After leaving the Elder Council, Lu Qiuchen couldn’t help but ponder the relationship between the Dragon Clan and the System.
Thinking back, after she participated in the Dragon Bloodline Transformation Ceremony, she was trapped in the Eternal World.
When she woke up, she discovered that the Dragon Clan’s inheritance could affect her mind, sending her into a berserk state.
Since the Dragon Clan’s inheritance could be rooted deep in her inner world, then by reading her memories, it was possible to create this so-called System, wasn’t it?
If that’s the case, were her memories even real? Did the System before her truly exist? Was everything she was experiencing now just an illusion crafted by the Dragon Clan’s inheritance?
At the same time, the System had suddenly appeared right after she truly transformed into a member of the Dragon Clan, forcing her to participate in the so-called main storyline, but she hadn’t found a single player in this world.
The System also had methods to forcibly control her body, and now Alduin and the System were issuing missions at the same time—two missions that just so happened to overlap.
All these events made her start to suspect there might be some connection between the Dragon Clan and the System. Could the two factions actually be one and the same?
But that couldn’t be right. Lu Qiuchen shook her head. Judging by the current situation, while the results were similar, the Dragon Clan’s inheritance only made her lose her rationality. The things she did against her will happened because, during her irrational state, she acted purely on biological instinct, unlike the System, which could forcibly control her.
If the Dragon Clan really had the ability to manipulate someone’s mind so easily, they could have just brainwashed her. Why go through all this trouble?
By comparison, this suddenly-appearing System was even more mysterious and dangerous.
She thought for a long time but couldn’t come up with a reasonable explanation. She could only gather from some faint clues that she might already be deeply entangled in a massive conspiracy.
Lu Qiuchen lifted her head. While she had been lost in thought, she had unknowingly walked onto the same path she took when she first arrived at Dragon Island. Seeing the mountain road, Feiya the Blue Dragon’s face suddenly flashed through her mind.
She wondered how long Feiya had been with the Forest Elves. It’s been months—she should have been caught and brought back by now, right?
Young dragons weren’t allowed to leave the island on their own. Even if she was caught and put in confinement, it wouldn’t be much different from her previous life. Feiya had acted so fearless back then—maybe that was the reason she made such a decision?
Lu Qiuchen felt a bit annoyed. If she had thought of this sooner, she would have asked Alduin about it. Although Feiya’s strange hobbies made her hard to accept, aside from that, Feiya was lively and cute in other ways. In her heart, Lu Qiuchen saw this mischievous young dragon as a little sister.
Thinking of the Andona Sisters, whom she hadn’t seen in a long time, Lu Qiuchen wanted to check on them, but just then, the System sent a notification: the main storyline had been triggered by a player, and she needed to head to the destination as soon as possible to await further instructions.
Lu Qiuchen sighed quietly. She was nothing more than a puppet on strings, forced to act according to the System’s will. She didn’t even know how the plot would develop next.
Although the System claimed that dying in the story wouldn’t have any consequences, this feeling of not being able to control her own fate left Lu Qiuchen feeling extremely stifled and afraid.
Suppressing her negative emotions, Lu Qiuchen could only follow the System’s instructions and head to Durint Fortress, a border town of the Knight Nation.
*****
The border between the Knight Nation and the Empire of Letachino was marked by two parallel mountain ranges, with only a gap less than ten kilometers wide between them—the only passage between the two countries.
Due to the long-standing enmity between the two nations, the Empire had built the Fiery Sun Fortress at one end of this wide corridor, while the Knight Nation’s border stronghold, Durint Fortress, guarded the other, both blocking each other’s invasion routes.
Lu Qiuchen’s goal this time was the Knight Nation’s border city, Durint. After arriving, she was to stir up war between the Knight Nation and the Empire, completing both Alduin’s commission and the System’s instructions.
Lu Qiuchen had once been a promising youth living in a peaceful era, never having experienced real war—her only understanding came from games and entertainment. So, back then, the concept of war didn’t feel real to her.
But after entering the Eternal World and personally taking part in the Tara Kingdom’s civil strife, she truly felt the pain war brought to the people, and her heart deeply rejected such bloody means of conflict.
Yet now, in order to find the real answer, she had no choice but to follow the arrangements of the Dragon Clan and the System, even to the point of provoking war between two nations.
‘If this keeps up, I’ll really become a villain boss, huh.’ Lu Qiuchen realized that her resistance to this had lessened compared to before, and couldn’t help but give a bitter smile.
Was it that she had always had a tendency to be the villain, and now had simply given in? Or had she been influenced by the Dragon Clan’s thinking, becoming bloodthirsty and warlike?
Thinking of the tens of thousands of Druids, a bitter smile appeared on Lu Qiuchen’s face. She knew her hands were already stained with blood, and soon, they would be stained with even more.
