Chapter 1 The Beginning

Hao Ren fiddled with the small metal piece in his hand, not feeling anything special about it—in fact, it looked quite ordinary.

It was just a palm-sized, rhomboid-shaped piece of iron, looking like a reinforcement part that had fallen off an old wooden farm tool. It was gray-black in color, with weathered marks of wear and tear. One side was smooth, while the other had winding, vein-like patterns, like the kind of pictographs deliberately engraved on fake antiques to fool people. Hao Ren could confirm that it was just ordinary iron: he had tested it with a magnet.

"Let me see." Vivian snatched the small iron piece without explanation, holding it close to her eyes and turning it over and over. Seeing this, Hao Ren finally reacted: "You recognize this thing?"

"...Not sure, but I should have seen it somewhere," Vivian frowned slightly. "Not this exact thing, but I've seen the symbol on it. Where did you get it?"

"I don't know," Hao Ren scratched his head. "I remember having this thing when I was very, very young. I was only four or five years old then, and a little kid that age wouldn't notice if there was something extra or missing in their toy box. I just remember that I must have picked it up myself, and for some reason, I treasured this thing back then. My family cleaned out old stuff several times, but I couldn't bear to throw it away."

Vivian was clearly not satisfied with this answer. She pinched the small iron piece, stroking the patterns on it with her fingers, and recalled for a good two minutes before looking up. "I definitely have seen this symbol, and it was a long, long time ago... I mean, at least a thousand or eight hundred years ago. But I can't remember the details—you know my memory is a bit faulty, things get muddled over time."

Hao Ren swallowed. He didn't hear anything else clearly, only the words "thousand or eight hundred years," and his heart filled with joy. "Are you saying this thing might be an antique?! And possibly a thousand-year-old antique?!"

Vivian rolled her eyes at Hao Ren. "You can try selling it at the antique market and see if anyone wants it."

Hao Ren smiled awkwardly, knowing that his petty bourgeois mentality had flared up again. So he stopped mentioning selling the antique for money, but he still carefully put away the small iron piece. Even if it wasn't worth anything, the fact that it could make Vivian, this millennia-old monster, so surprised made it a treasure.

After that, the two continued to tidy up the house. There weren't many杂物 (zawu, miscellaneous items) piled up here originally, and Hao Ren often came down to clean, so the work was completed quickly. Before long, the miscellaneous items that needed to be moved were thrown into the small storage room next door. Hao Ren also cleared out half a box of old junk that should have been thrown away long ago, and the basement became a clean, new room. There was a bed, a table, a chair, and even a network cable interface, but the only thing missing was the big sun that Vivian hated the most: the basement's only window was a small skylight on the top of the west wall, half-buried under the foundation of the main house. Sunlight only shone directly into it when the sun was setting, which suited Vivian's lifestyle.

Hao Ren still felt that letting a beautiful girl of Vivian's level (please remember that the vampire girl is always seventeen years old) live in the basement was a waste, but seeing the cleaned room was pretty good, so his sense of guilt was slightly reduced. More importantly, Vivian looked especially happy. She enthusiastically helped Hao Ren pat off the dust from his body, smiling like a flower: "Landlord, you're such a good person, thank you. No one has ever been this good to me when I was making a living outside. Back then..."

Okay, the vampire girl could talk about her hard times for thousands of years, but we know that this unlucky girl has finally ushered in a good life after being in financial straits for thousands of years—at least in her opinion, her current life is pretty good. This girl is easy to satisfy to an outrageous degree, just as easy to raise as Lily.

It might take a few more days for Izhaks to adapt to his new life here, and it would also take a few more days for Vivian, as the cook, to adapt to the second glutton who suddenly appeared in the house (the first glutton was Lily, who could eat three bowls of noodles in one go). The adjustment period between the new tenants had just begun, and according to Hao Ren's observation, the situation was currently stable: the Great Demon was a kind and non-contentious guy with a good temper that was completely opposite to his race's setting. In this way, Hao Ren didn't have to worry about his daily life becoming even more chaotic. Good heavens, with Lily and Vivian around, if there was another hot-tempered person in this house, Hao Ren would have to consider sleeping on the streets.

