Chapter 636 Designated Lord of Cinder (6600)

The mobile warship traveled for four hours and thirty-two minutes. It began to rain as it passed a river. The brilliance of the Holy Sun was obscured by rain clouds, and under the dim sky, only gray lines of rain connected the sky and the earth.

In the distance, the city of Avendell was just a blurred shadow, but the tremors of the earth were still clear.

However, the children inside the ship did not worry about this. The news of the professor and their friend's safe return was more uplifting than anything else.

Loya, in particular, excitedly told them about the professor's power, vividly describing how the professor defeated the enemies in the exploration team, eventually activated the warship in the ancient ruins, and sped all the way back.

Even Gasha, who had always been very taciturn in the past, echoed Loya's words, describing the professor's unparalleled might at that time.

As a result, the panic and worry brought about by Su Zhou's decision to stay in Avendell and 'avenge' all the children gradually dissipated.

Such a powerful Dean could certainly defeat all enemies and then return safely.

Of course, some people might ask, 'The professor didn't seem so powerful before. Isn't it strange that he suddenly showed such strength?'

But, for the children, this question was ridiculous.

After all, for the children of the Xiguang Orphanage, Professor Svetlye was originally an omnipotent being.

He could remember each child's birthday, prepare gifts, calm even the most impatient child to read, and conjure an endless stream of interesting alchemical creations, teaching them about being a person, morals, and everything they should learn.

He could make sweet potions to heal the sick and wounded; he could tell long stories that made the children listen breathlessly.

Defeating evil villains? That was a matter of course. The children believed in fairy tales, believed that difficulties would be solved, hardships would eventually pass, and evil would naturally come to an end.

They believed that Professor Svetlye could accomplish everything.

At this moment, looking out from the ship's window, one could see a plume of gray smoke rising from Avendell.

It seemed to be a large fire, or a battle, or the source energy fluctuations caused by several factories being burned.

But even a child could guess that this amazing pillar of smoke reaching the sky all came from the professor's actions and power.

And at this moment, two beams of light flashed across the earth.

Having shaken off the pursuers and repelled the warships and scouts from Avendell attempting to pursue and track them, Su Zhou and Suiguang took a long detour before catching up with the Chuyue warship.

"The professor is back!"

"Too strong!"

"Dean, are you okay?" Some children saw the blood on Su Zhou and were a little worried.

Su Zhou, who had re-boarded the warship, naturally encountered the children's joyful welcome. They cheered, crowding around Su Zhou, causing him to reveal a rather helpless smile: "Alright, alright, of course I'm fine. On the contrary, have you rested well? Have you eaten?"

"It's been so long, don't just wait for me."

"Not yet!"

A more energetic child replied with wide eyes.

He had dwarven blood, looked honest and kind, and had a loud voice. His tone was filled with triumphant joy: "Dean, did you really avenge us? Where did that smoke come from?"

Hearing this, Su Zhou couldn't help but frown slightly. He looked at the dwarven child, somewhat puzzled, and said: "Why do you say that? Although I really couldn't stand it..."

"And those factory owners..."

At this time, another girl said softly, her tone filled with indignation: "They always bully Brother Seneca, they really all deserve to die!"

"Yes!" This topic instantly resonated with all the children, and they all recalled their experiences in the past few months, and even earlier, when they did not have Professor Svetlye's protection.

Some children looked at Avendell in the distance with almost hatred, cursing: "There are no good people in that city, it's better if the whole thing is destroyed!"

"Yes, yes, the last time I went out to buy medicine for Sister Isabella and them, I almost had my money stolen. If Aunt Daria hadn't been worried and come with me, the pharmacy took the money and didn't even intend to give me the medicine!"

"They just look down on the demonized... even more on us!"

"They should all die!" The children were indignant.

Hearing this, Su Zhou frowned completely.

He knew that the children of the orphanage and the people in Avendell indeed had conflicts. After all, in any era, orphans would be discriminated against, and the demonization disease was equivalent to a highly contagious rabies, AIDS, incurable and also dangerous to others.

