[You have entered an apocalyptic chapter.]

[Chapter 82740877]

[The powerful wandering soul awakens in a dark, cramped holding cell…]

[You open your eyes. Your sight is filled with dim oppression. The only faint light source comes from the Resting Page quietly floating behind you.]

[The cell is cramped and narrow, the floor covered in filthy water and waste. The acrid stench in the air makes you retch.]

[By the faint light of the Resting Page, you are able to make out the internal structure of the cell…]

[The tightly shut refined copper gate is the cell’s only exit. Through the narrow horizontal slit on it, you can see that the outside is still shrouded in thick darkness.]

[Aside from the corpse in the corner, there is nothing else in the cell that catches your attention.]

[It is a thin, short male corpse. His body is covered in scars left by the lash, and he wears only a ragged strip of linen to cover his lower body. From his clothing alone, you cannot tell what his identity was before imprisonment.]

[The light is extremely dim around you. Only by moving closer and examining the corpse carefully can you see its face clearly.]

[You see that the face still bears the contorted expression of his final moments. The skull at his forehead is caved in, the blood there nearly dried and crusted. On his face are a pair of shriveled, hollow eye sockets. The eyeballs within are nowhere to be seen…]

[Shell of the Knowledge-Seeking Assistant Lecturer of the Medical College: An assistant lecturer from the Transplant Medical College. The Medical College is a logistics institution that serves the various Schools. Although the title of assistant lecturer is the lowest rank, it is still a rather respectable job.]

[For unknown reasons, the assistant lecturer was imprisoned in this lightless cell. Perhaps you can glimpse part of the truth from his memories. He died by ramming his head against the wall. Compatibility: 145% (+65%).]

[Do you wish to Possess this Shell?]

“Transplant Medical College?”

For now, he still did not know which area this prison cell block was located in. In previous World of Omniscience chapters, Lin Xun had never heard of an institution called the Transplant Medical College.

From the intel that Grand Scholar Rona had revealed in the fourth chapter, he already knew that Imperial Capital – Saint Etienne belonged to the seventh chapter zone, but that seventh chapter should definitely contain more than just the Imperial Capital map.

[You have Possessed the Shell of the Knowledge-Seeking Assistant Lecturer of the Medical College.]

[Fragmentary memories within the Shell gradually revive…]

[…]

[Becoming a lofty Scholar is every commoner child’s dream, but not everyone has the talent to absorb that great Knowledge, fuse it into themselves, and wield the power of Knowledge.]

[Unfortunately, I did not pass the Scholar qualification test. I do not have the talent to become a Scholar.]

[I once fell into despair, once abandoned myself to hopelessness…]

[Fortunately, the great Omniscient True Knowledge granted me a pair of steady, nimble hands, giving me outstanding talent in the area of eyeball transplantation. Switching from the literary path to medicine and performing eyeball transplants for Scholars was also a decent path.]

[It was at that moment that I swore I would one day become the greatest transplant doctor, so that even those lofty Scholars would have to lower their heads and beg me to perform their transplant surgeries.]

[To let me study transplant techniques, my parents spent all of their meager savings. I did not let them down and, with excellent grades, was admitted into the best transplant academy in the Imperial Capital, Josephka Medical College.]

[Four years passed in a flash. I successfully obtained my certificate as a trainee transplant doctor and was able to graduate…]

[But ‘trainee transplant doctor’ is the lowest rank. Only the impoverished students of the Multivision School Academy would spend a bit of spare money there to transplant cheap, low grade eyeballs.]

[If I wanted to live more respectably, I had to stay at the Medical College for three more years of advanced study and take the exam for a higher rank…]

[But my parents had already exhausted all their savings for my tuition. I myself had no extra money to pay future tuition or the fees for subsequent rank exams.]

[Looking at the streaks of white hair on my parents’ heads, I let out a long sigh. A trainee doctor is still a doctor. As long as I can earn enough to support my parents and myself, that is enough. As for dreams… to hell with dreams. Nobodies are not worthy of having dreams.]

[Just when I was bowing my head and compromising with life, the dean, Mr. Bennett, came to find me.]

[The dean’s life was truly legendary. He had risen step by step from a back-alley quack in a village clinic to become a big shot. Every graduating student saw him as an idol and wanted to become someone like the dean. I was no exception.]

[Mr. Bennett is a famed figure. Even those noble Scholars from the Direct Vision School have to obediently line up and make appointments for surgeries. Even after booking, they must still wait half a year.]

