Chapter 4: CH 4

It was quiet in the cabin. Everyone was wearing a headset.

The helicopter rumbled up from the center of the school playing field. In the distance, they could see the PE teacher leading students over from a school building. The bleachers were full of spectators, but it was far away, so everything was a little blurry.

A city of steel and iron stood at their feet, and the sun roved over the skyscrapers, provoking prismatic trails in the glass.

Although Zong Yan had flown high above the city countless times, this was his first experience riding in a helicopter. He naturally turned his head to the side and peered out of the porthole. But the whole time he was quietly pricking up his ears. He didn’t miss the slightest movement inside the helicopter.

The man wearing sunglasses in the co-pilot’s seat was holding a tablet. After he tapped on it twice with his fingers, he jerked his chin at He Yuan, who immediately understood.

“Little brother ah, don’t be too nervous, okay? Let’s just talk casually and relax for a bit.”

He Yuan had a master’s degree in psychology from Miskatonic University. Later, when he joined the Dragon Group, his commander tasked him with managing the mental health of the team.

He easily read the distrust and vigilance in Zong Yan’s sitting posture and demeanor. So He Yuan rubbed his nose and decided to start by building rapport to lower the teen’s psychological defenses.

This was a matter that required careful handling. Dragon Team 7 had just returned from the Syrian border, and they were supposed to have a long vacation. They certainly didn’t expect to rush over to a school the moment they came back. Apparently, the leadership had called them in to bring this second year student back to headquarters intact.

He Yuan wasn’t cleared for more details than that, but he could read between the lines.

“What do you want to talk about? Why don’t you answer a question for me first.” Zong Yan narrowed his eyes. He didn’t want to cede the initiative of the conversation to someone else.

Unexpectedly, He Yuan readily agreed. “Sure, ask away.”

No, this attitude of yours is a bit too suspicious.

Especially when there were a bunch of fancy murder tools piled up behind the cabin. If negotiations broke down, wouldn’t they just pick up one of those weapons and kill him?

Zong Yan sensed that something with He Yuan’s attitude wasn’t right. Generally speaking, when strangers became eager all of a sudden, they had an agenda.

“Why do you guys think I have something to do with a murder at the financial district two days ago?”

The entire time, Zong Yan had been thinking about this. He couldn’t understand it.

His actions were so stealthy they should have been flawless.

“Well, it turns out that someone happened to be working overtime and saw it. When the body was discovered and the investigation team collected evidence and canvassed for witnesses, that worker gave us a lead. But as it turned out, when we retrieved the security footage, no suspicious person was seen. So we pulled the surveillance for all surrounding city blocks, and that’s what clinched you.”

He Yuan had just received the mission briefing document and was trying to recall its contents.

Zong Yan: …

A thousand miles of levee collapsed by an ant hole, that’s probably what this was called.

“To be fair, can I ask you a question, too, little brother?”

Seeing that Zong Yan’s face didn’t look good after this question, He Yuan knew the teenager might not want to talk for a while, so he took the initiative to attack.

The Dragon Group had a device to detect Awakened. When an outbreak occurred, the source would be detected. All Awakened were on file, so if there was an abnormal awakening source, it meant there was a new Awakened person.

Generally speaking, whenever a new Awakened appeared, the Dragon Group would send someone to meet them.

He Yuan was honored to receive the task of being the guide. Since the Dragon Group had locked onto Zong Yan, it was his job to make the high school student admit he was the awakening source, and then provide the initial guidance to the new Awakened.

“You can ask.” The boy in the school uniform gave him a listless look. “But I reserve the right to refuse to answer.”

He Yuan chuckled twice, suddenly leaned over toward him, and gave him a mysterious wink. “Did you ever have a kind of feeling when you were growing up, like when you were alone, a very intense kind of feeling? Something that felt like it traveled through your entire body. Er, not something that follows the blood vessels. Maybe it would be more accurate to call it meridians, although that description is a bit abstract…. If you wanted to describe it specifically, it follows some kind of channel throughout your body, drumming in your heart and trying to break free…. And then you find you suddenly have some kind of extraordinary power. If I had to explain it, it’s like waking up from a deep sleep. Have you ever had something like that?”

Zong Yan looked at him with a wooden face, like he was staring at a moron. “No.”

