Several dark lines appeared on Ying Zheng's forehead.
He was the ruler of a nation. The Emperor of Great Qin. The only emperor in the Central Plains — in all of history, for that matter. Great Qin's territory now stretched across half of Asia. Countless kingdoms swept aside. The various philosophical schools suppressed. Hermits and masters of the martial world who had once hidden from civilization had co, one after another, to pledge themselves to him — becoming officials of the empire, brought under his supervision and authority.
That sounded impressive, didn't it? On paper it was extraordinarily impressive.
Before he joined the Dinsional Chat Group, Ying Zheng had been quite satisfied with all of it. His position, his achievents, his dominion — there was no one in the empire who could rival him in standing or in power. Unprecedented in human history.
Then he joined the Chat Group. Then he saw what was out there.
And sohow, his accomplishnts felt sowhat less towering than before.
Compared to the veterans in this Group, he was still a newcor.
He hadn't been a mber much longer than Tatsumaki, Sakura, and Kizaru. His accumulated experience in the Group was not extensive.
So when Group mbers started calling out "Emperor-bro is incredible," Ying Zheng felt less proud than deeply awkward.
If he were actually incredible relative to the people here, he would have accepted the praise graciously.
The problem was that he was firmly in the bottom tier.
Were none of them troubled by their consciences?
Mocking him, a newcor like this.
To borrow the words of that girl in the Group, Kaguya Shinomiya: they were all absolute monsters. Every last one of them, terrible.
"...And yet," he exhaled quietly, "none of them actually behave like powerful figures. They're just interesting people. No airs. Not even the Admin."
That was the strange thing about the Chat Group. He had joined by chance, co to know people from worlds he'd never imagined, crossed into another world during a Group event and witnessed genuine power at work — an opportunity that almost certainly existed for no one else in his world.
Unless soone else from his world joined one day. Like what had happened with that old man called Whitebeard — another person from his world showed up shortly after.
He closed his right hand slowly into a fist, feeling the density of his conditioned muscles.
"Body conditioning is coming along well. Four more techniques from the Six Powers to master — once those are done, I should be approaching the mid-tier in terms of combat strength."
Ying Zheng had never participated in a Quest. His one crossing had been a Group event. Every Point he had ca from daily Sign-In, accumulated slowly over ti — enough so far to have learned two of the Six Powers and pushed his physical conditioning well beyond what his world's strongest fighters could match.
At ho, he was already dominant.
In the Chat Group, he was a rookie.
If Points only ca from daily Sign-In with no Quest triggers, the pace was genuinely painful. Sign-In rewards were too luck-dependent. If his luck ran anything like Yukari's, he could give up on mastering the remaining techniques entirely.
Sakura of the Tohsaka: Emperor-bro is incredible!!!
Admiral Kizaru: Emperor-bro is incredible!!!
Ying Zheng The Sovereign: ...Breaking the echo chain.
Ying Zheng The Sovereign: Does mocking Us like this not weigh on your consciences at all?!
Eternally Seventeen: Conscience? This one doesn't carry such things. The Youkai Sage consud her conscience approximately a thousand years ago.
Kaguya-sama: Yukari-nee-san just revealed her age again.
Kaguya-sama: Also her shaless handle still hasn't been changedjvgckjgsghhdrfnhphtstv...
Crazy Diamond: Uh... what's that string of garbage at the end?
RawrSoFierce: Face-on-keyboard, look it up.
Crazy Diamond: Pfft—
Crazy Diamond: Wait, hold on. Yukari-senpai is in Gensōkyō, Kaguya Shinomiya is in her own slice-of-life world — they're not even in the sa universe. How exactly is Yukari-senpai pressing Kaguya's face into a keyboard?
Kaguya-sama: Everyone co look at this honest person! Co bully him!
RawrSoFierce: Everyone co look at this honest person! Quick, isolate him!
Eternally Seventeen: There's an honest person here. Should we boil him?
Edward Newgate: Pull off the head, remove the tail — crispy, chicken-flavored.
Crazy Diamond: ...Tr-trembling.
Ryū let his consciousness drift back out of the Chat Group, a helpless smile still on his face. He shook his head and turned his attention to his living room.
He'd rushed off to deal with the old worm situation before getting around to the cleanup. The Nine-Tails incident hadn't destroyed the house, but the walls still had those hairline cracks — a few ters long each, a milliter or two wide.
"Right, I forgot to patch those... though a milliter should be fine, shouldn't it? Hmm. Actually, no — the crack runs into the bathroom. If soone outside could see through it..." He contemplated this. "Well, if it were a pretty girl, I probably wouldn't mind. Not that the odds of that are any better than winning the lottery. But if it were a man—"
He would beat that man until he reconsidered his life choices.
Ryū looked out the window at the empty street. The whole village had mobilized for reconstruction — no one left to idle on the roads.
"Speaking of which — Minato said there'd be a reward. He's not planning to go back on that, is he?" An official Hokage backing out of a commitnt was essentially unthinkable, especially this particular Hokage. Sothing had probably just co up and caused a delay.
"At the rate I've been spending, what's left might barely carry through a year or two. Money that was supposed to last a lifeti, and I burned through most of it. I'm basically counting on Minato's paynt to keep the lights on."
His train of thought cut off mid-sentence.
His Observation Haki had caught sothing — two presences, moving toward his house at a decent clip.
Not slow. Not fast enough to register as a threat. But approaching with clear intent.
Two people.
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