[They have not a single complaint, and they seem very wary of Mr. Bennett. According to rumors, the dean has extraordinary backing within the School, an extremely powerful patron…]

[Mr. Bennett saw my predicament and my forced compromise with reality. He asked me: are you willing to be a nobody, living a safe, ordinary life, dying on a bed with an infusion tube in your arm, or are you willing to risk everything for a chance to leave your name in history?]

[Nobody or world-renowned, which will you choose?]

[For some reason, just those two simple questions made every drop of my blood boil.]

[Yes, once upon a time I had vowed to become a big shot like the dean. How could I bow and bend so easily, grovelling before reality? I once had a dream too…]

[Mr. Bennett saw the raging flames of ‘unwillingness’ and ‘ambition’ in my eyes. He promised me that I could stay at the Medical College to do miscellaneous chores. I would not receive a single coin in salary for three years, but during that time I could freely borrow the College’s precious books and documents.]

[After three years, he would sponsor me for one rank exam free of charge. If I passed that exam, he would also cover the cost of the next, higher-level rank exam.]

[Everyone says that Mr. Bennett is greedy and stingy, but I know very clearly that he is absolutely not stingy. To children who still cherish their dreams, he is more generous than anyone.]

[Under Mr. Bennett’s care, there was no way I would squander this rare opportunity. Only by putting everything into study could I be worthy of my parents, worthy of Mr. Bennett, and worthy of the dream I had never forgotten…]

[Three years later, I smoothly obtained a higher-level rank. Mr. Bennett told me that with my current ability, I could leave the Medical College and join some private clinic, which would be enough to live a fairly respectable life. But he also knew my dreams would definitely not stop there…]

[…]

[I became an assistant lecturer at the Medical College and still did not receive a single coin in salary, but I had not the slightest complaint. Mr. Bennett promised me that three years later, after I passed the rank exam again with his support, I could be promoted from assistant lecturer to mentor…]

[And then even associate professor and professor would no longer be dreams out of reach.]

[For me to meet such a benefactor as Mr. Bennett in this lifetime is truly the favor of the great Omniscient True Knowledge…]

When Lin Xun read up to this point, he could not help the smile at the corner of his lips.

Just from this money-saving, scam-like trick of roping in cheap labor, he knew that the ‘Bennett’ in the assistant lecturer’s memories had to be that old friend from the past.

He had not expected Bennett to make it from the old Sophia City to the Imperial Capital and even become the dean of a Medical College. Life really was full of surprises.

“Bennett has a powerful patron within the School… could that be Rona?”

Rona had come to the Imperial Capital first to study further. If she had mastered her studies, there was a high chance she would cover for this hometown friend Bennett.

“I just do not know, at this point in time, how long it has been since that fourth chapter…”

Judging from the assistant lecturer’s memories, it seemed at least ten-odd years should have passed.

[…]

[I had thought that I would gallop forward without stopping on the road toward my dream until I became a world-renowned figure. But no one knows whether accident or tomorrow will arrive first.]

[Mr. Bennett’s patron within the School fell from power. I heard that the patron had defected to the Polar Star Society, and those noble Scholars who had been swallowing humiliation for years finally seized the chance to vent.]

[The dean was branded with the grave sin of ‘chasing the stars,’ a serious crime that violated taboo, a sin beyond forgiveness.]

[I knew that Mr. Bennett was the most devout believer in Omniscient True Knowledge. In his spare time, he had told me that he had once been fortunate enough to meet the True God’s Envoy in a faraway foreign land, and that there was an unspeakable secret between them…]

[In short, it is absolutely impossible for him to be chasing the stars and become a heretical traitor who betrayed the true Lord.]

[The noble Scholars demanded that the mentors of the Medical College become ‘witnesses’ and fabricate groundless crimes.]

[Most mentors did not believe that Mr. Bennett would chase the stars and were unwilling to be witnesses. I stood at the very front of the line and loudly berated the noble Scholars for their despicable actions… but there are always some people in the College who will sell their conscience for dirty money.]

[Mr. Bennett was imprisoned in the Imperial Capital, while those like me who dared to plead on his behalf were detained and sent to the auxiliary capital Notos’s Blackwater Prison.]

[This Blackwater Prison is notorious, and most of those locked up there are heretical traitors who chase the stars. The heretics will suffer inhuman torture here and die in endless agony…]

[I knew that Mr. Bennett would not be in mortal danger for the time being, because those noble Scholars had only used false charges to lock him up. While venting the rage they had suppressed for so long, they were also using him to perform free eyeball transplants.]

