Lin Yuan looked at her.
“You’ve never had your life arranged for you,” she said.
“You carved out your own path. Whether it was being F-rank, E-rank, or fighting your way out of the wilderness, every step was your own.”
She looked up, her eyes shimmering with faint light.
“But what about me? On the day of the awakening, when I was measured as S-rank, my father’s eyes lit up. It wasn’t because he was happy for me; it was because the Su family finally had a powerful card to play.”
“In ten days, he dumped three years’ worth of the Su family’s resources into me. I ate advanced Bone Tempering Pills like they were meals and drank ice spirit medicine like it was water. Six rounds of bone tempering, Tier 1, Level 3.
Do you know how I achieved that? I was locked in a cultivation room, endlessly forcing down pills, breaking through bottlenecks, and then repeating the process over and over.”
She extended her left hand, palm upward.
Her fingers were fair and slender, without a single callus. She had a Natural Sword Bone, and her hands were perfectly shaped for the Su family’s sword techniques.
“These hands have never killed a single monster.”
Lin Yuan remained silent.
Then, he reached out and took her left hand.
Su Qingyue’s body stiffened slightly.
“The engagement is dissolved,” Lin Yuan said. His voice wasn’t loud, but it was steady.
“But the relationship between us isn’t defined by a piece of paper. Your parents and mine were life-and-death comrades. You and I grew up together. Those things won’t change whether there’s an engagement or not.”
He let go of her hand and stood up.
“Su Qingyue, you aren’t a card for the Su family. You are yourself.”
With that, he walked toward the exit of the garden.
After a few steps, Su Qingyue’s voice drifted from behind him.
“Lin Yuan.”
He stopped but didn’t turn around.
“Thank you.”
Her voice was a bit thick with emotion, but it sounded lighthearted, as if she had finally set down a heavy burden.
Lin Yuan’s lips curled into a slight smile. He raised a hand in a wave and strode out of the garden.
In the main hall, Su Zhen was already waiting.
Compared to yesterday, he looked as if he had aged five years.
His eyes were sunken, and the white hair at his temples seemed much more prominent than before.
Seeing Lin Yuan walk in, he didn’t stand up, merely pointing to the chair across from him.
Lin Yuan didn’t sit.
“The item.”
Su Zhen remained silent for a while before pulling a palm-sized brocade box from his robes and placing it on the table.
The box was dark blue, covered in a thin layer of dust, with worn corners that suggested it was quite old.
Su Zhen’s hand pressed down on the box for a long time, as if he were engaged in some internal struggle.
Finally, he let go.
Lin Yuan opened the box.
Inside was a ring.
An incredibly ordinary ring.
It was a silver-white band without any carvings or gemstones. The surface even had a dull layer of oxidation.
It looked like a plain band one could buy for a few dozen coins at a roadside stall; no one would give it a second glance in a jewelry box.
If it weren’t for the system, Lin Yuan would have seriously doubted if Su Zhen was just handing him some random junk to fool him.
【Detected unknown item. Consume Ability Points to identify?】
“Identify.”
【Consuming 100 Ability Points. Identifying...】
One hundred points? Lin Yuan’s brow twitched. Identifying other weapons had only cost thirty points, yet this ring required a hundred.
The system’s identification cost was usually proportional to the item’s grade and complexity.
A hundred-point fee meant this ring was at least A-rank, possibly even higher.
【Identification complete.】
【Item Name: Space-Time Covenant (Ring Form)】
【Grade: S-rank (Sealed)】
【Attribute: Space-time system】
【Current State: First layer seal. Unsealing condition: Injection of space-time power.】
【Function: Unknown (Will be revealed after unsealing the first layer)】
【Additional Information: An independent dimensional space is sealed within the ring. Strong residual summoning-type energy fluctuations are present within the space.
Specific summoning targets and conditions can only be determined after unsealing deeper layers.】
Lin Yuan’s breath hitched for a moment.
S-rank. Space-time system. Summoning type.
What his parents had left him was an S-rank space-time ring.
And based on the system’s description, its core function was likely summoning some kind of entity.
Something was sealed within that dimensional space, waiting for his space-time power to awaken it.
How did his parents have something like this?
An S-rank space-time item would cause a sensation throughout the entire Dragon Nation.
And yet his parents, who had died sixteen years ago in a monster tide, had left such a ring behind.
Who were they when they were alive?
Was this ring something they owned, or were they keeping it for someone else?
If it was theirs, then their strength...
Lin Yuan suppressed the questions in his heart and slipped the ring onto his left index finger.
The moment the silver band touched his skin, the space-time power within his body surged automatically as if touched by something.
The oxidized surface of the ring glowed faintly before returning to silence.
It was like a greeting.
Su Zhen had been watching his expression. Seeing Lin Yuan stare at the ring for so long, he couldn’t help but ask, “That ring... what exactly is it?”
“You don’t know?” Lin Yuan countered.
Su Zhen’s expression didn’t look like he was lying. “When your parents gave it to me back then, they only said it was a keepsake and told me to keep it safe.
I checked it; there were no ability fluctuations, and the material couldn’t be identified. It just looks like an ordinary ring.”
He paused, then added, “If your parents hadn’t insisted repeatedly, I wouldn’t have even bothered putting it in the Su family’s secret vault.”
Lin Yuan understood.
There truly were no ability fluctuations on the surface, and the system had stated that the first layer of the seal required space-time power to unlock.
Su Zhen wasn’t a space-time user, so naturally, he couldn’t detect anything.
If Lin Yuan hadn’t happened to awaken a space-time ability, this ring would have been nothing more than a piece of scrap metal in his hands.
Was it a coincidence?
Or had his parents known all along that he would awaken a space-time ability?
“Thank you for keeping it safe, Head Su.” Lin Yuan pulled himself out of his thoughts and gave Su Zhen a slight nod.
“Farewell.”
He turned and walked out of the main hall without another word.
Su Zhen sat alone in the empty hall, watching Lin Yuan’s back disappear into the sunlight outside the door, and let out a long sigh.
As he stepped out of the Su Manor gates, Lin Yuan raised his left hand, looking at the plain silver band on his index finger.
The sunlight hit the ring, but there was no reflection.
Space-Time Covenant.
S-rank.
Summoning.
He took a deep breath and was about to leave when the ring on his finger suddenly grew warm.
It wasn’t the warmth from him actively injecting power; the ring was reacting on its own.
At the same time, the black detection runes in his pocket suddenly became scalding hot.
Lin Yuan’s footsteps stopped.
The detection runes had been triggered at full power.
It wasn’t just the slight warmth from before; it was a searing heat. All three detection runes had been activated simultaneously.
Rate on N.U.
