The Star Gate has opened. The continent trembles.Fifty prodigies from across the land gather to enter the Celestial Star Temple—a secret realm that awakens once every ten thousand years. Within its ancient halls lie supreme legacies, lost inheritances, and the power to reshape the world.Kael Voss, a nameless rogue cultivator who clawed his way from F-rank obscurity, stands among them. Mocked and dismissed, he enters the temple not for glory, but to survive—and to uncover th...

After completing the second trial of the Sacred Mountain, Kael Voss gains the Star Core Law and the Star Core Domain. Together with Jax, Lena, Lira, and Isabella, he steps through the teleportation array toward the Forgotten Land.But something goes wrong. The five are scattered across Watchtower Isle—a land ruled by the Shadow Cult. Kael wakes alone in the wilderness, with only Shadow Fang and the Ascendant System at his side.He meets the Resistance, a group of islanders fi...

Kael Voss survived betrayal and death. Reborn with the Ascendant System, he has already reclaimed six of the seven Star Core fragments. But the Shadow Council is closing in, and the capital has fallen under the iron grip of Morgrave Black—a usurper with dark ambitions.To stop the Council's "Harvest Plan"—a scheme to awaken a Paragon-level evil that could devour the entire continent—Kael must find the seventh fragment and fuse the Star Core Heart. That means infiltrating the Council...

Betrayed by his closest friend and lover, Kael Voss dies a brutal death on the dark altar of the Black Forest. His family's legacy is shattered, and the Star Core fragment is ripped from his chest by the man he trusted most.Then the Ascendant System binds to his soul.Kael awakens the day before his sixteenth birthday—back when he was still mocked as the "useless waste" of House Voss, and the man who killed him still wore th...

After suffering endless humiliation and despair, Kael was reborn from absolute zero, bound to the mysterious and ever-growing Ascendant System.Across the first three volumes, he climbed from the absolute bottom of the world, defeated countless powerful enemies, humiliated arrogant geniuses, broke the unfair rules of this world, and grew from a nobody into a terrifying powerhouse that every great faction both fears and envies.Now, the deadliest trial in existence has opened:...

Shield Tunnel Engineering: From Theory to Practice is a key technique that offers one of the most important ways to build tunnels in fast, relatively safe, and ecologically friendly ways. The book presents state-of-the-art solutions for engineers working within the field of shield tunnelling technology for railways. It includes expertise from major projects in shield tunnel construction for high-speed rail, subways and other major projects. In particular, it presents a series of advances i...

This engaging Cambridge Companion introduces readers to the richness, complexity and diversity of one of the most important periods in Chinese history: the Song dynasty, 960–1279 CE. Bringing together leading scholars from Asia, Europe, and the United States, it provides an overview of key institutions, political, economic and military history, while also delving into the everyday lived experience of medieval China. Together, the authors create a vividly detailed and intimate portrayal of ...

This book constitutes the proceedings of the satellite workshops held around the 21st International Conference on Applied Cryptography and Network Security, ACNS 2023, held in Kyoto, Japan, in June 2023.The 34 full papers and 13 poster papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 76 submissions. They stem from the following workshops:· 1st ACNS Workshop on Automated Methods and Data-driven Techniques in Symmetric-key Cryptanalysis (ADSC 2023)

Tens of thousands of epitaphs, or funerary biographies, survive from imperial China. Engraved on stone and placed in a grave, they typically focus on the deceased’s biography and exemplary words and deeds, expressing the survivors’ longing for the dead. These epitaphs provide glimpses of the lives of women, men who did not leave a mark politically, and children—people who are not well documented in more conventional sources such as dynastic histories and local gazetteers.This antho...

This book constitutes the proceedings of the satellite workshops held around the 18th International Conference on Applied Cryptography and Network Security, ACNS 2020, in Rome, Italy, in October 2020.The 31 papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 65 submissions. They stem from the following workshops:AIBlock 2020:Second International Workshop on Application Intelligence and Blockchain SecurityAIHWS 2020:First Internati...

Step into Chinese history through the accounts of those who lived itPersonal accounts help us understand notions of self, interpersonal relations, and historical events. Chinese Autobiographical Writing contains full translations of works by fifty individuals that illuminate the history and conventions of writing about oneself in the Chinese tradition. From poetry, letters, and diaries to statements in legal proceedings, these engaging and readable works d...

The mythic past of Minecraft Legends returns to threaten the Overworld in this official novel!Farnum dreams of running a famous zoo. But though the mobs he keeps are adorable, none of them draws anything close to a crowd. Farnum needs something strange and new—but he’s the furthest thing from an adventurer. It takes a lot of convincing from his friends, but Farnum finally takes a chance and goes with them to explore a lush new biome . . . which is ...