junping. "Old Du, you must have taken way too many drugs!"

"I’ll drug your sister! Did I provoke you or something? Why the hell did you tag my truck?" Old Du’s voice was really sharp. It was clear that his fury soared to the heavens. His voice rolled out into the curses of a vixen.

Xie Junping was unable to hold back his laughter, as he realized what was going on. "So, that semi-truck packed with freight was yours? Are you driving it?"

"I would have steamrolled you to death if I was on it!"

Xie Junping did not take Old Du’s words to heart. He smacked the steering wheel in laughter. "Ah Old Du, I’m not criticizing you. It may be easy for anyone to get a drivers license nowadays, but don’t let a retard drive your truck. Being too brash and one mistake will cause your accident rate to be a disaster. Your father works for the Department of Transportation. Didn’t he warn you?"

"Xie... You..."

"Okay okay okay. I won’t push you. I’ll give a call to security and let you drive your truck away. However, I want that retarded driver to serve me tea as an apology later..."

"Screw you!"

The sharp trill of Old Du’s voice was clearly audible through the car’s speakers. "So, you’re still talking sh*t! They’ve already towed back my truck. If anything happens to the cargo inside, things ain’t over between us Xie!"

After saying this, Old Du just hung up.

"What the heck just happened?"

Xie Junping had an expression of bafflement. He turned to look at Luo Nan and explained, "This Old Du, aka Du Yong, we call him Sissy Du as well. You should know that he is the president of the Mystic Arts Research Society. Normally, he’s a pretty decent guy; it’s just that he’s quite fanatical about the mystic arts. Now, add the fact that he overdoses on drugs and you can see that sometimes his mind isn’t quite normal."

"..." The description of Old Du described Luo Nan dead-on. It was like he was accidentally shot dead in the face. He was speechless.

Xie Junping still did not quite understand the reason why Du Yong got so angry. He grumbled, "He had it towed back, yet he’s still pissed!?"

A call came through at this time. This time, Luo Nan knew the caller id as well. It was Xie Junping’s best friend, and a fellow member of the Student Council, Hu Huaying.

"Bro Ping, where are you?"

"I’m outside with Nanster. We’re heading to the River Wu District to handle something."

"Oh? So Nanster’s there too."

This brother just so happened to be at the right place at the right time at Frost River Reality that night. Huang Bingzhen’s ’holy exchange’ had knocked him unconscious. Although he was unconscious during the events, he heard the news when he woke up. As such, he had a general understanding of what had happened. There were no two ways about it. Luo Nan had led the special forces to his and his friends’ room. They were transported out. This was not a life-saving favor in the figurative sense, as Luo Nan had literally saved his life. As expected, Hu Huaying looked at Luo Nan in a different light.

Luo Nan greeted Hu Huaying as well, "Bro Hu."

Hu Huaying quickly cut to the chase. "I heard you just helped out the Mystic Arts Research Society. You got Old Du’s semi-truck confiscated?"

The logic behind Hu Huaying’s words immediately befuddled Xie Junping. "The heck do you mean? How did I ’help’... the Mystic Arts Research Society?"

"Don’t you know? Old Du didn’t just resign as president; he quit his society. Before he quit, he took the instruments and materials he used in the society, loaded them in his semi-truck, and took them away. Then security confiscated the vehicle, and the members of the Mystic Arts Research Society came chasing over to take the goods back without an iota of change."

"Holy sh*t!" These twist and turns of events surprised Xie Junping. So, this was what actually was going on. This was no longer the issue of a former president quitting his society. This was an extreme change; an issue that shed all pretense of cordiality. Just how much of a mess was the Mystic Arts Research Society in right now?

Xie Junping shot a glance at Luo Nan and unavoidably thought about the issue of who had ownership of Gear. The Mystic Arts Research Society would be truly damned if it were to wrestle with the Construction Society in this state.

"What about those financial investors in the background? Are they staring blankly as this society eats itself? Oh! That’s right! You said it before. A major financial backer removed their resources, right?"

