During their short exchange, Mo Wen had drained the low grade spiritual stone of a third of its spiritual energy. Hence, it was not a very difficult thing for an ancient martial art practitioner with the peak of the Qi Nucleation realm to completely drain a low grade spiritual stone of its spiritual energy.
However, Mo Wen's previous actions were to look for the puppet's weakness in order to hatch a plan to destroy it.
In the eyes of the masterminds, they naturally did not want Mo Wen destroying the puppet. If each person taking the Four stars assessment were to destroy a puppet each time, it would be too much of a waste of resources.
There was a world of a difference between the value of the assessment fee and the value of the puppet. They should not even be compared in the first place.
Hence, previously when there were changes to the puppet, and when it had fought back, it was not a passive reaction. Instead, it had happened under the masterminds' control. They used a deadly strategy, not with the intention of killing Mo Wen, but with the intention of defeating him and causing him to fail the assessment.
However, man proposes, God disposes. Nobody had expected that Mo Wen would have the Sacred Fire Sword with him. In the face of that frightening sacred sword, a simple iron puppet naturally did not stand a chance.
"Those young Executors in Huatian Palace are all rather interesting fellows. They are like the crouching tiger and hidden dragon, all hiding their talents. It's really very interesting."
"However, that lad destroyed one of my puppets and even took away my spiritual stone. Next time, when he returns for another assessment, I will definitely make things difficult for him…"
The voices got softer and softer before they completely vanished into thin air, as though as they had never existed in the first place. That dilapidated puppet fell onto the ground with a slam, turning into a pile of scrap metal.
Mo Wen did not know that his actions had successfully triggered someone that he would not want to trigger. At the moment, he was within a white and blurry lighted atmosphere. He had returned to the outside of the stone pagoda. When the light had dispersed, he stood on the spot just as before.
As for Mo Qingtian, he was leaning on a slanted gray rock face on the stone pagoda. His gaze was downcast, and he did not move at all, as though he were deep in thought.
"Completed?"
A look of surprise flashed through Mo Qingtian's eyes. Mo Wen had seemingly only entered for a short while, but he had already completed the assessment so quickly?
He remembered back when he had taken the Four stars assessment. In order to deplete the puppet of its power, he had spent about half an hour. However, the total time that Mo Wen had spent after entering was only about 15 minutes.
Mo Wen waved his right hand. The silver Vermillion Bird ring was flashing with a pale blue light.
At a glance, Mo Qingtian knew that Mo Wen had passed the assessment. It was very easy to differentiate the rings owned by a Two stars Executor and a Four stars Executor. On Mo Wen's Vermillion Bird ring, there were suddenly four blue crystal stars.
Mo Qingtian gasped as he nodded. "Not bad." Mo Wen's abilities had actually exceeded his expectations by quite a lot. Otherwise, he would not have been able to pass the assessment within such a short amount of time.
If he had known that Mo Wen had not only passed the assessment, but also destroyed the puppet in the assessment, he would have been so shocked that his jaw would have dropped.
Afterwards, Mo Qingtian led Mo Wen on a walk around the headquarters of Huatian Palace. After he had understood the environment and rules a little, they then left the headquarters.
For the first time, Mo Wen managed to take up a Four stars mission as published by Huatian Palace, just as he had desired. He would have to head to the capital to investigate the secret activity and the motives of the evil power.
On the afternoon of the second day, Mo Wen returned to the capital. This time, although he had applied for ten days of leave for his journey to Huatian palace, he had only spent two days. That was because he had not met with any mishaps along the way.
Mo Qingtian had arranged for a car to send Mo Wen back directly to the Hua Xia University's gate. As for himself, there was no trace of him, and no one knew where he had gone off to.
Mo Wen stretched and looked at the flow of students at the Hua Xia University's gate. They were gathered in pairs or groups, dressed fashionably, and were chatting and laughing. It was as if he had just teleported between two different worlds.
In reality, the mysterious world of Immortal Cultivators and the normal world were still within the same world. It was just that some things were hidden from the average person.
He reached for his phone in his pocket and pressed the button to turn on his phone. Previously, on his journey to Huatian Palace, Mo Qingtian had requested he shut down his phone. Hence, his phone had not been on for two days.
The moment he turned on his phone, he received a few text messages and a couple of notifications for missed calls.
Indeed, that girl Qin Xiaoyou had called him every day. If not, she had sent a text message. There was no real purpose to it. It was just to ask whether he was doing well or not.
Surprisingly, he found that other than the calls from Qin Xiaoyou, there was also one from Shen Jing.
It was very rare for her to give him a call. Could something have happened? Mo Wen furrowed his brows.
He casually called Shen Jing's number, and she picked up immediately.
"What happened, have you missed me?"
Mo Wen's greeting was very explicit and direct. It was also very shameless.
It was silent on the other end for quite a while before she shot back, "If you've got an issue, please remember to take your medication."
Mo Wen laughed and asked, "If you didn't miss me, then what did you call me for?" From Shen Jing's reply, it seemed as though it was nothing much.
