"They should have seen my note by now..."
Sitting in the back seat of the young lady's luxury car, Yaxiu swiped his ring, summoning his Book of Gospel, and flipped to the Sorcerer Manual interface. Under Void Realm Exploration, he checked the current team status:
[Team Composition: Death Frenzy Sword Princess, Black and White Witch]
[Location: Time Continent]
[Status: Exploring]
Before leaving home, Yaxiu had already dispatched the two of them on a Void Realm exploration.
Naturally, even if he hadn't arranged it, they would have explored on their own. But with Yaxiu's authorization, the two could borrow his sports car.
The map, however, seemed bound to Yaxiu's game system and couldn't be shared with them.
Furthermore, just like "Sword Princess's Leave Request Form," even though Yaxiu wasn't in the party, he still received his cut. Thirty percent of the sorcery power experience earned by Sword Princess and the Witch would be funneled to him, and any special mechanics they encountered could potentially be triggered by him as well.
The only difference between him and his operators was that Yaxiu's leave had no limits!
If he wanted, he could never step into the Void Realm for the rest of his life, growing stronger purely by freeloading off Sword Princess and the Witch!
Yet the moment Yaxiu confirmed he wouldn't be participating in tonight's exploration, a prompt popped up in the game: [Spending time and communicating with operators is an essential means of maintaining bonds. If an operator perceives that you are avoiding them, their favorability will gradually decline, causing your bond level to drop.]
Only then did Yaxiu realize that favorability in this game was dynamic rather than permanently locked once raised. Taking leave once or twice was fine, but if he called in sick every single day and divorced himself from the rank and file for too long, he couldn't blame frontline personnel for holding a grudge.
Wait, no. You went to work for money, whereas Yaxiu entered the Void Realm primarily to strengthen bonds with his operators.
Rather than work, this was more like... team-building?
The moment he realized that, Yaxiu was suddenly struck by an intense aversion to entering the Void Realm.
*Hum—*
With a faint vibration, the hovercar veered into another lane, yet Yaxiu remained as steady as a mountain in his seat. Watching Annan in the driver's seat, his mind quickly returned to reality.
Though Harvey and Igola hadn't leaked a single whisper, any assignment involving people like them wouldn't stray far from gang vendettas, fraud, abduction, armed robbery, and theft. After all, their scope of operations was delightfully concise—the criminal code could cover it in its entirety.
Calm as Yaxiu usually appeared, he had secretly researched the criminal underworld of Azula, mostly by chatting up folks in online games. Plenty of enthusiastic Azula locals had filled him in: the city's underworld was dominated by the "Top Ten Syndicate Forces," succinctly known as One Palace, Two Agencies, Three Families, and Four Corporations.
The One Palace referred to the Mermaid Palace. Sirens were dubbed the "Sewer Royalty" of Gospel Country, operating chains across major cities. Virtually every murder, smuggling ring, illicit drug trade, and trafficking operation required a nod from the sirens, making them undisputed kingpins of the underworld.
The Two Agencies were two investigation firms—naturally, the two that ranked top two on Azula's sub-list and broke into the national top ten. Smaller outfits like Annan's, which had been squeezed out of the local top ten, were left to subsist on scraps the Two Agencies didn't care to touch.
The Three Families were ancient bloodlines deeply rooted in the Azula region for generations. Yaxiu hadn't bothered memorizing their specific surnames and crests, only remembering that they intermarried extensively, with connections entrenched across vital departments like the Bluebeards, Red Hats, and the Administrative Hall. Even the city mayor hailed from their ranks.
The Four Corporations were four massive enterprises that commanded over seventy-five percent of Azula's gross domestic product and held spots on the national enterprise rankings—truly "too big to fail." Although the Four Corporations maintained close ties with the Three Families and had almost all accepted capital injections from them, friction and power struggles between the two sides persisted. Capital naturally resisted feudal constructs like familial dynasties; anyone who believed an early investment could permanently control a thriving corporation had drastically underestimated the alienating nature of capital.
So as Yaxiu sat in Annan's car, he wondered which of the Top Ten Syndicate Forces they were headed to cross swords with. But when they arrived at their destination, prepared as he was, Yaxiu was still dumbfounded by the villainous stronghold before his eyes:
*Azula Fourth Intermediate Education Base*
"This place is..."
"The Fourth Intermediate School. You can just call it Fourth Intermediate."
Annan stepped out of the vehicle and clicked her key fob. The well-behaved hovercar promptly took off on its own to find a parking spot.
Though called a high school, Fourth Intermediate looked more like a commercial plaza. Warm, bright light spilled from every floor, and the revolving glass doors stood wide open, devoid of any security measures or guards screening visitors.
