Chapter 406 - Fate

"A girl is?" Hao Ya walked forward to check the information on the page. The man smiled seeing her get curious about the information.

"I can't see what her talent is, but that should be a pointless thing to think about. Especially with this body constitution," he said and looked to the side. "Jealous?" he asked with a chuckle.

"Why would I be jealous?" Hao Ya asked with a pout. "She's just at the True Realm; She still has ways to go. Besides, I would've been way better by now If you focused all the resources on me instead," she said. Her pout still remained on her face, unmoving.

"Sigh, you know I can't do that, Hao Ya. That would be like putting all my eggs in a single basket. If that basket got attacked, all my hopes would be lost at once," he said as he shook his head.

"Besides, if I focused my resources on you, there are still 2 glaring problems we need to look at. First of all, there are just too many resources with me for it all to be useful for you. You would instead just be overwhelmed a lot and couldn't do anything properly."

"Second of all, I can't be out there to help you at all, and I doubt you would be able to do it all on your own," the man said.

"Besides, look at how well this is all working. Just look at all these different body types," the man said with a light in his eyes that was similar to a child in a candy shop.

"There are so many Divine Grade bodies, even more, immortal bodies. I told you this place was a treasure trove; I did good in making this my base," the man said as he kept on checking through the name.

His eyes stopped at one name when his face suddenly turned serious. The girl lost all of her pouts when she saw him serious and got serious herself.

"What's wrong? Why are you so serious?" She asked, but the man did not respond at all. "Is there a God Grade body to make you act out like that? There should be one though, I was sure I checked everything," the girl said.

"No, there is not. The girl with the Ancient Grade body is the highest grade body as of yet," the man said, but he did not lose his seriousness at all. Soon, he fell into deep thought.

Hao Ya walked up to him and looked at the page he was looking at.

"That's… a Divine Grade body right? Why are you acting so serious? Even I have a divine grade body," Hao Ya said as she looked at the name with confusion.

"Yes, you do," the man responded. "But this is something different. I can't believe there is someone with this body out there, and that… I was the one that found him."

Hao Ya started getting a little fearful. "What is it, master? What's up with this body? Is it that good?" she asked.

"No… at least compared with Divine grade bodies, it's maybe in the upper half in terms of its ability. In fact, it could be the best, if not for a few detriments of its own," the man said.

Hao Ya's face turned curious as she asked, "Then why does your face have that weird grin?"

"I do?" the man said as he felt his own face. "Haha, I really do," he said as he fully laughed out loud.

"Stop being so mysterious and just tell me what it's about," Hao Ya demanded.

"It's not the body that is important here, but rather what it represents. This body had good abilities, but nothing to make me jealous. The thing that does make me jealous is his potential. It might only be this much for now, however…. No! I can't get my hopes up. That will only bring me to disappointment," the man said.

He quickly flipped through the pages and looked at the later contents.

"Ooh! Quite a few of them have God Grade talent. Nice! Nice! This is quite hopeful," the man said.

"Uhmm… Master," Hao Ya called the man.

"Yes?" he asked without looking up from the papers.

"Are you sure your talent measurement works at all?" she asked a bit timidly.

"Hmm? What do you mean?" the man asked. He looked up to see Hao Ya who was fidgeting a bit. "Do you want to say something? Go on, I won't mind," he said.

Hao Ya finally said, "Do you really think it's possible for there to be so many God Grade talent? I… I think your system made a mistake."

"That's…." The man mumbled, "possibly true."

"Talent is not something that is quantifiable and I don't have those massive equipments that could be used to measure them, and instead have to resort to something I made on my own. I can't say it is accurate, but…I think it's close to it," the man said.

"Is it possible that you set the bar pretty low for the God Grade at least? Just look at the numbers, the ratio between Ancient to God is quite bad. I think you made a mistake as to where the Ancient grade should be and where the God Grade should be," Hao ya said.

"Hmm…" the man thought. Talent was an unquantifiable aspect and couldn't be easily represented in terms of grades. Even the major sects had a problem doing that, and he was just a lone man.

The fact that he was able to make a system that could measure so many people's talent to a terrifyingly close amount was already great.

"Sigh, whatever. It's just talent. Ancient or God, the difference is barely noticeable most of the time. I can consider these all just Ancient Grade talents and my happiness wouldn't drop even a little bit," the man said.

"Ah, I see. Then, I must congratulate you on your good luck," Hao Ya said. "It's a shame you can't see who those talents belonged to. You could message them not to die," Hao Ya said.