"I pressed the wrong number…"
"You can even press my number accidentally when calling someone else? Just how much did you miss me?"
"If there's nothing, I'm hanging up now," Shen Jing said coldly.
"How can there be nothing. You should quickly prepare a huge feast for lunch to welcome your boyfriend back…"
Mo Wen had yet to finish his words when Shen Jing had already slammed down the phone. A dead sound came through the phone.
"What attitude is that! I will go over in a while to teach you a lesson, little lady."
Mo Wen rolled his eyes and put his phone back in his pocket. As for a missed call that was from an unknown number, he treated it as though he had not seen it, as he could not be bothered by it.
People who knew him all knew his phone number. The unknown number was naturally from someone who did not know him, or whom he did not know. He did not care about someone he did not know.
As Mo Wen weaved through the school grounds, he headed directly to Shen Jing's house. At this time, Shen Jing should be at home whipping up lunch. Naturally, it was a good time for him to go over and freeload for food.
"Why are you back already?"
In Shen Jing's living room, Mo Wen was leaning on the sofa. His back was sinking into the soft sofa as he held a cup of tea in his hands. Shen Jing sat opposite looking at him expressionlessly.
"Because I missed you, so I came back earlier," Mo Wen said while smiling.
"I am actually that important?"
Shen Jing turned her head to one side and looked at the golden rays of sun through the window before saying emotionlessly, "I am not the only person you've missed, right?"
"What do you mean?" Mo Wen raised his eyebrows.
Shen Jing laughed coldly and said, "How are you going to explain about things with Qin Xiaoyou? That girl has already made it public that you are her boyfriend."
Qin Xiaoyou was a student in her class. Did he think that she would not find out about such a situation? However, Mo Wen had never told her what he had thought about her, or how he was going to treat the two of them.
"Xiaoyou…"
Mo Wen smiled awkwardly. In that moment, he really did not know how to explain things to Shen Jing. After all, in modern society, men were not allowed to have multiple girlfriends. Females today were all very independent and were not as reliant as the ancient females had been.
Hence, when dealing with Shen Jing, Qin Xiaoyou, and even Gong Biluo's questions, he was always caught in a dilemma.
Shen Jing looked at Mo Wen and said serenely, "Other than Qin Xiaoyou, there seems to be another woman called Gu Jingman that you have dealings with, right?"
"Oh… Gu Jingman! What has she got to do with me?"
Immediately, Mo Wen felt a little indignant. Although he admitted that he was a little bit of a playboy, she still could not just link him up with anyone. He had a clear conscience with Gu Jingman, even clearer than water.
"Don't pretend anymore. Sister Lin had already told me about it long ago. You have a sister called Gu Jingman. However, the two of you don't act like siblings. You and Gu Jingman are not actually related by blood, right?"
Shen Jing let out a light humph. Although she did not know just what relation Gu Jingman had with Mo Wen, from Sister Lin's words, it was clear that there was some ambiguity going on between Mo Wen and Gu Jingman.
"Lin Qing?"
Mo Wen lamented internally. Why was this related to Ling Qing once again? Also, just what kind of imagination did she have to link him and Gu Jingman together!
He had forgotten that Shen Jing and Lin Qing appeared to be the best of friends. When women started to gossip, anything could happen.
"You don't want to admit it? It's alright if you don't."
Shen Jing inhaled deeply and looked into Mo Wen's eyes. "You now have two choices. I hope you consider them carefully."
In reality, she had yet to mention another point. Previously, Lin Qing had approached her a couple of times, as if she had paid close attention to Mo Wen's affairs. In their many years of knowing each other, she had never seen Lin Qing pay a guy so much attention before. Based on her gut feeling as a woman, she found that there was something fishy going on.
However, she had not vocalized it. After all, it was just her guess, and Lin Qing was also her best friend. There were some things she was just too embarrassed to ask. Or rather, that she did not dare to ask.
She had only found out about Gu Jingman's existence through her chats with Lin Qing.
Recently, Shen Jing had very complex feelings. She even wavered as she was unsure of the future. Initially, she was a very traditional woman. After giving her first time to Mo Wen, it would not be unacceptable if she went on to marry him later on.
However, there were so many women surrounding Mo Wen, and many of them had very ambiguous relationships with him, especially since Mo Wen was such a flirtatious radish. He was not honest at all.
It was to the point that she did not know if Mo Wen even had her in his heart. She did not know if she would find happiness with him. There were so many uncertainties with him, that she could not envision the future.
Thus, she had constantly avoided Mo Wen and was grouchy towards him. It was because she was afraid to be too close to him. She was afraid that she would fall too deeply, and that she would be more seriously hurt in the end.
However, in the days since Mo Wen had left, she realized that she thought about him all the time. At night, she would not be able to fall asleep as her thoughts were flooded with Mo Wen. She thought about the past, the present, the future, and her future with Mo Wen.
Her thoughts in her confused state of mind were always related to Mo Wen. From time to time, her mind would wander, and she would not even be able to focus while working.