After discussing with Li Xiang, Shen Ge still planned to make a trip to East Ring Lake. With that strange doppelgänger who looked like him still out there, he couldn’t leave with peace of mind without dealing with it first.
According to what the strange man in the mirror had said, the several “copies” of Shen Ge should have all been dead already, and the mirror freak was the last one.
Though an enemy’s words were almost never trustworthy, Shen Ge figured the mirror freak had no reason to lie under those circumstances. The only possibility was that his level was too low—he simply hadn’t been exposed to higher-level matters.
No matter what, Shen Ge had to go take a look at East Ring Lake, try to find that freak, or else deal with the eerie passage at the bottom of the lake. Otherwise, he couldn’t leave with a clear conscience.
After Jiang Peiwen finished her treatment, Shen Ge entered the research room, took a corroded-blood spider from Little Seven, and headed to East Ring Lake.
Once he entered East Ring Lake, Shen Ge immediately felt intense fluctuations of strange energy in the surroundings. Clearly, this area had been covered by a strange space again.
And it wasn’t an ordinary strange space either—at least a triple-layered overlapping space. The moment he stepped into East Ring Lake, in the blink of an eye, he was pulled onto the lawn near the lake. The originally thick afternoon clouds had turned lifeless and gloomy, just like the apocalypse in the dream world.
“System, scan the surroundings.”
【This area is affected by a special effect. Detection is not possible.】
“Oh?” Shen Ge had encountered this situation at East Ring Lake last time too. He had assumed it was the mirror freak’s doing, but now it seemed it wasn’t that simple.
If it really had been the mirror freak’s work, then with his death, the “shielding” here should have been lifted. But the shielding effect was still present. Either a freak hiding in the shadows was responsible, or something here was generating the shielding effect.
Shen Ge couldn’t help but recall the mysterious passage at the bottom of East Ring Lake that Zhang Hu had mentioned. It was very likely that the “shielding” here was caused by that mysterious passage.
“Can you detect what’s causing the interference? A strange entity? A freak? Or something related to the dream world?” Shen Ge asked.
【Detected an effect similar to “Trait: Non-Emergence” blocking detection.】
That answer again?
This was exactly the same answer Shen Ge had gotten when he investigated East Ring Lake last time. But afterward, he had fallen into the dream world, and after dealing with the mirror freak, he assumed the situation here was resolved and didn’t continue investigating East Ring Lake. The area had remained sealed off as a research zone for the Quanlong Mountain base.
Previously, Shen Ge had thought his lost “blood” had triggered the mirror freak incident, and the information from the mirror freak confirmed that.
But now that the system was giving this same prompt again, Shen Ge knew things were far from simple. Combined with the recent “activities” of the freak organization and Dr. Chen, he was even more certain—he even suspected this whole series of operations was targeted at him.
【The detection signal in this area is simply “trapped” inside a Non-Emergence strange domain—it’s not that the opponent’s ability is “Trait: Non-Emergence.”】
The system’s detection result was identical to last time, which was enough to confirm Shen Ge’s guess was correct.
“Have you detected any trait-type strange entities?” Shen Ge asked the system again.
【No trait-type strange entities detected at this time.】
“Then the problem can only be that passage at the bottom of the lake.” Now that Shen Ge had a target, he didn’t need to search the surroundings. He headed straight for the lake-bottom passage.
Shen Ge stood by the lake and looked out. The water was murky and he couldn’t see the bottom at all. Wisps of strange-energy black mist drifted across the lake surface, just like the late at night lake scene of some famous horror movie location.
After the system detected the surroundings and found no trace of strange entities, Shen Ge had only two choices: either directly deploy the Non-Emergence strange domain, condense an invisible barrier, and carve a path down through the water; or find a boat first, lock onto the spot with the strongest strange-energy reaction, then condense the invisible barrier.
The former would naturally consume more strange energy than the latter. Though Shen Ge was now Tier 5 and his strange-energy consumption was much lower than before, coming out of the dream world had drained all his strange-energy supplies.
Fortunately, Shen Ge had accumulated quite a few rewards he hadn’t drawn yet—17 F-rank draws, 5 E-rank draws, and 1 D-rank draw in total.
Among these, the two things Shen Ge wanted most were both related to strange energy: the “Spirit Apple,” which could fully restore all strange energy with just one, and the “Silkworm,” which provided infinite mana.
What puzzled Shen Ge the most was that a treasure like the “Silkworm” was only an E-rank recovery item. If he drew an A-rank or B-rank recovery item, wouldn’t it just revive him on the spot?
