Chapter 379: Xavier

Xavier stared at Wu Chang's unharmed chest, his entire worldview in doubt.

The dagger he wielded carried not ordinary steam rules, but divine power.

Divine power!

He could pierce gods with that dagger—even gods—and yet why couldn't it scratch Wu Chang's skin?

Xavier couldn't understand; he could only attribute it to Wu Chang using some other method, just as he himself came to the Sacred Ground empty-handed, while Wu Chang carried the Lake Light Sacred Sword.

He muttered, "Unfair—this duel has no fairness or honor whatsoever!"

Wu Chang immediately grew displeased and said:

"Duels within the Sacred Ground are absolutely fair. When I explained the rules to you, you should have sensed it."

"If you're weak, train more. If you can't lose, don't play. You failed at a sneak attack and now you cry unfair? You've condensed divine power within you—when you fight a mere mortal like me, did I ever say it was unfair?"

Xavier had no rebuttal to Wu Chang, but his instinct told him Wu Chang must be hiding something.

Seeing that Xavier had nothing more to say, Wu Chang prepared to end the battle.

If you have words, speak them to me in your resentment.

He raised the Lake Light Sacred Sword in his hand and said:

"Every ability I possess comes from my sweat and effort. I never blame heaven or others in battle. Watch closely—this is the difference in your and my breadth of spirit and will!"

As he spoke, the Sacred Sword in Wu Chang's hand blazed with dazzling light, its blade emitting Jin Guang, a radiant blade shooting skyward.

In the Sacred Ground, honorable duels forbid all talents, active skills, techniques, and items—but one may transform belief into a weapon.

What is belief?

Xavier considered himself the chosen child of his realm; the mission he bore was belief. Wu Chang's will stat on his attribute panel was belief too.

Previously, when fighting Xavier, Wu Chang had used only the physical form of the Lake Light Sacred Sword, never tapping into his belief.

Now, it was time for his 257-point will to act.

Xavier looked up, gazing at the colossal light-sword—over two hundred meters long—its tip vanishing into the heavens, and suddenly a look of release crossed his face.

Screw fairness.

Wu Chang swung the massive Sacred Sword and shouted:

"Behold, the Curry Stick!"

The colossal light-sword slashed downward with the resolve to cleave the entire island in two, vertically splitting down onto Xavier.

Xavier's steel body, forged from belief, offered no resistance and was cleanly severed in two by the colossal light-sword.

Wu Chang wiped nonexistent sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, exhaled easily—what a thoroughly satisfying duel.

He'd swung his final blade with pure joy, but Xavier did not seem satisfied with this outcome.

As he'd predicted, a pool of red-to-black resentment remained where Xavier fell.

He sheathed the Lake Light Sacred Sword and walked toward the resentment.

Now, it was time to unveil the truth.

He stared at the resentment left by Xavier; torrents of red steam erupted from it, engulfing Wu Chang.

When the steam cleared, he had possessed the childhood version of Xavier.

Xavier was born in a small town much like Bai Shi, his parents the local lords who, besides leasing land, also operated a textile mill near a tributary of the Hills River.

From childhood, he was the town's prodigy, grasping mathematics and physics instantly; at five, his private tutor, summoned by his father, was drenched in sweat, unable to answer his questions.

At seven, the tutor declared he had nothing left to teach Xavier and advised him to study in the capital, Grimlan, writing him a letter of recommendation.

Mathematics and physics were puzzles to Xavier—answers obvious at a glance; the satisfaction of solving them paled beside the amusement of watching his tutor frantically flip through books.

What he truly loved was machinery.

The clatter of gears colliding, the hiss of steam bursting from valves—these fascinated him utterly.

No matter how complex the machine, he needed only a few glances to dismantle its internal structure and understand its principles.

Thus, when he entered Grimlan to study, he chose machinery.

Studying machinery without patronage was an extravagantly expensive pursuit.

To secure sufficient wealth, he improved the existing Stilan loom, doubling—or more—its efficiency.

This invention granted him immense wealth, making him a sensation in academic circles overnight—but he didn't care. He only wanted to study these massive steel contraptions more deeply.

Xavier was a devout follower of the Holy Lord, believing all things were arranged by the Holy Lord; he felt his talent had been given to him to fulfill some mission.

But what that mission was, he had yet to discover.

Thus, he drifted into his twentieth year.

Until one day, he heard a peer had improved his loom design, and went to inspect the factory using the new loom.

On that day, he encountered two events that left a deep impression.

The first was that the fellow, named Masses, from a worker's family, indeed possessed great talent—he was self-taught, never attended university, yet had an extraordinary aptitude for machinery.

Though Masses at the time appeared extremely awkward, flustered upon meeting others, stammering repeatedly under Xavier's questions,

Wu Chang still recognized: this youthful novice would one day become the Executioner, capable of calmly taking the lives of over a hundred transcendent beings.

The second was that Xavier saw a female worker who had died suddenly.

He heard she died after a twenty-hour overtime shift; her coworkers showed utter indifference—in the textile mill, such deaths were commonplace. But Xavier found it incomprehensible.

After all, when he was young, his own hometown operated a textile mill.

