The Great Worm Lich

Zhang Lisheng, who had unknowingly made a war machine in Tudenan that was neither fish nor fowl heard Tugra’s words and laughed, “I didn’t worry about the safety of the tribe. The words I just said are to comfort you.”

“Great Raider… Y-You really make me…” The Tudenan headman showed a half-genuine expression of being overwhelmed with gratitude.

“All right, Tugra, stop being so dramatic! You’re my most important believer, so it’s not a big deal for me to comfort you. I’ve thought about it carefully. I suddenly feel that after I leave, the tribe should not keep flaunting our strength blindly. We might as well take the initiative to send some gifts to a faraway powerful tribe like the Kamando to forge a friendship. I should conquer the neighboring tribes and make friends with distant big tribes so I can grow stronger and safer. This is called befriending the distant enemy while attacking the enemy near home.”

“Befriending the distant enemy while attacking the enemy near home? What an amazing means of wisdom, Raider! Kamando tribe has always been ignorant, arrogant, greedy, and vain. As long as the gifts are expensive, your gift will make them ecstatic to accept it and give us back some ‘trash’ as gifts. In that case, the other big tribes, like Eruya, Pelungia, and Samru that had several hundreds of thousands of people and share the border with Kamando would never dare to act rashly anymore…”

“This is not wisdom but a simple political machination. Since thousands of years ago, my ancestors have already… Ah forget it, in your eyes, it really should be an amazing game of wisdom!” When the young man saw that the Tudenan headman had his eyes wide with excitement, he curled his lips in disdain and commanded the doll-like Ghostface with his mind to leap down from his shoulder. After it landed on the ground, it enlarged its body.

When the young man used the ‘connect’ spell, the wizard power in his body surged till he almost couldn’t hold himself. Since the conquest of Mokacho, such a situation had occurred numerous times, this proved that his wizard power was about to break through soon.

“I didn’t even put much effort in the battle, but I managed to obtain more than half of the hatred. I’m really hated for ‘picking the fruit’…” feeling the boiling wizard power in his body, Zhang Lisheng showed a blissful smile on his face. After suppressing it for a while, he jumped on the back of the wizard gu and looked down at the Tudenan headman by his feet before giving his order, “I’ll leave now, Tugra! I’ll come back after 40 days at most so make sure you handle all the trivial things during this time.”

“Yes, Great Raider!” Tugra kneeled at the feet of the wizard gu and said respectfully. As he kneeled, all the Tudenan tribesmen in the tribe landed on their knees and buried their heads deeply in the soil.

After sweeping his gaze at the tribe that was almost fully re-constructed while encircling the cave connecting directly to the underground Golden River, a solid satisfaction suddenly rose in his heart. After looking at it for a while greedily, he finally commanded Ghostface to crawl on the invisible silk in the sky, carrying himself into the jungle.

Leaping up and down rapidly in the foreign world’s jungle, it took the wizard gu less than two hours to transport the young man near the wall gate of the human gathering place on the Shrimp B1 Island.

After putting on his dirty windbreaker, Zhang Lisheng walked into the gathering place and habitually had a takeout of meat and Coke from the meat shop LS opened on the island. Without giving a damn about his image, he ate and drank while walking back to his place. Then, he washed up and changed into new clothes before walking leisurely to the beach and buying a ferry ticket.

Enjoying the sea breeze in the late autumn afternoon under the sun that was gradually getting cold for a while, the ship’s whistle finally sounded from afar, slowly getting near to the port.

Over ten minutes later, against the wind and rain, the ferry took him back to the bustling new New York port.

Now that Zhang Lisheng had returned to the civilized world, he followed the idea he had already made up his mind and did not return to New York City. Instead, he took a taxi directly to JFK International Airport.

After being fortunate enough to get a ticket to San Francisco in the evening, he rushed back to Stanford University the next day.

The campus was still quiet. Zhang Lisheng walked empty-handed to his apartment building, that was painted with white and beige on the exterior walls, surrounded by green lawns and entered it with a nostalgic look. It had been ages since he last set foot here after all.

There were very few people playing around in the spacious corridors. Even though the people walking around appeared to be still brimming with youth, their expressions were much calmer now. Most of them were holding textbooks or tablets filled with research materials.

Most of the young people who could get a spot in the world’s top universities might allow themselves to indulge and adapt to the university environment after obtaining their independence, but usually, after they entered the second year, they would inevitably put everything back on the right track.

Zhang Lisheng followed two tall and strong college male students who were wearing couple-like baby-green sweaters who had their hands on each other’s shoulders as they discussed their assignments in whispers amid their laughter. After walking up to the ‘A011′ room, he turned the doorknob but realize that the knob remained unmoved. Then, he knocked on the door with force.

“Hey, man, didn’t you see the belt on the handle? No matter who is it, you better not pull any trick at this hour…” A few seconds later, a panting shout resonated from the room.

Zhang Lisheng was dumbstruck. Intuitively, he glanced down and realized that nothing was on the bright iron handle on the slightly tinted beige mottled door but a crumpled thin leather belt was lying on the ground.

