Chapter 1 Surprising Choice

Although Tang Yuan voiced his unexpected and extremely shocked reaction, Su Zhou had no intention of changing his selection.

The most important reason was that Tang Yuan was the only subordinate he could truly call a confidant.

This wasn't surprising, considering Su Zhou had only started from scratch, having only been in contact with the supernatural world for three years. Although, during this time, Su Zhou had gotten to know many quasi-Dao families and many excellent transcendents, like Li Hanshan and Guan Wanjing, who were investments from the Chongming Bird family and the Weiwu lineage respectively. They sent their core descendants and disciples to be Su Zhou's team members.

But putting aside the fact that they hadn't graduated yet and couldn't officially join, even if they did, it could only be said that Su Zhou was starting to cultivate his own faction... The only subordinate truly promoted by Su Zhou himself, without any connection to others, was Tang Yuan.

Perhaps Shao Qiming's official joining in the future would improve this situation, but that was the reality for now.

Of course, even Su Zhou had to admit that he had always regarded this transcendent, who had been absorbed into the Security Bureau after severing ties with the Tang family and possessing special spiritualization abilities, in a different light.

Tang Yuan had no parents, no family, no friends, and no complicated relationships... This hardworking young man didn't even have dreams, whether it was revenge, desire, wanting to stand higher, or holding greater power and wealth. He didn't care about any of it. He had no determination to become stronger for his own sake.

The reason Tang Yuan strived so hard was only for Leng Xiaxia, the little girl who had no blood relation to him. He was only doing it for those children who were disabled for various reasons, those people he only met once, or had never even met.

This fellow, who was as pale as a ghost because of his family's bloodline, was someone who would 'become stronger for the sake of other people's happiness'.

He had no dreams, but he wanted to protect the dreams of others.

That was why the power of vows would coalesce into a Vow Soul, granting power to such a person.

That was why Su Zhou admired him.

This feeling was like seeing a gentler version of himself, with worse opportunities and luck, and a more peaceful life.

"What's wrong? You don't seem too willing?"

Reaching out, Su Zhou patted Tang Yuan's shoulder, who was still in shock. Although Tang Yuan was older than Su Zhou in terms of age, he was a head shorter. Su Zhou returned to his desk, sat in his seat, and then looked seriously at the anti-poaching report in his hand. "Is there something wrong?"

"Yes..."

After hesitating for a moment, Tang Yuan stood in front of Su Zhou's desk and honestly reported, "I might need to stay in Tiandu for a while..."

"Sit down. Who told you to stand while talking?"

Signaling Tang Yuan to take a chair and sit down, Su Zhou flipped through the report in his hand, his eyes not looking up. "I'm guessing it's because of that little girl, Leng Xiaxia, or other children who need treatment? You can't get away from the tasks related to the Plague Saint?"

Su Zhou's guess wasn't strange. Ever since Tang Yuan demonstrated his spiritualization ability, which allowed congenitally disabled people to have soul synesthesia, allowing them to see and hear, the Plague Saint's project team had approached Tang Yuan, and the two parties had started some cooperation, achieving many related results.

As everyone knew, the mechanical prosthetic eye modification technology in Zheng Nation was very mature. There was even a Saint Seat personally endorsing it, proving the excellence of this achievement, and all congenitally disabled people could restore their normalcy through prosthetic transplants.

But not to mention the economic issues, mechanical devices connected to the human body not only caused rejection reactions in the flesh, but also in the soul... And Tang Yuan's ability to easily spiritualize even inanimate objects and connect them was the key to overcoming this problem.

"No, this was actually successfully tested at the end of June. Now there are a large number of zero-spiritual-rejection prosthetics on the market. Some ordinary men with less cultivation talent even want to replace parts of their bodies to get closer to transcendents..."

Tang Yuan waved his hands repeatedly. Clearly, this was indeed a social problem, but it wasn't the reason for his earlier hesitation.

Taking a deep breath, Tang Yuan said somewhat cautiously, "It's, it's Leng Xiaxia's grandmother—the old woman has a serious illness, and recently, because of poor cultivation, spiritual energy is impacting her brain. The incoordination between her brain and physical body awakening is causing some stroke and memory loss..."

Hearing this, Su Zhou stopped flipping through the report. He looked up, frowned, and looked at Tang Yuan. "You and Leng Xiaxia... Are more than ten years apart, right? The age gap between you two seems to be even greater than Leng Xiaxia's age."