The city had left the children with absolutely no happy memories. Just like what Seneca had encountered before, being insulted, discriminated against, and even directly harmed and coerced were probably not uncommon.

Hatred was real, and they had reason to hate.

So Su Zhou opened his mouth, then paused, not speaking immediately.

After all the children had vented their emotions, he said calmly when everyone looked at him: "I did kill the Earl of Avendell, the source of the city's persecution of the demonized."

"But children, when you say the phrase 'It's better if the whole city is destroyed!', you should think about whether there have been people in this city who have ever helped you."

Instantly, the hall fell silent.

"There are."

The first to speak was still the dwarven child. He scratched his head and smiled somewhat honestly: "Aunt Sophie next door takes good care of us. The last time the orphanage didn't have enough rice, Auntie helped us out with some flatbread..."

And Su Zhou looked at him, and he smiled: "Then child, how many people you care about are located in Avendell that would make you not want to destroy the city?"

Again, silence.

"...One?"

Stumped by this question, the previously indignant children all showed somewhat dazed expressions. They began to think seriously, looking quite distressed: "Ah, this... Thinking carefully, even if it's just Auntie alone, I wouldn't want to..."

"Yeah, Uncle Mafa is actually pretty good to us too. Although he always calls us 'little rascals', he's the only craftsman willing to help us repair the roof..."

"Um, um, Aunt Lamia, who helps Professor sell potions, is actually very nice too. She even brought me candy last time."

"What?! You actually hoarded the candy?!"

"That was what Auntie gave me, so naturally it's mine!"

In an instant, the direction of the topic changed.

No one continued to talk about revenge, nor did anyone talk about Avendell should explode... Children are always forgetful, but they remember very clearly.

Su Zhou watched all of this, and couldn't help but sigh softly.

"Go eat."

He said so: "Rest well for a while, today's meal should be good, everyone have a good meal, and then sleep peacefully."

"When you wake up tomorrow, I will teach you new skills and knowledge."

"Yay!"

From the Northern Ionia Mountains to the southern city of Avendell, Su Zhou hunted many source energy beasts along the way, replenishing the ship's supplies.

In this world, few people would deliberately eat source energy beasts, because these monsters contain a large amount of high-concentration source energy in their bodies. Once ingested, there is a high probability of contracting the demonization disease.

Only high-level professionals, or the two barbarian tribes of the Frostwinter Twilight, can freely eat beast meat after purifying it with special methods.

But Su Zhou knew very well that as long as the impurities in the source energy were purified, it could be eaten safely without worrying about contracting the demonization disease. What's more, for the people on board who had the guidance technique to purify souls, even if they contracted the demonization disease, it could only be considered a blessing.

Today's meal was bear meat. The meat was very good, fatty, thick and fragrant, and there were also some rice and dry food brought by the orphanage.

Without a doubt, this was a very rich meal for the orphanage children who rarely ate meat. In front of the table full of grilled meat, all the children forgot the hatred of the past and began to happily praise the professor and the head chef, Aunt Daria.

"You go eat too, and don't let them eat too much, it's easy to get diarrhea."

After instructing Aunt Daria to keep a good eye on the children, Su Zhou turned around and went to the captain's room with Suiguang.

After all, Su Zhou himself had become a half-god tree, half-demon, and could survive by photosynthesis and absorbing water, and Suiguang was a robot, neither of them needed to eat.

After arriving at the captain's room, Su Zhou didn't exchange pleasantries, but directly asked the question.

"Ms. Dawn, in the fairy civilization, and in the previous eras, what exactly is the principle of your source energy core?"

"Principle?"

Regarding this question, the warship spirit, who was wholeheartedly enjoying the pleasure of driving the warship, couldn't help but be a little dazed. After being confused for a while, she said directly: "Don't you use the Holy Chuyue Rock?"

"The source energy core, a divine object that can produce nearly endless source energy to drive cities and even warships, is naturally the incomparably precious fragment of the Holy Sun!"

Dawn's tone was so matter-of-fact that it was obvious that this was common sense for the people of the previous eras.