“Oh, sorry, Jerry! your belt fell on the ground so I didn’t see it.” Although Zhang Lisheng had spent little time in the university, he who had lived in the country for a long time knew very well what it meant by having a tie or a belt hanging at the boys’ dormitory door.

“L-Lisheng? Damn is that you, roommate? W-why would you come back today?”

“It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter. I’ll hang the belt on the door handle for you again, and I’ll go walk around in the campus first. You, erm, can take your sweet time, buddy!” The young man said and picked up the belt on the ground to hang it on the door handle.

Upon seeing his thoughtful movements, an unfamiliar blonde who happened to walk by with her boyfriend chuckled and patted Zhang Lisheng’s shoulder. “You’re really a good roommate…”

The girl’s boyfriend also held a thumb up for Zhang Lisheng.

At this time, Jerry’s voice could be heard shouting from the room again, “Thank you, buddy! come back two hours later, I’ll treat you to a pizza tonight.”

“Thanks for the compliment,” The young man smiled at the young couple who passed by in the corridor and raised his voice. “There’s no need for that, Jerry! I may not come back to the dormitory tonight if I go to the lab. See you!”

Then, he hurriedly walked out of the dormitory.

The bicycle he threw outside the building had already disappeared without a trace. Zhang Lisheng contemplated for a while and began to walk to the biological experiment building by foot. Halfway throughout his journey, he suddenly felt a surge in his heart and after that, a fleeting hunger flashed across his entire body.

“I’ve made a breakthrough… I’ve made a breakthrough already…” On the spacious campus avenue, Zhang Lisheng who was walking along the roadside suddenly turned stiff as he muttered in surprise.

Although the feeling of being on the verge of breakthrough had been lingering in his heart for over 30 days already, he rarely cultivated the secret method because he had been busying himself with transplanting the Gold Core fragment on the aborigines recently. For this reason, he felt that it would still be some time away before the breakthrough, but who would have ever thought that they would actually greet him with the opportunity of ascension on the first day after he left the Shrimp B1 Island.

After snapping back to his reality, he subconsciously touched the pockets of his clothes where the wyrmdragon that had shrunk to become several dozens centimeters lied before sighing in relief, “It’s fortunate that I’ve prepared myself since long ago and have been carrying Crocodragon with me. Otherwise, I’d have to take a bus back to San Francisco!”

While he continued to make strides, he looked around to look for the bus stop on campus.

As the second-largest university in the entire US, and the site where the global technology frontier ‘Silicon Valley’ lied, Stanford’s campus public transportation system was highly developed. After walking less than 200 meters, Zhang Lisheng saw a bus stop pergola placed with a wooden chair by the roadside with a bus sign next to it.

He walked to the empty pergola and waited anxiously for the school bus. After a while, he felt that the wizard power in his body began to boil spontaneously again, prompting him to sit on the wooden chair and closed his eyes to suppress it.

There were a total of 12 breakthroughs to become a Grand Wizard. Rank ‘8’ was just right in the two-thirds of the journey and was also the mid-way completion of the life-to-death transformation process that required him to absorb the third wizard gu. For this reason, the pain he felt at this time differed from that of the previous breakthrough.

“This feels as though my wizard power has already reached the stage of ascending, and I’m forced to undergo an incarnated transformation even when I don’t have a good wizard gu already. Looks like if I don’t prepare early, each time when I continue to ascend after Rank-7 Wizard, I wouldn’t even get the chance to ‘wait’ anymore!” Zhang Lisheng suppressed the surging wizard power in his body for a while and felt that it was ineffective. Frowning, he gritted his teeth and mumbled under his breath, “This must also be a common sense, but I didn’t know about this at all. I wonder what taboos I’ll encounter again by taking cultivation for granted like this. Don’t tell me it’s necessary for me to go to the Gate of Witchcraft…”

While he was clenching his fists talking to himself in pain, he suddenly heard a clear female voice resonating in his ears, “Lad, do you need any help? Ah, Junior Brother Lisheng! It’s you! Why are you so pale? Are you unwell? Come on, say something! Hey, can you open your eyes? Look at my fingers! How many fingers do you see?”

Then, he felt a warm sweaty hand patting his face.

The young man opened his eyes and saw a panicked, clear face with two fingers swaying in front of his eyes. With a weak voice, he said, “Oh, it’s you, Senior Sister Caiying! What a coincidence!”

“Thank goodness you can still recognize me!” The short-haired girl from China, who had given a bicycle to Zhang Lisheng before, who was on friendly terms with him sighed with relief. However, she continued to shake her fingers and kept on chipping away as she asked, “Can you tell how many fingers is this?”

“Two!” Zhang Lisheng raised his spirit and said, “I’m not an idiot, Senior Sister! I’m alright! I’m just a little too tired. I just need to take a rest.”

“Tired? why don’t you go back to the dormitory?”

“I’ve been on the Shrimp B1 Island for the past few months, and I just took the plane back to Stanford today. In the end, I saw a belt on the door handle of my dorm room…”

“Oh, that’s unfortunate,” Guo Caiying was taken by surprise. Shrugging in a US style, she could not help but laugh. “So you had no choice but to go to the campus’ bus stop to rest? How pathetic!”