Yaxiu followed Annan inside, and his impression shifted once again. There were no classrooms in sight, nor any sound of teaching. Through the windows, Yaxiu saw rows upon rows of coffin-like, fully enclosed pods lining the rooms, each bearing a holographic projection displaying the occupant's personal profile.
Rather than classrooms, they looked more like an experimental facility conducting human trials.
Yet those pods struck Yaxiu as remarkably familiar. Weren't they...
"Look a lot like the virtual gaming pods you spend so much time in, don't they?" Annan said. "Or rather, virtual gaming pods look like them."
Yaxiu froze, then it clicked. "Right. If neural dive technology has already reached civilian commercial games, vital sectors like education, medicine, and research must have adopted it long before!"
"Before I was even born, 'virtual education pods' had already become the cornerstone of basic education," Annan explained. "Aside from sorcerer academies, which still employ professors, primary and intermediate education have no need for human instructors. Most children enter tailored educational curricula inside these pods starting at age five. Supposedly, it's a wonderful experience—you get an instructor customized to appeal to your tastes in every conceivable way. They understand your every thought, employ the cleverest techniques, and craft the most comfortable environments to make you fall in love with learning.
"By the time you reach intermediate education, you begin uncovering your aptitudes—from cat's cradle to sharpshooting, from hair styling to fashion design, from biological research to civil engineering... Whether you've encountered a field before or not, the pod unearths your hidden talents to the fullest, allowing you to reach your innate limits in just a few short years."
"Wait, you mean the pod delivers personalized education for every single person?" Yaxiu asked, baffled. "Doesn't that sound..."
"Just as you're thinking," Annan replied. "The education pods harness big data analytics from the Book of Gospel. Don't look so surprised. The vast majority of high-tech enterprises rely on Gospel data. The seamless high-speed traffic flow we saw on our way here, the orderly drone swarms in the sky—all of it is driven by Gospel analytics. That's why this city's lifeblood flows like a work of art.
"Banjie mentioned that you and Mr. Harvey seemed skeptical of our education system, believing that families without credit reserves would fall hopelessly behind established clans."
Annan glanced across the chamber, which housed hundreds of pods. "In truth, until your talents prove worthy of the Void Realm's recognition, the Gospel will not charge you a single cent for tuition."
Yet Yaxiu caught onto a word she had used earlier. "Supposedly?"
"Yes." Annan lightly flicked her amethyst earring. "I've never been to school.
"Most wealthy people never accept the basic education provided by Gospel Country."
"Why?"
"Because basic education isn't free. If you want it, you have to sign a contract and pay the price."
"What price?"
"Lifelong education."
Yaxiu blinked, genuinely confounded this time. "Accepting lifelong education is a price?"
Annan nodded, pointing toward a mature woman stepping out of a pod in an adjacent room. "Depending on age, everyone has a yearly quota of educational hours. The burden is heaviest during youth, with classes practically every day. After adulthood and employment, the hours drop drastically, but you still have to complete at least sixty hours of courses each month.
"Adult coursework offers total freedom. You can study whatever you like—building blocks, playing the harmonica, makeup artistry, film analysis... As long as your brain absorbs new knowledge, it counts toward your educational hours."
Yaxiu blinked. "Isn't that... a good thing?"
"I never said it wasn't." Annan gave a polite nod to the passing woman and headed up the stairs. "Gospel Country has enjoyed a technological explosion spanning three full decades, and the lifelong education system played a massive role in that."
"Then why don't the wealthy accept basic education?"
"Why weren't you willing to sign a lifetime contract with me, insisting on cutting it down to a hundred and one days?" Annan countered.
"That's a terrible analogy," Yaxiu protested immediately. "How can working like a beast of burden for you be compared to lifelong education? One is eating shit, the other is eating a decent meal!"
"You certainly aren't acting like my beast of burden right now." Annan arched an eyebrow. "Are you implying that I'm shit?"
"No, no, no. I'm the shit, you're the one eating it."
Annan laughed in sheer exasperation, losing her train of thought for a moment before continuing, "Just as you refuse to accept a lifetime contract, given the choice, we refuse to accept lifelong shackles. My family would rather have Banjie tutor my studies than let me sign a contract for basic education.
"Incidentally, Gospel Country offers another lifelong contract—or welfare benefit, if you prefer: lifelong labor. As long as you sign with the Labor Security Bureau, you'll receive the average societal wage even while unemployed. In return, the bureau assigns you suitable work.
"Of course, the job is guaranteed to satisfy the three golden rules: high pay, light workload, and close to home. It will also align perfectly with your interests, because job assignments are likewise handled by Gospel analytics. If no suitable position exists, the Gospel would rather you stay home and collect unemployment benefits.