She didn't think there was any other possibility at all, and naturally never thought about what the source energy core of the Aean civilization now relies on to catalyze.

"Is that so..."

At this moment, Su Zhou was quite confused, and he looked thoughtfully at the floor of the Chuyue ship: "Then take me to see it, Ms. Dawn."

"I want to see with my own eyes, what the source energy core of the previous era looks like."

"No problem."

Of course, Dawn didn't care about this. Her own body didn't move, but a circle of silver light spots suddenly lit up inside the ship, and then turned into arrows: "I'm sitting on the captain's seat, which is equivalent to existing in every part of the ship, so I won't go with you."

"Follow the silver markings, the core is in the middle of the rear half of the warship."

Su Zhou nodded slightly, and then followed the markings forward.

If the Chuyue warship was said to be big, it was definitely big, like a lying hill.

But the size of its source energy core was quite ordinary, even very small.

Following the guidance of the silver arrows, Su Zhou walked through the long-sealed passages inside the warship, and finally came to a core combustion chamber marked with 'Danger' and 'High Radiation'.

He opened the door and stepped inside.

Then, he stopped in place, without saying a word.

[What's wrong, Professor Svetlye?]

Master Suiguang, who was following behind Su Zhou, was a little puzzled. He also stepped inside and looked up at the core structure in front of him: [What exactly made you stunned... Ah?!]

The moment he saw the core, he was also stunned.

Because, Suiguang saw a small sun.

In the complex core confinement chamber, confinement towers carved from source energy crystals were releasing stable and smooth streams of light, wrapped around a small crystalline sphere in the center of the light.

This crystalline sphere had countless facets, like a diamond that had been cut hundreds of thousands of times.

Golden flames were burning quietly inside it, and the light streams of the confinement towers extracted the majestic source energy nurtured by this burning, input it into the entire Chuyue warship's energy system, and then, in a very strange way, transformed the recycled source energy into flames, and input it into the crystalline sphere again.

Like blood circulation—source energy spewed out from the crystalline sphere, which was equivalent to the heart, carrying heat and vitality. After the 'oxygen' carried in these source energies, that is, the active energy, was used by the warship, the silent liquid source energy returned along the 'veins', that is, the energy circulation system.

The light endlessly overlapped and irradiated in the crystal, focusing on the center. Its core temperature exceeded twenty million degrees, or even higher—a veritable nuclear fusion was taking place within it, causing microscopic sparks to burn almost eternally within it.

[What, what an ingenious structure!]

Seeing this core, Suiguang, who was originally a master of alchemical engineering and could even design mechanical souls on his own, couldn't help but exclaim. His gaze became hot and eager: [Holy Sun above, this light is exactly the same as the Holy Sun...]

[Concentrating high heat and high pressure in a narrow space, creating an almost eternal polymerization core, this idea is extremely absurd even in theory, because there cannot be a substance that can withstand this high temperature and high pressure, and amidst the incredible surge of source energy, any magic circle will be destroyed.]

[This crystal... maybe it really is a fragment of the Holy Sun!]

Suiguang was extremely excited—as a high-level member of the Suiguang Order, he naturally knew that the source energy core of the Aean world needed souls to operate. The reason why they wanted to make technological progress and excavate ancient ruins was to solve these desperate and sad things.

And now, the structure of the ancient source energy engine appeared before their eyes. If they could imitate this technology, then the source energy core technology would usher in a new revolution. The mobile cities would no longer need the souls of the demonized as additives!

This was a good thing.

But he noticed that Professor Svetlye was standing still in place, without excitement, without joy, only a kind of solemnity that was close to suffocation.

[What's wrong, Professor Svetlye?]

Suiguang asked, somewhat puzzled: [Why are you in a daze?]

"...Carbon."

Then, he heard the 'Professor Svetlye' in front of him utter a word in a low voice: "Carbon."

"Diamonds are carbon... This fragment of the Holy Sun... as expected."