Since he didn't have to worry about the house breaking out into a fight for the time being, Hao Ren naturally had to pay attention to his work unit: he hadn't seen Raven 12345 for several days, and he had accumulated a lot of questions.

So, on a clear and cloudless morning with a gradually cooling autumn breeze, Hao Ren boarded the broken bus to Wangbatouzi. After a journey that was as rustic as it could get, he arrived at that mighty and imposing place: the Paradise Earthly Branch Office, abbreviated as the Earthly Office.

Raven 12345's luxurious mansion seemed to always be the same. The space it occupied seemed to be frozen in time, solidified in a misty morning. The mansion grounds were pleasantly scenic, while outside the grounds, a layer of impenetrable fog always lingered. Hao Ren sometimes had the whimsical idea of going into that fog to see if he could discover the secrets of this "God Realm," but he never managed to do so. He didn't even dare to mention it to Raven 12345—heaven knows if that neurotic woman would simply give him a brick to the head after hearing his fanciful idea.

Hao Ren was led to Raven 12345's office by a blue elemental servant. As soon as he pushed open the door, he saw the goddess absorbed in studying an image floating in mid-air behind her desk. Seeing the look of furrowed brows and deep thought on her face, Hao Ren was shocked: this unreliable fellow was actually working seriously!

At this time, Raven 12345 had already sensed someone coming in and greeted him casually: "Yo, Hao Ren, long time no see, you look good, did you get over your jet lag?"

"Uh, okay, okay," Hao Ren could never enter the mental state of "mortal paying homage" every time he met this goddess. Over time, he simply got used to it, treating it as meeting the department manager at work. "I came here to..."

"Don't rush, report the details of this mission," Raven 12345 waved her hand. "What you said the other day was too brief, I can't write the files."

Listen to that, how formal! God even has to write files...

Hao Ren had no choice but to clear his throat and tell the story of his experience in England a few days ago, and this time he focused on the undead under Yoford Castle and that half-baked demon hunter named Nangong. He felt that this was the biggest accident in the mission, so it was worth mentioning. After listening, Raven 12345 was silent for a few seconds and asked Hao Ren a question: "What do you think was the biggest difficulty you encountered in your mission?"

Hao Ren was silent for a few seconds before finally speaking frankly: "A mortal body, I really can't do this deadly job—I think I still need some combat power, even if I don't have combat power, it's good to have some self-preservation ability. When I was in the palace, I almost died just following Lily, and most of the time, let alone fighting little monsters, I was trying to prevent myself from being beaten by them. This could kill people! You said the physical enhancement did arrive, but is this arrival rate a little slow? Or you can give me a less deadly task next time..."

"The work I gave you is already the simplest, the remaining contemporaries only have a task to mediate the war in Betelgeuse, are you going?" Raven 12345 rolled her eyes. "But it's true that you need to exercise and strengthen, relying solely on physical adjustment can only give you a foundation, real combat power requires training. How about this, I'll give you..."

Before Raven 12345 could finish speaking, Hao Ren immediately perked up: "Give me a secret manual is it? As expected this thing should exist!"

"Heh—" Raven 12345 squinted at Hao Ren. "You read too many novels, and do you think you'll reach the sky in one step if I really give you a secret manual or something? That thing also needs to be learned and trained, it takes mortals two months of doing exercises to familiarize themselves with the formula to release a fireball, arcane magic requires higher mathematics knowledge. Do you think it's like in the game, you can readily create an ice arrow by double-clicking on a skill book—dream on. A guy who complains about suffering when looking at a math problem, even if he has a forbidden spell encyclopedia, he can't learn it, just the 'ten years of casting, thirty years of simulation' question bank at the beginning is enough to make him cry. So... do you still want a secret manual?"

Hao Ren: "..."