Chapter 33: System Upgrade
It was a flicker of recognition, not from memory, but from the soul.
The film emperor stepped forward again, and this time, Ling Yu didn’t move away.
"You’ve suffered," he said softly. "More than most. But you wear it well."
Her fingers curled tightly around her notepad. Xie Linzhou wasn’t talking about her resume, but about her life.
"I think we’ll meet again," he said, reaching for his glass.
"Let’s not," she replied coolly, turning toward the door as she closed it behind her and left without looking back.
Inside the VIP private room, after being left behind by her, Xie Linzhou stood silently, his fingers hovering over the untouched wine.
His chest felt tight, like someone had just told him he was about to die, but hadn’t given him a reason.
***
After coming out of the private room, Ling Yu directly ran to the common room used for staff. Since the staff can take a rest after their shift is over, Ling Yu was free after her work in the VIP room.
After sitting down on the sofa, Ling Yu poured a glass of water from the jug resting on the tea table before her and gulped it down in one go.
All this time, a blue screen was hanging above her head with something written on it. After Ling Yu set the glass back to the table, she finally paid attention to it.
[System upgrade is now online!]
[Proceed with the upgrade?]
[YES] [NO]
’Why are they suddenly upgrading the system?’ Ling Yu thought as she stared at the screen. Even if it was a scheduled upgrade, it should have been notified at least three days ago.
In any case, Ling Yu proceeded with the [YES] button, and another message popped up soon after.
[System upgrade is in progress...]
[During maintenance, Host can not reach the server.]
[Skill packs can be used during maintenance.]
Ling Yu was okay with that. Anyway, she was planning to enter the dark forest after returning to the estate. The low-level animals residing in the forest can be used to train Ye Qingxue pretty well.
In this way, she can do a better performance standing in front of a real monster compared to other Awakeners.
Even after that, Ling Yu felt a bit doubtful about the sudden upgrade. But there was nothing she could do, she could only ask the system the reason after the upgrade.
Just meeting so many awakeners in one day drained Ling Yu of her stamina as she set herself on the sofa like a slug. If possible, she doesn’t want to confront all those people before the disaster strikes. Because she can’t recruit any of them, they wouldn’t believe her words, so why bother meeting with them?
Come to think of it, the person Ling Yu wanted to meet the most after her rebirth still hasn’t appeared. Yet she was already meeting so many other people.
’Where could that guy be now?’
Ling Yu wondered as she closed her eyes, lying her back against the sofa, she began to think.
She inquired about that person’s whereabouts from the system before, but even the system was unable to trace him back to her.
It’s not that he isn’t present in this world, but that he has the ability to hide himself pretty well.
Even in her past life, that man was pretty decisive in his actions right after the apocalypse started. He instantly took care of an entire city, turning it into a safe zone. He was also the first one to build a guild for Awakeners and took in most of the strong and talented S- rank and A- rank awakeners under his rule.
Ling Yu didn’t get to meet him directly at that time, but she met him just once.
After being reborn, Ling Yu realised something about his actions. He acted as if he already knew about the course of events that were going to happen in the world soon.
Yes. He acted just like the reborn Ling Yu of now, hoarding all the good materials for himself and recruiting talents from all over the world. Building a guild, gathering all the powerful awakeners around the continent, rising to status, power, and fame, even if their goal is completely different.
Ling Yu shot up from the sofa and sat down.
Is it something similar?
If so, then...
Was he also a reborn soul, just like her?
Or did he make a pact with those outworldly beings? Is that why she couldn’t find him in the registered list of the system?
If it’s truly a pact, then it’s not a good sign for her.
She wanted to get his help in this round, and if her system clashed against his pact, a harmonious get-together that she dreamed of and becoming companions would be impossible!
Ling Yu needed strong companions in order to clear the tasks and quests given by the system, as well as take care of some matters involving the people around her.
The system that will arrive during the disaster is completely different from the one Ling Yu has.
Even the administrators of the systems are two different beings. Ling Yu could tell that because the interfaces of the two systems were different, even the way the administrators of the system interacted was different.
So there was no reason for Ling Yu to think they were the same being.
The system that was currently helping her appeared at the last moment of her death in her previous life. Though she didn’t know whether it was a good or bad sign that two systems were appearing in the same place at the same time, she had no intention to abandon this one for now.
At least not when this system was assisting her so much, when the other one only knew how to assign her random tasks, and reward or punish her.
However, it wasn’t her top priority at the moment. Because there was something... someone more important occupying her mind.