Suiguang heard the 'Professor Svetlye's' tone become more and more solemn, even bringing out a buzzing sound with the power to shake souls: "As expected, this divine wood aura is so thick to the extreme that it doesn't even overflow—the fragment of the Holy Sun is a fragment of the divine wood!"

Su Zhou stared at the Holy Sun fragment in front of him.

He was completely sure that it was a very powerful, and also very condensed, divine wood tissue, because it was too pure, so it had crystallized.

This divine wood, in its complete form, obviously possessed fire and light attributes, and was quite similar to the Fusang divine wood inheritance practiced by his good brother, Shao Qiming.

It was repeatedly producing source energy in the confinement core, burning itself, but without obvious signs of shrinking, and it seemed that it could continue forever and ever.

But this was not strange.

Because the bigger a star is, the shorter its lifespan.

The thermonuclear reaction of red dwarf stars is not intense, and they can burn for hundreds of billions and trillions of years, while standard main sequence stars like the sun have a lifespan of only ten billion years.

And the lifespan of those supermassive stars may even have to be calculated in thousands of years, which is unbelievably short for eternal stars.

The divine wood crystal in the source energy core, with the help of the circulation system, could burn for an extremely long time.

And the Holy Sun in the sky, if it was really what he thought, was a burning essence of the divine wood, the core... then the extinction of the Holy Sun had an explanation.

"The problem is, this isn't right."

With an extremely serious expression, Su Zhou's heart surged like a stormy sea: "Of course, the divine wood can exist in a world without light. Their growth does not need the negative entropy of the sun. They themselves can become the source of negative entropy—but in that case, that kind of world will become a dark ecosystem with the divine wood as the source."

"Even the divine wood cannot burn itself like the sun and illuminate the world—just like the world itself will not self-destruct, first there is existence, then there is continuation!"

"What exactly is going on?"

Even Dawn did not know the answer to this question.

The gods did not record this history. On the totems of Chuyue, the divine wood decayed naturally, and the gods were born from the ashes of the divine wood.

And the fairies were a race created by the gods—in fact, in the mythology known to Dawn, all races were creations of the gods, but the fairies were one of the first lives, creations of the gods who made man in their own image.

To this, Su Zhou could not deny.

"In a world with a world tree, generally speaking, all life is nurtured by the world tree—even if there is native life, it must be stained with the elements of the world tree."

"The gods created all races? This is obviously the gods putting gold on their own faces."

To be honest, now, Su Zhou felt that the gods, who were originally just mythological background boards, suddenly became suspicious.

Not to mention that they only appeared after the divine wood disappeared, but they claimed to be the creators of all races, just the fact that the Twilight Dragon also appeared in that era was enough to make people think.

"Also, the source energy density of this world... could that also be related to the demise of the world tree, or the anomalies of the Holy Sun?"

Thinking of this, Su Zhou couldn't help but shake his head: "It's all just speculation."

Thinking about these ancient histories was of no benefit to the current situation.

Turning around, the man left the core confinement chamber.

"In this world, which areas are relatively friendly and peaceful for the demonized?"

And the puzzled Suiguang followed closely behind Su Zhou, hearing the other party's soft murmur.

He thought for a while, and then replied: [It's not like there aren't any.]

[The southern coastal city, located in the neutral commercial area between the Celestial Dragon nobles and the Southern Territory Noble Alliance, should meet your requirements.]

...

The magnificent giant tower hall, the towering summit of the clouds, at the top of the solemn black tower, source energy crystal pillars support the semi-circular crystal dome. The semi-transparent dome focuses the Holy Sun's light shining from the top of the sky, turning the purest source energy into the original spark, gathered in the center of the giant tower's central 'Torch'.

Mysterious and mysterious runes danced around the thirty-six crystal giant pillars, flickering with a light halo mixed with pale gold and crimson, like flames, and then tumbling like a tide, making the entire top of the tower as dazzling as it was burning.

Giant Tower Babel.

Tower of Babel.

A knight, and an old man in military uniform, slowly stepped onto the long staircase leading straight to the sky, step by step, to the top of this Tower of Babel.

