The next morning, within the mottled brick and stone building.
On the second floor, in a bedroom facing the sun, in the center lay a soft carpet with moon patterns, where Tang Qi slowly woke up.
Before opening his eyes, what Tang Qi saw in his mind was that gray, nebulous space. The golden, dust-like light points had increased, the result of an entire night of meditation. It was strange, he had been sitting in meditation all night and still felt not a hint of tiredness.
After waking up, he seemed even more spirited.
He had also tested the time limit for a single session of the Golden Furnace Meditation, aside from the special state of the first session, the subsequent meditations lasted about an hour each. When his brain began to feel a stabbing pain, he had to stop.
Rest for half an hour, then continue to meditate, another hour.
The cycle repeated, and a night had passed.
Of course, how to properly arrange his meditation time was something Tang Qi was still exploring.
What really troubled Tang Qi was the spiritual power obtained from meditation; he hadn't yet found a way to use it.
However, finding a way to practice Extraordinary skills was obviously not an easy task. For Tang Qi, who was still in the "adaptation phase" in this new world, it would take some more time.
Now, what Tang Qi needed to do was to play the role of a ninth-grade student.
Despite the fact that he had moved from his luxurious villa and was living alone in the high school dormitory, requiring no one's care, which was quite different from his former life, Tang Qi felt he still needed to try hard to play the final role of a student, and also take this opportunity to catch up on some common knowledge.
With this thought, Tang Qi immediately got up, cooked breakfast for himself, grabbed the textbooks and classroom schedule he had received the previous day, and headed out.
Just as he was about to leave, it seemed he remembered something, and he turned back into the storage room next to the leisure room.
He reached straight into the cramped room and pulled out a wooden box, opened it, and what he saw inside were the witchcraft notes he had taken from Old Morgan, some small witchcraft curiosities, and the Soul Swapping Balance.
The previous night, Tang Qi had thrown these items in here.
To give up the Black Witchcraft notes and the Soul Swapping Balance was not because he lacked decisiveness or was adhering to a division between good and evil.
From beginning to end, there was only one reason: caution.
These items could indeed endow a person with remarkable power. However, using such Black Witchcraft could attract the attention of an old witch's family, which was not a wise choice for Tang Qi at the moment.
Especially after Tang Qi had obtained the Golden Furnace Meditation, these items seemed even more superfluous.
At this moment, as Tang Qi looked at them again, even though only a night had passed, he couldn't tell if it was an illusion, but Tang Qi always felt that the evil aura of these items seemed to have weakened somewhat, and was continuing to diminish.
"Could it be, it actually works?"
Tang Qi muttered to himself, his gaze directly focusing on the scale at the bottom of the box.
Immediately, ripples surged within his field of vision, and a special interface once again appeared.
Among these items, it seemed that only the scale and the un-restored Meditation had reached the level to trigger Tang Qi's All-Knowing ability, or the Golden Finger.
Curios: Soul Swapping Balance
Information Fragment One: This is an evil creation that can swap souls.
Information Fragment Two: Due to the special environment it is in, it is undergoing suppression by Light powers, continuing to weaken, with a high probability of failure in launching the ritual.
"It works!"
Seeing the changed information fragment, Tang Qi exclaimed joyfully.
The intelligence in the diary was correct; within Saint Thorn High School, there indeed existed a Light power suppressing Black Witchcraft.
Regardless if it was not a human but an evil creation, it would still be suppressed within the area.
Having verified this, a big stone in Tang Qi's heart immediately fell.
He stored these items back, feeling more relaxed. Turning, he opened the front door, walked down the stone steps, and followed the path he had remembered from the previous day, heading to the actual campus area.
Saint Thorn High School's front was the white brick and stone square and the Thorny Church with a history of hundreds of years.
But that was merely the facade. Behind it lay an exceedingly vast campus.
Deep within the campus, there was even a sizable park.
The main area, such as the central campus, housed the actual educational buildings comprising four or five majestic high-rises. On the left and right were buildings for teaching staff and student dormitories.
The place Tang Qi resided was in a secluded corner on the left side.
As he walked toward the main campus area, he glanced unintentionally a few times at the clock tower area very close to his small building.
This was exactly what Pastor Benny had mentioned—that the only drawback of this quiet brick and stone building was being too close to the "Ascetic Society." One could often see some eerie scenes, especially in the early morning hours.
However, this time Tang Qi didn't see anything.
"Could it be I got up too late?"
Shaking his head, Tang Qi muttered a sentence.
Taking out a book from his bosom, Tang Qi slowly headed towards the main campus.
There was a somewhat lengthy path ahead, which provided sufficient time for Tang Qi to review some common knowledge, especially in terms of history.
For instance, the page Tang Qi randomly flipped open discussed the historical establishment of the Divine Eagle Empire.