Previously, Shen Ge hadn’t had the chance to draw, and he still had supplies on him. Now that he needed to investigate East Ring Lake, he took the opportunity to draw the recovery items first.
“System, draw recovery items.” Shen Ge stood by the lake, summoned the system, and drew right there on the spot.
Following his habit, he naturally drew from low to high. Seventeen consecutive F-rank recovery item draws. The most common pull was “Internal Injury Healing Pill”—eight whole bottles, three pills per bottle, twenty-four pills total. You could call it the most “cost-effective” recovery item.
Next were Healing Bandages. As a frequent guest in the recovery item pool, their quantity was second only to the “Internal Injury Healing Pill”—five sets in total.
As for the “Spirit Apple” that Shen Ge wanted most, seventeen draws yielded only four. Not many, but at least the other items were useful too—he didn’t pull any “filler” junk.
Next were the E-rank recovery items. The first two draws yielded two “Limb Repair Agents”—strange-energy potions capable of regenerating using strange cells.
【Congratulations, Host, for drawing an E-rank supply item—”Strange-Repelling Spray.” Spraying it on your body emits the aura of a Tier-6 strange entity, which can intimidate lower-tier strange entities to a certain degree. It may also attract the attention of lower-tier and higher-tier strange entities. Please use with caution.】
The third draw yielded something new he hadn’t drawn before. Strange entities never had a situation where higher tiers reliably suppressed lower tiers, so the spray’s actual effectiveness still needed testing.
Shen Ge continued to the fourth draw. Unexpectedly, he drew another “Strange-Repelling Spray.” He couldn’t help but complain: “Well well, is today’s draw all two-of-a-kind or what?”
Fifth draw—go!
“Come on, give me another duplicate if you dare!”
【Congratulations, Host, for drawing an E-rank supply item—”Spirit Bug.” After eating the Spirit Bug, it decomposes within the body, keeping the Host in a state of full spirit for 10 minutes (i.e., no spirit consumption will occur).】
“Silkworm?” Shen Ge’s eyes lit up when he drew the Spirit Bug. With this thing, he essentially had another trump card—one that could even go head-to-head with “Earth” directly.
As long as he got the Silkworm, it wouldn’t matter if all the previous rewards were trash.
“Tsk tsk, I wonder if today’s draws really are all doubles. If I had one more E-rank draw and got another Silkworm, that would be perfect.”
“System, how about you don’t give me the D-rank supply item and downgrade it so I can draw again?” Shen Ge joked.
The system naturally didn’t respond to such a question. After a moment of silence, Shen Ge began the final D-rank supply item draw.
【Congratulations, Host, for drawing a D-rank supply item—”Body Regeneration Substance” x1. After using this substance, self-healing ability is activated. As long as the ‘heart’ and ‘brain’ are intact, physical regeneration will be accelerated.】
With a flash of white light, a “black rotten flesh” about the size of two fingers appeared in Shen Ge’s hand. He had drawn this thing once before, but later Li Xiang found it had great research value and integrated it into the Corroded-Blood Battle Armor, causing the armor to evolve again.
The Corroded-Blood Battle Armor’s current perfect recovery ability was largely thanks to this “black rotten flesh.” Shen Ge hadn’t understood what these top-quality supply items the system “drew” actually were, but now he had a rough idea—most likely they were produced by the progenitor strange cells in various dream fragments.
As for why some could “take form” while others were in the most primitive strange state, it probably had a lot to do with the freak organizations in each world.
Either way, this draw not only got Shen Ge the “Silkworm” and “Spirit Apple,” but also such a rare progenitor strange cell—a true bumper harvest!
But these things didn’t just fall from the sky, nor were they the system’s “charity.” They were what Shen Ge had accumulated over the past half year or so.
Shen Ge had always had the habit of saving up draw counts and doing them all at once. In his words, it was more satisfying. Li Xiang had even teased him about looking like someone fresh out of rehab. But jokes aside, saving up and drawing all at once—at least drawing one good thing could make you forget all the times you drew garbage.
What?
You ask what if a dozen-plus draws are all garbage? If saving up doesn’t work, then you just have to burn your luck. If Shen Ge hadn’t drawn the Silkworm, or even the Spirit Apple, it was hard to guarantee he wouldn’t have spent all his sixty-thousand-plus system points drawing, “emptying out” the entire world connected to the East Ring Lake bottom passage.
