Chapter 17: Waiting for the Truth

With the arrival of dawn, the exhausted candidates vanished one by one.

It seemed everything ended here?

Li En stood up, stretched his body; the seeds he intended to sow had all been scattered, leaving only the guidance to wrap things up.

"With them, my plan can be executed."

Yes, a plan; Li En actually already had a train of thought regarding the Tail-Beheading Case.

But he possessed neither combat power nor capable executors; no matter how good the plan, it was merely empty talk.

And now, barring any unexpected events, he would soon gain combat power and some very useful pawns.

He had originally intended to dissipate here; at this moment, he vaguely sensed a gaze.

A very familiar look in the eyes.

At the entrance of the hall, a small figure's vertical pupils suddenly changed, attempting to strip away its disguise!

"Heh, you've already discovered the rules of this dream, knowing you can reconnect after voluntarily severing the link? Interesting."

She, the Dragon Hunter who had secretly reconnected, hid in the shadows, trying to use her gifted eyes to see the truth.

She did not know that as the master of the dream, the moment she connected, Li En already knew.

She even more so did not know that the eyes looking over here were very familiar to Li En, extremely familiar, too familiar.

"Little one, little she-dragon, didn't your father teach you not to use Dragon Eyes on people in Dragonkin indiscriminately? The side that reveals Dragon Eyes first is regarded as initiating an attack."

The Heroic Soul's voice sounded beside the little girl's ear; the sound echoing around her body seemed to be right in front of her.

She was suddenly startled; Dragonkin were not something that could be made public in this kingdom, let alone her extremely special identity.

Fortunately, she looked left and right, confirmed no one else was in the hall, and realized only she could hear this voice, so she breathed a sigh of relief.

The next moment, she glared back fiercely.

"My father died long ago." The girl spoke word by word; Li En read her lip movements.

Su Er shrugged, his low "sorry" lacking much sincerity.

And why a father? Because according to Su Er's experience, with such high bloodline concentration, the possibility of direct dragon bloodline was quite high.

If it were maternal, it would mostly be a half-dragon rather than a Dragonkin.

In fact, the sources of Dragonkin across the Pan-Continent were too numerous; the nature of dragons being lustful is understood by all, and the types, branches, and subspecies of Dragonkin carrying meager dragon blood are simply too many to count.

There is actually a hellish joke here: direct Dragonkin are mostly fatherless in most cases, because great dragons are born with mothers but raised without them.

This obviously also exceeded Li En's knowledge; his understanding of the Dragon Clan should be zero, merely prompts given by the "Virtual AI Prompter" based on the apprentice.

"AI Su Er" constantly provided choices for every action, every thought, and every word; Li En only needed to make choices instinctively.

Even when he didn't understand... as the Heroic Soul spoke, he understood.

Li En noticed that it seemed he could also piggyback on knowledge.

It seemed he could only piggyback on some knowledge through interactions with his disciples.

"Perhaps I can guide these disciples to ask questions for which I want the answers..."

At this moment, Li En felt even more grateful for Su Er's arrangement; without a backdoor candidate, if he had to maintain the persona of a powerful Heroic Soul, his ability to interfere would be limited.

Facing the angry little girl, Li En remained completely unconcerned.

"Why haven't you left yet? It's dawn." Although he asked, Li En, who had already pulled out a barbecue grill, clearly didn't care about the answer.

If she came to find him to eat barbecue... hmm, let's eat together.

The barbecue meat cooked unreasonably fast; the sacred hall was filled with the scent of meat.

The little girl was obviously not this idle; after confirming no one else was in the hall, she gritted her teeth and asked a question, a question she had always longed for an answer to.

"The former Hero, the kingdom's former Hero Lex Thorne, has he also become a Heroic Soul?!"

"I don't know." Li En brushed it off casually, but looking up, he saw a puffed-up, angry face.

The little one was quite rude, directly grabbing Li En's barbecue and shoving it into her mouth.

Seeing this scene, Li En smiled and continued grilling the next skewer.

The old man grills, the child eats; it looked just like a grandfather taking care of his grandson... Considering this strange kinship resonance and sense of closeness, Li En felt no aversion.

The girl ate bigger and bigger mouthfuls... She also discovered that while it was delicious, she didn't need to worry about her figure or dieting, instantly overjoyed!

"Slow down, no one is fighting you for it." Saying this, Li En also casually handed over a cup of water; this truly wasn't Li En's operation, the whole process was the work of the skin.

Looking at the little girl with a messy face from eating, Li En smiled and spoke.

"Lex Thorne..."

"Uh!" The girl suddenly stopped; the next moment, she covered her throat, choked.

This truly wasn't Li En playing a prank; feeling both annoyed and amused, he patted the other's back to help her catch her breath.

But as the other stopped coughing, she stared at him fiercely, expecting an answer.

"... I do know a little about his abilities and story; he should be qualified to become a Heroic Soul. But we Heroic Souls cannot perceive each other before being awakened; the moment of death, our lives have ended and stagnated. So I truly don't know."

Instantly, the girl's expression collapsed; then, she turned her attention back to the barbecue feast.