Next to Xie Junping, Luo Nan closed his eyes. He had heard this matter from Xie Junping already. However, Luo Nan’s understanding was different than Xie Junping and Hu Huaying. Luo Nan knew that this matter involved things that were all the way up to the situation with Xia City. Especially with the Order of Justice.

"Old Du is quite a failure of a person."

Xie Junping sighed about this huge let down with the Mystic Arts Research Society. He had a huge headache for a time. Today’s matter was something inappropriate to walk away from. In addition, his tagging of Old Du’s vehicle caused the situation to intensely change. As for what would follow, what the conclusion would be like in the bidding war between the Mystic Arts Research Society and the Construction Society, who Gear would belong to... It was all a pain.

He smacked his steering wheel. "Alright! I’ll go back and take a look."

Luo Nan nodded. "It’s best to go back."

"Not you, you already have an appointment. I’ll see you later. You never know; you might call him your Master. You should leave a good impression. You must not be late."

After he said this, Xie Junping controlled the flying car to park safely to the side. "We’re not that far from school. I’ll have Old Hu come and pick me up. You drive my Phantom over. In any case, you have the privileges to my car. Let us stop wasting time. I’ll contact you if something comes up later."

Luo Nan looked at the time; he did not refuse.

The Phantom flying car soared away at high speeds. Luo Nan remained sitting shotgun, not changing his position a bit. He allowed the flying car to advance the whole journey in autonomous driving mode.

Luo Nan was mulling over the matter with the Mystic Arts Research Society. According to the Ability User Society’s recent intelligence, the Order of Justice was the largest financial backer of the Mystic Arts Research Society. This was not confined to merely Acumen College. In each and every school in the Pingjiang District, the Mystic Arts Research Society was simply a front. Behind all of them was the shadow of the Order of Justice.

The boundary between the inner world and the secular, normal world was blurred to the highest limits in the realm of the mystic arts. This was a superb channel to assimilate talent.

However, last week, several dozen priests and knights at Frost River Reality had died in the Logic World. This accounted for the majority of them and among them included a First Oblatum, eight Oblatum Knights of the highest elite, and the destruction of the fleshly body of the mastermind An Weng. All that was left of An Weng was his soul, and his soul had merged inside the body of the demon. It was unknown where An Weng and the demon had gone.

Today, the Order of Justice was missing elite forces in Xia City. All that was left was Zheng Xiao and Baze to support the overall situation. It was inevitable for problems to arise.

It was noteworthy that the Order of Justice did not immediately call in reinforcements to make up for the gap in Xia City. Instead, they spent all their energy without end on other cities. They did what could be called a textbook definition of spreading pressure; they made it so that the ability user society of Xia City was faced with external threats. Soon, these threats rapidly turned into pressure and criticism from within the Society. It was said that the high level members of the Society had quite the headaches in these recent days.

Luo Nan sighed, and he had his mind sink. He generally sensed the undercurrent of the soul strength bubbling up from within his Hollow Depository. His mind continued to sink further; he entered the abstract and cryptic Format Pyramid interface of the external neuron.

Before, the interface was like murky water. Now, there was a huge change in its appearance.

The Format Pyramid remained situated in the center as before, but the surging turbid water and the playing card portraits of people had transformed into a grand and vast star river. Tens of thousands of stars were spread over, and dark clouds billowed out. There seemed to be boundaries between the stars and the dark clouds. But as a whole, they melted together into a furnace; it was hard to differentiate them.

Such a state was the result of the great drawing strokes of the night at Frost River Reality. He had drawn a myriad of Life Sketches that fused into a hazy star river, and this hazy star river mixed together with the Format Pyramid.

However, when Luo Nan truly went to observe the interior of the Format Pyramid, even though the light of the stars were shining through, even though the light was clear as water, he could see that each level basically maintained its original state.

The two levels of politician and clergy remained empty. The technician level just had the Wraith Sign. The student level looked to be the liveliest level. Xie Junping and Cat Eyes were bobbing up and down within the star river. It looked like they were going to be raised to the office worker level.

The most distinct change actually occurred on the office worker level. There was an additional person besides the crow Ink, who had long since entered this level.

Baze. Currently one of the few greats remaining of the Order of Justice’s Oblatum Knights.