Koji and the others toured the cereal-siblings' video store.
"Hidden pretty well. It's probably in your room, or some kind of secret room," Koji said.
He rummaged around the shelves and didn't find any tapes with yellow labels, feeling a little disappointed.
He'd wanted to borrow this world's tapes and "study" them a bit.
"As if we'd leave it somewhere that obvious. We don't want to be dragged to the Public Security Bureau to 'have tea,'" Wise complained. What kind of person would put porn tapes out here? If someone reported them, then even riding a pig wouldn't be enough to explain it away.
That kind of thing was obviously for private viewing. No way would you put it on display.
"Running a video store—do you make enough money to live?" Koji asked.
The cereal siblings exchanged a glance, then both put on bitter smiles.
"Not enough. Not enough… the electricity at home is way too expensive," Wise said with a grimace.
If it were back in the old days, they'd had plenty of funds. Now, as long as the three meals a day weren't a problem, they were already satisfied.
"Electricity?"
"Is it really that expensive now?" Yijiang asked, confused. Getting this miserable over an electric bill—how rough were they living?
"The price per kilowatt-hour isn't that bad," Wise shrugged. "But our total usage is huge."
When the AI Fairy ran even a little more seriously, the meter would spin like crazy. So under normal circumstances, they kept Fairy from running too hard.
"Honestly, aside from the electric bill, we don't really have any big expenses."
Belle complained too. If that AI weren't still useful, she'd have found a way to uninstall that money-devouring beast.
In the beginning, when their bill shot up so fast, the power company even came looking for them once. They nearly got taken in to "have tea" for a chat.
Fairy heard everything clearly. As a top-tier AI, it had a temper too.
If they were going to accuse it of stealing electricity, then fine—later it would steal even more. As for slacking off when it came to work, it wouldn't do that. If anything happened to the siblings, it would lose its "human electricity bill."
"Even the money you make as Proxies isn't enough?" Miyabi asked. She knew their other identity.
"Barely," Belle said. "At least we don't have to worry about going hungry."
"I have a question—this big sister looks kind of like Master Yixuan."
"So you're Yixuan's disciples?" Yijiang asked curiously.
Miyabi was an exception, but these two really did carry traces of Yunqi Mountain's Dao arts. It looked like they'd studied at Yunqi Mountain before.
"Yeah. We studied there for a while," the siblings nodded.
They had only a shallow grasp of the power inside them. Yunqi Mountain's Dao techniques really were useful.
"I see. But I'm not your Master Yixuan. My name is Yijiang—you can call me Shibo," Yijiang said with a smile.
Back then, she'd never taken disciples. She'd already shouldered the sect leader's burden—leading people to help the world and save lives. Where would she find the time to teach apprentices?
"Shibo."
As expected, the siblings addressed her that way. This really was someone connected to Master Yixuan—turns out she was Master Yixuan's older sister.
But from what they'd heard, Master Yixuan's older sister had died long ago, hadn't she?
Seeing what they were thinking, Yijiang smiled slightly and explained, "From your perspective, I did die. In fact, that's true. But someone saved me—saved me so I could live and come to this New Eridu."
The cereal siblings looked toward Koji. The person who'd saved Yijiang… should be him.
If he'd saved Yixuan's sister, then he must have come into contact with Hollow Zero. An ordinary person who'd never been there probably wouldn't have met their Teacher Carole.
"You want to ask about your teacher, right?" Koji asked.
The siblings' hearts jumped. They nodded—yes, that was exactly what they wanted to ask.
"Your teacher should be cooperating with the Exaltation Society right now, researching the Final Domain gate deep inside Hollow Zero," Koji said.
That woman Carole probably had a bit of a crazy streak. Otherwise she wouldn't have agreed to work with the Exaltation Society.
Belle covered her mouth, unable to believe it. The Exaltation Society was the kind of organization that treated human life like grass—how could their teacher cooperate with people like that?
Wise fell into thought. He didn't want to believe it either, but he knew it was probably true.
Miyabi's gaze turned a little sharp. Cooperating with the Exaltation Society was like bargaining with a tiger—wasn't that begging for utter ruin?
If she didn't trust the siblings, she'd already have taken them in.
Koji murmured to himself, "What's the Exaltation Society's ultimate goal? Why were they founded in the first place?"
The Exaltation Society—a mysterious and enormous organization. It must have existed for a long time.
Its original purpose might have been to end the Hollow disasters. Maybe they failed, and then started searching for more extreme solutions—like turning humans into Ethereals, or fusing humans with Ethereals.
But even if the Exaltation Society claimed it was saving the world, the crimes it had committed in the past still couldn't be forgiven.
As for fusing humans with Ethereals, or becoming Ethereals… most normal people probably couldn't accept that kind of method.
Miyabi thought in silence. She didn't know what the Exaltation Society was truly trying to do either. They were too secretive. If not for special operations, you'd never even see an organization like this.
She suspected the Exaltation Society's headquarters was very likely deep within Hollow Zero.
But even if they knew that, they couldn't casually push into that place.
A Void Hunter was certainly powerful, but Ethereals were even more troublesome. She could barely handle a Level Seven Ethereal right now, but there were higher ones—Level Eight, Level Nine, even the highest Level Ten Ethereal. Even if Void Hunters joined forces, they probably still couldn't shake something like that.
Deep inside Hollow Zero, there very likely existed a Level Ten Ethereal. She understood clearly: she was absolutely not a match for an Ethereal of that level.
They used to think their teacher had been kidnapped by the Exaltation Society. But now, there was an eight-or-nine-out-of-ten chance their teacher had left with the Exaltation Society by choice.
They were terrified the fall of the Old Capital really was connected to their teacher. That was the last possibility they wanted.
"Whatever the truth is, you'll find out sooner or later," Miyabi said flatly. "Aren't you the legendary Proxies? Then rely on yourselves and go find it."
The two nodded.
Yijiang didn't speak. She didn't know much about the Exaltation Society. Back then it hadn't been active yet, but she could still catch the gist.
The fall of the Old Capital, and Hollow Zero—both were probably tied to this Exaltation Society.
A truly insane organization. No matter what their goal was, the process would inevitably force countless innocent people to pay with their lives.
(End of Chapter)
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