Chapter 98: Lin Xin’s Sleepless Night

At 8:40 in the morning, the magic crystal airship arrived right on time at the central square of Brash City.

Lin Huang and Lin Xin quickly scanned their tickets and boarded.

Once aboard, Lin Xin refused to go back to her room, so Lin Huang had no choice but to stand with her by the rail. She kept staring at the airship as it climbed higher and higher, until Brash City on the ground shrank to no more than the size of a palm. Her excitement still had not faded.

He spent the entire morning showing Lin Xin around the airship and helping her familiarize herself with everything on board. Only after repeatedly warning her which places she was not to enter did he finally take her to lunch.

After lunch, Lin Xin at last calmed down and obediently returned to her room with Lin Huang.

The airship tickets corresponded to room numbers, and every ticket had a different assigned room. Whether or not you actually stayed there made no difference; as long as the ticket number matched, that room was reserved for you alone. There were no half-price tickets either. No matter how old you were, even an infant under one year old had to pay full fare to board.

Of course, although each ticket corresponded to a different room number, nobody cared whether you actually slept in your own room or not.

This time, Lin Huang and Lin Xin’s rooms were on the seventh deck, room one-five-six and room one-five-seven, separated by nothing more than a single wall.

Even so, Lin Xin still refused to live alone. She insisted on staying with Lin Huang, and he could only agree with a helpless sigh.

The room had only one bedroom. Lin Huang gave it to her and slept on the sofa in the living room.

But he needed to cultivate during the day and could not be disturbed. So Lin Xin had to stay in her own room next door during the day and only come over at night to sleep.

After lunch, Lin Xin played the Gun Master game in her room.

Lin Huang also locked his door and began cultivating the War Campaign Art.

Over the past few days in Brash City, he had spent all his time accompanying Lin Xin on her outings, so his cultivation of the War Campaign Art had made almost no progress.

There were still seven and a half days left on the airship. Lin Huang planned to use that time to raise the War Campaign Art by one or two more levels.

Although he had already mastered the first level, his circulation of the War Campaign Art was still quite awkward. One full cycle took half an hour.

Only after completing a full cycle could he obtain one fragment.

He had done the math himself: one fragment every half hour meant that reaching the second level would require two hundred fragments, or one hundred hours. Even if he cultivated fifteen hours a day, it would still take seven days to advance to the second level.

Still, he knew very well that it would not actually take that long. As his number of cycles increased, the time required for one complete grand cycle would only continue to shorten.

Sitting cross-legged on the carpet in the living room, Lin Huang began rapidly circulating the life energy within his body along the path of the War Campaign Art.

From one in the afternoon until six in the evening, five hours passed in the blink of an eye. He gained eleven fragments and successfully shortened the time for one cycle from thirty minutes to roughly twenty-five minutes.

After dinner with Lin Xin, she obediently returned to her own room. This time she did not make a fuss, which was somewhat unexpected to Lin Huang.

Back in his room, Lin Huang once again locked the door and resumed cultivation.

Another four hours passed. Around ten-thirty at night, Lin Xin finally knocked on his door.

By then, the circulation speed of the War Campaign Art within Lin Huang’s body had become a little faster, reaching about twenty-two minutes per cycle. In those four hours, he had once again gained ten fragments.

After opening the door, Lin Huang noticed that Lin Xin seemed to be in a rather good mood and could not help asking, "Where did you go? You look so happy."

"I didn’t go anywhere. I stayed in my room playing Gun Master. I didn’t lose a single round today, and I was always the top player on the field!" Lin Xin said with a smile, revealing why she was in such a good mood. "Big brother, I think I might really have talent as a gunner."

"I think so too. Once this summer break is over and you go back to school, speak to your teacher and have them test your talent as a gunner. As for whether you should develop in that direction, that will depend on you." In truth, Lin Huang also hoped that Lin Xin could become a gunner.