Before seeing the text, what first caught his eye was a striking image depicting a seaside metropolitan city, with a gigantic statue that seemed to reach into the clouds.
That metropolitan city, Tang Qi knew, was the second largest city of the Divine Eagle Federation—Jiatai City.
And that sculpture was actually a divine statue.
It had a long and wide robe, a thorny crown on its head radiating light, holding an unknown book in one hand, and a seemingly cold and ancient long sword in the other, around its feet on the tall black stone base, numerous bas-reliefs shaped like shattered demons and ghosts were carved.
Merely with the naked eye, it was hard to determine how tall the statue was, and naturally, more details were unknowable.
However, there was a paragraph below this page about this statue.
Lord of Thorns: A gift from the Europe Alliance to the Divine Eagle Federation following the Great Catastrophe, the crown on its head represents the endless radiance bestowed by the Lord of Light, the book in its hand is the "Thorny Law Code," representing the most strict and fair law, the sword in its hand and the bas-reliefs at its feet represent the countless demons defeated during the establishment process of the Divine Eagle Federation.
It was rumored that there was also a pair of Wings of Freedom within the gifts from Europe, meant to accompany the statue of the Lord of Thorns, which unfortunately went missing mysteriously during transportation, remaining lost for hundreds of years and becoming one of the biggest mysteries in the long history of the Divine Eagle Federation.
"Why is it not the Statue of Liberty?"
Tang Qi, looking at the somewhat familiar scene in his memory, could not help but sigh.
Although everything was different, some details about the depiction of this scene on this page of the history book indeed resembled the Statue of Liberty on the previous Earth.
However, the related history was utterly different.
It was known that this history book recorded the official history.
The appearance of things like the Lord of Thorns and law code could be understood, but the realistic mentioning of demons puzzled Tang Qi.
His confusion was not about the existence of demons, as the experiences of the day of his rebirth did not allow Tang Qi to deny the existence of Extraordinary Powers; since devils, Soul Swapping Balance, and Black Witchcraft could exist, the emergence of demons was also natural.
What truly perplexed Tang Qi was that in the open, the existence of Extraordinary Powers was officially denied.
This world, like the previous Earth, had developed modern civilization.
Though still filled with many strange, exaggerated mythological tales circulated in various books, media, or by word of mouth, and compared to Earth, this world seemed to have especially more tales that were excessively real in detail.
For instance, the most profound memory in the original host's mind was that over a thousand years ago, a great disaster occurred in this world, which, whether it was war or natural disaster, tied together with complicated terms like deities, demons, apocalypse, ... engulfing the entire world.
And the Divine Eagle Federation, now one of the strongest political bodies, was established at the end of the Great Catastrophe.
Such a huge event should have detailed records passed down, but from the original host's memory, it seemed that the true story of that significant event was jointly concealed by each major country under some mutual understanding.
In those that were somewhat unhideable, various information was polluted and processed, successfully ushering the whole world into a harmonious modern civilization atmosphere, even somewhat better than the previous Earth.
But if those Extraordinary Powers, be it demons or deities, could truly appear, even if all the major political bodies conspired to conceal them, they could not stop all mouths and eyes from knowing.
The reason behind this situation, Tang Qi found the answer on the next page.
Or rather, a possible answer.
It turned out that a hundred years ago, a miraculous meteor streaked across the Origin Blue Star, and overnight, all signs of extraordinary phenomena disappeared.
What followed was the booming development of science.
Quickly within just a hundred years, the entire Origin Blue Star achieved achievements more brilliant than the past thousand years, except for some local areas and the Saha Continent still occasionally plagued by wars, most regions of the Origin Blue Star were very civilized and prosperous.
In light of this, many political bodies or species adopted a new calendar following that meteor, and the Divine Eagle Federation was also one of them.
Thus, Tang Qi saw the "Year 102 of Divine Eagle Calendar" on his acceptance letter.
Here, the Divine Eagle Calendar actually is the Divine Eagle New Calendar.
If converted to the old calendar, the number would have to be increased by at least several thousand years.
This split and incredible historical process of the Origin Blue Star somewhat fascinated Tang Qi, making him unaware that he had already stepped into the Main Campus, and the surroundings began to buzz with people moving back and forth.
Just then, Tang Qi suddenly felt a pain in his forehead, his body swayed nearly falling, managing to stabilize himself, but in the corner of his eye saw the human figure he had bumped into was about to fall, Tang Qi instinctively reached out a hand, catching the person by the waist.
"Ah!"
When the crisp, pleasant exclamation hit his ears, Tang Qi also felt the soft touch in his palm.
"It's a girl!"
Tang Qi internally made the judgment immediately.
ps: Chapter 9 has been harmonized, recovery date (Fat Fish is very anxious, modification application for lifting the ban in progress) is pending, everyone can first join the group to catch up (number 726582990), it won't affect the plot.