Chapter 17: The First “Page”

The cold energy cartoon phantoms easily located the rat’s corpse that had been slain by Yang Zicang, tracking it all the way along the blood trail.
From Shao Min’s sensory perspective, countless interconnected pipes crisscrossed like a three-dimensional spiderweb.
As it passed several monster carcasses, figures of monsters attracted by the smell of blood and the calls of their fellow beasts gradually came into view, charging through the area.
“No wonder this is a B-grade rift crisscross point—this alternate space is full of so many monsters.”
It continued its descent deeper below.
……
In the winding depths of the metal passageway, forty to fifty meters in.
Yang Zicang, wearing an old shirt, is running for his life, with a large group of rats swarming from all directions like packs of hounds—at least fifty or sixty of them at a glance.
Because of the loud commotion, more and more mutated rats are arriving from the pipes above, below, and all around, like a surging monster army.
About ten meters ahead, there is a broken section of pipe.
The surrounding space has collapsed, with an unfathomable depth below; only a half-protruding giant steel pipe across a distance of about ten meters at the opposite high spot remains.
“Squeak squeak squeak!”
“Roar roar roar roar howl!”
Yang Zicang is furious—why didn’t that kid run into any trouble after staying here a whole day and night, yet as soon as I show up, I attract so many monsters?
There’s no other choice. Without time to think, after a glance at the dense, gleaming eyes behind him, the young man rushes toward the broken edge ahead as Liang Xi watches with nervous anticipation.
[Brother Yang…]
Liang Xi feels it’s his own fault for getting this person into trouble.
In the perceived scene, Yang Zicang shows no sign of stopping; he dashes toward the edge of the pipe at an incredible speed with no deceleration.
Liang Xi instinctively closes his eyes, unable to bear watching.
Suddenly, a chill surges from behind—a bizarre, dual-form cartoon figure rushes in from the high spot at the back of the tunnel!
[I’ll use junior corpse leap!]
Yang Zicang crouches down and leaps into the air.
Outside, seeing so many rats swarming like mad dogs, even though Shaomin wasn’t at the scene, he still felt a chill run down his spine. He silently swore never to set foot in this eerie place.
However, when he saw that figure moving even faster than the rats sprinting with all their might, his heart gave a sudden jolt.
This person is extremely fast.
It seems this kid’s abilities are not just the wind field that everyone’s been talking about; he must have some form of acceleration too.
“Too bad he stirred up a monster horde the moment he arrived. That’s what happens when you… lack respect for this world.”
The platform “seed” Liangying gave should come in handy.
No sooner had he said that than Shaomin saw through the cartoon phantom’s perspective that the young figure’s slender, agile body leaped impossibly high from the edge of the fractured pipe!
“What?!”
Like a cheaply made effect in a low-budget movie scene, Yang Zicang waved his arms in a flailing motion as he surged upward; with just a bend of his knees, he could leap as high as seven or eight meters!
But the wall opening at the high end across from him was still a few meters away.
“He’s still going to fall, isn’t he!” Shaomin watched nervously.
Hum!
A flurry of whip-like shadows, which measured several meters long, swept forth, eliciting a low growl from Yang. Suddenly, his body built and powered up once more as the whip shadows scraped past his feet.
A second boost mid-air!
Crash! With both hands outstretched, Yang seized the edge of the pipe wall.
Seeing this, Shaomin’s face was a mask of doubt. How did he even pull that off? No wonder he had heard so many rumors about that freshman just after he arrived back home last night.
“Hmph, but you’re still going to die.”
Shao Min’s eyes turned dark.
He controlled the Cold Twin to swiftly charge out of the large pipe where the monsters were gathered, shooting diagonally upward.
Just as Yang Zicang had one leg up onto the pipe, the cold mist nearly overlapped with his back, and the small mist platform model they were holding was shoved into Yang Zicang’s skull.
“Got it!”
Shao Min grinned inwardly, ending the ability’s use. That had cost a lot of sequence.
Yang Zicang felt a chill in his head, as if a strong emotional disturbance had set in.
Looking down, he saw several rats chasing him couldn’t stop in time and, like him, leaped out of the pipe opening before plunging into the dark depths below. It took a long while for the faint sound of their landing to echo back.
In the deep darkness below, the bodies of the dead monsters gave off an invisible black smoke that floated upward and then slowly dissipated.
……
Yang Zicang struggled to climb into this long-unentered tunnel.
{Brother Yang, I admire you so much! But, something seemed to appear behind you just now. Like mist.}
He turned his head to look behind him—there was no mist anywhere. However, Yang Zicang’s heart sank. Given the emotional feeling, he must have fallen victim to someone’s scheme.
“Squeak, squeak!”
“Roar!”
The monsters gathered, pacing in agitation. Up here in the tunnel, though, thick dust covered everything, and it was deathly quiet.