In a world like this, it was almost impossible to completely avoid conflict with monsters. A long-range combat profession like a gunner was far safer than many others. Although female gunners were relatively rare, Lin Huang still hoped Lin Xin would head in that direction.

"Then I’ll talk to my teacher about it when I go back," Lin Xin said with a nod. She would officially enter her final year when school started in September, and it really was time for her to think about her future path.

After graduating from the reserve hunter academy, there were generally three paths one could take.

The first was to take the entrance examinations for higher-level institutions, such as the Alliance government’s military academies or schools founded by the Hunter Association and other organizations, and continue with advanced studies. Once one reached the Bronze realm, one would become a formal member of the relevant institution.

The organizations that founded their own academies had abundant resources for cultivating talent. As long as a student was truly outstanding, they would receive massive resource support. Raising them to the Black Iron realm, or even the Bronze realm, was by no means difficult.

The second path was to directly take the examinations of the Hunter Association or another organization, become a reserve member, and then slowly work one’s way up to a formal position. This was a harder road. Before reaching the Bronze realm, all resources had to be earned through one’s own effort. Usually, only students abandoned by higher-level academies would choose this path.

The third choice was to give up entirely on advancing to the Bronze realm and simply live as an ordinary person, spending one’s life in quiet mediocrity. Of course, that was only possible so long as the place where one lived did not suffer attacks such as a beast tide.

Lin Huang had graduated with excellent results, and many academies had favored him. But after his medical examination revealed that his life wheel had shattered, he was abandoned. So he could only choose the second path and take the reserve hunter examination on his own.

As for Lin Xin, Lin Huang naturally hoped that she would be able to enter a higher-level academy and receive professional training instead of having to struggle as he had. If her talent as a gunner truly could be discovered, her chances of entering a more advanced institution in the future would be even greater.

Still, Lin Huang was satisfied with his current situation. Breaking through to the Bronze realm was merely a matter of time. If he had really entered a higher academy, he might not have advanced to Black Iron tier three as quickly as he had now, because his schedule would no longer have been up to him, and he would have had to follow the school’s arrangements.

"I went from an ordinary person to Black Iron tier three in less than a month. That counts as wild growth, doesn’t it?" He smiled self-mockingly, reached out, and ruffled Lin Xin’s hair. Seeing her thoughtful expression, he said, "These two months, just have fun and don’t think about school. After all, you still have a whole year before graduation."

"Big brother, why didn’t you choose a higher-level academy and continue your studies back then?" Lin Xin finally asked the question that had puzzled her for so long. She had always assumed that Lin Huang had given up the opportunity himself, never knowing about his life wheel.

The examination results from higher academies were confidential to the outside world and did not reveal personal privacy. So very few people knew about Lin Huang’s life wheel.

"It wasn’t that I didn’t choose them. They rejected me," Lin Huang said with a shake of his head.

"How could that be? You clearly graduated last year with the best overall score. The other nine in the top ten were all assigned to very good schools. Was there some kind of hidden story behind it?" Lin Xin asked, puzzled.

"There was no hidden story. It was just that something happened to my body last year. They discovered it during the medical exam and decided I had no chance of advancing to the Black Iron realm, so they gave up on me." At last, Lin Huang told her the truth.

"What was wrong with your body? Was it serious?" Lin Xin asked hurriedly.

"It’s fine now. It’s already been cured." Lin Huang waved it off and did not want to speak of it further.

But Lin Xin insisted on pressing for more, so he had no choice but to gloss over it. "When you reach the Black Iron realm yourself, I’ll tell you about it then. There’s nothing to say now, and even if I did tell you, you wouldn’t understand."

Only after hearing that did Lin Xin finally let it go.

Their conversation carried on until after eleven at night. Lin Huang took a shower and went to bed.

Lin Xin also showered, but when she lay in bed she kept tossing and turning, unable to fall asleep. She did not know whether it was because she had had coffee during the day or for some other reason.

She rolled around until after one in the morning, and still there was no sign of sleepiness. In the end, she could only sit up helplessly, open the Gun Master game cabin, and keep playing.