[Dungeon]

[Dungeon: Wizard's Abandoned Experimental Field]

[Recommended level: 0–5]

[Enter?]

"Yes!"

[You have entered the Dungeon: Wizard's Abandoned Experimental Field]

[Maximum stay: 48 hours]

[Drops: Skill Books, Wizard Manuscripts, Class Change Certificates...]

[Clear condition: Kill Experiment Subject 003]

[Teleporting...]

The familiar, mild dizziness enveloped Su Luo once more. He closed his eyes and let the peculiar sensation of weightlessness carry him along.

When his feet touched solid ground again, air filled with the scents of decaying leaves, damp earth, and a faint, unfamiliar floral fragrance rushed into his nose. It was utterly different from the deathly silence and eternal darkness outside the Dungeon.

The sparse "sunlight" filtering through the trees was warm. Su Luo couldn't help spreading his arms and taking a deep breath. "Kids, I'm back!"

Into the forest, pick fruit, set traps, collect water, take a bath—all in one go!

He lay naked on the grass, relaxing his limbs as though he were truly on vacation and letting the sunlight brush his skin. He settled into a comfortable position, and the mental fatigue from studying nonstop welled up. Before long, he fell fast asleep...

[162 high-risk apps detected, including "Strawberry Video". Tap for details]

Su Luo dismissed the abrupt notification without changing expression. His finger swiped and dragged across the phone screen with practiced ease, and a green encrypted interface popped up.

[Enter password to unlock]

He entered the password, but the phone suddenly froze, leaving only a glaring white screen.

"For crying out loud," Su Luo muttered. He tossed the phone onto the bed and put the tissues on the computer desk.

He reclined in his chair, turned on the computer, went to a website, and began carefully browsing.

After selecting his favorites, Su Luo added three videos to his collection, ready to use them as fuel for takeoff.

"Huh? What's going on?" Su Luo suddenly noticed something strange: there was no computer tower, yet the monitor, keyboard, and mouse were all "working normally."

"It isn't even plugged in. How's it on?"

He reached behind the monitor. It was cold and smooth, with no port for a power cable, yet the video on the screen continued to play smoothly.

A chill shot up his spine, but an inexplicable intuition quickly suppressed it.

Su Luo put it all out of his mind and leaned back in the chair.

"Whatever. First things first."

Once he was satisfied, Su Luo tossed the tissues into the trash and finally had time to examine the bizarre situation.

"No power, no computer tower... so why isn't the monitor affected at all?"

Try unplugging the mouse from the USB port and see what changes...

The instant he unplugged the mouse, Su Luo froze.

Wasn't there no computer tower? Then where had he unplugged the mouse cable from?

He instinctively bent down to look under the desk. A computer tower had appeared at some point in the previously empty space, sitting quietly with cables connecting it to the monitor, as though it had been there all along.

Su Luo looked up and out of the room. Beyond it was a constantly churning, chaotic void, flowing with countless distorted symbols and fragmented images.

"Oh... so it's a dream."

Su Luo stopped thinking about it, leaned back in the chair, and opened the website again.

"Great! No need to worry about cooldown, so let's take off again!"

However, the long "flight" failed to draw him in, and his mind grew increasingly clear. He raised a hand and discovered that he had run out of tissues.

After pondering for a moment, he used his thoughts to open the tenth chapter of [Meditation] on the computer and began reading the material he had memorized earlier but hadn't yet had time to understand.

He didn't know how long he had been "studying," but he felt he had learned quite a bit. Su Luo instinctively opened his system panel, and when he saw how much the experience bar for [Meditation] had risen, he slapped his thigh hard!

"That works too?!"

Before long, everything around him began to tremble violently, as though the Dreamscape was about to collapse.

Su Luo remained unhurried. With a slight thought, a blazing fireball gently rotated and expanded outward from him, swallowing the distorted scenery around him...

Su Luo opened his eyes. A little excited, he stretched again and slowly sat up.

"I love... studying in my dreams!"

The experience had filled his mind with countless ideas.

Memorize knowledge beforehand, then understand and digest it in his Dreamscape!

That way, he could grind even while he slept!

"The potential is enormous. If I can gain complete control over my Dreamscape... my learning speed will soar too!"

A focused environment free of real-world distractions, and the brain's subconscious ability to integrate information efficiently.

More importantly, time flowed differently in the Dreamscape than in reality.

"I'll look into Illusion Arts and Dreamscape-related Skill Books later, but what I know from Meditation and the Basic Visualization Method already lets me have lucid dreams and control their content... I can develop this further along those lines..."

Su Luo checked the time. He had only slept for a little over three hours, but he was already refreshed, his energy fully restored.

After browsing the forum for a while and finding pictures of three Skill Books newly posted by the Mutual Aid Association, Su Luo prepared to start learning.

The three were [Earth Collapse Spell], [Gale Step], and [Zen Meditation], all carefully chosen by Su Luo.

[Fireball] was a purely offensive skill, but what Su Luo needed most wasn't offensive power. It was defense and the ability to escape.

Su Luo decided to use spells to strengthen his defenses rather than improve his Strength and Constitution.

With Strength at 4.9 and Constitution at 4.7, those two attributes had long since fallen far behind Su Luo's actual strength.

Raising both attributes would take a great deal of time and energy.

He would put that time and energy into learning spells and follow that path to the end!

Being a squishy mage was perfectly normal too. If an enemy could break through Su Luo's spells and get close enough to attack him, there would be no real difference between those two attributes barely keeping up and being ridiculously low. Either way, one slash would kill him.

[Zen Meditation], meanwhile, was for increasing the Spirit attribute. Although it couldn't increase Magic Power at low levels, it could increase Spirit.

Before he began practicing in earnest, Su Luo wrote a post:

["Meditation" beginner's guide]

Only players who couldn't find the relevant Skill Book and needed to raise the corresponding attribute would pay attention to the post, but Su Luo still spent half an hour writing it carefully, breaking the difficult points down in detail.

He then took down the original model from his Fireball post and replaced it with three simple spell models and several variations.

Once he was done, he picked up some fruit to replenish his strength, but after eating it for days, the smell alone made him nauseous.

"Right! Bread!"

Su Luo took out the black bread he had gotten from a chest earlier, broke off a piece, and stuffed it into his mouth.

"Ptoo!"

He kicked the black bread away and reluctantly picked up the fruit again.

Nine hours of sleep hadn't completely erased Song Shige's exhaustion. He climbed out of bed with dark circles under his eyes, rested for a while, then took a potion from beside the bed.

After one injection of Stamina Potion, a steady stream of energy surged through his body, and Song Shige finally came back to life.

First, he checked the rankings.

Great! Still first on both rankings! Looks like Ye Xu rested after the rankings came out too. His numbers haven't moved.

I need to hurry and level up! Otherwise, I'll get overtaken!

Song Shige first felt a wave of relief, then grew nervous again.

Only then did he have time to look at the messages from the organization.

[Message me when you wake up. We'll have a quick meeting.]

Su Luo, who had been absorbed in [Zen Meditation], was pulled out of it by a message from Qin Lang.

[Qin Lang: Mr. Su, he's awake. Do you have time to add him as a friend?]

[Su Luo: Sure]

Su Luo opened the friend request screen and searched through thousands of people to find Song Shige.

[Song Shige: Hello, Consultant Su! I'm Song Shige.]

Consultant? Sure, that'll do.

Su Luo didn't care much about the title.

[Su Luo: Hello]

[Song Shige: Let me show you my personal panel first!]

[Song Shige: Sent an image]

There wasn't really any need to look at the panel, but Su Luo was curious about a top survivor's stats, so he opened the image and took a look.