“What are you doing, Alicia?” asked Lucien as he looked at his girlfriend who was laying in his embrace.

Lucien and Alicia were currently having some nice time together on the tree in the backyard. Under Alicia’s care, the tree had grown up bigger and taller every day. Now it was already taller than his two-story house.

The branch they were on was carved flat by Lucien, making it smooth and comfortable to lay on. With the small breeze and the chirping of birds every now and then, this place was like a small paradise between the two.

Hiding away her phone from Lucien, Alicia giggled and said, “It’s a secret!”

“Hmm,” Lucien shrugged at her and then closed his eyes without saying anything else. He remembered that he shouldn't pry on the girl's phone or he would be seeking death.

Feeling Alicia’s soothing scent, Lucien took a deep breath before falling asleep.

Kissing her boyfriend on the cheek, Alicia then brought out her phone. On the screen was the page she created on Facebook. Although the page was formed only several hours ago, there was already a few hundred followers.

This page was called ‘My Boyfriend is the best!’ and Alicia had already posted a few pictures of the handsome Lucien. The sole purpose of this page was to brag about her boyfriend.

While uploading the video of Lucien shooting gun, Alicia was replying to the various comments she received. She could sense the jealousy of the other girls just from the comments and that made her happy.

‘Hohoho, there is no better boyfriend than mine in this world.’

Being satisfied, Alicia then took a selfie with Lucien’s sleeping face before sleeping with him.

Waking up in the morning, Lucien found that Alicia was no longer beside him. He climbed down the tree and washed himself up.

Upon entering the living room for breakfast, Lucien found his dad frowning on the sofa. His dad seemed to be thinking about something serious.

“What’s wrong, dad?”

“Son,” said Stevan with a low voice. “Our world is becoming more and more ridiculous…”

“?” Lucien tilted his head, being confused.

“One of my personnel in England has just got an invitation to a magician school!”

“Magician school!?” shouted Lucien in surprise.

“That’s right, it’s the fucking magician school! That guy said the envelope flew into his house out of nowhere, after that, a hologram-like old man appeared and asked him to visit the school!” Stevan showed Lucien the text and pictures from his phone.

“Are you sure it’s real, dad?” asked Lucien.

“Absolutely real, this guy is my trusted aide. There is no way he would lie to me. He is also the leader of our organization's London branch.”

“Here comes the problem…” mumbled Lucien as he folded his arms and lowered his head in deep thought.

Stevan knew right away what his son meant and became quiet as well.

After a few minutes of silence, they both laughed at the same time and shouted, “Of course, it’s gotta be magician school!”

The stupid problem they had was that between a magician school and the sects in China, which one should they visit first. In the end, they chose magician school. Ah… the temptation of magic, who can resist it…

Lucien recalled of what Alicia had told him before, ‘Magus of the Arcadia Plains, one of the four factions’. Aside from the cultivators, Earth now had magicians which were referred to as Magus in the Legas.

From what he knew, Magus also had their own branch system just like cultivator and their main route was, of course, magic.

The magic of the magi was different from what Lucien had. Although his Magic Arrow, Light Orb, Mana Shield and other spells could be considered magic, they were fake in the magus’ eyes.

These magics were all gifted by the system and Lucien had no idea at all how they operated. Every time he wanted to cast these spells, he only needed to think of the names and that’s all. He could control the spell with his control stat but that was just after the spell was cast.

The real magician, the magus, studied the actual magic like mana, elements and magic circles. Their magics were cast without the system’s help as they truly mastered the spells.

Moreover, without waiting for the system to gift them spell through Path or Class, Magus can choose which spell they wanted and studied it right away.

Well, the setback was that the magus needed to study the spell circle which would take some time to fully understand and master. Also, the higher tier the magic, the tougher it was to comprehend.

These were what Lucien roughly knew about Magus and he still didn’t know what their system was like actually.

Lucien once asked Alicia to teach him magic, but after half an hour, he could only give up. The spell models Alicia had were all high class. Coupled with the lack of system’s translating function, Lucien had no idea what it's written about.

When Alicia read it for him, he couldn’t even understand the meaning of a single sentence. As a result, Lucien only needed a single basic magic textbook and vice versa.

“So when are we going to the magician school, dad?” inquired Lucien excitedly.

“Let’s wait for a few more days, son. We still need more information and there is also the condition that without an invitation card, one cannot enter the school. Also, because of the numerous sects in China, there is quite a shortage of personnel, you see?”

