Chapter 2646: Yuan’s Testimony(3)

The room remained silent long after Yuan finished recounting his side of the story. The interrogator stared at him with wide eyes, disbelief clear across his face.

"Since this is a testimony and not an interrogation, I should be done here, right?" Yuan spoke after a moment of silence.

"O-Of course..." The interviewer nodded in a dazed manner.

Yuan left the room shortly after, but before he could go anywhere, Mei Feng came out of the spectators’ room and asked him, "What are you going to do now? Don’t tell me you’re going to the mission hall."

Yuan smiled and said, "How did you know?"

"You can’t be seriously thinking about going on another mission right after everything that has happened!" one of the officers behind Mei Feng exclaimed in disbelief.

"Hm? Who said anything about accepting a mission?" Yuan replied before elaborating, "I am going to take the exam for the Black Zone—or the Purple Zone if I have to get the permit for that first."

"Nobody would blame you for taking a rest, you know?"

"I know, but I am not the type who likes to sit around doing nothing all day."

Mei Feng sighed and said, "Do as you please."

"Thanks."

"Before you go..."

Just as Yuan started turning around, Mei Feng retrieved something from her pocket and tossed it to him.

"This is... a storage cube?" Yuan muttered after catching the item.

"The Ironwoman asked me to give it to you wh—if you ever returned," Mei Feng said, almost revealing that she already knew Yuan was alive before his return.

Yuan didn’t say anything, merely offering a silent nod before leaving with the storage cube.

After leaving, Yuan made his way to the mission hall to see when the next exam was.

Unsurprisingly, his presence attracted the attention of everyone in the mission hall.

"H-Hey... am I seeing things, or is that Corporal Yuan?"

"You haven’t heard yet? Apparently he managed to make it back alive."

"No, I haven’t! When did he return?"

"Literally today."

"That’s crazy... To survive outside the city for months alone? He’s really a different breed."

"Not just outside the city. If the rumors are true, he went to the Black Zone."

It didn’t take long before someone approached Yuan and asked him directly, "Can you tell us what happened out there?"

Yuan replied with a smile, "I just gave my testimony, so you will learn of it soon."

"Can’t you just tell us now?"

"I was advised by General Mei not to say anything about it until then," he said, using Mei Feng as a scapegoat.

"Oh..."

Sure enough, when the soldier heard Mei Feng’s name, he immediately backed down.

And for the rest of Yuan’s time in the mission hall, nobody approached him again.

Once he was inside the machine, Yuan tried to join the next Black Zone exam.

However, as he’d anticipated, he needed to first pass the exam for the Purple Zone.

After signing up for the exam, Yuan headed directly to the training area. Of course, he wanted to see how much closer he’d gotten to defeating the entity on the 46th floor.

’I have about three and a half trillion years’ worth of Eternal Essence right now. Surely, I should be able to last more than a few minutes against it...’

<Your restriction on Eternal Essence has been temporarily lifted>

"Foolish mortal..."

A familiar voice resounded before the entity attacked, sending a massive wave of Eternal Essence at Yuan.

"After fighting the Void Hunter, you don’t seem nearly as powerful as before," Yuan remarked with a faint smile.

He immediately unleashed his Eternal Essence—three trillion years’ worth—to meet the incoming attack head-on. ℯℯ𝑙.

A moment later, their Eternal Essences collided. However, instead of Yuan’s being overwhelmed as it had been in the past, the two forces canceled each other out.

Seeing this, Yuan knew he had a good chance of defeating it.

After realizing its attack had failed, the entity immediately prepared another.

"Using the same attack after the last one failed? Who’s the fool now?!"

Yuan unleashed as much Eternal Essence as he could muster, condensing it into a massive spear before launching it forward.

The spear tore straight through the incoming wave with ease and continued onward, rapidly closing in on the entity.

However, just as the spear was about to reach its target, the entity suddenly vanished from its spot like a ghost.

’Void Manipulation!’

Yuan immediately shifted his focus toward locating the entity. Unfortunately, his mastery of Void Manipulation was still inferior, making it difficult for him to track its movements through the void.

A second later, a sharp pain suddenly pierced Yuan’s chest.

When he looked down, his eyes widened slightly at the sight of a massive hole torn straight through his chest.

<You have died>

After returning to the lobby, Yuan sat on the ground and sighed, "My Eternal Essence has gotten strong enough to overcome that thing’s power, but I am still lacking in terms of Void Manipulation..."

Thus, he decided to focus on training his Void Manipulation for the time being.

Yuan left the training room shortly after, but instead of returning home, he went to turn in the Unknown Ores in the storage cube that the Ironwoman had collected for him.

"I’d like to turn this in."

Yuan placed the storage cube on the desk in front of the worker.

The worker accepted the storage cube and placed it on a machine that counted its contents.

"T-Ten thousand Unknown Ores?!" the worker muttered in a surprised voice after seeing the result.

"By the way, is it possible to only accept merits?" Yuan suddenly asked. "I don’t need the money."

"Yes, it’s possible. Would you like to turn in these Unknown Ores for merits only?"

Yuan confirmed with a nod.

"I understand."

After turning in his Unknown Ores, Yuan finally decided to return to his living quarters.

Some time later, just as Yuan reached the door to his home and was about to enter, a stunned voice suddenly sounded from behind him.

"Y-Yuan?"

Yuan turned around and saw Mei Xiaoyun standing several meters away, staring at him with a bewildered expression as though she had just seen a ghost.