End of August. Qingkong City.
Fang Tian rolled his suitcase to a stop before the front gate, where "Qingkong University" stood spelled out in elegant brushstroke script.
A sea breeze carrying a faint salt tang lifted the loose hair on his forehead, lifted the shard-shaped fronds of the coconut palms, and — naturally — lifted the skirt hems of the girls coming and going.
Fang Tian drank in the lovely scenery before him, his heart more at ease than it had ever been.
The place where the dream begins.
It was the only line he could think of to capture how he felt in this moment.
Having bidden farewell to the hellish life of high school, he had come alone to this school, one of the top three in the entire country. When filling out his application, Fang Tian had resolutely chosen the one among those top three with the highest proportion of female students.
In the nineteenth year of his second life, Fang Tian had at last set down his obsession with the system for good, and resolved to welcome his brand-new life.
A peaceful, flourishing age — no spiritual energy returning to the world, no monsters or ghosts or demons — was honestly pretty great, the way he saw it.
With that, every item on the high-school plan Fang Tian had drawn up for himself was complete. Now it was time to map out a new course of action.
The most pressing item of all: to find a way to bid farewell to his identity as a wizard, and grow as fast as he could into a gunslinger who could stand on his own — and for that, a guiding hand from his seniors was indispensable.
At the thought, Fang Tian pulled out the new phone he'd gotten as a reward for testing into Qingkong University, and fished out from his contacts a name marked "Senior Hao."
Senior Hao's name was Hao Xue. She had tested into Qingkong University two years ahead of him, and back then she'd been the kind of model student who often took the podium to give speeches at the student assembly. Fang Tian had never once crossed paths with her in high school, but he'd seen the photo of their school's outstanding graduates plenty of times, in plenty of places.
An 8-plus on looks — the woman in the photo was a cool, aloof beauty.
When he'd gone back to school after the college entrance exam results came out, his homeroom teacher — who had always looked out for him — had pulled him aside and given him Senior Hao's contact details. The teacher had also mentioned that Senior Hao was currently the vice president of the Qingkong University student council, and said that once Fang Tian enrolled, the two of them could look out for each other.
The phone rang three times before it connected.
"Hello? Who is this?" Senior Hao's voice was far gentler than Fang Tian had imagined. Through the phone, he could even hear the occasional murmur of discussion on the other end.
"Hello, Senior. It's Fang Tian. Teacher Gu told me to call you once I got to Qingkong."
"Oh, it's you. Wait at the gate a moment — I'll be right over."
"Got it."
The call cut off soon after.
Truth be told, Fang Tian was feeling a small flutter of excitement right now. So far, everything was unfolding in the ideal direction. He guessed Teacher Gu must have put in quite a few good words for him over the phone, since Senior Hao's impression of him seemed rather favorable.
After all, in front of the teachers he had always kept up the image of a hard-working, upstanding wizard, and at graduation he'd managed — just barely — to get his own photo lined up among the outstanding graduates of years past.
Fang Tian dragged his luggage to a corner where it wouldn't block the way, and quietly began rehearsing topics for when he met Senior Hao.
First impressions were extremely important, and a first impression usually came down to two things: one, your words and conduct, and the topics you chose; two, your looks.
His words and conduct called for careful thought. As for the second point — he, Fang Tian, had never once worried about his looks.
"Junior Fang."
Just as Fang Tian was agonizing over whether to talk to Senior Hao about studies or student clubs, a voice like the music of heaven drifted over.
Fang Tian lifted his head and saw Hao Xue waving at him.
Today was registration day. The front gate of Qingkong University was packed with heads — besides the new students arriving to register, there were many upperclassmen who'd volunteered to welcome them. Yet in that dark, surging tide of people, Fang Tian spotted Hao Xue at first glance.
Hao Xue wasn't in the dowdy, gray-toned uniform from their high school now, but a form-fitting white dress. The dress traced out a waist slender enough to be circled in two hands, and beneath its pleats her legs ran long and shapely, her feet in a pair of open-toed sandals.
The sea breeze lifted the fringe across her brow. As Fang Tian looked over, she was just raising a hand to lightly tuck back the bangs the wind had tousled. The smile at the corner of her mouth, the dawn light spilling across her face — it made Fang Tian feel as if the flow of time itself had slowed by half a beat.
Fang Tian drew a deep breath.
Good. Good. Good!
The photo had sold her short. Right now, I, Fang Tian, would give you a perfect 10.
And then he felt a "ding" go off inside his head.
Not the figurative kind of "ding" you'd use to dress up being struck by love at first sight — an actual "ding," sounding more like some sort of electronic synth tone.
Fang Tian steadied himself, only to find several semi-transparent blue frames had appeared before his eyes that hadn't been there a moment before.
『Ding——』
『Signs of monster activity detected. System activating.』
『Welcome to 《Monster Appreciation Master》.』
『From today, you are a Monster Appreciator. Please collect your first companion as soon as possible to claim the corresponding reward.』
『Compendium completion progress can be checked on the relevant page.』
『Compendium activating......』
『Compendium activated. Current location: Qingkong Region.』
『Compendium collection progress: 0』
『Appreciator Rating: Beginner』
"Junior Fang?" Hao Xue's call, close at hand, finally snapped Fang Tian back to himself.
At some point Senior had come to stand right in front of him, her eyes full of curiosity as she watched him.
For a young man currently in the single state, this was a devastatingly close distance. The sea breeze carried over the faint fragrance of Senior's shampoo. Fang Tian felt that if not for this dialogue box that had popped up out of nowhere, this should have been the opening scene of a romantic comedy.
And then this baffling dialogue box was telling him that Senior Hao was, in fact, a monster?
You think this is my first day out in the world?
I'll be honest — I was already her schoolmate back in high school. We never chatted face to face, but there is absolutely no way Senior is a monster.
As her former schoolmate, he had to take a firm stand and reject this baseless accusation.
By now he'd even begun to suspect this might be some kind of high-tech scam, the goal being to smear Senior while also stopping him from becoming Qingkong University's next great master of romance.
The system seemed rendered speechless by Fang Tian's sudden barrage of objections. A full five or six seconds passed before it popped up a new dialogue box.
『Now opening True Sight for you. Appreciator, please brace yourself mentally.』
『Countdown: 3』
『2』
『1』
Fang Tian sneered at this threatening little warning. This was the front gate of Qingkong University — besides the students coming and going, there were plenty of tourists who'd come especially to see the place.
In broad daylight, under a bright and open sky, even if there were a one-in-ten-thousand chance Senior really was a monster, she couldn't very well devour me in front of all these people, could she?
Today he just refused to believe——
Fang Tian's confident little flag-planting was cut short. When the countdown ended, the world before his eyes turned upside down. In an instant, all color drained away; only two tones were left in his vision, black and white. The features of the passersby twisted and ran together, their bodies steadily flattening out.
The world in Fang Tian's eyes had suddenly become like a child's careless doodle, a crude stick-figure sketch.
Then chaotic black lines flooded his sight. Hao Xue stood at the center of those black lines, and in the gaps between them a third tone appeared, beyond black and white.
A blood-red that flickered in and out of view seemed to be an eye — and that eye was locked dead onto him.
At last even the white was swallowed by the dark.
『Appreciator's Sanity detected critically low. Protective measures enforced.』
The stick-figure world vanished without a trace, leaving only a sea of black.
TL Notes:
TL Note: "Wizard" here is Chinese net-slang (borrowed from a Japanese meme) for a man still a virgin past a certain age. Fang Tian's recurring ambition to become a "gunslinger" and a "love master" is the running joke of wanting to shed that title.