“Lord Yu Shi, the battle inside should be almost over. Commander Yu Yangyu has activated King’s Medicine and is now making the final pursuit,” a murloc who rushed out of the building reported respectfully. “However, that Su Youzong is very stubborn. We’ve beaten him half to death, and we’ll take him back as a hostage.”

“It’s all right. The eldest prince has already given the order. Alive or dead makes no difference. We don’t really mean to pry anything out of him anyway. Once he’s on the machine, he won’t have a say.” Waving a hand dismissively, Yu Shi changed the subject. “Tell Yu Yangyu to hurry up and stop dawdling. The moment we have the hostage, we surrender.”

“Surrender? We’ve killed so many. Do you think they’ll accept our surrender?” The black-robed murloc’s expression froze.

They had the eldest prince as guarantor and Mayor Chen of the territory as their backer, but for the past two years the Northern Military Region had been trying to find a pretext to provoke this dispute.

Now this behavior had clearly handed the other side leverage. If they still surrendered...

Boom!

A sudden clap of thunder boomed in the overcast sky, and a bolt of lightning struck down from above, landing at the center of the Academy of Sciences.

Watching that fleeting flash, Yu Shi showed no fear at all. Instead he gave a ferocious, maniacal laugh.

“Hahaha. Yu Meng, you’ve lived in human cities for so long, and you still haven’t gotten used to their ways. How strange.”

“Do you know why we murlocs were able to deploy so many people near the Academy of Sciences this time? And do you know what the last Dedication Agreement actually stipulated?”

Seeing the thoughtful look on Yu Meng’s face, Yu Shi fell silent.

That they had been able to lure thousands of people to the vicinity of the Academy of Sciences to start a battle meant that the murlocs had already planned how to end the conflict long before it began.

Admittedly, quenching the Northern Military Region’s anger would come at a price.

But compared with Su Youzong, whom he was about to get his hands on, what was that?

Even if it cost all the treasures the murlocs had collected over the years...

“Almost there, almost there! As long as we bring him back for the collision, we’ll soon find the god’s whereabouts!”

A hint of fanaticism flashed across his face. Yu Shi licked his lips and looked toward the horizon with a slightly strange expression.

For some reason, the dark clouds in the sky seemed to be gathering faster than usual. In less than a minute a black mass had gathered over the Academy of Sciences, blotting out most of the light.

But thinking of the promises made by the Chen Family, Yu Shi felt relieved and kept watching the Northern Military Region positions being massacred, secretly pleased with himself.

The Academy of Sciences was just a gathering place for a bunch of old fogies. What resistance could it possibly offer?

The original treaty had set strict rules that no military force could remain here, on pain of being deemed a betrayal of the territory.

That was one of the key reasons they had been able to advance unimpeded!

“Dean Ai, can you feel it? It’s like someone is watching us.”

“Wait. He seems to be touching me. What’s going on?”

On the seventh floor of the building.

Su Mo sat weakly on the ground, looking in surprise at the outside of his thigh.

A bullet that had somehow penetrated there was lodged firmly against the outer edge of the bone.

But now, as if held by some outside force, it trembled slightly and miraculously crawled out of the wound and fell to the ground.

Furthermore, the blood seeping from the wound seemed to be suppressed, flowing only within the body’s surface.

“Haha. Touch you? You’re hardly a young maiden. Who would touch you!”

“Dean Ai, don’t you think so? What kind of old geezer would do something like that!”

Before Ai Jianqiang could speak, Ning Yushu, the old researcher who was bandaging Su Mo’s wounds on the ground, laughed first.

His laughter was hearty, as if he had avenged a great grudge, or survived a catastrophe.

After laughing for a while, tears were about to well up in his eyes!

His aged face was contorted with grief, making it impossible to tell what he was feeling.

“Haha. Yushu, you’re right. If it were me, I definitely wouldn’t do that.”

“That kid Ji Yang. He’s picked up his teacher’s flashy ways. He just has to show off to us!”

Ai Jianqiang, standing to the side, was laughing as well, but there was not much sadness in his laughter. Instead there was a hint of congratulation for his friend.

“Ji Yang? Teacher?” Having guessed something, Su Mo raised his head, and the excitement of surviving a close call immediately faded.

Almost a month had passed since he arrived in the territory, and he still had not been able to find out where Lü Kuan, Ai Jianfeng, Su Deben, and the others had gone or what they were doing.

Until now, Su Mo had wondered whether those people had gone elsewhere with Su Chan.

But now it seemed that there were stories he knew nothing about.

“Whenever a new researcher joins the Academy of Sciences, we always take them to familiarize themselves with the Dedication Agreement as their first lesson.”

“But this time is different, child. You are truly lucky. Your first lesson will be nothing like theirs.”

“Yushu, I’m a little tired. Why don’t you be his teacher for the first lesson?”

Haltingly, Ai Jianqiang uttered several incoherent sentences.

It was as if he were speaking to Su Mo, or perhaps to researchers from other institutes of the Academy.

After saying that, he slumped down, the light in his eyes fading quickly as if he had gone to another world.

“All right, Dean Ai. Please take a rest.”

After bandaging the last wound, Ning Yushu’s grief-stricken face suddenly turned solemn.

He stood up, moved a broken stone slab, and picked up a marker that had rolled onto the ground.

He bent down and began to write seriously.

He wrote each character slowly and deliberately, his strokes forceful, as if pouring all his strength into every press and lift of his hand.

When he stopped, four powerful and elegant characters were clearly visible on the stone slab!

“Hello, Researcher Su Youzong. I am Ning Yushu, your academic advisor.”

“This won’t be your last lesson after joining the Academy, but I’m sure it will be your most unforgettable one.”

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