Emily Clark was clearly quite fond of him, and after learning that Matthew Cooper had also successfully passed the martial exam, she was happy for him as well. Yet for some reason, Emily Clark never seemed to notice the burning jealousy in his eyes, and continued to drape her delicate figure almost entirely over David Bolton.

However, at this moment, the way Matthew Cooper looked at David Bolton was not only filled with flames, but also tinged with a bit of wariness—he no longer showed the slightest trace of contempt for this “Mad Blade.”

After all, anyone who had mastered “Intent and Action as One” and could defeat someone from the Mo Palace was not someone he could afford to underestimate.

In the end, the dormitory assignments placed David Bolton and Matthew Cooper right next door to each other, with Emily Clark not far away, just across from them.

This was due to the separation of male and female dorms; otherwise, Emily Clark would certainly have insisted on being his neighbor as well.

As for Matthew Cooper, he was clearly putting on a shameless, ever-watchful act.

David Bolton could only resign himself to this, letting things be. Afterwards, Emily Clark stayed in his room, chatting about their time apart, sharing amusing stories from her two years in the Spirit Gathering class, and recounting what had happened to David Bolton since they parted.

In fact, most of what Emily Clark experienced in the Spirit Gathering class had already been written in her weekly letters to him.

Speaking of letters, Emily Clark sent him two every ten days, rain or shine, year after year, never missing a single one. David Bolton felt rather ashamed, as he had only replied sporadically a few times throughout the year.

They talked until nearly midnight, when Emily Clark finally drove out the ever-present “supervisor” Matthew Cooper, then reluctantly said goodbye to David Bolton and returned to her own room. She still wanted to talk with David Bolton, but knew that midnight was the best time for a low-level spirit master to cultivate. Especially now, her dear brother needed every second he could get.

As soon as the room was empty, “Grace” couldn’t wait any longer and jumped out. This time, she appeared right beside David Bolton in the form of a “holographic projection.”

“Eh? Is that really the same girl from back then? After two and a half years, she’s grown so beautiful, I can hardly believe it, meow.”

Then Grace pouted, glaring angrily at David Bolton: “Master, you threatened to lock me in the little black room again!”

“You were the one who disobeyed first.”

David Bolton’s expression was calm, showing no guilt at all. He had already given instructions in advance when climbing the Spirit Ladder. Yet before entering the Tianzhu Mountain villa, Grace had popped out again. Helpless, he could only threaten Grace by saying he would shut down the smart terminal’s power.

This was just in case—though Grace sounded so confident, David Bolton knew better than anyone the abilities of high-level spirit masters, and that they might still notice something unusual.

“But locking me in the little black room is too cruel, meow!”

Grace grumbled again, but then seemed to ponder, “But this place really is strange. Why are there so many psychics here? I sensed several up above who have already reached the second energy level. Just in this Tianzhu Mountain alone, the number of psychics is about to surpass the total in the entire Federation.”

“You can sense that?”

David Bolton turned his head in surprise. “Psychics? Second energy level? What does that mean?”

“It’s just like what Master calls spirit masters—people who can use psychic power to manipulate objects and alter physical phenomena! The second energy level refers to their psychic power ranking. The Academy of Sciences has set a total of nine energy levels; the higher the level, the stronger the power. But before Master left, the highest psychic in the Federation was only at the third energy level.”

After saying this, Grace looked puzzled. “It’s so strange—Master has forgotten everything from the Federation, but knows everything about this place. Even if there was a problem with the memory transfer to the clone, it shouldn’t be like this, meow?”

David Bolton couldn’t help but laugh. “I’ve told you before, I’m not your master. I just revived using your master’s body.”

“Impossible!”

Grace shook her head, her tone absolutely certain. “There’s never been a successful case of brainwave frequency copying between different individuals in Grace’s database. It can only be done between a subject and a clone with 100% genetic similarity! But Master’s current body really is Master!”

At this, Grace curled herself into a ball, looking full of self-blame. “It’s all Grace’s fault! If only I’d reminded Master again during the calculations for the interstellar jump; or if I’d followed Smart Machine Rule No. 272 and forcibly shut down the engine, we wouldn’t have let the starship fall into a wormhole. And if I hadn’t made a calculation error after passing through the wormhole, causing the starship to crash, Master’s cloning pod wouldn’t have been damaged. Meow~”

When David Bolton heard her mention things like genes, clones, brainwaves, and interstellar jumps, it was all like listening to a foreign language.

He did, however, understand the words “starship”—that was the giant iron vessel buried deep beneath the Guanglin Mountains, like a palace of demons.

He had met Grace Green, who claimed to be a terminal intelligence, three years ago, but for most of those years, he had been unconscious. So in reality, they had only spent about eight months together, and most of that time was spent on his physical recovery and practicing swordsmanship.

So even now, David Bolton still couldn’t get used to Grace’s way of speaking, and only had a vague understanding of what this so-called “terminal intelligence” really was.