"Extended unemployment is rare, however, because every enterprise must submit to the Labor Security Bureau's workforce allocations. Companies are only allotted a ten-percent hiring quota of their own; the remaining ninety percent must be supplied by the bureau. The fact that this policy remains healthy and operational to this day proves that the ninety percent are likely higher quality than the ten percent companies recruit themselves."
Lifelong education, lifelong labor... Then...
Yaxiu gave her a strange look. "Don't tell me there's a lifelong romance contract too?"
Annan chuckled and shook her head. "Hardly... Though it's true the Book of Gospel can find you a match made in heaven—provided you saved the world in a past life.
"Most of the time, the Book of Gospel can locate treasures buried deep underground, calculate the weight of the sun, and chart the rhythm of the moon, but it cannot hand us flawless love.
"However..." The corner of Annan's lips curled into a subtle arc. "If you merely want to choose the most compatible partner from among your acquaintances, the Book of Gospel can certainly arrange that.
"Love is a luxury, but marriage is not. Lifelong marriages are standard practice here. While not mandatory, the vast majority of people finish their intermediate education at age seventeen, marry the most compatible match in their social circle, mate at the optimal time dictated by the Gospel, and bear the healthiest children... Proven by history, everyone who follows this path finds happiness.
"The right education, the right career, the right spouse. If life had a difficulty setting, signing those three lifelong contracts would set yours to Easy Mode. All you need to do is quietly listen to the Gospel, and the world will reveal its gentlest embrace to you."
Unlocking one's hidden talents, securing a job that offered personal fulfillment even if it wasn't grand, having a spouse with whom one could weather life's storms even if they weren't perfect... Thinking about it, Yaxiu felt a pang of envy. He'd have to read his old manager's motivational chicken-soup posts a few more times to snap out of it.
Yet all those blessings were merely the baseline social safety net for the average citizen of Gospel.
If normal Gospel citizens were playing on Easy, Yaxiu's previous life was at least Hard Mode—the kind where developers suggest first-time human players avoid picking it.
His current life was even wilder, having slapped on an "Extra Brutal Starting Conditions" expansion mod where every enemy was buffed across the board.
Looking back, starting out by getting skewered by Gerard, a Three-Winged Sanctuary Sorcerer, was practically a dimensional beatdown from a max-level raid boss. If any game dared pull that stunt in its opening minutes, players would be refunding it within two hours guaranteed.
Still...
Yaxiu asked, puzzled, "All of that sounds pretty great. What do you have against it, Miss Annan?"
"I have nothing against it," Annan said with a smile. "On the contrary, I'm grateful for this functioning system. It is precisely because the Gospel's melody is so melodious that a dissonant note like myself can ring so piercingly loud.
"We're here."
They reached the third floor and stopped outside a room. The young lady pointed toward Pod 15 inside. "That's my target in there. An orc sorcerer, but a production sorcerer with zero combat capability. The rest is your job, Yaxiu."
Yaxiu glanced around. "You want me to commit murder inside a school?"
"Of course not. Our agency consists of law-abiding citizens," Annan said. "Just drag him out, rough him up, and tell him to get lost. I picked this mission specially for you."
"Huh? Why was this assigned to me?"
"Because your other two companions don't look like the type to pull their punches. They're better suited for deep services ending in death or permanent maiming."
Yaxiu found himself at a loss to refute her. Pondering for a moment, he suddenly remembered the Ox Hide sorcery spirit he had obtained in the Void Realm. It clearly belonged to the ascetic faction, but using it directly provided a temporary boost to defense, which was why Yaxiu had held onto it instead of feeding it to the system.
He activated the Ox Hide spirit to bolster his defense. His fair, healthy skin immediately took on a faint bronze sheen. Putting on the mask Igola had given him, he instantly looked like a delinquent looking for trouble.
"Is he a bad guy?" Yaxiu asked suddenly.
"Not really," Annan replied, glancing at him. "Just someone who cares too much about saving face."
Saying nothing more, Yaxiu entered the room and spotted an emergency call button beside the pod. He pressed it, and Pod 15 promptly slid open to both sides.
An orc of average build emerged, staring blankly at Yaxiu. "Who are you?"
Yaxiu: "******"
The orc beamed with surprised delight. "Really? My father passed away a few years ago, and my mother never found a new companion. She'd definitely like you!"
Yaxiu: "******"
The orc scratched his head. "Haha, I'm not that bright. Even when I come to study, I mostly focus on technical skills; I can never understand the theory."
Yaxiu fell into deep contemplation. In the end, he decided to stand on tiptoe and slap the back of the orc's head.
"Why aren't you wearing a hat?"
Chapter 270