King of Gold!

*Drip, drop...* The crisp sound echoed in the quiet, cramped Black Chamber. Water droplets fell into the tank, sending out ripples. Bai Zhou drew closer, scrutinizing this Crown of Thorns from up close. This ancient and ornate crown. It was rather thorny. —In the literal, physical sense, or rather, prickly to hold. What did it feel like to grip thorns in one's bare hands? What was the experience of hugging a cactus with both hands? Bai Zhou bared his teeth in pain, genuinely struggling to suppress the urge to complain. Could Empress Irene, who wore a crown like this, really have been free of some peculiar masochistic streak? How was this any different from balancing a cactus on one's forehead? Spines sprouting from one's head—talk about truly having "prominent horns"! *Hum—* Abruptly. Bai Zhou's Fate Principle, that white sun, grew restless without warning. In the next instant, As if echoing the agitation of [Chen], an unexpected change occurred. The iron thorns on the crown seemed to come alive, slowly proliferating and creeping outward as twenty-four sharp barbs glinted with a keen edge. "What the..." Bai Zhou held up the crown with extreme caution, watching the mutation unfold in shock and suspicion, ready at any moment to toss it back into the water. Other than the [Chen] Fate Principle, if someone with a different Fate Principle approached, would the crown react like this...? The next second, vivid, dazzling crimson blood slowly trickled down from the tips of the twenty-four thorns. This blood of unknown origin flowed slowly along the ancient, intricate, and ornate engravings. Meandering lines of blood blossomed, and wherever they passed, the patterns glowed faintly. It was as if the crown were weeping blood. Crimson tears of blood dripped onto Bai Zhou's fingertips, startling and vivid. In the dim Black Chamber, it was an eerie, spine-chilling sight. Yet for some reason, Bai Zhou felt an inexplicable sense of solemn majesty, an epic desolation... a solemn ritual. *Bathed in blood, don the crown...* An understanding suddenly dawned in his heart. The riddle was written right on its face. Now, the blood was here. All that remained was "donning the crown." Should he put it on? Bai Zhou hesitated slightly. Mainly, he feared the pain. Yet in the end, he gritted his teeth. So what if it was a cactus? Put it on! If you don't want to eat people, you have to eat bitterness! The dying wish had stated it clearly: *Bathed in blood, don the crown.* He believed the dying wish, and he had no reason not to... Wasn't this the very reason he came here? No matter how bad it was, it couldn't be worse than being trapped in the base's desperate straits, helpless to do anything! —Of course, the primary reason was: he was already here anyway! "..." With that thought in mind, Bai Zhou looked around. Confirming that the surroundings were quiet and empty, he slowly raised the blood-weeping crown toward his head... Bai Zhou's movements were slow—extraordinarily slow. He lowered his head, muscles taut, eyes tilted upward, constantly monitoring every flutter of movement from the crown in case of any mishap. Though he was willing to believe the dying wish, he remained instinctively wary of every mystical object. ...When the ancient crown was only a hand's breadth away from Bai Zhou, another anomaly struck! The twenty-four thorns on the crown suddenly hummed and vibrated in unison, as if resisting Bai Zhou's motion. In the twelve empty spaces cradled by the curves atop the twenty-four thorns, golden light faintly bloomed. "?" In the next instant, before Bai Zhou could react, his heart felt as though it had been struck by lightning. The clear world before his eyes vanished. In a daze, Bai Zhou saw past this cramped Black Chamber, past this underground base, and beheld a sky that did not belong to this world. Twelve blazing stars manifested, revolving, interweaving, and overlapping with one another. Slumbering golden giants awakened atop them, and then, their gazes cast downward. Across an expanse of starry sky, separated by an unknowable distance. They—or rather, *They*—were looking at him. —This was far beyond the scope of anything he could handle! The alarms inside Bai Zhou's mind wailed frantically. Where had these golden giants come from? Something like this—how did the Special Control Bureau dare classify it as a mere F-rank Black Box? Now he even had reason to suspect that not just the organization, but even Crow did not know enough about this crown! The colossal pressure made it impossible for him to breathe. Just as Bai Zhou's spine turned ice-cold and his heart was crushed to the verge of stopping... Beside his ears, twelve grand, solemn proclamations rang out in succession— "This is not one who inherits the throne—unacknowledged." "This is not one who resists injustice—unacknowledged." "This is not one who has saved the