[But nobodies like us would not be so lucky. The painful, brutal floggings seemed to have no end…]

[No, there is an end, and that end is my surrender and compromise, becoming a witness that proves the dean chased the stars, and then dying quickly and cleanly.]

[Heh, you noble Scholars really underestimate me. I will not betray my own soul or sell out Mr. Bennett…]

[…]

[But… I really am almost at my limit.]

[The criminal in the next cell is a true heretic who chased the stars. He seems to quite appreciate my resolute refusal to yield.]

[He told me that tonight the Executor Lord of the Polar Star Society will send powerful subordinates to rescue their imprisoned believers.]

[If I am willing to renounce Omniscient True Knowledge and swear the Oath of the Radiant Stars, then I will gain my freedom tonight.]

[Betrayal, betrayal again. Do I really look so much like a man who breaks faith and abandons righteousness?]

[Heh. Under his astonished gaze, I resolutely rammed my head into the wall…]

[I want those noble Scholars to know that there are still people in this world who do not fear authority. I want those traitors who betrayed Omniscient True Knowledge to have a good look at what a truly devout believer is like…]

[The sharp pain from my forehead made me collapse to the floor. In my dying moments, I seemed to hear Mr. Bennett’s question echoing in my ears again.]

[Nobody or world-renowned?]

[There is no doubt I am a nobody, but in this moment, I am also world-renowned…]

[…]

[The fragmented memories end here.]

[You have obtained Knowledge. Your Knowledge stat has increased by 1000. Current Knowledge: 22600/37800.]

Lin Xun frowned, a bad feeling surfacing in his heart.

Bennett was imprisoned, and the man behind him had defected to the Polar Star Society.

At this moment, Bennett was locked away in the Imperial Capital. If his patron really was Rona, then there was no way Rona would do such a thing.

There might be someone else involved, or there might be another hidden truth.

“Polar Star Society, Executor…”

As a series of clues wove together, he could not help recalling the final event of the fourth chapter: The Showdown Between the Veiled Aberration Overlord and the Star Bone Sacred Beast.

Back then, he had encountered a mysterious carriage at the entrance of the association, and on it there had been an Anonymous Letter.

[…]

[We have received your letter. Regarding the matter of the Veiled Aberration Overlord nurtured in Sophia City, the Executor Lord is already aware.]

[The Star Bone Sacred Beast will soon head to Sophia City to contain the disordered divinity leaking from the evil god of Omniscient True Knowledge.]

[…]

That letter had contained only a few lines and no signature.

Combined with the same title of ‘Executor Lord,’ this so-called Polar Star Society was very likely the secret organization that had dispatched the Star Bone Sacred Beast back then.

He opened the Shell Panel of the assistant lecturer, trying to obtain more information.

But this Shell was utterly ordinary. Its level and quality were both very low, and it had only a single Rare+ grade Eyeball Transplant Technique.

[…]

[You hear some sounds coming from the nearby wall. The cloth stuffed into a small hole is pulled out. Through a pigeon-egg-sized opening, you see a strange eye staring straight at you.]

[A hoarse voice comes through the hole…]

[How odd, are you not already dead? Oh, I see. So much for your talk of dying rather than submitting. In the end, you did not even have the strength to bash your own brains out.]

[The nameless prisoner in the next cell cackles in mockery. He says that this is your very last chance. The ones coming to rescue them will arrive soon. If you now swear the Oath of the Radiant Stars, then he will grant you precious freedom…]

[Faithful Apostle, what will you do?]

[1. Draw your Hidden Blade, thrust it through the hole, pierce the prisoner’s eye and drive the blade into his skull, letting him witness how firm your faith is.]

[2. Fall to your knees, curse Omniscient True Knowledge, and swear the Oath of the Radiant Stars with words of praise in order to gain your freedom.]

[3. Take out the Scarlet King’s Sword, cleave open the cell’s refined copper gate in a single stroke, turn, and leave this place, leaving the prisoner next door only a dashing view of your departing back.]

Lin Xun narrowed his eyes.

Ignoring the options the game had provided, he currently had two paths to choose from.

The first was to escape Blackwater Prison as quickly as possible and head to the Imperial Capital to rescue Bennett.

The second was to use the criminal in the next cell to try to make contact with the Polar Star Society and obtain more clues.

As he mulled it over, Lin Xun had already formed a preliminary plan.

He sneered and switched Shells, then drew the Scarlet King’s Sword.

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