Outside the mind sea, the Sunstealer was losing.The corrupted half of the Soul King's power had turned on him with vicious familiarity. Thief against thief. Lie against lie. Every deception the Sunstealer placed over his body was peeled away before it settled. Every borrowed death he used to escape was dragged back by black threads."You taught me too well, old man," the corruption said through a mouth that was not a mouth. "Every stolen sunrise. Every borrowed year. Every name you wore instead of dying. I know them."The Sunstealer spat blood and grinned through it. "Then you know I am insufferable."He lied to distance. The corruption followed.He lied to sight. The eyes kept watching.He lied to life and death, stepping sideways through the ancient trick that had once let him survive a god's judgment.For half a second, he vanished from the tomb entirely.Then the corruption reached backward through the lie and seized him by the throat.Nia saw the old thief slam into the ground.

"I want them all," Tang said. "Every last one. But this isn't something money covers. Not a hundred of your dollars, not a hundred billion. Let me give you something else. One entry into a Secret Realm. What do you say?"Ethan had never heard the term. "Secret Realm?""First-year students don't touch this. You'd normally wait until junior year." Tang settled back. He didn't mind explaining. It was good news. "One hundred and twenty years ago the rifts tore open. The things that came through—you know the basics. The bombs we had didn't touch the big ones. The human race was losing. Then our ancestors stumbled through a rift into a place that wasn't the outside world. Inside it, they found the Classes. The system. The methods to grow strong enough to fight back."Ethan went very still."All of it." Tang nodded. "Every Class you've ever heard of—teacher, healer, warrior, farmer—came out of those places. We pushed the monsters back. We built the twelve Walled Cities. We've been living on

"Friendship with the state." He turned the seed over. "Not bad."The Realms had been explored for a hundred years. Somewhere in the vaults sat recipes, techniques, things he could only dream of. This was the first installment, and it came with a handshake.He called Doudou over and poured the whole lot of seeds into the little sprite's hands. It chirped, delighted, and buzzed off to plant them.The medicinal seeds were the prize. Ethan wasn't short on years. He needed pills. Real ones. The Lifespan Tree was a bonus, and a generous one.Doudou planted it on the Advanced Land—the five hundred square meters of top-tier earth, where growth time dropped ninety-nine percent.Ethan watched the timer settle.Normal cycle: thirty days. Ninety-nine percent off.Time to maturity: 7.2 hours.Yield: ten times. A normal tree produced ten fruit. His produced fifty, minimum. Even split with Tang, that left twenty-five. And the next harvest? All his.He did the math in his head. Give Tang two fruit a

Michelle Liu had been sending Ethan friend requests nearly every day. He hadn't answered a single one. Each ignored request had carved a little more hate into her.She was certain he knew exactly what the necklace was. He was keeping it because he'd worked out who she was—the Liu family heiress—and was holding it over her, trying to force her into the old family agreement. Marry him. Spend her life on him.She'd never do it. To a waste like that.She'd even considered going through Felix Chen to reach him, then thought better of it. And now, at the one tournament she had to attend, there he was. A thought crept in, ugly and embarrassing: Did he know I'd be here today? Did he come early and wait for me?Her face soured further.Qiqi was studying Michelle openly, then slid her eyes to Ethan, whose expression hadn't changed. "Ethan? She looks like she's looking for you. Do you two know each other?""Don't know her." Ethan let his gaze drop. "Same high school. Barely spoke. She's not righ

"I won't forget this." Michelle's voice was a hiss to no one. If it hadn't been for Ethan, she wouldn't be standing here shaking, throwing up in front of her own admirers.Next chance she got, she'd kill him. Take the necklace back.She stamped her foot and turned away. She wasn't walking up to him alone again. She retreated to her room to wait.* * *Ethan and Qiqi wandered Imperial Martial for a few hours. Most of the buildings matched what they knew—training halls, lecture blocks. Imperial Martial added a handful of full arenas and a scatter of pocket dimensions. It had two Secret Realms of its own, but the perimeter was walled with guards. You couldn't get close enough to look.They came back to the villa.Duan looked up from where he was slouched. "How is it? Big, right? Meaner than ours?""At least three times the size." Ethan had a feel for acreage.Duan blinked. "Yeah. They pull twenty thousand freshmen a year. A hundred thousand people on campus, teachers included, minus the