Lord of Enigma

Three days flew by.

In the bedroom, Tang Qi put the last piece of clothing into the wooden chest in front of him, and then closed and locked it. Then he picked up a beautiful envelope lying on the bed next to it, which contained an admission notice. It was what Tang Qi had waited for for three days.

The notice was printed with a kind of paper that felt cold, with complicated patterns painted on the edges and a badge and a holy sword wrapped in thorns on the top of the page. It gave out a noble and holy atmosphere.

In the middle area, this was written:

Dear Tang Qi,

After our evaluation, we believe that you are an honest and kind youth. You fully meet our requirements for Thorn Apprentices. You have been admitted by Holy Thorns High School. Please report to Holy Thorns High School between May 3rd to 9th, Year 102 of the Condor Calendar.

And the last line was the school motto:

May you wear thorns and eventually cut through thorns.

If one judged from the school motto alone, one might actually think this was just a religious high school.

In fact, this was indeed what Holy Thorns High School was one hundred years ago. But with the weakening of the powers of the church, Holy Thorns High School today seemed more like an aristocratic high school, known in Exquisite Phoenix Prefecture for its excellent teaching quality and good school environment. It was arguably one of the points of pride for Moses City.

As to whether this was true, it didn't matter for him. He simply favored it for the background of the school.

This was the second small favor that Tang Qi asked Ronald for.

The original occupier just happened to be 15 years old, the age to enter high school.

If his parents had not died unexpectedly, the financial resources and contacts of the Tang family might have barely been enough to send Tang Qi into Holy Thorns.

Unfortunately, Tang Qi was now all alone. If he tried to enter through networking, it was likely that nobody would pay any heed to him.

Of course, he could also have chosen to go by the "normal channel", such as using good results.

But the original occupier was — unfortunate, given his Asian identity — really hopeless at his studies, so Tang Qi had to give up on this path.

But with Ronald's helping, everything was different.

And the reason Tang Qi had to enter Holy Thorns High School was of course not for the name of an aristocratic student. Besides indeed needing to find a place to properly study and learn about the new world, a more important reason was to avoid the revenge of the Samra family.

According to Old Morgan's diary, once the people from his family went near Holy Thorns High School, their powers would weaken rapidly, to the point of being even weaker than an ordinary person.

Even Samra could not be exempted from this. The old witch speculated that this was because the Holy Thorn High School still had the power of the church remaining, and it was no worldly power. Even without a fight, the aura emitted was sufficient to suppress the evil of dark witchcraft.

Tang Qi would be a fool not to make use of this piece of information.

He put the admission letter in his pocket and took up the wooden chest. Tang Qi had locked all the rooms in the villa and completely locked the huge iron gate as well. He gave the completely deserted "home" one last look, then turned away with a calm face, and left without any reluctance.

To live the life of a rich inheritor, owning a large amount of wealth, and furthermore, having nobody to control him — it all sounded beautiful.

Unfortunately, this was not what Tang Qi wanted.

If he had never seen supernatural powers, Tang Qi might have simply enjoyed his wealth in peace.

But right now, everything had changed.

Tang Qi carried the wooden chest and strode out along the boulevard outside the villa. At this time, his look was actually somewhat different from when he had just been reborn. He wore comfortable black trousers, blue linen shirt, and a somewhat-formal short windbreaker. With black hair and black pupils, he looks pretty and youthful.

One had to say that the original body's appearance was excellent and very friendly-looking.

So in order to cover it up, Tang Qi found a pair of black-framed glasses to wear and finally made himself look less outstanding.

The area where the Tang family was located was a community called "Rocky", where the environment was quiet and the people who lived here were all pretty wealthy and mostly owned their own transportation.

But apparently, there were quite a lot of children as well, so on the central boulevard of the villa area, there were also public buses.

Right now, a light yellow bus approached in front of Tang Qi.

After getting on the bus, Tang Qi didn't communicate with anyone and walked directly to an empty seat.

The buses here were free, the cost probably being included in the villa management fee, so there was no fare collector. And Tang Qi didn't need to ask about the place he was going, as there was sure to be a stop at where he was going.

In fact, as soon as he sat down, Tang Qi discovered that the destination of all those on the bus should be just the same as his.

Pretty much all those in the bus were students.

Most of them were around the same age as Tang Qi, with one or two looking even older. But unlike Tang Qi, they all wore clothes that seemed like school uniforms that were similar to what he imagined aristocratic school uniforms to be, but they all had the same badge worn around the position of the heart.

It was the Holy Sword and Thorn badge on the admission letter.

Probably because Tang Qi wasn't wearing a school uniform, all the students on the bus gave him a look; then, the cold ones immediately turned away, while the friendlier ones smiled slightly. There weren't any inexplicable bullies coming out to bully him at least.

