It was only after Shi Xuefei had been gone for quite a while that Zhao Xuan finally snapped out of his daze.
He lowered his gaze to the Bureau 794 medal in his hand.
The more he thought about all the benefits Shi Xuefei had described earlier, the more his eyes gleamed with excitement.
"This… this is an opportunity! A huge one!" he muttered, clutching the medal. "I'm definitely holding onto this 794 Bureau thigh for dear life!"
But what thrilled Zhao Xuan most wasn't just the insane perks the Bureau offered—it was the people in it.
According to Shi Xuefei, only those who had successfully cleared a relic trial qualified to join Bureau 794.
And Zhao Xuan knew exactly how difficult those relic trials were—he had personally experienced one.
So there was no doubt about it—
anyone capable of passing one was a genius.
And to Zhao Xuan, geniuses were essentially walking experience farms.
Whether he could win or not didn't matter—what mattered was that fighting them would skyrocket his combat proficiency.
He smirked to himself.
"That big… uh, that lady said I can use this medal to enter the Bureau's Dream Realm, right? If I can enter, others can too. Maybe I can use it to challenge other Tier 3s in the dream space—spar with them, and gain real experience afterward!"
The thought alone made Zhao Xuan's eyes light up.
"Speaking of that big lady…"
"If I heard right, she said she had to hurry back to the Imperial Capital to open a new relic gate?"
His expression stiffened.
"But this is Tongcheng—tens of thousands of li away from the capital! Don't tell me she can just… open a door and step straight there?"
He shuddered at the idea.
"If she really can do that, then what kind of monster is she? A high-tier ability user, for sure!"
"Damn…" He took a sharp breath. "Forget it, I can't waste time thinking about that. What I need now is to train hard before the Provincial Exam. The last thing I want is to trip in the gutter and fail to even qualify for Nationals!"
He shook his head, hailed a taxi, and hurried toward his next mission site.
Meanwhile, outside the Imperial Capital, deep in a forest—
A door of swirling air appeared out of nowhere.
A moment later, Shi Xuefei stepped gracefully out of it.
"Ah, Xuefei, you're back."
An elderly man sitting on a nearby boulder chuckled warmly. "That kid named Zhao Xuan—did he agree?"
"Of course he did," Shi Xuefei replied with a small nod. "How could he not?"
"And?" the old man asked again, curiosity glinting in his cloudy eyes. "What's your first impression of the boy?"
Shi Xuefei's mind immediately flashed back to those three humiliating words—
'Big Cow Lady.'
Her elegant face turned crimson in equal parts embarrassment and irritation.
"...Average," she muttered.
"Eh?"
The old man's expression turned oddly amused.
Shi Xuefei quickly changed the subject. "Elder Zhao, this isn't the time for small talk. Let's stabilize the relic gate before it closes. If it seals again, there's no telling when it'll reopen."
"You're right."
The old man stood, nodding.
"This one's an Eighth-Tier relic. I'll open the gate; you focus on stabilizing it. Let's finish within half an hour."
"Yes, Elder Zhao."
Truth be told—Zhao Xuan's earlier guess wasn't wrong.
Despite looking like a woman in her mid-twenties, Shi Xuefei really was a high-tier ability user—and an immensely powerful one at that.
Of course, Zhao Xuan had no idea.
At that very moment, he was in the northern wilderness of Tongcheng, chasing down a massive Ironhide Boar, a Tier 3 beast.
It was his first bounty mission of the day.
This particular Ironhide Boar had been terrorizing farms in the area—
destroying over thirty acres of farmland and ramming through a ranch, killing more than a hundred Tier 1 livestock.
Its hide was notoriously thick, so much so that several Tier 3 ability users had already failed to harm it.
But that didn't mean Zhao Xuan couldn't.
After taking a single kick from Zhao Xuan's partial dragon form, the once-arrogant boar had been sent flying, vomiting blood.
And then—it ran.
Unlike other missions where the targets were relatively docile creatures that could simply be driven away,
this beast was different.
The Ironhide Boar species was known for its vicious nature and vindictive memory.
If you didn't kill it, it would surely return later to seek revenge.
And so began a chase through the forest—
one man, one beast—predator and prey constantly switching roles.
Before long, Zhao Xuan had driven the creature deep into a dense woodland.
But the beast, realizing it couldn't outrun him, suddenly turned around.
"Snort! Snort! SNOOORT!"
With a roar-like bellow, the boar charged head-on.
Under the dappled sunlight piercing through the canopy,
the coarse bristles on its head glimmered faintly—
with a strange, metallic sheen.
Zhao Xuan's eyes widened.
"Wait—what the hell!?"
He braced himself—
and launched a sweeping kick.
BOOM!!
The ground quaked.
The Ironhide Boar was sent crashing into a massive tree trunk, the impact shaking leaves loose from above.
Before it could get up, Zhao Xuan was already on top of it.
His fingers extended—like a spear—
and he thrust straight toward the creature's abdomen.
"Snort! SNORT!!"
The boar roared in fury and pain—its body flashing again with that same eerie glow.
Even Zhao Xuan's full-powered strike only barely managed to pierce its skin.
Zhao Xuan's expression darkened.
"No way… this can't be!"
He sucked in a sharp breath.
"This—this is Armament Haki! It has Armament Haki!!"
He stared at the beast, incredulous.
"Since when does a Tier 3 wild boar awaken Armament Haki!? Something's definitely off here—
absolutely, one hundred percent off!!"
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