They saw the figure in the center of the hall at the top of the tower, and then knelt respectfully to this day.

"Your Majesty," they said.

[Rise, Iloviz, and Aharonov. I have said that you do not need to kneel when you meet me, this is a reward that a meritorious official should have.]

And a somewhat hoarse voice sounded, echoing slightly throughout the hall: [What exactly is the matter that requires both of you to report together?]

[I guess it's not good news.]

"Your Majesty is wise."

Standing up, the gray-haired, golden-eyed knight named Iloviz took a deep breath, and he said in a deep voice: "Avendell was attacked, the Earl of Avendell died. According to current intelligence, it can be confirmed that the one who killed him was the 'Professor Svetlye' who explored the ruins of the Northern Ionia Mountains with Major Elena."

"Professor Svetlye was the former mentor of the Southern Territory rebels, and also the former vice president of the Royal Alchemy Association. After the informants recognized his true identity, he went into hiding, hiding in Avendell, running an orphanage and taking care of the demonized orphans."

[Yes, I know that.]

With his back to the knight and the general, the figure who was honored as His Majesty did not turn his head.

His voice was hoarse and calm, vaguely carrying a kind of indifferent indifference: [Aharonov believes that his knowledge can play a role in my plan, and wants to bring him under his command... Now it seems that the plan has failed.]

"Yes, Your Majesty."

And the white-haired old general also stood up. This old man, whose figure was already somewhat obese, but whose aura was still undiminished when he was serious, spoke loudly: "Professor Svetlye obviously obtained power from the ruins that is beyond our imagination—in the past, he was a Heart Light realm alchemist who was not good at fighting, but now, he can kill 'Blood Armor Avendell', who is known for his fighting prowess, just by showing his face."

"At present, it seems that he will soon be able to break through the Heart Light realm and reach the Divine Will realm... If he is not controlled, there will be the seedlings of another major rebellion."

[Is that so.]

To this, the man could not deny.

Now it could be seen clearly that this man's figure was smaller than that of the knight and the general, and could even be said to be like a child.

But even so, his words still possessed endless majesty, and the source energy moved with his mind, transforming into large swaths of complex and mysterious matrix paths around the hall: [Don't worry... the power of the ancient ruins? Interesting.]

Saying so, he slowly turned around.

He looked at his subjects, his eyes were originally indifferent and ruthless, but now they carried a hint of curiosity: [There are actually people who have obtained the power of the ruins like me?]

He did not look very old, even too young, at most only sixteen or seventeen years old, but his voice was steady and powerful, belonging to a middle-aged man's voice.

The blond boy's mouth curled into a hint of an arc, and in the very center of his chest, a crystal flickering with golden-red light could be seen.

The crystal of the Holy Sun... the Holy Chuyue Rock, was embedded in his chest, like a heart, beating with endless source energy.

The flourishing vitality was like the light of the sun, dazzling and blazing, instantly making the top of the tower seem to light up a second sun—even the distant Fort Saint Montasini could clearly see that on the tower in the center of the mountain range, the brilliant light even surpassed the Holy Sun in the sky.

An incredible wave of heat spread out in all directions like a tsunami, igniting ionized sparks in the atmosphere, gorgeous and dazzling.

And this was just a trace of the aftermath of the boy's turning around.

The gray-haired knight faced this corona-like impact calmly, the invisible source energy completely canceling out these heat, while the general took a slight step back, seemingly unable to withstand the power of the Holy Chuyue Rock and the boy himself.

Solar Emperor, Asmodeus XIII...

[Write it down.]

The emperor, who looked like a boy, said so, his voice returning to its original hoarse, indifferent and calm taste: [Record his name in the Book of Burning Souls.]

[Designate him as... the Second Lord of Cinder.]

《少年时》 (Huídàng Shàonián Shí - Rebirth as a Teenager), an urban rebirth novel. The author's writing and story are very good, but the updates are a bit slow. It's almost a high-quality novel with good average subscriptions. Those who like urban rebirth novels are welcome to check it out!