"Well, isn't that something everyone knows by now? That they shouldn't die?" he asked.

"Yes, but see how many people died by now? Imagine if we told them not to die, and that death meant the end of the game. I assume people would be a lot more careful," Hao Ya said. The man nodded but said nothing more.

The man flipped through the pages.

"Sigh, Didn't you say that the public knew about taking their time with the cultivation? Why are there already some in the Saint realm? That is like one of the worst things they can do," the man got annoyed.

"They probably can't even reach Saint Foundation realm at this rate," Hao Ya said from the side as she saw the information as well.

"I think they know that there will be problems with their foundation, but they probably didn't care about it due to how much money they were gaining through the game," she said.

"Money? What is this about?" he asked.

"You know how they are earning a lot through the spirit stones in the games? Yeah, I think that is the problem. The people here care more about money than having a strong foundation."

"If I'm not wrong, these people make in a day what most people here struggle to do in a year," she said. "It's easy to see why they wouldn't want to stop getting stronger. These people can stop playing the game tomorrow and not regret it with how much money they got," Hao Ya said

"I see… I shouldn't have made the spirit stone conversion possible. Should I stop it?" he wondered. "On another thought, I don't think I will have to."

He focused back on the papers. The other people that did follow the advice and slowed down gave him a little hope.

"You folks are the best, keep doing what you're doing," the man said. "I can wait for a while."

He finally turned the page to the Spirit Roots.

"Oh right, I was looking forward to this," he said. "Last time I didn't have the results for spiritual roots so I was kind of lost when I found out that one of the techniques in the system was missing. I hope the person with that particular spiritual root is not dead right now," the man hoped as he checked it.

When he finally saw the spiritual root, he sighed in relief.

"Thank god he's alive," he thought and looked at the person to who it belonged. "Hmm… I'm sure I saw that name before," he thought and turned back to a previous page with the body constitution.

When he finally reached it, his eyes went wide. His eyes shook around as his thoughts spiraled into disarray in his head.

"Master?!" Hao Ya asked loudly, but the man was staring at the page with nervousness in his eyes.

"Master, what's wrong?" she worriedly asked. She had to shake him to awaken him from whatever deep, terrifying thought he seemed to be in.

"Hu-Huh? What?" he asked as he looked around.

"Master, what's going on with you? Are you alright?" she asked.

"Me?" the man said as he slowly looked down on the paper. "I-I'm fine," he said.

"You don't look like it. Come on, tell me what's going on," she asked.

"This… this is not something I can speak lightly," he said. Suddenly, a burst of fire appeared as he burned the papers to ash.

"This information cannot be allowed to be found out. Hao Ya, go and tell the people at the company to remove all information regarding the different people in the game. They no longer need to track anything," he said.

"Master! Why are you being so secretive? Come on, tell me?" she asked.

The man suddenly looked at her with glaring eyes. This was the very first time she had ever seen him this angry and authoritative; most of the time, he was just an easy-going person.

Hao Ya fell to the ground with fear seeing the eyes of what looked like a cold-blooded killer.

The man quickly realized what he was doing and stopped glaring. His expression returned to the caring master she knew all this time.

"Sigh! Hao Ya, please don't question me right now. These are not answers that you should know or deserve to know. If anyone found out that you knew about this information, death would be the least of your worries," the man said.

"There are things in this world that happen that cannot be explained as anything other than Fate. However, if fate truly is responsible for what has happened here, that could only mean… that fate itself worries for what it has in store for us," the man said.

"Now go! Make them delete that information now," he said.

Hao Ya finally got up and nodded. She didn't know what was going on still, but she tried to not think about it. Just as she was walking away, she stopped.

She fiddled with her hands for a bit and wiggled out her ring. "Here," she said as she threw it to him.

"Oh, thanks. I'll get on it," he said as he nodded towards her. Hao Ya nodded back as well and walked away.

The man fell into thought once more for a while. He walked close to the pond and sat down.

"I didn't think something so troublesome would arise from what I did, dear friend. I had hoped it would help me with my circumstances, but… it seems I have unknowingly brought forth a possible new age for everyone," he said as he fiddled with the ring on his hand.

"Haha, I can't tell you about it either; you can stop trying to pry me for answers. You will learn about it in due time," he said and stood up.

"Ahhh! Whatever. If fate wills it, who am I to deny it. I will just go restock the ingredients for now.. Talk to you later, friend."