First in the Line of Succession; the Fate-Forger's Advancement Potion!

"Where are you going? C-can you..." The girl's halting voice rose at Bai Zhou's ear. The look in Fang Xiaoxia's eyes as she watched him held an uncertain hope, and a timid shrinking. For the girl, Bai Zhou's offhand "see you in a bit" had happened only in the instant just past. She did not shrink at all from standing at the youth's side. She only feared he would refuse. She hoped he would give her an answer in the affirmative, yet feared she would hold him back. "In time, you'll understand. For an Extraordinary, every night after midnight means a mystical world that only an Extraordinary can see and explore." Bai Zhou was saying things that left Fang Xiaoxia dazed, only half understanding. "And now—" Bai Zhou said, "I'm back." Fang Xiaoxia's mind fell into chaos amid the wind and rain. She had only watched Bai Zhou stand where he was and say "see you in a bit." Then he seemed to do nothing at all, and in the next second his legs had stopped aching and his back had stopped hurting. The pale, swaying, about-to-collapse weakness of a moment ago had vanished without a trace. His whole face was ruddy, his spirits bright. It was simply mysterious. "Well then, welcome back." Miss Crow, standing to one side, took up the words. Only Crow knew that Bai Zhou had not suddenly brimmed with vigor. He had already returned from the distant Ruin Realm to the present world, from the far side of Blue Star back to Blue Star's surface. But... Was something not quite right? Crow's fine brows lifted slightly. Intent? Such a surging battle intent surrounded Bai Zhou! The battle intent best suited to an Adventurer—why was it welling up so clearly around him? This did not look like the showing of a three-stage Intent Seed. It looked, rather, as if the seed had already grown into a tree that touched the sky... Could it be that Bai Zhou had already advanced successfully to Level 5, and become a Level 5 Heavenly Mandate [Adventurer]? Crow's ruby-like eyes widened slightly, her pupils contracting, and her usually light breathing grew a little uneven. "Hua..." A fine rain poured down. Threads of rain veiled the rolling mountains in the distance. Bai Zhou's figure was close at hand. Wind, rain, and the faint glow of the sparse streetlamps nearby all gathered upon him, and Crow slowly narrowed her eyes. "It seems this night was not so calm," Miss Crow said, her voice low and lingering. "Nor did you curl up in some corner of the Reflected Ruin Realm to heal." Bai Zhou met Crow's lingering gaze and blinked twice. In Crow's first expectation, Bai Zhou ought to have gone to the Reflected Ruin Realm to win twelve hours in which to recover. But as it looked now, Bai Zhou had likely planned this all along. Going to the Reflected Ruin Realm at exactly this time had been for the sake of advancement. Just like... before. "Same as always? Just how far will your secrets in the Reflected Ruin Realm let you advance?" Crow shook her head. "Every time, I think the last time was the limit." "I was even starting to think that, in the Reflected Ruin Realm, you had someone like me helping you too." More or less, Crow had come to understand how mysterious and inconceivable Bai Zhou—quietly developing under her guidance—must seem in the eyes of the other Extraordinaries of Tinghai. Words of shock had long since been said until she was numb to them, and Bai Zhou's strength still made Crow glad. At least Crow could always be sure that Bai Zhou was still that same Bai Zhou. Next, as usual, Crow would examine Bai Zhou's body and cleanse him of contamination. Yet just then. A voice both familiar and strange sounded at Bai Zhou's ear. "Clack... clack... clack-clack!" A grand and distant rumble, as if falling from the starry sky beyond the heavens. "This is...?" Bai Zhou blanked for a moment, then recognized it almost at once. This was the sound, like gears turning, from when the Xiluo Empire had authenticated and registered him as a ninth-rank citizen! The impression of gears vast as stars meshing and turning flashed before Bai Zhou's eyes. [Authentication Protocol activated.] [Warning! The Roman Spirit Web is activating... Data error. Information extraction.] [Citizen's Credential detected... Linked individual: Lucus Nies Nolanus.] [Parsing citizen information...] [Detecting... Not detected...] [Beep! Beep! Data error. Link error. Initiating emergency protocol—] A cold flood of information surged almost madly through Bai Zhou's mind. Warning after warning of errors exploded at his ear, the sound broken and intermittent, nothing like the smooth flow it had had in the Xiluo Empire. If one listened closely, the finer parts of the sound also differed from the "Spirit Web" of his time in the Xiluo Empire, making Bai Zhou suspect this was a remnant fragment of the Spirit Web, which had slumbered for who knew how long and suddenly awakened. But in the end all these sounds cut off, and a sudden quiet fell. After the sound had been silent for two seconds, Bai Zhou heard the cold voice rise again. [Emergency protocol initiated successfully.] [Citizen's Credential takes priority. Roman citizen detected. Ordered right of succession is...] [-1] [You possess the Roman