“No, no, no, maybe I didn’t describe it too well. How about this, have you ever seen a super blockbuster Hollywood movie or Japanese anime? The kind that has those characters in it, like Spider-Man—”

He Yuan wanted to continue, but he was interrupted by a sudden rustling sound.

The man in the co-pilot seat suddenly turned around without warning, slowly and methodically took off his gloves, and folded three of his fingers down. The remaining index finger was vaguely directed toward Zong Yan.

The next moment, a gleaming flame suddenly appeared on the tip of his finger, flickering in the cabin. The fire had been woven into a golden red pattern, lighting up everything around them.

In an eye-blink, the flaming tail of the fire fractured into leaping golden arcs of electricity. Sparks rose into the air, buzzing and spitting, then turned into a dark blue swirl of water. As the curl of water floated, the dark blue inside it grew lighter and lighter, and finally condensed into crystal-clear frost.

After the frost appeared, the temperature in the cramped cabin dropped several degrees almost instantly.

“Boss…”

He Yuan helplessly propped up his head. He really wanted to remind the boss about the organization’s thousands of confidentiality regulations. But when the man gave him a cold sweeping glance, He Yuan immediately made a zipper action on his lips to indicate that he would never be a shameful informer.

To tell the truth, He Yuan thought his boss was bullying the high school kid too much.

The Dragon Group held ranking tournaments every quarter, and the boss of Team 7 took first place every time. It was like he felt duty bound to hammer everyone else’s head into the dirt and sweep the championship.

People said the Chinese Dragon Group was incredible. But the members of the Dragon Group knew it was really only Team 7 that was incredible. The entire team was following the path of evolving into berserkers under the leadership of their crazy captain. As soon as the enemy heard Team 7 of the Dragon Group was coming for them, they immediately waved the white flag on the battlefield.

And this year the boss’ awakening source had evolved, directly promoting him in rank from Auxiliary to Monarch level. With the ability to manipulate nine different elements at the same time, he’d become the ninth living Monarch.

And right now a Monarch was bullying a high school student who didn’t even know he was Awakened. He Yuan just wanted to hide his face.

According to the rules, when they got back from Syria they should have immediately gone on leave. Instead they were called over here on the double for this kind of trifle. It was normal to feel disgruntled, not to mention the bad temper of their boss, who exploded at the first sign of a disagreement.

“Well, the boss doesn’t mean any harm, ha…”

He Yuan quickly tried to remedy the situation with a joke. If this student really was Awakened, then given the tiny odds of becoming an Awakened, he might become a colleague in the future.

Maybe he hadn’t noticed that none of the new recruits who joined the Dragon Group were willing to join Team 7. Half of the credit for that belonged to the captain, who didn’t know how to restrain himself.

Zong Yan: …

He fell into a rare silence.

Zong Yan was baffled by everything.

First of all, he was extremely certain he was the only superpowered person in the world. He was also certain he had never heard of the Dragon Group before.

Ever since he got that inexplicable black manuscript, an unknown thing called a “star vampire” had appeared, and then the world and his perception had both turned upside down.

Was there something wrong with the world, or had something been wrong with his memory from the beginning?

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Zong Yan didn’t have a clue. He even found it absurd.

He felt instinctively there was something he didn’t know, and the gap was caused by an information mismatch.

If this was just an ordinary policeman, Zong Yan would be dead set on covering up his abilities. But now that the Dragon Group had come to his door and confirmed he had a superpower, there was no point hiding it anymore.

Zong Yan had gone back to the second-hand bookstore two days ago and asked Grandpa Zeng. After looking into it for two days, he still couldn’t find the identity of the client behind the black manuscript.

Whoever it was, they were very mysterious. They’d paid five times the normal deposit and it wasn’t even clear when they were coming back to get it. This proved the client only wanted a scapegoat. There was never any intention of taking the notebook back.

Since Zong Yan couldn’t find out any more and the relevant authorities had intervened, he might as well leave the matter to them.

“Just admit it, kid.”

The man in sunglasses raised his eyebrows belligerently. The aura on his body was strikingly cold and fierce. For no apparent reason it made one think of a long sword drawn from its scabbard.

“Man up already. It’s boring to pretend.”

