Stephen, in his middle-aged man appearance, kept stepping backward.
Back and back again—until there was nowhere left to retreat.
"Ptoo! Ptoo! Ptoo!"
"HAHAHAHA!"
Everyone completely dropped their identities and outside worries. They simply ate, drank, played, joked, and laughed together.
From time to time, "Banquet" appeared to deliver new dishes.
Strangely enough, Aha did not show up this time to cause trouble or complain that the banquet of geniuses had been held without inviting Him.
Knowing Aha, this was very unusual.
Unless… there was an even bigger source of amusement elsewhere keeping Him occupied.
After several rounds of food and drinks, the atmosphere of the banquet gradually cooled and seemed close to ending.
At that moment, "Banquet" appeared again.
Along with it came countless memory bubbles.
"Honored guests, I wonder if you were satisfied with the previous hospitality?"
"Now I present the final segment of the banquet — the gift of Elias Salas."
"A banquet of geniuses that only involves eating and drinking would be far too vulgar."
"A gathering of so many geniuses deserves something worthy of it—knowledge."
"The most precious possession of a genius is never material wealth, but the wisdom and knowledge contained in their mind."
"My master Elias Salas, before his death, recorded all the thoughts and knowledge of his life into these memory bubbles."
"These memory bubbles have not been contaminated by fictional historians. They are the genuine thoughts from my master's life."
"And these are the gifts he asked to give to the participants of the banquet."
Indeed.
Only knowledge was worthy of such a banquet.
For geniuses, no matter how rare a treasure or how vast a fortune, such things were never truly valuable.
Perhaps in Elias Salas' eyes, giving such worldly gifts would only be an insult to geniuses.
The playful feast had ended.
The real banquet was perhaps only beginning.
One by one, the geniuses began reviewing the memory bubbles, absorbing knowledge and enjoying the legacy left behind by a deceased genius.
The gains from this gathering turned out to be unexpectedly great.
Meanwhile — The "Arena Planet" · Tykon
"Waaah~ Finally it's ending. Such exhausting and hard work… such a busy trip to Tykon~"
March 7th stretched lazily while looking at the giant stadium of Tykon.
It was time to say goodbye after half a month of staying here.
Dan Heng: "Exhausting?"
Himeko: "Oh? Our little March worked very hard, huh?"
Welt Yang teased her.
"March, if eating, drinking, and playing counts as hard work, I think countless people would want that kind of hardship. Tykon's stadium probably wouldn't survive."
March 7th: "Uncle Yang, I was just saying~"
"But if we hadn't smashed the roof of the stadium earlier, we'd probably already be back at the Herta Space Station by now, right?"
Dan Heng: "Let me correct something. The one who smashed the stadium roof wasn't 'us'. It was you."
March 7th: "Ah, it's basically the same. And besides, you can't blame me! It was just a coincidence. Who knew the button labeled Exciting Mode on the snowmobile would be that exciting?"
Dan Heng: "That button had a clown shape completely different from the other normal buttons. Any normal person would be cautious and not press it randomly."
March scratched her head.
"Let me think how to argue—uh, explain."
"Anyway, even if I wasn't careful, the responsibility can't be entirely mine."
"Who was the Nameless predecessor who installed a Domain Anchor in that place? When we teleported there, we just crashed down with a huge bang."
Himeko somehow produced a cup of extremely strong coffee.
Himeko:
"Pam told me that the mid-air Domain Anchor was placed there when the Trailblaze Aeon Akivili once traveled with the train disguised as a mortal, together with the worst Nameless in history."
"As Nameless following the Path of Trailblaze, we'll just treat it as repaying Akivili's debt. Fortunately the dangerous Domain Anchor has now been temporarily shut down."
Welt Yang:
"I wonder who that worst Nameless in history was. When Pam mentioned him, he seemed very angry."
"Pam said that person and Akivili's mortal incarnation drove a snowmobile and kept teleporting to that mid-air Domain Anchor, then teleporting again just before hitting the ground, repeating the process over and over."
March widened her eyes.
"Wait… the legendary Trailblaze Aeon actually did something like that? That doesn't sound like Trailblaze at all — it sounds more like Aha's Path of Joy!"
As a true accidental prophet, March 7th sometimes unknowingly spoke the truth.
As everyone knows, Elio equals Little March 7th.
"But anyway, that's all in the past. The Domain Anchor is shut down now, so future Nameless won't repeat that mistake."
"It's already been smashed twice. Third time's the limit. If it happens again… Tykon might ban the Astral Express from entering."
Dan Heng crossed his arms.
"Won't happen."
March chuckled.
"But the people from Tykon's Arena Committee were really nice. We smashed their stadium roof, yet they only asked us to work for a month to repay it."
"And the work is so easy."
Himeko smiled.
"Looks like our little March still hasn't realized something."
March blinked slowly.
"Huh? Is… is there a problem?"
"Don't tell me the stadium director was just pretending to be nice so we'd lower our guard, and when we relax he'll smash a cup as a signal and 800 swordsmen will rush in and capture us all?"
March struck a detective pose while making a serious deduction.
Dan Heng covered his face with one hand.
Dan Heng: "March… you should read fewer Xianzhou novels."
March 7th: "I was joking! I'm not actually that stupid. This lady is very smart!"
Himeko: "Oh? Then our clever little March must have already noticed something strange about our trip to Tykon and figured out what really happened."
"Well of course! Don't you know who I am? I definitely—definitely—…"
"…Okay fine, I don't know."
"But our teacher Dan Heng is so smart. He must know. Explain it to me!"
"Before I knew something was wrong I didn't care, but now that I know there's something strange, I don't want to stay confused."
Dan Heng began carefully explaining everything from the beginning.
"We originally came to Tykon from Herta Space Station after accepting Miss Herta's commission to find a special Curio."
"Then during the journey we also received a request from the Interastral Peace Corporation, asking the Astral Express crew to check the stability of the sealed Stellaron on Tykon."
March nodded.
"Yeah, I know that part. Our Astral Express crew is capable — the capable ones work harde