Empire's foremost right of inheritance. You are the Roman Empire's First in the Line of Succession.] [This data has been entered into the Roman Spirit Web.] [—The Roman Empire shall forever be the firmest shield and spear at your back.] The voice receded and vanished. That voice came in a rush and left in a rush, as if it had come only to authenticate. Bai Zhou now had every reason to believe that at this moment, in the starry sky above Blue Star, a vast machine was floating—or else the wreckage of a machine. Upon it, gears more brilliant than gold turned slowly, recording the splendor and glory that had belonged to that civilization of old. Among that, of course, was the identity information of its citizens. Only... Bai Zhou was still a little dazed. Wasn't he the Xiluo Empire's 87,392,651,577th in the line of succession? How had he suddenly become... first? He had still been scoffing inwardly: what kind of person could wait until all 87,392,651,577 people ahead of him were dead, and endure his way into being the empire's so-called first in line... But now? Bai Zhou's thoughts turned, and he drew a deep breath. In the Xiluo Empire of the past, he had been a ninth-rank citizen at the very bottom, and ahead of him there had been no shortage of citizens with higher priority. But now, countless years later, on Blue Star, he truly was—the sole remaining person of the empire. The oldest seniority of all. The entire civilization had only Bai Zhou left as a legally registered citizen. If he did not inherit the empire, who would? "But..." Bai Zhou's brows drew together. That much was fair to say. But in this world, Roman civilization and the Xiluo Empire alike had long since become a heap of yellow earth. Nothing remained. There would be no imperial guard of Dragon Knights kneeling to pledge him allegiance, nor a Senate rising to help him smack the Major into slag. Never mind becoming first in the line of succession to the empire—even if there really were a throne for him to inherit... it seemed there was no practical benefit. Just as he was thinking this, before his thoughts had time to turn for even the span of one breath— "Hum!" A sudden stab of pain and heat at his fingertip drew Bai Zhou's attention. A low thrumming circled his ears. On the index finger of his left hand, the dark-gold ring twisted into shape from that Crown of Thorns flowed with a faint light only Bai Zhou could see. The change came without warning. The ring that had lain silent all this while seemed to come suddenly alive. Those once-dim, ancient, intricate fine patterns on its surface, like winding thorns, were now writhing and bulging madly. Metal thorns awakened, winding along Bai Zhou's palm and arm, climbing and spreading all the way. A gold-red light woke from within them, as if a noble beast had opened its eyes from slumber. The sharp metal thorns brought a dreadful sting and an irresistible majesty, leaving streak after streak of blood on Bai Zhou's arm. Crimson blood and exquisite thorns fused as one, and somehow took on a touch of bewitching beauty. "Hum, hum, hum!" The twelve spikes of the Crown of Thorns bloomed as one with blinding golden radiance, together forming a sacred ring of blazing light that enveloped Bai Zhou's figure. "What's happening?" Bai Zhou's heart felt as if it had taken a heavy blow, and the scene before his eyes blurred. His gaze drifted in a daze over the summit of Zhenlu Mountain before him, over the wind and rain filling the sky and the gloomy heavens, and at last passed the distant vault to arrive in a world dark, deep, and mysterious. Twelve shining stars appeared there, turning, interweaving, overlapping one another. They were immense, slowly revolving, wrapped in blinding golden radiance, impossible to look at directly, giving off an ancient majesty and a cold divinity. Yet the slumbering Golden Giants opened their eyes upon them. The awakened, majestic beings, across a starry sky of distance beyond measure, let their cold gazes fall upon Bai Zhou. "The Twelve Golden Giants again..." A scene that had once occurred rose again before Bai Zhou. His consciousness seemed to drift away, his vision blurring. Bai Zhou felt himself grown extraordinarily small, like a tiny ant pressed beneath a mountain under the watch of twelve pairs of eyes. His whole soul fused with the boundless dark solitude nearby. Twelve grand and solemn proclamations, as if bells had been struck, made Bai Zhou—about to melt into the dark—wake with a jolt, as if hauled up out of water. Then he heard those sacred proclamations resounding together beside his ear— "This is not one who resists injustice—not acknowledged." "This is not one who once saved the world—not acknowledged." "This is not one fearless and majestic—not acknowledged." It was still the proclamation of "not acknowledged" that Bai Zhou had experienced before. They seemed to come from a remote antiquity, falling from unknown skies beyond the heavens, hammering Bai Zhou's spirit until it rang and his consciousness scattered. But compared with last time, this time Bai Zhou clearly caught one more line: "This is not one fearless and majestic—not acknowledged." His consciousness could not bear the remaining eight. Under blow after blow like meteors