Shane watched as the king agreed after being blackmailed for the fifth time today. Huh. The old man gave up so easily. He didn't think this could happen.
Hope, who was watching everything, nodded in satisfaction and said, "Good boy. Now, I'll go off. If I find you aren't taking care of this well, I'll end your life here and tell everyone about all the dark things you have ever done."
"Who said I have black materials on me?! Don't speak nonsense!" The king's face turned red in anger as he glared at her.
Hope ignored the man and flashed out of the palace. Then she headed toward the court area, where officials were working their a**es off.
The corners of her lips curled up to form a pleasant smile. "It's time to see the dear officials."
Shane sighed. He didn't want to participate in this ordeal at all. He just wanted a peaceful life in the end. But now, the situation was such that he didn't even know whether he would continue to live after solving this case.
As if reading his mind, Hope said, "Don't worry. You can never die."
Shane frowned upon the comment. "Is it related to the third thing you're hiding from me?"
"Maybe, or maybe not," said Hope, giving him a vague answer.
"I don't want to deal with you anymore."
Hope chuckled. "You won't say those words when you actually get rid of me, you know?"
"Oh, please, I would like to get rid of you sooner or later. Don't worry about me anymore," said Shane confidently.
He knew for sure that he didn't feel a single thing for this woman. How she got this illusion that he would be depressed if they ever separated, he didn't know. He silently changed the topic, not continuing to discuss something strange.
"What're we going to do now?"
Hope smiled. "We're going to watch some drama."
Follow on NovᴇlEnglish.nᴇt"What drama?" Shane frowned. "I feel like you're more of a system than me."
"What if I'm?"
Shane sighed. "Can't you speak more clearly?"
"Nope."
Shane felt his heart burning with frustration as he took deep breaths. It wasn't worth fighting with this little girl anymore.
"Forget it. Just tell me the details."
"Little guy," Hope said, as if coaxing a cub or something, "just wait and watch. I'll surely entertain you thoroughly."
The two didn't talk anymore as Shane yawned and laid back on the ground, watching the event happening with his half-closed eyes. At that moment, when Hope heard that yawning sound, she frowned and stopped in her tracks.
"Shane, are you feeling tired?" Her voice sounded unusually serious.
Shane shrugged. "Yeah. So what? Wasn't it normal to be tired after not sleeping long?"
"Dude, we just slept last night." Hope frowned deeper. "No, this shouldn't be happening. I need to speed up the process. Shane, quickly send me Dirt's time attribute data. Fast! We mustn't waste time anymore, or you'll die."
"Just because I feel tired?" Shane tilted his head.
He knew that there must be some mystery behind the girl's words. Or else she wouldn't be this serious. She didn't seem to be joking right now. So he sent the file through text while watching the woman write complicated code in her menu. Who knows what she did to open that command page?
Shane knew that the woman had entered a password that he didn't know and opened the command page.
After that, she watched the screen flashing with power as the woman sighed and said, "Buckle up. We're going to time travel a lot."
"Huh?" Before Shane could respond, he suddenly felt dizzy to the point of falling to the ground, unconscious.
When he returned to himself, he found himself still sitting inside the mind space, whereas the scene outside had changed. As Hope had previously stated, Max was discovered standing alone in the garden, exercising.
"A few days have passed. We don't have to live every second with Dirt's powers in my hand," said Hope with a smile on her lips.
"Do whatever you want." Shane felt like giving up on ever receiving any explanation from the girl anymore.
Soon, he watched Hope go in front of Max as she gave the guy a bunch of instructions and handed him a bunch of books in a filecase. He leaned over and watched through the screen, only to be surprised.
"You gave him the demonic cultivation book?" Shane couldn't help but frown. "Wait, won't it make him a demonic cultivator? How can he become a System God?"
"Wasn't the goal of this job to destroy the world? Then tell me, how can I do it with a good and powerful king?" Even though the current System God isn't always in his right mind and is a number one narcissist, he's still a good person and cares about the demon world from the bottom of his heart.
There was no way man would ever do anything against the world, let alone be a part of its destruction.
So that was why Hope needed someone else to replace the old one with someone new with a cunning and evil mindset. Who was better than this Max she saw before her eyes?
After explaining the rules and regulations, she said, "I'll come back a month later to check up on your progress. I expect good news."
"If I have any questions?" Max worriedly asked since he knew he could not contact the hooded woman.
Hope smiled. "You won't. The file explains everything."
After saying that, she disappeared from sight. Max looked at the file in his hand with a hint of excitement in his eyes. He turned swiftly toward his brother, who was worried for another reason.
"Brother, look! I can also gain power now!"
"But… I don't have a good feeling about this…"
"You're so stupid that I feel like laughing at you," said Max as he sighed. "Shoo. Go away. Let me practice this on my own. You already have your process, don't you?"
Ed did receive an electrical attribute, unlike Max, who was almost human without any hint of power. That was why he was over the moon when he saw the file in his hands. He quickly went off to his room and started scanning the contents.
Follow on Novᴇl-Onlinᴇ.cᴏmMeanwhile, Hope was in a good mood as she fast-forwarded and reached the time after a month to take a look at the guy's progress.
Things went smoothly with Dirt's power in Hope's hands. As time passed from a few months to a few years in the blink of an eye, Shane watched as Ed grew colder and colder toward his brother.
Ed could almost sense through his dog-like nose that something was wrong with the teaching that Hope gave his brother, but the guy had no concrete evidence to back him up.
It wasn't until he saw his own brother using dark power that he snapped and argued with the man for a long time. In the end, he gave up the resistance and decided to give his brother a chance because he just couldn't go against Max.
Max was a person who wasn't supposed to get any chance to use power anymore. If that file could give his brother another option, why not capture it?
Ed avoided the strong intuition that told him to go against it and started encouraging his brother slowly. After a few years, as the two grew up to be teenagers, the brothers came closer and closer until they thought of only one thing.
To kill the king.
Even though Hope was busy teaching a little guy, she didn't forget about the System God. She kept an eye on him as the old man released the news that those who would defeat him could sit on the throne after him.
So several people tried, but none of them succeeded. Even though the man was old, he was still powerful.
That was why she wanted to train someone like Max, with the pure and empty mind of a child, to become an evil person.
A few years later, when Max was finally ready, he was an SSS-level demonic cultivator with dark energy brimming through his veins. At this time, even Ed had learned a few tricks on his own and developed a few weapons since there were no dark energy weapons in the system menu. By this time, the two of them were already twenty-five.
Hope sighed as she watched the two brothers train together. "Time passes so fast. In the blink of an eye, the kids grew up."
"Yeah. They really grew up in the blink of an eye." There was a hint of sarcasm in Shane's voice.
Hope ignored that comment and said, "I have collected everything I needed to collect against the officials. Now let's start coaxing these kids into doing bad things."
"It won't be easy," said Shane. "Instead, you've turned them into patriots."
That was true. The brothers wanted to become a system god because the current one was 'incompetent' according to them.
Hope smiled as she waved the file full of evidence against the officials. "You think I created these pieces of evidence for nothing? A few pages are still real, but the vast majority are purely fictitious. I want to encourage these kids to do things they don't like without telling them. How's my idea?"
"Cruel." Shane spat that word through his gritted teeth.