This was a man who’d seen blood.

Although he was wearing sunglasses, Zong Yan could clearly feel the eyes locked on him like a hawk.

If this man wanted to start things right here, Zong Yan might not even have time to use the Child of the Wind. Besides, his San value hadn’t fully recovered. He really didn’t want to use his daily disposable card again in such a short amount of time.

The frost on the man’s fingertips persisted a few seconds before it broke apart and disintegrated, dissolving into dust and disappearing in the air, as beautiful as a dream.

Goading someone with an insult, it was the lowest form of provocation.

But Zong Yan didn’t have much choice. If he couldn’t explain how he was able to evade the cameras, there was no way to clear himself of suspicion.

Now he understood the other side was eyeing his abilities.

The only thing Zong Yan couldn’t figure out was, if the other person also had superpowers, why was he such a lightweight? ? ?

Zong Yan always felt like he was extremely unlucky. The permanent superpower cards he’d drawn over the years were basically E-rank. Most days they were only good for lighting a fire or rubbing an electric spark between his fingers.

But don’t we need to dial up the diversity of elemental superpowers here—wasn’t it just making a few snowflakes out of thin air and performing an elemental conversion? Hahahaha, who’s afraid of who!

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Anyway, Zong Yan got really excited when he made up his mind to reveal himself.

With a cold smile, the dark-haired young man copied the sunglasses man’s pose. He folded down three fingers and raised his index finger slightly with a rather impish expression.

Oh, it looked like the boss really had guessed right this time. The boy was also Awakened. It was just that he was too young and got stirred up.

He Yuan stared at the flame that sprang up from Zong Yan’s finger and couldn’t help but laugh.

The existence of the Awakened wasn’t known to the public, so at the beginning many Awakened thought they were unique. This idea didn’t get laid to rest until they were found by the organization.

This kid awakened before he was an adult. That meant his talent was online. He was a person who’d probably stick around in the future.

Just as He Yuan was thinking this, his eyes suddenly froze.

The black-haired boy slowly straightened his other fingers, suspending an ice prism over his thumb. A golden arc of electricity also leapt above his middle finger.

He Yuan was stunned.

Crap, this kid just woke up and he could already command three elements. And his control was so steady. His talent was limitless! After enough training, maybe he could even hit Monarch level!

What was the situation at Monarch level? Sadly, the Monarchs of the world today could only be counted on two hands. Each one served as the central force of the Earth’s defense against otherworldly invasion.

Such a good seedling. No wonder the organization sent them over personally.

But he had no way of knowing that was just the beginning.

Because the next moment, the people in the cabin witnessed a miracle.

After three fingers, there were four fingers, five fingers… all the way to the final tenth finger.

At the tips of each of the boy’s distinctly-jointed fingers, ten different elements were quietly suspended, like fragments from a long-ago universe that didn’t interfere with each other, easily controlled in his hands.

In this tiny cabin, they witnessed the birth of the youngest Monarch in the history of the Awakened.

—

The author has something to say:

Hahahahahaha, people are saying the name “Dragon Group” is awkward. Actually, the name was chosen in honor of the original corny chuunibyous. While we’re at it, let’s have a quiz: who never read a novel when they were young about urban powers and an organization called the Dragon Group? lights a cigarette.jpg

The Dragon Group in this story is a secret organization that belongs to the country’s covert institutions. It’s an upright organization that protects the country and defends the people. Although the name is a bit corny, they keep up with the times and are very stylish!

…

Thank you very much for your support. I’ll continue to work hard!

TL Notes:

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weapon – 家伙 – tool, utensil, livestock, guy, fellow

fancy murder <tools> – from 杀气腾腾 – have plenty of fight in sb.; amuck; be out to kill; death in the air; murderous; run amuck; sabre-rattling; see things with bloodshot eyes; There is a prevailing thirst for blood.; with a murderous look on one’s face

goading – 激将法 – prodding sb. into action; encourage sb. to do sth. by means of criticizing his ability; goading sb. into action (as by ridicule, sarcasm, etc.)

Glossary of world terms—new in this chapter:

Monarch – 君主 – Alternatively: sovereign

Transliterated names, titles, and places—new in this chapter:

kid – 小子 – Alternatively: brat, boy, little child

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