Eat, I'll eat all your meat! Drink all your water!

"I... thought you would ask about the current Hero, Laina." Suddenly, another blow came.

"Cough, cough, cough!" The sudden sound interrupted the girl's eating again.

This time, she covered her neck, lay on the ground for a long while, and only after a long time did she come to her senses.

She looked at him with a heart full of resentment; this time, however, she was not so agitated.

"Do you know her whereabouts?"

"Heh, who knows? Maybe I know, maybe I don't." Li En smiled, continuing to toy with the other using ambiguous words.

With the girl's expectations dashed once again, she ignored the old thing with bad taste, lowered her head, and focused on eating her fill.

Don't say, although the meat taste was a bit strange, something she had never eaten before, and the spices were too, it was truly delicious.

The dream was destined to end; the thoughtful, well-fed girl, as she vanished, couldn't resist flipping the old man off and pulling a face.

Li En himself didn't care; he noticed the other's dazed look and knew his goal had been achieved.

"He, the Heroic Soul, still has spies outside; otherwise, there would be no reason to know about the second-generation Heroine Laina." It seemed the smart girl had already grasped this information.

Next was to guide further, letting his true identity enter the stage.

Watching the show from the sidelines might be safe, but that wasn't his style.

"Tsk, looks like I should wake up." The hall began to crumble; even the longest night had ended.

Saying "wake up," Li En woke up.

"Familiar ceiling."

Waking from the dream once more, Li En instantly grabbed the long sword by his bed, his subconscious alert to his surroundings.

This was the habit of the Sul body he had just shed; one must always be ready for battle.

No one could determine whether the voice waking him was a comrade's call or an enemy's backstab.

The next moment, he shook his head. This wasn't the wilderness full of demonic beasts and bandits; he needed some time to adapt.

Looking out the window, though the scenery was exactly the same, though his body and strength were nearly unchanged, Li En's mood was completely different.

Before, it was purely a hellish difficulty of a moth flying into the fire; now, it seemed there was a solution path.

"Dragon Hunter, Shadow Arbiter, Moth, and Bone Breaker..."

At Li En's request, they eventually grew accustomed to each other's "aliases."

Afterwards, during the dream training, they would only be allowed to use aliases; ideally, they should use them in reality too.

After all, the simplest way to monopolize a Heroic Soul was to eliminate all competitors directly in reality; Li En even vaguely hinted that they were not the first batch of chosen ones, and strange things had occurred before.

Was it true? He didn't know, but Li En had woven a story; he seemed to have found a way to solve his identity problem.

For the authenticity of this story, he didn't intend to say it himself; he waited for those juniors to "dig out the truth" on their own.

This, too, was a probe and a trial.

Those chosen by "Simple Justice" should have high moral values, but overly fanatical justice can also lead to "sacrifice."

Paladins aren't incapable of doing bad things; as long as it's for the "greater good," they can sometimes be brutally unbelievable.

"Slightly exceeding expectations, but still within a controllable range."

That dragonkin girl, at the very beginning, even tried to seize the initiative using information.

The Heroic Soul Sul, however, used strength to tell everyone who was in charge here.

Golden Race? What difference does it make? Under that door-sized greatsword, all beings are equal.

In that state, Li En was another Sul, a Heroic Soul who had reached the end and was explosively strong.

After suppressing the dissent, Li En had initially gained trust and authority, yet he did nothing.

This was the first training session; the few present had been forcibly dragged in, their guard high, and Li En didn't intend to get any results or agreements.

In the final moments, he merely borrowed Sul's body to chat and deepen understanding.

He casually mentioned some anecdotes and past events from the era of the Holy Kingdom; whether they had the ability to verify them was their own business.

"... All quite unique, or rather, too unique."

Setting aside other things, excluding Shadow Arbiter who entered through Li En's backdoor, the other three's personalities were truly tough enough to argue even while lying down.

Li En's original idea was to let them probe each other within the dream, playing the game behind masks with adult methods.

But now, the identities of two of them were transparent; they had become enemies of each other. Unless something unexpected happened, Shadow Arbiter (Talia) would soon reveal her identity too.

"Um, I urgently need the holy artifact of 'Holy Power Art' and the 'Cursed Giant Strength Gauntlets'."

When the Heroic Soul Sul "casually" mentioned that the assessment wouldn't be limited to the dream, that they could cooperate in reality and trade what they lacked, she suddenly realized.

"I have no money, but I urgently need..."

Just as Li En expected, treating a dead horse as a living one, she directly proposed a request to purchase these two rare items on the spot.

As a tool, this old sister was quite qualified.

"The purity is too high; it's a bit embarrassing to use her."

However, this undoubtedly placed her in an extremely dangerous position; when you receive the goods, your true identity will naturally be exposed.

Letting this pawn in through the backdoor was also because Li En needed someone by his side who could stir up trouble and obtain a sliver of intelligence.

"... Need to treat her a bit better." Such a good tool is quite hard to find.

A righteous person shouldn't bleed and cry at the same time.

"What she wants most right now is probably to solve the Tail-Off case; if everything goes smoothly, it should take about a week."

Uh, there's one more update today.

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(End of Chapter)