His family were minor lords, running only a basic water-powered loom mill, requiring heavy manual labor; workers had to toil twelve to fourteen hours daily just to feed their families.

Grimlan's industrial textile mills used the most advanced steam looms, sixty times more efficient than water-powered ones.

So why, Masses said, did Grimlan's textile workers labor sixteen to eighteen hours daily, with twenty-hour overtime being routine?

As industry advanced and output efficiency rose, why did workers' labor hours increase while their living conditions showed no improvement?

Xavier, a math genius renowned as a prodigy, encountered his first unsolvable problem.

The good news was that he seemed to have found the mission the Holy Lord bestowed upon him: to liberate humanity through machinery.

The bad news was that the talent the Holy Lord gave him was insufficient; he could not solve this problem.

Since then, he had tried many inventions, attempting to completely detach production from human labor, but every attempt ended in failure.

During his research, as his status rose, he began to contact many important figures and learned of existences surpassing ordinary human power; besides machinery, there were existences known as Transcendents.

His mind became active, pondering whether it might be possible to fuse the Transcendent with machinery.

Before long, he discovered he was not the only one with this idea; some scholars and new nobles were also attempting to fuse the two, even forming a society of enthusiasts named the New Continent for this purpose.

Relying on his understanding of machinery, Xavier joined them easily, learning much knowledge about Transcendent power within, such as mysticism and alchemy.

In the time that followed, he devoted all his energy to the Transcendent society, hoping to borrow Transcendent power to manufacture the steam engine of his imagination.

Time flew, and he reached the age of thirty-five.

He had failed to fuse Transcendent power with machinery, but his research into mysticism and alchemy had gone very deep.

He felt that only a thin sheet of paper separated him from fusing the two; he needed only an opportunity to break through and manufacture a steam engine imbued with Transcendent power.

Just then, Ron was elected Prime Minister.

During his inauguration speech, Ron turned a gear and uttered the famous line, "I hear the roar of the era," which caught Xavier's attention.

In the second year of Ron's tenure as Prime Minister, he secretly visited Xavier to consult him on several industrial issues, one of which involved the concept of Transcendent Industrialization.

To consult Xavier, Ron produced a vast quantity of books recording mystical knowledge, the depth of which far exceeded the few meager treasures held by the New Continent society.

Some of the conjectures within were such that even he could not help but praise them upon reading.

With his approval, Grimland University was established, inviting scholars from all paths to participate in researching Transcendent Industrialization; members of the New Continent society, relying on their long-standing research, easily slipped inside.

For the scholars who arrived, Her Majesty Olivia and Prime Minister Ron granted immense trust, opening all books recording Transcendent power to everyone.

The New Continent society was already half a step ahead in researching Transcendent machinery; within just half a year, they internally succeeded in developing a Transcendent steam engine before Grimland University.

The moment the Transcendent steam engine was developed, changes arose within the New Continent society; many members began to believe they held the power of progress and ought to possess status matching it.

To manifest their status, they renamed the New Continent society the Steam Council, implying they were a council hidden within the steam and should have the right to steer the entire nation.

Just as the Steam Council finished changing its name, Grimland University, through Xavier's covert efforts, also completed its Transcendent steam engine.

Because they had the support of the Queen and the Prime Minister, their Transcendent steam engine was larger, better, and more perfect.

This left the councilors of the Steam Council unable to sit still; they had diligently researched Transcendent machinery for decades, only to have the Queen and Prime Minister pluck the fruit—how could they endure this?

To monopolize the Transcendent steam engine, they began plotting to attack Grimland University and seize those books recording Transcendent knowledge.

From this moment on, Xavier realized that these former companions were spiraling out of control.

At that time, he was wholly devoted to research; although his status within the Steam Council was high, he held no real power and could not stop the crowd, who had already descended into madness.

He could only seek an opportunity to anonymously hint to Prime Minister Ron to strengthen Grimland University's defenses.

But his hint produced no effect; the Steam Council successfully ignited that great fire in the Grimland University library.

Many died in that blaze, including many substitutes for Steam Council members, Xavier among them.

Xavier did not approve of the Steam Council's actions; from then on, he resumed his own research, returning to the Steam Council only when he needed to consult materials.

The Steam Council's actions grew increasingly mad, yet their madness indeed brought progress to their research.

Just as Xavier began to hesitate, wondering whether he should discard certain things to achieve progress in his research, two individuals followed the traces left by the Steam Council and discovered them.

One of them was Raventon.

On the day Raventon made his move, the Steam Council had achieved a breakthrough in their Transcendent steam engine research and was about to hold an internal academic conference.

Xavier ought to have been present, but he was delayed because he had to deal with the second person.

The second person who discovered the Steam Council was Prime Minister Ron.

Through Raventon's investigation, he had learned of the Steam Council's existence, and then, by some unknown method, he came directly to their door.

Prime Minister Ron produced Xavier's warning information from that time, stating that he had been unprepared back then and had underestimated the Steam Council's actions.

He explained that his visit this time was not to hold Xavier accountable, but because he had encountered a difficult problem and wanted Xavier's help to solve it, just as during their collaboration years ago; he promised that whenever Xavier needed aid, he could find him at their old meeting place.