"Ah, y-yes, indeed..."

"I can only warn you, if you want to make a move, it's best to wait six or seven years, otherwise, I'll have to personally send you to prison, or even execute you."

"That won't happen, absolutely not!"

While jokingly teasing Tang Yuan, who was frantically explaining, Su Zhou was thinking in his heart.

——This symptom, I've heard Yan Saint mention it.

The first resident of the electronic underworld, Ms. Li Xiaoxin, had the same condition back then.

Because of the rapid recovery of spiritual energy, the speed of spiritual awakening of various organs in the body was uncoordinated, resulting in various special 'spiritual energy cancers' appearing... Overly developed semi-spiritualized organs absorbed a large amount of nutrients from other organs, and even created barriers with other organs, unable to interact with each other. This kind of event was emerging endlessly in today's society.

This was not a matter to be underestimated.

The most terrifying thing was that this situation was not an exception, but a kind of norm. As long as the spiritual energy concentration continued to increase, this spiritual energy cancer would probably last for a long time.

"I understand."

Without saying anything more, Su Zhou directly entered a few sentences on his agent terminal, then looked up and said to Tang Yuan, "At that time, professional medical staff will go to take care of her. The same goes for Leng Xiaxia. They are all professionals, and for my sake, they will definitely do their best."

"...Thank you, Minister..."

Tang Yuan nodded, somewhat restrained and relieved.

"You don't need to thank me. It's my duty to solve problems for my subordinates."

Looking up at Tang Yuan, Su Zhou's tone deliberately became serious. "After all, it's hard to say whether you can safely return from this exploration mission, so I definitely have to arrange your funeral properly."

"?!"

Tang Yuan's face immediately turned pale again, and Su Zhou laughed again after scaring him. "Alright, the reason I chose you to accompany me this time is because the Qingqiu Secret Realm concerns the ancient immortals and gods. If there are any seals or barriers, I need you to take me through them."

"After all, with my strength, if I break the barrier or seal, I'm afraid I'll destroy everything inside along with it."

"Yes!"

When it came to his ability, the confidence in Tang Yuan's tone returned.

Objects and people spiritualized by Tang Yuan would possess a certain quantum tunneling effect in a short period of time. No matter how powerful the barrier or array was, as long as they could endure the pain, they could definitely pass through it. This unique ability, which had great value for exploration, was also a key point that Su Zhou valued in him.

"That's about it. The exploration starts on September 1st. I've already filled out the form for you. Go prepare now."

After reading all the reports in his hand and signing them, Su Zhou handed the reports to Tang Yuan, who had already stood up, and signaled him to send the reports away. As he left the office, the young man said, "This exploration is very precious. Try to seize every opportunity to become stronger."

"...Thank you very much, Minister!"

August 28, 2017, early morning.

Southern Zheng Nation, among the uninhabited mountains.

Following the dense bushes and jungles, passing through the mountains that had become wild due to the recovery of spiritual energy, one could hear the sounds of various black birds, insects, and spirit beasts.

The deeper one went into the mountains, the denser the spiritual energy became.

Gradually, the terrain began to become steep, and many towering and precipitous mountains began to blot out the sky, making people look around and only see nameless peaks.

And in the center of these mountains, a huge cyan-blue space-time gate connected to a pitch-black otherworld, and among the mountains, several huge fortresses leaning against the mountains had been built, faintly surrounding the space-time gate.

"We're leaving in two days..."

Su Zhou, who was already fully prepared, and Tang Yuan, together with other people who were about to explore Qingqiu, had spent a week of getting acquainted in this mountain fortress. Because everyone had already cooperated in the Beast God Realm, this aspect was the least worrying.

At this time, they were at the observation port of the two-world fortress, watching the situation around the portal.

In front of the two-world portal, a 150-meter-long research ship was releasing a light silver glow. The bottom of its armor flowed with blue spiritual energy, outlining mysterious colors, and a large number of staff members were surrounding the ship for the final pre-departure inspection.

However, what was surprising was that a considerable portion of these inspectors were not human, but arthropods walking like four-clawed crabs, the Talin from outer space.

Many Talin engineers and human engineers were jointly inspecting, and with the help of translators with an accuracy rate of up to 64% and soul communication, their communication was still relatively smooth.

And the most surprising thing was the two aliens standing beside Su Zhou and Tang Yuan in the two-world fortress.

Talin Captain, Ke Talun, and Klock Captain, K-Cole.