He spoke in a very flat tone, but Lu Yuan knew Lake; the more casually he brushed it off, the worse the actual situation was.
Jurgen stood at the doorway without stepping inside, one hand resting on the doorframe. The usual gloom on his face had receded slightly, replaced by an indescribable expression.
This young man, who had always detested the eerie, stared at the Rank 4 transcendent on the bed covered in insect tracks. His lips parted, but in the end, he couldn't find any words to say.
Lake was the first to speak.
“Jurgen's been doing well lately. He killed several ghouls.” He looked at Lu Yuan, his tone carrying a hint of either relief or playfulness. “That kid of yours is ruthless. He doesn't leave himself any way out.”
Lu Yuan glanced at Jurgen.
“You did well,” he said briefly. After a pause, he added, “But make sure you look after your own safety. Don't push yourself too hard.”
Jurgen nodded, acknowledging the words.
Lu Yuan stood by Lake's bedside for a moment. Before leaving, he casually activated his Specialized Research to see if he could help Lake out.
But when the options appeared, not a single one was usable.
Most of the materials he could mobilize were of the holy water variety, but Lake, as an eerie transcendent, couldn't use holy water at all. Faced with his current state, Specialized Research could offer almost no useful solutions.
Lu Yuan let out a soft sigh and turned to walk out.
“Jurgen, stay and keep him company for a bit longer.”
Jurgen didn't reply, but he pulled up a chair and sat down by Lake's bed. Lake looked at the solemn-faced youth before him and smiled again.
Lu Yuan left the room and headed toward C-District. He still remembered the task Kraus had given him: the seed in C-District had undergone some anomalies, and he needed to check on it.
The corridor in C-District was unusually empty.
After the city-wide lockdown was declared, there weren't many people left in the logistics department to begin with, and most of them had been deployed to the front lines. As Lu Yuan walked along, he only encountered a few Nightwatchers rushing out with medicine chests at a corner, and saw no one else after that.
Room 7 was at the end of the corridor, its iron door tightly locked. A Nightwatcher stood outside, leaning against the wall with a somewhat unnatural expression on his face.
Lu Yuan walked over and fished out the bronze key from his waist. Seeing him approach, the guard took half a step to the side.
The key slid into the keyhole. As the iron door swung open, a brilliant golden glow surged from the crack, a vast expanse of warm light spilling out of the room and illuminating a section of the corridor. The guarding Nightwatcher instinctively nudged aside, turning his body to avoid letting the golden light touch him.
Lu Yuan slipped inside and shut the iron door behind him, preventing the golden light from escaping.
As the door closed, the golden light bathed his body, its warmth seeping deep beneath his skin. Lu Yuan closed his eyes and sensed it carefully. His Sanity was rising at an extremely slow pace—slow, but undeniably recovering. It seemed that as this “Hope” grew larger, the power it possessed grew stronger with it.
When he had come last time, the seed was still the size of a palm-sized piece of coral, its pale gold amber shell wrapping around a few warm orange buds, resting on the copper base in the center of the room with a half-man-high glass dome covering it. Now, the glass dome was gone, and the seed had completely transformed.
From its previous coral-like size, it had grown into a small tree over a man's height. The trunk was as thick as a forearm, its surface gleaming with a golden luster. Faint patterns were visible, spiraling all the way from the roots to the crown. A few branches extended from the trunk, their leaves at the ends unfurled. The warm orange hue had mostly faded, replaced by a deep gold with a metallic texture. The golden light emanated from these leaves and the trunk, filling the entire room and even illuminating the isolation inscriptions on the walls until they glowed.
Lu Yuan fixed his gaze on the small tree, and the grey-white text floated up.
【Target Detected: ? (Hope)】
【A seed inspired by “Wish”, growing in an unprecedented direction. It is growing at an astonishing speed.】
It was not much different from the last detection, only with the addition of the words “astonishing speed.” Clearly, Hope had absorbed quite a bit of power during this period.
Lu Yuan looked down at the inscriptions laid out in the room; they had dimmed considerably. It seemed the overflowing golden light was not only restoring Sanity, but also corroding the very inscriptions meant to isolate it.
Before he could look closer, another line of grey-white text popped up.
【Bronze City Status: 44.2/51】
Lu Yuan's gaze locked onto this line of text.
51?
The limit of the Bronze City Status was clearly fifty, yet it had now reached fifty-one.
This wasn't the first time he had seen a current value break through its limit; the Gelimu Port Status had also exceeded its limit back then, but that was always the preceding number rising, while the upper limit itself had never shifted.
He couldn't figure out what this meant for the moment.
The next line of grey-white text had already floated up.
【You seem to have discovered the direction to reverse destiny.】
Lu Yuan's breath hitched.
The direction to reverse destiny.
The city walls were being corroded, the flesh below was in a frenzy, and everything was progressing toward the worst possible outcome. Yet, the grey-white text was telling him that the direction to reverse destiny was right before his eyes, resting upon this small golden tree.