falling straight upon his soul, he could not make out the words that followed. At the same time, of the twelve mysterious spikes of the Crown of Thorns wound about Bai Zhou's hand, the golden radiance on the surfaces of eleven had quietly gone out. Until— a sacred phantom of a Golden Giant rose from the first star, holding up the sky. Whoosh! Light lit the boundless dark through and through. The Golden Giant's phantom gradually grew clear. The cold gaze deepened, as if it had taken on some feeling, and fell from afar upon Bai Zhou, who was undergoing the "Twelve Judgments." A grand voice rose slowly, not so cold, but more solemn and magnificent, like a final proclamation in which the dust had settled and destiny had returned to its place. It was not a "not acknowledged" like the other voices, and it was clearer and heavier than any time before—as if the weight of the entire crown were being set lightly upon someone's shoulders: They said: "This is one who inherits the throne..." "—Acknowledged!" The instant the words fell. "Bong!!!" Bai Zhou seemed to hear a bell explode into sound, then the muffled, solemn striking of a great drum. He even heard the grand echo of horns. The golden light on the surface of the last spike of the crown surged in answer. The light grew ever more fierce, and at last became a pure-gold pillar of light that pierced heaven, coiling as it rose from the crown into the sky. The pure-gold pillar shot straight toward the distant end of the sky, and at last, above the sky, became a complex, noble, ancient, and sacred golden mark. It slowly descended and quietly became one with Bai Zhou. Immediately after, the phantoms of the twelve Golden Giants turned their gazes over as one. They ought to have been twelve gazes of scrutiny, but now the scrutiny had entirely become something else. With the fall of the golden brand, They seemed to awaken all at once. In Their gazes was an ancient and sacred entrustment, heavier than a world. In this moment, Bai Zhou saw it clearly— those twelve vast, sacred, unfathomable Golden Giants— They... were inclining their heads to Bai Zhou! The next instant. Their figures vanished. Together with the twelve sacred stars beneath Their feet, together with that whole expanse of ancient, eternal, mysterious dark void, all of it slowly dissipated. In the depths of that forever-lonely starry sky, where perhaps even time had little meaning— the slumbering Ones would go on waiting. "Hah!" Bai Zhou came back to himself and dropped to sit on the ground. One hand braced on the ground, his face a ghastly white. As he gasped in great breaths, his forehead was covered in a fine sheen of cold sweat, mixing with the rain on his face. His heart pounded wildly in his chest and would not stop. There was no longer any vision before his eyes. The winding, climbing metal thorns, the blood flowing on his arm, the pillar of golden light—all of it had vanished. Bai Zhou almost thought everything just now had been a dream. But when he lowered his head, he saw that the dark-gold thorn ring on the index finger of his left hand, calm again, had quietly undergone a change not easily noticed. For instance, the twelve spikes of the Crown of Thorns. Between every two spikes there had originally been a curve, their tips set toward each other, as if cradling something. Now, in one of those empty places, a translucent half gem that only Bai Zhou could see floated unsteadily between them, now there and now gone. "Half a gem?" Bai Zhou remembered clearly. In the Xiluo Empire, atop the head of the statue enshrined at the center of the Senate branch, between those twelve figures, six gems of different colors were clearly cradled! And not only that— just now, in the instant the Golden Giant acknowledged Bai Zhou, knowledge had clearly poured from the Crown of Thorns into his mind. Only now did Bai Zhou have time to look closely. "This is..." Bai Zhou suddenly froze. [Potion formula for advancement to "Trialist"] "[Trialist]?" Bai Zhou did not understand at first, but he soon found the answer within this knowledge. "So the Adventurer pathway is a general name for a pathway. The starting point of that pathway is [Adventurer]. It corresponds to the broad term 'Professional,' and is the first major stage of what Crow calls an Extraordinary!" "And what follows on the Adventurer pathway, corresponding to the broad term 'Fate-Forger'—is that [Trialist]?" "So a major-stage advancement on the Heavenly Mandate pathway requires a potion to go with it?" As Bai Zhou digested and understood the knowledge, his expression soon went blank again. "Different potion formulas also differ in the strength of the advancement, and in its flaws?" "This does match what the Wolf Knight statue said—that on the [Adventurer] pathway, Trojan civilization might be inferior to Rome..." "But this potion formula the Crown of Thorns passed to me..." Bai Zhou looked at the ring on the index finger of his left hand, his heart thumping. "It is the Fate-Forging secret art acclaimed as the strongest of the [Adventurer] pathway since ancient times, the perfect potion of the Roman Empire best suited to the [Adventurer] pathway—" "an exclusive formula made solely for the Roman emperor and the emperor's heir?!"