*****
8:00 PM.
It was the time the group had agreed upon. Zhang Cheng, having finished his beginner quest, met up with Zhang Yu and Qi Wen.
After sharing the quest, as long as they didn’t cancel it themselves, this hidden quest would remain. Yesterday, they had already gotten the quest item from the girl, so they waited here for her to log in.
It was already 8:05 when Spicy Rabbit Head finally arrived.
Their agreed meeting spot was the place where they had last logged off, so as soon as the girl logged in, the three of them noticed her. Seeing that she hadn’t stood them up, they relaxed. They were upright people, not like the scheming Spicy Rabbit Head. Since they had agreed to wait for everyone, they wouldn’t leave until the group was complete.
“Sorry, I just finished class and rushed over, so I’m late!” As soon as the girl appeared, she looked around, spotted the three, and ran over to apologize.
“You’re still in high school?” Zhang Yu was curious. After decades of reforms, only third-year students still had classes after 7 PM.
Eternal World strictly limited the age of its players: under 16 couldn’t play, and those aged 16–18 could only play two hours a week.
With the current anti-hacking technology, it was basically impossible to bypass the Federation’s iris authentication, so this girl was most likely a third-year high school student who had just turned 18.
The girl nodded. Zhang Yu wanted to lecture her about focusing on her studies, but in the end, she held back. It wasn’t their place to worry about the future of a stranger. If she said anything now, the girl would just find her nagging.
The four formed a party. The conditions to unlock the hidden quest were met, and they soon received the quest notification.
“Strange Treasure Map” Quest Details:
You obtained a treasure map from a mysterious merchant. It’s said that it may hide the Knight Nation Royal Family Treasure, but the treasure’s location is actually within the borders of the rival Empire of Letachino. What secret lies within? You decide to investigate.
Objective: Reach the location marked on the treasure map.
The group was puzzled after reading the quest description. Why did they have to go to the Empire of Letachino?
Of the four, only the thief and Zhang Cheng had started in the Knight Nation, and neither Zhang Yu nor Qi Wen had ever been to the Empire—the map wasn’t unlocked for them.
So the four sat in a circle, opened the forum, and searched the Empire’s map, comparing it to the location marked on the treasure map.
“Found it!” After repeated comparisons, Qi Wen was the first to spot the location on the treasure map.
When Qi Wen shared the news with the party, Zhang Cheng couldn’t help but give a wry smile.
The marked spot was at the foot of a mountain right next to Fiery Sun Fortress.
Fiery Sun Fortress was where he had spawned during the closed beta, but as soon as he entered the game, the guards had mistaken him for a spy and thrown him into prison, leaving him with a poor impression of the fortress.
He couldn’t play the game, and then with the incident involving Lu Qiuchen, Zhang Cheng lost interest. The seven days of the closed beta just slipped by. As far as he knew, there were many others like him—such as the guy who had been thrown into prison with him.
For players like them, the officials had offered some compensation after the closed beta ended, including a spot in the next test, which appeased everyone and closed the matter.
Zhang Cheng later asked his father why the company had set such a player-unfriendly spawn point. Zhang Guang just smiled and brushed it off, saying it wasn’t his department.
Zhang Cheng had once thought the company must have had its reasons, but looking back now, there was something fishy about it. Combined with the rumors that Lu Qiuchen might be trapped in the game world, a bold idea appeared in his mind:
Could Eternal World be a real world, one that existed in a different way from reality? Maybe the game company only used its framework to build a game on top, without being able to change the world’s underlying logic.
That would explain, at least partially, why the game had so many strange settings that seemed to exist only to make things harder for players and didn’t fit the underlying logic of online games—settings that only made sense for the sake of realism.
But now wasn’t the time to think about this. It was just wild speculation with no evidence. Zhang Cheng buried the thought, planning to reconsider it when he had more information.
As enemy nations, the Knight Nation didn’t have a teleportation array that went directly to the Empire of Letachino. The party couldn’t afford the high teleportation costs, so they had to go to the stables to rent mounts.
But when the stable owner heard their destination was the Empire, he said the horses wouldn’t have the stamina. He recommended they take ground dragons—slower but with much more endurance. Even so, the furthest they could go was Durint; they’d have to figure out their own way to get into the Empire.
Left with no choice, the group discussed it and decided they could only rent these slow, bulky beasts. Fortunately, ground dragons were cheap, had high carrying capacity, and there was still room for all four of them.
Only then did they realize why the game had useless-sounding maintenance skills. For long journeys where players didn’t need to operate but would consume lots of time, once the destination was set, players could just log off. The System would automatically manage the player, directing the mount to travel.
If a player had linked a social account, the System would notify them when the preset destination was reached.
Tomorrow was a day off, and all four had free time. They agreed to log in again after reaching the destination and continue the quest, then each logged off for a break.