world—unacknowledged." "..." These grand proclamations seemed to echo from ancient eternity, descending from the unknown heavens, reverberating in Bai Zhou's ears in different tones a full twelve times. Bai Zhou had only caught the specific words of the first three proclamations before feeling as if struck by a hammer, dazed and mentally reeling, his head buzzing. He could no longer make out the rest at all; straining with every ounce of effort, he could only hear the trailing refrains of nine more "unacknowledged"s. In the next moment, Bai Zhou felt those crushing gazes that had nearly suffocated him pull away. The starry expanse he had seen in his daze dimmed. The twelve stars sank back into slumber. They—or rather, *They*—seemed to have rested eternally in that night sky since an age lost to time. Solemn and silent. Waiting, as They always had. ... —*What was that?!* Bai Zhou hastily pulled the crown away as if shocked by electricity. Only when he was certain no further sounds would reach his ears did he finally let out a long breath. Acknowledge what? Did one have to be acknowledged by *Them* just to put on the crown? Would wearing it turn someone into a god or something? Did putting it on require passing twelve trials in advance? King of Gold... Perhaps it was far more mystical than Bai Zhou had ever imagined. "This crown..." Bai Zhou cautiously stared at the quiet, alien crown before him. The ancient, blurred dying wish hung in the air, serene and still, as if existing for eternity. Yet looking at it now brought an entirely different sensation. The sensation of surviving a catastrophe surged in Bai Zhou's heart. Never before had Bai Zhou felt the insignificance and helplessness of his own life as acutely as he just had. He even felt that even if Crow—who had once cleaved stars and severed moons—stood here, he wouldn't fare much better. —For that was already a transcendent existence far beyond the realm of human comprehension, something that could neither be understood nor defined. It seemed that even such suffocating oppression was merely a passing glance cast across infinite distance, devoid of any subjective malice. Resisting injustice? Having saved the world? What kind of requirements were these? When Irene put on the crown, had she also received *Their* acknowledgment? Bai Zhou truly wasn't looking down on that spinning-wheel-pedaling older sister... but he reserved his judgment on that. *Clatter...* *Roll, roll, roll...* Something rolled off the crown and onto the floor. Bai Zhou looked down and was astonished to discover that it was the blood trickling from the tips of the Crown of Thorns, having dripped onto the floor. The blood deformed upon hitting the ground, congealing into several plump little golden beads that rolled across the floor. Bai Zhou carefully lowered the crown back into the distilled water tank, then bent down to pick up the golden beads one by one. The cold golden beads felt heavy in his hand. No matter how Bai Zhou probed them, the golden beads seemed to be nothing more than ordinary gold pellets; aside from being somewhat rounded, no abnormality could be discerned at all. Four-nines pure gold—the genuine article! No one would ever imagine they were formed from the crown's congealed blood. "This is...?" Squatting on the ground studying the golden beads, Bai Zhou suddenly blinked. His fingertips felt an unusual texture on a golden bead—the tactile sensation was microscopic, yet unmistakably there. With a slight stir in his heart, Bai Zhou raised his head and brought the golden bead right before his eyes, so close it nearly brushed his eyelashes. He activated a mote of spirituality near the glabella between his brows, stimulating a surge in his vision. Even in the pitch-black chamber devoid of light, everything before him became visible down to the finest detail. Even if a mosquito flew past right now, Bai Zhou would be able to tell whether it was male or female. —This, of course, was also the fruit of Crow's special training. Channeling spirituality to stimulate and drastically enhance specific physical attributes was the most common application of spirituality. Even something so basic was beyond what ordinary people could imagine... With the aid of his enhanced, peak vision, Bai Zhou finally managed to faintly discern the emblem on the golden bead—one that pushed far past the limits of human eyesight. It was exquisite micro-carving, the incisions unimaginably tiny— A sharply defined shield occupied the center, and in front of the shield, a longsword and a saber of distinct designs crossed against each other. It was an emblem brimming with power and warning. It was an imprint. "It's—" Bai Zhou's heart gave a sudden thud, skipping half a beat as the fingers holding the golden bead unconsciously tightened. This imprint—he recognized it, and intimately so. —It marked the "Adventurer" pathway!