'This kid talks so well, he's even got all the reasons lined up.'

'How did it suddenly become me who has to go talk to the company??'

Thinking that, Old Wu immediately understood.

He was about to reach out and smack Rookie on the head, but halfway his hand froze.

Instead, he stretched out a finger and tapped Rookie's head lightly, smiling as he said, "Well done! You little brat!"

"From the very start you were setting me up, huh?! You've grown, haven't you!"

Someone as sharp as Old Wu naturally noticed Rookie's change.

But he wasn't all that surprised or curious.

Everyone has their own secrets, no need to dig into them.

He still understood his apprentice very well, truly a genius, in every sense.

Though he didn't know what caused Rookie's current state to differ from before, whether subjective reasons or objective reasons, none of that mattered.

What mattered was that Rookie was still Rookie.

What Old Wu could be certain of was that his essence hadn't changed, and that was enough.

Seeing Old Wu had seen through him, Rookie deliberately played dumb.

"Huh? What? What are you talking about? I don't know anything?"

Seeing Rookie's lousy acting, Old Wu couldn't help but laugh.

"Come on, when you're really stupid, you're not like this."

"Alright, alright, I'll go talk. You go back and wait for my news."

Though being tricked by his apprentice left this sly old fox Old Wu a bit uncomfortable, seeing Rookie's sudden change of state still made him very happy.

Old Wu was just an ordinary person, and his thinking was naturally that of an ordinary person.

Rookie's subconscious-dominated state obviously didn't match what ordinary people expected.

Like that, in this society he'd live with great hardship, hard to find anyone who truly understood him.

The current state Rookie was in, without a doubt, was more suited to survive in this world.

That's why Old Wu felt happy for him.

As elders, people always hope the younger ones walk that seemingly normal, smooth road.

But they often overlook their children's hearts, ignore whether they truly want to walk that path.

Just like many elders don't know their children's true inner thoughts.

Old Wu also didn't know Rookie actually didn't like his current self.

The subconscious-led self was the real him.

Only someone who could accept that version of Rookie could truly accept all of him.

After agreeing, Old Wu went to the company's higher-ups' office.

Rookie, meanwhile, returned to Notch's office.

Entrusting this matter to Old Wu should increase the chances of the higher-ups approving the proposal.

But Rookie still couldn't feel at ease.

Because he knew, what he was doing now were only temporary measures to handle the emergency.

These measures, in the end, were just treating the symptoms, not the root.

Right now, in both the game world and the real world, the only one who could deal with Witherzilla was the Execution Dragon.

But the Execution Dragon wasn't a fixed thing, no one knew when she would fully regain her power.

Even in the most optimistic scenario, the Execution Dragon killed Witherzilla before it gathered enough power, so what then?

Killing Witherzilla didn't equal destroying the Void. The Void would still attack again.

As things stood, no one could control the Void.

One day, the Void would make that so-called Red Consciousness Body materialize.

What then?

What would this game world become?

Who could stop it?

HIM? Notch?

Rookie had learned about the Trial Grounds, and knew winning the trial granted great power.

He'd also learned from Entity 303 that the Trial Grounds were truly a trial left by the real HIM.

It wasn't hard to guess, the one who won the trial should obtain the real HIM's power.

But Entity 303 had also said, the Void once fought against the real HIM.

And the result?

The real HIM vanished without a trace.

The Void was sealed inside the Void.

From that, it was reasonable to conclude that while the real HIM had the power to suppress the Void, he couldn't kill it.

In other words, even with the real HIM's power, the Void couldn't be completely destroyed.

So, even if someone could stop it all, that person might be Xu Yuan.

But it definitely wasn't something he could accomplish alone.

After piecing these clues together, Rookie still felt that Notch was the key.

To truly eliminate the Void's threat, he had to untangle the Notch thread.

Thinking that, Rookie fell into deep thought.

'Looks like I need to sort out the reality thread properly…'

He'd already learned most of the information about the Void.

It could be confirmed that some uncertain existence of Notch's was within the Void.

Now what remained was to figure out what exactly happened during those ten years Notch spoke of in the real world.

Once that was clarified, the whole line of clues should fall into place.

With that thought, Rookie got up and began searching all around the office, trying to find some clues.

Actually, searching the Notch game pod would probably be easier for clues.

But since Notch was lying in there, Rookie obviously couldn't go.

As for Notch's phone, Rookie had played around with it many times already, but found nothing useful.

———

Rookie carefully searched through the whole office, even finding several packs of dried spicy sticks Notch had secretly hidden to snack on, but forgot because he hid them too well…

But still, nothing useful.

Rookie had no choice but to give up on finding clues in the office.

'Maybe I should try searching the dark web…'

Thinking that, Rookie slipped into his own game pod.

After entering, he opened the dark web.

He typed in the password to log in, but after several tries, it always said "wrong password."

'Weird, I didn't remember it wrong, did I?'

After a few more failures, Rookie finally noticed, the account was wrong.

'Account name…'

'Jiang1227?'

'This… Old Wu's account?'

The thought flashed in his mind, but Rookie immediately rejected it.

'No, Old Wu's account is Laowu123.'

'Jiang…'

'Ji-yi-ang…'

'Jiang?'

And this time, sounding it out gave him quite a shock.

'Brother Jiang??'

That's when Rookie remembered, Brother Jiang had once come asking for admin privileges, and later he'd used his own game pod.

'Right!! Brother Jiang!!'

'He must know something! If I check him, that's the way!!'

Only when he spelled out the surname Jiang did Rookie realize, Brother Jiang was actually an important piece of this puzzle.

Rookie couldn't help recalling the scene when Brother Jiang had shown up before.

'It started with Old Wu talking about Mo Jiang…'

'Old Wu wanted to tell Brother Jiang about the dangers of crossing over… but Brother Jiang's focus was on whether Mo Jiang's crossing was body or soul…'

'And then, once confirmed, he seemed to affirm something… like he understood what had happened back then…'

Thinking of that, Rookie couldn't help complaining, 'Understood what?? I didn't understand at all! Damn riddlers, I hate them the most!!!'

Feeling a bit restless, Rookie rubbed his temples, took a few deep breaths, calmed himself, and continued sorting things out.

'He said his purpose here was for Notch…'

'And he made it clear that back when the game was being made, some problems occurred, and he came to solve them.'

'He also said, if all goes smoothly, no problem would remain a problem, Notch could solve everything…'

Recalling that, Rookie pictured Brother Jiang in his mind.

'He truly cares about Notch… doesn't seem like a bad guy…'

'Whatever! First I'll check his account records!'

That day Brother Jiang had asked Old Wu for admin privileges.

Judging from the various clues Brother Jiang had given, Rookie guessed he'd probably gone into the Void.

But Rookie couldn't be 100% sure.

At least, he already had a general investigation direction.

If it was confirmed Brother Jiang really went into the Void, Rookie could directly conduct a full investigation on him.

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