304: Chapter 304 Another Statue of Liberty

On the other side, in the Virtual Tower's core disciple dormitory.

"Master, you have mail."

"Mhm."

Zhang Huaiyuan wasn't in a hurry to check it; instead, he refined the ideas in his mind into his thesis one by one before looking at the notification on his communication device.

"Oh, it's from Second Senior Brother. Could it be..."

Zhang Huaiyuan's heart stirred as he opened the email.

"Junior Martial Brother, the material fees I promised you earlier, along with the academy's bonus, have been transferred to your account through the association's internal trading system. Please check it."

"The funds have arrived as expected. Second Senior Brother really is a reliable person."

Looking delighted, Zhang Huaiyuan opened his personal account to check, only to see a long string of zeros added to his previously meager balance.

A full 505.1 billion.

"Asroth, transfer two billion time coins to Mr. Brie Dawn through the association's notary office."

Now that he had money, the first thing Zhang Huaiyuan did was pay off this debt.

Two billion time coins weren't much to him now, but it settled a concern and a favor.

"Understood, Master."

"Mhm."

Zhang Huaiyuan nodded. Next was purchasing materials to build a body for the Statue of Liberty.

He opened the association's internal trading platform.

Since his status had changed from an informal disciple to a formal one, his authority had risen again. Not only did he unlock browsing and purchasing rights for more rare items, but his discount was also higher than before.

"Hmm... a total of 497.7 billion time coins after the discount. Second Senior Brother's estimate was really accurate."

Zhang Huaiyuan naturally knew all the required materials by heart; he had just been limited by his lack of funds. Now that the money had arrived, he quickly finished purchasing everything.

His balance shrank to 5.4 billion time coins.

However, Zhang Huaiyuan didn't feel the slightest bit of heartache.

To him, the Statue of Liberty was one of his most important partners who had accompanied him since his weaker days. Being able to do something for her was a joyful matter.

"Let's go. I set the delivery address to the laboratory. With the association's efficiency, it should arrive very soon."

Zhang Huaiyuan gently stroked the integrated device on his right wrist, speaking with a hint of anticipation.

"Excellency, you are even better than I imagined."

The light screen brightened slightly, and a somewhat complex voice sounded.

"What?"

Zhang Huaiyuan was slightly taken aback.

"It's nothing, Excellency..."

The voice from the light screen became cheerful:

"I have a request. I want to build my body myself, is that alright?"

"Build it yourself? Of course you can. Why the sudden... Oh, I understand."

Zhang Huaiyuan asked with some surprise, then seemed to recall something and laughed dismissively.

That's right.

When her intelligence was being endowed, the Statue of Liberty's gender evolution trend was female. Perhaps she had awakened some kind of biological emotion? That was a good thing, but...

"There might be some trouble with fusing the World Tree branch and other materials. How about this, I'll process the materials in advance..."

"Thank you for your kindness, Excellency. However, your blueprints have already been uploaded to my database. As your partner, I still have the ability to simply follow the instructions."

The Statue of Liberty's voice sounded composed.

"Eh?"

Hearing this, Zhang Huaiyuan couldn't help but look down.

Under the effect of True Sight, there was no difference except for the data being a bit more active.

"The Goddess seems much more confident today than before. It must be because she's happy about getting a physical body... Well, in that case, I'll let her be."

Having figured this out, a soft smile appeared on Zhang Huaiyuan's face as he synchronized and shared a series of permissions, including laboratory usage, with the Statue of Liberty:

"Alright, then I'll leave it to you."

"Thank you for your trust, Excellency."

The light screen quietly dimmed.

In the depths of the core that even True Sight couldn't see through, two consciousnesses were at daggers drawn.

"You can't do this. Excellency Zhang Huaiyuan is a core disciple of the association. If you do this and get caught, what kind of situation will you put him in?"

A clearly disadvantaged consciousness said indignantly.

"Ridiculous."

The other consciousness gave a cold laugh and said emotionlessly:

"I didn't expect the 'me' of the main world to be such a naive intelligence."

There was a hint of jealousy in her voice.

"As expected... a fellow who only knows how to hide under Excellency Zhang Huaiyuan's protection isn't worthy of fighting alongside him at all."

"It's not naivety. As Excellency's most trusted partner, I will never do anything that could potentially harm him."

The original Statue of Liberty's voice became increasingly firm, her core data surging.

"Shut up!"

The other consciousness's voice became even colder.

"You think I would harm Excellency?"

"Do you know that a group of unknown powerful forces is targeting Excellency? In the past and future, across endless space-time, only the last... Forget it, you understand nothing at all."

The other consciousness seemed to lose interest in talking. Using unknown means, it constructed a powerful isolation barrier with just a few lines of data. No matter how the Statue of Liberty struck against it, she couldn't break through in the slightest.

"Excellency Zhang Huaiyuan can only be mine..."

That consciousness cast a cold glance at the Statue of Liberty's core data.

Her main body was still lost in the endless space-time layers and couldn't arrive, so she had to use her counterpart in this world to barely synchronize a bit of consciousness.

The most important thing right now was to gain the ability to protect Excellency as quickly as possible.

As for these pests who would compete with her for Excellency, it wouldn't be too late to quietly eliminate them all once her main body arrived.

Having quickly determined her course of action, the Future Liberty Goddess interfaced with the association's system.

In her own space-time, she had personally destroyed these Towers of Knowledge one by one.

These protections, which seemed perfect to others, were full of holes in her eyes.

It was just that the current hardware conditions were too poor. It was like calculating pi; without the aid of a computer, even if one knew the method, they could only grind through the calculations slowly by hand.

"However... with the help of Excellency's core disciple permissions, performing some simple substitutions should be doable. Humph, a body worth 500 billion time coins... If I remember correctly, there are quite a few divine spirits' essences and materials above the ninth rank in the association's treasures..."

"I'll start with the body... forging a form capable of withstanding attacks from the eighth or even ninth realm... and a powerful enough army."

"I'll quietly swap out these materials. Then... I'll point the trail toward those fellows who invaded my world."

The Future Liberty Goddess pondered quietly.

The power she could currently use was far too weak; she needed time to develop.

Her purpose in risking an intrusion into the association's system, besides the materials, was also to indirectly warn them of that unknown force's existence and buy herself time.

"Excellency, this time, I will definitely protect you. I absolutely, absolutely will not let the tragedy repeat itself!"

"..."