Of course, that was just a joke. After all, the system’s recovery item draw mechanism was completely different from using system points to draw. The former drew from various fragment worlds, while the latter only transferred nearby objects within the current world—and with many restrictions.
This was also why Shen Ge rarely used system points to draw anymore, ever since he got used to fighting with his own abilities combined with the Red Mist Battle Armor.
Though with the Spirit Apple, Shen Ge no longer needed to worry about strange-energy consumption, he still decided to find a boat, approach the lake center, and use system scans combined with his strange eye to locate the passage entrance.
Why? Because strange energy was worth more than system points. With over sixty thousand system points in hand, Shen Ge couldn’t care less about the 100-point scan cost each time.
Shen Ge had been to East Ring Lake several times before it was affected by strange entities, and once more after the strange incident occurred. He was already quite familiar with the place.
The lakeshore was gloomy and eerie. The boats at the rental spot looked like they’d been abandoned for years—dusty, rusted, chained together, swaying and creaking whenever the wind blew.
Fortunately, Shen Ge was used to this kind of strange environment and oppressive sounds. He stepped onto a boat and rowed toward the lake center.
Dim sky, murky black water. The further he rowed toward the center, the more Shen Ge felt an illusion of being slowly swallowed by East Ring Lake.
When he rowed to the lake center, Shen Ge noticed that from the moment he entered the lake until now, there hadn’t been a single ripple on the water’s surface. The murky water reflected the dim sky, giving off a pressure like the sky was caving in.
“Heh.”
Shen Ge let out a soft snort. This familiar feeling made him realize he was being surrounded by strange-energy black mist. As he moved, the strange-energy black mist across the entire lake was gathering toward him.
“So it seems, last time I was affected by the mirror freak, it was because of strange-energy impact? But back then my rating was only Level 3, my strange energy was insufficient, and I couldn’t withstand the strange-energy erosion here, which caused some hallucinations.” Shen Ge could clearly feel the strange energy here still trying to erode him, but he was now Tier 5—already a high-tier strange entity. The two sides’ strange energies had entered a stage of contest and mutual cancellation.
Shen Ge hadn’t noticed this at first. It was only when he realized that as he approached the lake center, his own strange energy kept continuously decreasing that he discovered his internal strange energy was resisting the erosion of the surrounding black mist.
Shen Ge’s constitution had changed ever since he fused with the system—he was in a half-human, half-strange state. Even though he couldn’t intuitively feel strange-energy erosion like an ordinary human, that half-freak constitution meant that when he suffered strange-energy erosion, he wouldn’t directly fall into hallucinations—instead, his body would automatically release strange energy to resist.
This was a “passive skill,” like how platelets automatically coagulate when the body bleeds from a wound. When Shen Ge suffered strange-energy erosion, his own strangeness would automatically resist.
Now that he had confirmed the location in the lake releasing strange energy, Shen Ge didn’t waste any more time. He directly spread out the Non-Emergence strange domain and condensed an invisible barrier to block it off.
Condensing the invisible barrier consumed some strange energy, but once Shen Ge was wrapped in the invisible barrier, the strange-energy black mist was blocked, and he no longer suffered strange-energy erosion that reduced his strange energy.
Then, Shen Ge raised his hand and made a grasping motion in the air, condensing an invisible barrier. The lake center ahead seemed to be parted by a giant invisible hand.
The lake water splashed apart to both sides with a “hua la la” sound. At the bottom of the lake, a black vortex led downward into unseen depths. This strange “passage” reminded Shen Ge of the blood-red strange giant maw he had passed through when going to the “future” on Sakura Island.
But strangely, Shen Ge clearly remembered that when he investigated East Ring Lake last time, he had Little Seven use corroded-blood tentacles and blood spiders to enter the lake bottom to search. That was when they found dozens of corpses, including quite a few soldiers from the Special Strategy Department.
It was also then that the “concept” of a world beyond the world gradually became clear.
Just as Shen Ge was about to jump from the boat toward the large pit ahead and get closer to the vortex passage to examine it, he noticed the strange-energy black mist around him growing thicker and thicker. The sky—originally as dark and oppressive as the apocalypse in the dream world—was now gathering a thick layer of “dark clouds.”
These “dark clouds” looked very familiar to Shen Ge—exactly like the “giant whale” he had chased for several days in the dream world!
Shen Ge immediately opened his strange eye and looked toward the sky, coordinating with the system’s scan. But strangely, he still couldn’t detect any trace of strange entities in this space.
Something’s wrong!