Stevan sighed tiredly as things were advancing too fast. Right now, the organization was focusing on China as they wanted to know which sect was the best one, so they had sent many people to infiltrate many sects.

They had also collected dozens of cultivation manuals already and had a group of people analyzing them.

Now with the appearance of a magician school, the tasks were getting more complicating.

Noticing his frail dad, Lucien patted him on the shoulder and said, “It’s fine, dad. Once we get the invitation card, I will help you gather this mysterious school's information!”

Finishing the breakfast, Lucien and Alicia went to the same secret base.

After greeting his three comrades, Lucien then went into the shooting room again. He wanted to improve his shooting skill even more and tried some new guns.

Tonight, Lucien had a mission to do. As it was his second day, the mission was simple. Lucien would only have to be a bodyguard, ensuring Sian safety, as Sian would have a negotiation with a Yakuza leader.

The mission detail only told him to guard Sian and that's all. He didn’t even know what the negotiation would be about or the background of this Yakuza.

‘Well, it doesn’t matter…’

Bang! Bang! Bang!

With the speed of three bullets every one second, hundreds of targets were struck down in a minute. If it wasn’t for the concern of pistol overloading, Lucien could shoot even faster. Still, the pistol barrel was burning hot red in his hand.

With his high Pain Resistance, his hand didn’t even twitch.

To his misunderstanding, the Pain Resistance didn’t decrease the pain he received at all. It, instead, increased the resistance of his body reaction upon undergoing the pain, for example, flinching.

People would normally flinch, frown, twitch, or cry upon suffering pain. These actions would be disastrous while fighting so this was when Pain Resistance came into play. The higher the skill level, the more pain the body could endure.

To the outside view, it seemed like Lucien didn't feel any pain but in fact, he felt it all. The burning sensation on his hand, however, compared to what he suffered in his torture day, was just a child-play.

Even without Pain Resistance, he wouldn’t bat an eyelid.

As for Burn Resistance, thankfully, it was not as half-ass as the former. Burn Resistance really helped him and was beneficial. With this skill, Lucien could grill his hand like a barbeque and his skin wouldn’t be burned.

“Um… I should ask my dad for a better gun,” mumbled Lucien after he beat Pistol Trial level 50 which was the highest level existed.

On the leaderboard, Lucien found his name in the first place with 00:52:31 to the side. In fact, there was solely his name was on the board. The rest was empty as no one had ever passed the level 50.

This leaderboard was for every member of Crimson Forest throughout the world. It was what the higher-ups made for fun.

Snap!

Being in the good mood, Alicia took another photo of him and giggled to herself. Lucien only smiled at her as he was fine being taken a photo by his girlfriend. Lucien felt like she really cared about him and just wanted to collect the time being together with the photo.

‘It’s not like she would share the pictures of me to anyone, right?’

Lucien continued spending his time shooting guns. He enjoyed shooting the real gun a lot as the feeling was much better than playing the game.

However, Alicia wasn’t interested in guns at all. She only occasionally glanced at him lovingly and played on her phone without complaining.

“Aren’t you bored, Alicia?”

“Not at all. I can look at Lulu eight days a week without being bored,” said Alicia cheerfully.

‘I meant the Korean drama you’ve been watching,’ thought Lucien in his mind as he facepalmed himself.

A few hours passed by. Only when Sian told him that it’s time to go did Lucien stop training. Lucien had Alicia waiting for him at home before driving Sian to the objective restaurant in Reta District.

Looking dashing with a suit and sunglasses, Lucien followed Sian into the entrance. Sian also wore a neat suit while holding a black suitcase in his hand.

Walking into the negotiation room, Lucien could see eight people in black standing in eight directions like a guardian. In the middle of the room stood a small table.

Behind the table was an old man in a traditional Japanese robe, kneeling quietly on a cushion. He had three big scars on his face and one of his eyes was blind. The man looked terrifying and solemn, emitting an invisible pressure on everyone in the room.

The man frowned a bit upon seeing that Sian stepped in with only one bodyguard. His face then quickly reverted back to normal after a few seconds.

With just a moment of observation, Lucien could see that this old man was just trying to act cool, by setting up all these environments. Everything seemed like an act.

Lucien frowned a bit before activating Eyes of the Truth Seeker.

Then, the tip of his lips curled up unconsciously.