But how exactly could it be reversed? The little time they had left was nowhere near enough for “Hope” to grow significantly larger. Where was the direction? Or rather, where lay the path to survival?
Lu Yuan stood before the tree for a long while, turning it over in his mind, but he couldn't come up with any concrete method.
Just then, deep within Lu Yuan's left eye, the Knowledge Worm suddenly wriggled.
The little creature poked its head out from beneath the key. Wrapped in this warm aura, its entire body stretched out, colorful light flickering across its form.
It floated out of Lu Yuan's left eye, drifting slowly through the golden light with its body fully extended, exuding an indescribable joy.
Watching it wander through the air, Lu Yuan couldn't help but twitch his lips.
Ever since this little creature had infused the Guardian, it had been recovering by staying close to the key, rarely showing itself. Now, however, it was exceptionally lively, suggesting it had mostly recovered.
It nudged closer to the small tree and gently tapped a deep golden leaf. The leaf trembled slightly, releasing an even warmer breath of air. After lingering around the treetops for a moment, it reluctantly floated back into Lu Yuan's left eye, retreating beneath the bronze key.
Clearly, this fellow had consumed some of Hope's light. A prompt floated up right after.
【Forbidden Lore: Knowledge Seeker: +2...79.9/100】
Lu Yuan's face darkened slightly. Fortunately, the creature hadn't actually bitten Hope's leaves; it had merely basked in its light and yet gained so much Forbidden Lore knowledge. Once the mess in the Bronze City was settled, he could let it come here more often to bask in Hope's light, like sunbathing.
Just then, a faint fluctuation came from his left leg.
It was The Suspended Drowner. This time, what it transmitted was completely different—an emotion Lu Yuan had never felt from it before. Joy. It was happy; it possessed emotions.
Lu Yuan immediately mobilized the power of the Knowledge Worm to look at his left leg, and the world before his eyes was enveloped in golden light.
The mass of black mist was still attached to his left leg, roughly the same size as before, but the face within had changed. Sometime when he wasn't looking, a very faint touch of color had appeared on the face that should have been deathly pale, blooming across the cheeks.
The two empty eye sockets had also changed; a blurry luster floated deep within the hollows. Though it could hardly be called lively, it was at least no longer that lifeless visage.
Does it have consciousness? The moment this thought arose, Lu Yuan's back tensed slightly.
Ever since The Suspended Drowner had parasitized him, he had always treated it as a mindless leftover, acting purely on instinct.
But the joy from just now, combined with this color-flushed face and the faintly glowing eye sockets, could hardly be explained by “instinct.”
Down in the Abyss, this thing had been so frightened that it shrunk back, desperate to escape—a fear that was already very close to that of a human. And now, under the golden light, it actually felt happy.
How far could a thing that felt fear and joy be from being truly conscious?
Lu Yuan suddenly recalled something. The Suspended Drowner was a breath of resentment left behind by a powerful expert who had once set foot in the Sea of Knowledge. Did this mean he might have picked up a spectral mentor?
He didn't touch it immediately, instead withdrawing the Knowledge Worm's vision. The Suspended Drowner remained quietly attached to his leg, and as the golden light washed over it, a hint of warmth bloomed at the edges of the black mist.
Lu Yuan didn't stay in the room any longer. He tucked the bronze key back into his waist, stepped out of the room, and closed the iron door behind him.
The guarding Nightwatcher saw him emerge, nudged back to his original position, and leaned against the wall once more.
“Don't let anyone in except Kraus,” Lu Yuan said.
The Nightwatcher nodded.
Lu Yuan turned and walked toward the main hall.
The main tower of the Polymath Tower stood silently in the night, the bronze inscriptions embedded in its surface mostly extinguished, with only a few rings near the top still emitting a faint light.
Kraus stood before the tower gate. The person inside seemed to have sensed his arrival, and the heavy doors opened slightly. Kraus pushed the door open and stepped inside.
As soon as he entered, he saw the Guardian sitting on a stone chair on the first floor of the main tower, a vast amount of documents spread out before him.
The old man's posture was uncharacteristically upright, his long white hair draping over his shoulders. Pitch-black aura continuously seeped out from below his waist, spreading across the floor, though the black eyeballs floating within the aura were far fewer than before. Clearly, the transcendent power within him had been brought under preliminary control.
Kraus's steps paused slightly. The Guardian's aura had changed; the suffocating, dense pressure from before had thinned out significantly, leaving behind only an unstable fluctuation.
Kraus walked over and sat down in front of the Guardian.
The old man set down the documents in his hands and slowly raised his head. Within the pitch-black aura, the few floating eyeballs turned, scanning Kraus aimlessly before sinking back down. The Guardian looked at him with his own eyes, his cloudy pupils reflecting the layer of dark green crystals on Kraus's body.
“Senior,” Kraus spoke, his eyes flicking upward. “There are some things we cannot let him hear.”
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