After Xavier brought Mathes and helped Prime Minister Ron resolve the difficulty, he prepared to rush to the Steam Council's base, only to discover that Raventon had already led the secret police to wipe out the entire location.

All Steam Councilors were executed; furthermore, Raventon would issue wanted orders for all survivors based on the lists collected within the base.

Xavier and Mathes hid in their secret base for half a month, waiting until the uproar subsided before attempting to flee Grimland.

On the day before their escape, Xavier chose to trust Prime Minister Ron and went to the agreed-upon location.

There, Prime Minister Ron revealed his purpose in seeking out Xavier.

He wished to establish a world where everyone performed their own duties, everyone could survive, and all existed under absolute order.

To accomplish this world, he needed to research machinery surpassing the Transcendent steam engine.

He needed Xavier's help; if Xavier agreed, he would use his authority to provide Xavier with various forms of support, allowing them to complete their research in peace.

If Xavier disagreed, he could pretend never to have seen him and could even provide him with a passage to leave Grimland.

The phrase "manufacture machinery surpassing the Transcendent steam engine" rekindled Xavier's former goal, reminding him of the mission he believed weighed upon his shoulders.

With almost no hesitation, he agreed to Prime Minister Ron's proposal.

Next, with Prime Minister Ron's assistance, they rebuilt the organization upon the ruins of the Steam Council.

But one point differed from Xavier's expectations: as Sterlan's Prime Minister, Ron felt no aversion to the Steam Council's use of human lives for experiments; instead, he urged Xavier to follow this path and intensify their efforts.

Xavier felt repelled by this; when he asked Prime Minister Ron the reason, Ron was utterly unreserved, confessing with shocking frankness.

The ultimate steam engine he envisioned would use the lives of Transcendents as fuel to convert power beyond the Transcendent.

The Steam Council used the lives of ordinary people as fuel, capable of converting Source Power and even touching the Rules.

If they followed this path and researched further, using the gods of Transcendents as fuel, would they not then surpass the Rules and condense the power possessed only by gods?

Ron stated that he understood Xavier's repulsion and supported Xavier in his heart.

"As long as one day you can research a Transcendent steam engine that condenses divinity without consuming life, we can abandon this path."

"But until then, I hope you will follow the planned schedule and fulfill my requirements."

Ron threw the question back at Xavier, leaving Xavier at a loss for how to retort.

For the time that followed, following Ron's plan, he secretly cooperated with members of the Liberal Party, such as Baron Philippe's Pine Coal Mine.

He also secretly cooperated with the Church of Serenity, using the Church of Serenity's influence to obtain experimental data on a wider scale and to exchange for more related occult knowledge.

According to Prime Minister Ron's account, much of the occult knowledge involved in the Extraordinary Steam Engine was "Divine-Bestowed Wisdom" taken from the Divine-Bestowed Library when the Arcane Knights broke through the Church of Serenity's headquarters back in the day.

Although Xavier was repulsed by the method of using human lives for experiments, facts proved that the route of the "Flesh-and-Blood Extraordinary Steam Engine" did indeed give him great progress in his research on extraordinary industrialization.

He not only researched out the Root Power of Steam, but also discovered the method by which Root Power influences the rules of the planes.

Moreover, every time he brought up canceling the flesh-and-blood experiments, Prime Minister Ron would express his support, but since there was no viable alternative, Ron could not accept the plan stalling, and could only shelve it for the time being.

Xavier didn't have that many thoughts, but Wu Chang, watching from the side, saw it clearly.

Prime Minister Ron had been morally blackmailing him, binding the fact that the Extraordinary Steam Engine required human lives for experiments together with Xavier's failure to research a new alternative.

Causing Xavier to believe that using human lives for experiments was because he wasn't working hard enough, that it was his problem.

Under the潜移默化 influence, Xavier gradually came to accept this line of reasoning, even embracing the notion that "better a short pain than a long one, and dawn follows the darkness," numbing himself and intensifying his research into the Flesh-and-Blood Extraordinary Steam Engine.

Under Prime Minister Ron's overall planning and Xavier's cooperation, their progress was extremely fast.

Not only did it allow the Steam Parliament's power to expand greatly, but to a certain extent, it truly could influence Stellan like a parliament.

They also designed an alternative to the Divine Extraordinary Steam Engine, which was the "Steam World" plan.

By publicly revealing the existence of the Extraordinary Steam Engine, using the First Law of the Occult, they would make people accept the existence of the Steam Rules and the Extraordinary Steam Engine.

Then, in turn, borrowing the power of people's belief, they would construct an absolutely orderly world with the Extraordinary Steam Engine at its core.

The "Steam World" had already taken initial shape, but who could have known that at the most critical moment, Xavier suddenly received a letter from Prime Minister Ron.

The letter contained a single steamship ticket to a new world, and one brief sentence.

"The plan has gone out of control. Preserve the spark. Come back in two months!"

The next day, Xavier saw in the newspaper the news that Prime Minister Ron had been assassinated.

(End of this chapter)