# 173
Chapter 173
Two Legs Are Fine Too
Instructor Conference Room.
Just moments ago the instructors had been lounging around watching the exercise, but now they were locked in a heated argument over the final individual scores.
“No, seventeen out of twenty for Baili Pangpang is too high. All he did was use a forbidden artifact to tear the Spider Boy’s soul-web, then he basically vanished. He wasn’t even a main contributor when they killed the Hunter. Seventeen is inflated.”
“You can’t deny that without him rescuing those hundred-plus recruits, they’d never have reached the Spider Boy at all.”
“Even so, if we’re tallying like that, Cao Yuan only used brute force to stall the Hunter for a few minutes—sixteen is also generous.”
“Bull! That Hunter, in that state, would be top-tier even in the River Realm. The kid’s only Pool Realm and he traded blows with it for ages—sixteen is high? Could you have done that at Pool Realm?”
“I agree. Raw power can cover a lot of weaknesses.”
“Then it’s settled—Shen Qingzhu, sixteen. Any objections?”
“Hold on, Instructor Hong, why did you write sixteen while the rest of us wrote seventeen? He commanded the Spider Boy operation and entered the warehouse alone. Sixteen feels low.”
“Hot-headed and impulsive—dock one point, fair and square!”
“…In that case, should we lower Yang Zi’s score? She never fought head-on; seventeen seems high.”
“Not at all. Building Three was a different battlefield. Without Yang Zi the female recruits would’ve been wiped out, let alone kill the Hunter. If she weren’t lacking in raw power I’d have given her eighteen.”
“What about Molly? I think—”
While the room erupted in shouting and table-slapping, Yuan Gang sat alone at the far end, staring at Lin Qiye’s score sheet, lost in thought.
After a long while Instructor Hong walked over with a thick stack of papers.
“Chief, everyone else’s grades are locked. Only Lin Qiye’s… we daren’t assign one. What’s your call?”
Yuan Gang raised an eyebrow. “Daren’t? Why? Let’s hear your reasoning.”
Instructor Hong nodded. “His performance was simply too outstanding.
He was first to guess the others overslept, sensed something off in Building Three, yet instead of rushing in he led the others to the armory. Against the Spider Boy he made a few mis-steps but handled it well overall.
In Building Three he deduced the Hunter’s killing mechanism at first contact, cracked the spatial-shifting pattern in only four jumps, and successively killed both the Cube and the Spider Boy—two River Realm mysteries.
Plus he was the only one who saw through the ‘atmosphere group’ disguise.
Whether it’s combat, perception, command, or deduction, he was top-tier. By the book he deserves at least nineteen, maybe even full marks.”
Instructor Hong paused. “Our dilemma: nineteen is fine, but twenty… no recruit in camp history has ever scored that high.”
Yuan Gang pondered, then said slowly, “Give him nineteen.”
Instructor Hong blinked. “Why not twenty?”
“One point off to keep him humble.” Yuan Gang’s eyes narrowed. “Nothing is absolutely perfect—especially people.”
He tapped the table, muttering only for himself, “Besides, if he wants to embezzle the Cube’s corpse, there’s a price…”
��—
Asylum of the Gods.
White coat on, plain-lens glasses perched on his nose, Lin Qiye strolled the corridor. Today the asylum was unusually quiet.
Well—whenever Merlin wasn’t having an episode, it was always quiet.
Nyx lay on a deck-chair in the yard, basking; Merlin sat alone in the reading room, engrossed in a Middle-Aged Health Guide; Li Yifei chopped vegetables in the kitchen, the rhythmic clack echoing down the hall…
Peaceful, serene—practically a retirement home, Lin Qiye mused.
He slipped past everyone, entered the director’s office, and turned into the underground passage.
After descending the damp stone steps he heard heart-rending wails from the block of cells ahead:
“Uwaaaaaah…
Why, why kill me? What did I do wrong… sniff
Bad people, all bad! Picking on a kid!
Mama I wanna go home uwaaa…”
Lin Qiye froze, bewildered.
What the—there’s a child in there?
Wasn’t it a spider and a cube? Where did this kid come from?
He hurried to the cell and looked inside. A small boy, face veined with spider-lines, eyes crimson, hugged himself in the corner and sobbed.
When the boy spotted Lin Qiye he gulped back tears, biting his lip like a kidnapped child afraid to cry.
Seeing that familiar face, the boy recalled his own death; his small face went white.
Lin Qiye studied him, surprised. “You’re the spider?”
“You’re the pig!” the boy muttered under his breath.
Lin Qiye: …
He really hadn’t expected the spider to be a little boy; he’d thought those earlier voices were hallucinations. Apparently not…
Killing a kid left a sour taste.
He sighed and glanced at the panel floating inside the cell.
“
Sinner: Soul-Weaving Spider
Decision: As the myth creature you personally slew, you may choose its soul’s fate:
Option 1: Obliterate its soul, erasing it utterly.
Option 2: Raise its fear of you to 60 and hire it as an asylum orderly; it will care for patients and offer you limited protection.
Current fear value: 359
”
Lin Qiye: …
Fear of 359? Am I that scary?
He looked helplessly at the boy, who shuddered, face pale:
“D-don’t kill me, okay?
If you really crave braised spider leg, I can give you one…
T-two legs are fine too!”