It should be safe up here for now.
He looked back at the monsters crowding the pipe opening, shrieking at him. “Hmph,” Yang Zicang thought to himself, feeling a strong surge of bloodthirst, eager for immediate revenge.
No matter why they had gone mad, this was precisely the best time for harvest.
He pulled a handful of prepared pebbles from his pocket, and a glowing rune circle appeared before his chest.
“Die!”
Ten or so curved trajectories sliced through the staggered space.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Each precise strike blew up a monster rat’s head, turning the opening below into a veritable slaughterhouse.
[I harvested 13N.]
[I harvested 21.7N.]
The mindscape’s mental announcements burst forth like a waterfall, accompanied by dense screeching from below, sending exhilaration through Yang Zicang.
He threw another two handfuls of pebbles, forcing the monsters to retreat fearfully.
[I’ve harvested a total of 521.7N.]
“Ha! This is heaven.” Yang Zicang had no idea how wicked his own grin looked at that moment.
The rats from the lower tunnel no longer dared to show themselves at the edge.
The stench in the air hit him like a wall. Slightly sobering from the manic frenzy, Yang Zicang glanced at the brutal scene below. A growing nausea churned in his stomach.
“Can’t take it anymore.”
He quickly turned and fled into the passage, a bare second away from throwing up.
[Yang Ge, I so want to be there with you right now!]
Liang Xi watched, his blood boiling with excitement.
The boy, who had been in this world for a month and was already accustomed to the sight of monster corpses, was still shocked by the scene through his perception. He could actually control the trajectories and strike ranges of so many pebbles at once! It was as if he was born for this terrain.
……
At this moment, Yang Zicang, advancing through the pipeline, sighed inwardly. Fortunately, he had mysteriously gained that jumping ability last night, or he would have been dead for sure.
No wonder Captain Luo Xin had warned that this was a dangerous place.
Feeling the usefulness of the skill, he tried to recall the information from his nightmare. There seemed to be some voice at the time.
[Let me think… what was yesterday’s daily content…]
It seemed like… a summary!
A flash of inspiration struck Yang Zicang. With this lead, it felt like breaking through a window paper. He suddenly remembered some content.
It was the daily summary!
His brows twisted together. Firstly, he had met the hourly average harvest. Then there was something about an “Emblem Seal” or whatever. The rest he couldn’t remember anymore.
The pipe was not long. After turning a corner, a fluorescent glow lit up in the darkness ahead.
It was a cave.
On the cave walls and in the corners, many thumb-long blue crystals had grown.
“Magic Crystals?” He had seen these items on the material shelf. He only glanced at these crystals before his eyes fell on an old iron table in the corner of the cave that had been abandoned for who knew how many years. Dust and gravel had almost completely buried that corner of the table.
Yang Zicang tried covering his mouth and nose with one hand while using the other to brush the dust and gravel onto the ground, but when he pushed with his hand, the half-buried corpse, reduced to mere bones, fell to the floor with a thud.
The small box in its arms also fell to the ground.
[I have found traces of the ‘book volume.’]
Listening to the voice of his mind, Yang Zicang reached out, picked up the small wooden box from the dust, and opened it, revealing a silver-white, curled piece of paper made of strange material.
It resembled the material of banknotes from some countries on Earth, with intricate and elegant watermarks, inscribed with characters from an unknown civilization.
“Ah Liang, do you know what a book volume is?”
{Book volume? Are they book pages? Hmm, I think I’ve heard someone say the headquarters is collecting them, and someone mentioned that they relate to the reason this city and we exist.}
Then, Liang Xi exclaimed in surprise.
{Ah, Brother Yang, have you found a book page? The Monster Hunter Alliance’s headquarters said that finding any single page would earn you a handsome reward!}
Yang Zicang’s heart skipped a beat—this was clearly a very important item, something even the headquarters was collecting.
It must hold deep secrets about this world.
Perhaps through them, he could even find a way back.
[This is the script of another world. Even I, as the Great Quadrilateral, only know that if you obtain an item containing the Ring of Bloodline, you can read it with its help.]
Ring of Bloodline?
Listening to this voice in his mind, Yang Zicang silently noted the term.
He looked around; this place seemed like a study inside a cave, with collapsed iron bookshelves around, but unfortunately, the books on them had turned to ashes. Searching one by one, he finally found a well-preserved book with a hard cover among a pile of tomes that would disintegrate upon touch.
It was cast from a metal resembling tin and black iron, and every page was made of the same material.
Opening its first page revealed an image of a grotesque monster sculpture, exuding an eerie atmosphere.
On the subsequent pages, in addition to those unknown characters, various symbols and depictions of minerals and plants were drawn, as if recording the refining process of something. The last few pages contained large sections of totems and constellations, ending with a magic array.
The moment Yang Zicang saw the magic array, his head felt dizzy.