That evening, Qin Xiaoxia and Doudou returned to Huang Jiutian’s apartment by themselves. The poor saps pulling overtime had originally planned on getting off work at 11:00 PM.

However, a sudden phone call from the boss and chief engineer forced the design department to pull an all-nighter.

The preliminary plan, which was originally due the day after tomorrow, had been moved up to tomorrow afternoon.

Even an outsider like Qin Xiaoxia could tell that the boss and chief engineer at Huang Jiutian’s company must have just left a meeting and immediately called the office.

This race-against-the-clock scramble was usually only seen during the bidding phase. For it to be happening this early in the design process meant the project’s importance and urgency had been raised to an extremely high level.

In the words of the design department manager at Huang Jiutian’s company, "The higher-ups asking about this are even more senior than we imagined!"

...

As for whether the "dam" holding back the Power of the World was stable, neither Doudou nor Qin Xiaoxia dared to say for sure anymore.

Doudou’s own arrival could perhaps be attributed to the miraculous nature of Wish Power, but how could one explain the Nightmare Swamp and the Faceless Shadow Ghost?

Once is an accident, but twice?

And how could they be sure there hadn’t been a third or fourth incident in a place they didn’t know about?

Qin Xiaoxia didn’t know when all this had started, but it couldn’t have been for very long—a year or two at most, perhaps even just a few months.

He based this conclusion on a few points.

First, the project deadlines that Huang Jiutian and his former classmates in the construction industry were currently facing.

Second, the three "invasions from the Otherworld" he had personally encountered, including Doudou’s arrival.

And third, it was a feeling.

Ever since his Magic Power had awakened, and especially after what Qin Xiaoxia termed his "Elfification," he had felt an indescribable, mutual connection with his "environment."

Of course, Doudou had told Qin Xiaoxia that his physical transformation in the hospital was definitely not "Elfification"—at least, not any known form of it. But beyond making a mental note of this detail, it didn’t stop Qin Xiaoxia from co-opting the term for his own condition.

Fundamentally, although his physical structure hadn’t seemed to change, Qin Xiaoxia could no longer be considered human. Or rather, he had transcended being a normal human.

He could now often sense an exchange of information between himself—his soul, body, and Magic Power—and the unconventional layers of the world.

Qin Xiaoxia couldn’t help but sigh.

He wasn’t someone with an overwhelming sense of justice. Fighting public enemies like Superman was definitely not in his playbook.

But Qin Xiaoxia wasn’t a cold-blooded person either.

At the end of the day, he just couldn’t bring himself to act as if nothing was wrong and watch the world slide step-by-step into some unknown state.

Especially when that state could very well lead to the actual end of the world.

Besides, Qin Xiaoxia had a feeling.

This apocalypse wasn’t the kind humans always used to talk about—a so-called "nuclear winter," "ice age," or "era of pollution."

At best, those were merely apocalypses for humanity; the world itself wouldn’t give a damn.

If humanity went extinct, the world would still be the world. In a few thousand, or tens of thousands of years, maybe some kind of Smurf-cockroach-people would evolve.

But this time, the changes to the world were different.

The entire world was already in a peculiar state, as if on the brink of some momentous upheaval.

Qin Xiaoxia didn’t dare to even imagine the consequences.

’I wonder how much our "great" human leaders know, and what preparations they’ve made?’

’Just building "defensive works"... It’s not enough...’

Lying on Huang Jiutian’s bed, Qin Xiaoxia raised his hand, his gaze distant.

In the center of his palm was a deep brand: "Dawn."

The Dawn Association.

It was founded in Europe during the early Middle Ages.

In that dark and ignorant age, its members seized a "business opportunity."

It was an organization that scammed wealthy merchants, nobles, and even royalty in the name of reclusive masters and Wizardly Magic.

At one point, its scale grew so large that it astonished its own members.

For an organization of swindlers, the requirements for joining were surprisingly strict.

One of its ironclad rules was—loyalty.

So, as a binding measure, all official members were branded on the palm.

The way Qin Xiaoxia understood it was this:

With this brand, if you betrayed the association, you couldn’t run, not to the ends of the earth.

Even if you were ruthless enough to chop off your own hand, you only had a chance of getting away.

After all, for a "super-swindler" syndicate like Dawn to last for centuries, the intelligence of its members and the sheer amount of talent within its ranks had to be beyond imagination.

Of course, the brand had another, more cutthroat implication.

If the association ever ran into an irresistible force, then if they were going down, they were all going down together!

However, after the Renaissance, people began to gradually emerge from their ignorance, and the elites of the upper class grew more and more shrewd.

"Business was bad," and so the association naturally fell into decline.

But there are always those who are nostalgic for the old ways, and the true masters tend to survive better. The association didn’t disappear but simply shifted its field of operations, "migrating" to places in inverse proportion to the "enlightenment" of the local population.

In the modern world, the Dawn Association existed in name only. Its final administrator, Qin Xiaoxia, was merely a product of Old Qin’s lingering sentiment.

"At least the association didn’t end with me!"

That was one of Old Qin’s final statements.

Over hundreds of years, Dawn’s footprint had spread across the globe. In some places, it had even left behind spectacular "historical sites."

And because of humanity’s timeless sense of shame, coupled with the proselytizing of ignorant busybodies and naive admirers, Dawn’s limited historical reputation was actually mixed.

Qin Xiaoxia remembered what an upperclassman told him in college.

"If you can get all your professors to forget you even exist, then as a student just trying to coast to graduation, you’ve succeeded!"

A variation of that sentiment could now be applied to Dawn.

’For an organization that should have been infamous, to be "nearly forgotten" by history and have its very concept blurred... In that sense, you couldn’t say Dawn wasn’t a success!’

Although Su Su’s behavior today had vexed him for a time, it had also given him an idea.

’Perhaps, deep down, everyone branded with "Dawn" was a complete lunatic.’

’Of course, a lunatic isn’t the same as an idiot. If he was going to make a move, he had to do it with clear and certain information.’

...

Doudou, standing off to the side, watched as Qin Xiaoxia muttered to himself one moment and then bowed his head in deep thought the next.

His mental state was in constant flux, and the Magic Power around him rose and fell, creating waves of imperceptible resonance with his surroundings.

As usual, the feeling filled Doudou with a deep-seated, inexplicable fear, raising goosebumps all over its body.

It quietly hugged the "dirty beer bottle" and walked over to Huang Jiutian’s computer to turn it on and get online.

Oh, and by the way, Qin Xiaoxia had said that Doudou was fully responsible for the beer bottle. If anything happened to it before they went home, Doudou would have to deal with the consequences.

PS: Thank you to reader Dong Ba Hu for the 700 coin donation, thank you to reader Xiao Xiaozhi for the 500 coin donation, and thank you to readers Hei Yi Na Shitou and Ye Xuchen for the 100 coin donations.

It’s great to see so many familiar faces among my readers~