Tang Qi smiled back, perfectly acting as a shy, ordinary, black-haired little boy.

He sat down at a corner of the bus, and the bus traveled smoothly all the way. Soon, the school bus arrived at its almost sole stop: Thorn Street.

As a group of students got off the bus, the street crowd rushed towards the building complex at the end of the street.

In front of him was a square made of white bricks and stone. In its center was a low church. It looked very old but had no luxurious atmosphere. It was very much in line with the values of the Church of Holy Thorns. It advocated for pain and suffering and did not pursue luxury.

The crowd diverged in the square: all the students walked toward one end of the building complex, while adults who appeared to be teachers or staff went toward the opposite end.

Tang Qi observed it and chose the opposite direction to the students.

After crossing the square, he reached a messy-looking building complex, and there were some faculty members traveling between them.

Just when Tang Qi was about to randomly grab a person and ask where the "student reception" was, a middle-aged man in a pastor's robe, looking worn by the years, chased and reached him from behind. When he saw Tang Qi turn around, he asked directly, "Child, is your name Tang Qi?"

"It's me."

Tang Qi replied in confusion.

Hearing the affirmative answer, the middle-aged priest breathed a sigh of relief. "I thought I missed you. Fortunately, I didn't."

"Child, I was entrusted by Mr. Curry to help you with the admission procedures. You can call me Simbani. Please come with me."

Then, the middle-aged pastor turned around and led Tang Qi toward a short red building in the building complex.

When they approached, they indeed saw that on the third office on the ground floor of the short building hung a wooden sign on the door which said "Student Reception".

…

"Pastor Simbani, thank you for your help."

The two came out of the reception. Tang Qi turned and bowed slightly to the pastor, speaking very politely.

Without waiting for the pastor to answer, Tang Qi seemed to have remembered something else. He asked, "Pastor Simbani, is there any place for rent on this campus? I plan to pass my three years of Trial of Thorns by living on campus. Because of my personality, I hope to have a single room that is as quiet as possible. Do you have any recommendations?"

The trial in Tang Qi's words of course meant studying.

But right here, everyone called it Trial of Thorns. At least, that was what the serious-looking, old blonde lady who was in charge of receiving new students said.

Perhaps because of his character, or perhaps because of being entrusted by Ronald, this pastor Simbani was exceedingly friendly to Tang Qi. Hearing this, he smiled slightly and said, "I see. What a brave child. Let me think about which area still has rooms for rent…"

"At this point of time, there really aren't many choices."

"But you're asking the right person. In my memory, there are still a few places where we might find rooms suited to your requirements."

…

"Mr. Pastor, are there any other choices? It's very good here, but if there are better ones, I can afford to pay a bit more rent."

Tang Qi walked down the steps of a small house and said very apologetically to Pastor Simbani.

There was a room for rent in this small house. Although there was no need to share the room, the owner of the small building lived on the first floor. Although compared with the room they viewed before, it was already very suited to Tang Qi's requirements, Tang Qi still wanted to try a bit more to see if he could find any that suited his needs even better.

Because of Ronald's instructions, the pastor Simbani was indeed very responsible, and he was not annoyed when he heard Tang Qi's request. He just touched his face and frowned for a moment. "There is another place that fits your requirements, but there is something special there. Because it is very close to the Ascetic Society, it is very quiet at times, but every morning is their time to practice, so it may be a little weird then. If you can take it…"

Before Simbani could even speak halfway through, Tang Qi's eyes had already lit up.

Soon after, they arrived at a quiet corner deep inside the Holy Thorns campus.

Tang Qi was smiling and saying goodbye to two people. One was, of course, Pastor Simbani, who finished his task of reception, and the other was a white man with rosacea. Tang Qi had just reached a lease agreement with the old man and rented the two-story little house the old man owned at a price that is usually considered very expensive.

After the polite farewell, Tang Qi didn't look at the exquisite-looking little house whose walls were covered with creepers. Instead, he looked towards several buildings across a small wooded area and at the end of a boulevard: a bell tower, several small houses enclosed together, and a small square that looked like a training ground.

"Ascetic Society!"

Tang Qi who discovered nothing special after a few looks shook his head, murmured these two words, and turned back to the little house.

Pushing open the gate, the internal structure of the house was clear at a glance. There were a small and exquisite living room, a lounge, and a bathroom. On the second floor were the bedroom and guest room. Furniture and a variety of household appliances were all ready, and there was no need for Tang Qi to go and prepare them.

The owner also gifted him with a bookshelf full of books, all in the bedroom. He did not move them away.

Although the rent paid by Tang Qi was a bit too expensive relative to all these, for Tang Qi, it was obviously nothing. After all, his needs were special.

And he had just gotten a great amount of wealth.