Dimensional Codex

A night passed.

When the dawn rose over the far side of the horizon, Fang Zheng finally sorted through the memories in his mind and understood the whole sequence of events.

First, he really had died. Fang Zheng found that utterly speechless. He had always considered himself a cautious person. He was in the habit of preparing for every possible risk and unexpected situation. From breakups with girlfriends to company bankruptcies, from broken cash flows to partners absconding with the money, from being robbed and murdered to encountering a drunk driver while crossing the street. Fang Zheng considered every possible danger and accident, making corresponding preparations for each one. He liked a life where everything remained under his control. Responding to all change with constancy had always been Fang Zheng's philosophy, and that was precisely why he had achieved his present success.

But what Fang Zheng had never expected was that the world could be so wondrous, filled with accidents beyond his imagination.

For example, when he jumped into the river to save someone, Fang Zheng had never imagined that after successfully pulling them out and watching them leave in an ambulance, he would be struck dead by a high-voltage wire that suddenly snapped overhead.

What he had expected even less was that not only had he died just like that, but when he opened his eyes again, he found that he had been reborn in another world.

And what had happened to the original owner of this body he had been reborn into left Fang Zheng equally speechless.

Put simply, it was not complicated. The minor noble family he had possessed had a Secret Treasure. Not long ago, a group of Knights from the Holy Kingdom had approached this minor noble, claiming that the Secret Treasure passed down through his family was an evil and ominous thing, and demanded that he hand it over. Naturally, the minor noble refused and drove the Knights away. At first, he had not thought much of it. But to his surprise, that very night, the Knights attacked their estate and began a massacre.

This minor noble named Williams was merely a baron. How could he have ever seen such a scene? Terrified, he immediately fled with his family's Secret Treasure. He had hoped to enter the city and seek aid from other noble houses, only to learn that the Holy Kingdom had publicly declared that the Williams family was colluding with Cultists. They had been branded enemies of order, and a kill order had been issued against them.

The Holy Kingdom held a lofty position on this continent, while minor nobles like Williams were nothing more than insignificant fish and shrimp. They could not possibly contend with it. Left with no choice, they continued fleeing, but in the end, they still failed to escape the Holy Kingdom's pursuit and died here.

From Fang Zheng's outsider perspective, he would undoubtedly have assumed that the Holy Kingdom was the sort of organization that looked righteous on the surface while secretly committing every vile act imaginable. But after absorbing this minor noble's memories, Fang Zheng discovered with dismay—the Holy Kingdom's kill order had not wronged him in the slightest.

According to Williams's memories, his family publicly worshipped the Goddess of Order, but in truth, they were devout followers of a cult called the Day of Destruction. This cult worshipped the end of all things. They claimed that one day, everything in the world would be destroyed, even the gods would fall. Then, the God of Destruction would return to life and rule the world. What the cult's followers needed to do was weaken the forces of those lackeys of order as much as possible while awaiting the God of Destruction's return, and all that other nonsense.

Naturally, the Williams family had also done no shortage of filthy, sinister deeds in secret. In Fang Zheng's view, even if the Holy Kingdom had not acted on behalf of justice, under the laws of his world, this entire family deserved to be executed a hundred times over.

Why had he been reborn in the body of someone like this?

At that thought, Fang Zheng's head began to ache. Other people who crossed into another world either became characters with blood-deep grudges or protagonists with hidden gifts. Why had he crossed over into the body of a Cultist hated by everyone?

Even more depressingly, after absorbing Williams's memories, Fang Zheng helplessly discovered that not only had he become a wanted criminal in the Holy Kingdom, but he could not stay with the Day of Destruction cult either. The reason was simple: according to Williams's memories, the cult's so-called Secret Treasure had been damaged during his escape!

The way the Secret Treasure had been damaged was even more ridiculous. Faced with the Holy Kingdom's pursuers, Williams had intended to make a desperate gamble and activate the Secret Treasure so they could destroy each other. But whether he had made a mistake in the process or simply had terrible luck, the moment Williams poured magic into the Secret Treasure, it shattered with a snap. Then Williams immediately fainted—and that was when Fang Zheng took the stage.

Served you right for being hunted your whole life!!

Fang Zheng could imagine it. If the Day of Destruction cult found him and he could not produce the Secret Treasure, then he would truly have only one path left: death. Cults were the same in every world. They had every kind of torture imaginable, one after another, making you unable to live or die. Come to think of it, being captured by the Holy Kingdom might actually be better. At least they would give him a quick death with one stroke of the sword...

Not only that, through Williams's memories, Fang Zheng learned that this was a world with an extremely developed power system. There was not only magic and Knights, but also Dragons, undead, and all sorts of monsters and beings. Not to mention gods and divine envoys... Unlike the religions in Fang Zheng's world that just made up nonsense to swindle people out of money, the religions here truly had someone backing them from above!

By comparison, while Fang Zheng himself had some skills, he knew he was absolutely insignificant before magic and those miraculous sword arts. As for this reborn body? Heh. Fang Zheng already knew that Williams possessed only the strength of an Acolyte Knight, and the Day of Destruction cult he worshipped had given him no divine blessing or anything of the sort. If nothing unexpected happened, any one of the Knights Fang Zheng had seen earlier could take on ten of him.

Fortunately, this world lacked everything except surprises.

With that thought, Fang Zheng raised his hand. As he moved, the ornate, heavy tome from before appeared once more. Only now did Fang Zheng carefully examine the massive book that had materialized in his hand. It looked as thick as a dictionary, yet in Fang Zheng's hands, it was unexpectedly as light as a feather. Set in the center of its black, weighty cover was a magnificent gemstone that shimmered with multicolored radiance. Centered on that gem, silver rings spread outward in circles, like the orbital paths of planets circling through the cosmos.

Opening the book, Fang Zheng saw his name at the top of the page. In the center was a groove, and embedded within it was a beautiful white gemstone. Frosty mist swirled across its surface, lending it a cold air.

At the bottom of the interface were three options: Summon, Enhance, and Teleport.

This was what Fang Zheng had received after coming to this world—the Dimensional Codex!

More importantly, it was the game system Fang Zheng had designed before his rebirth!

Seeing that all-too-familiar interface, Fang Zheng's mouth twitched. Before, he had only suspected it, but now he could be certain—this was the system he had personally developed!

It was a new mobile game still under development, called "Dimensional Codex." In it, the player was a young person whose gender and avatar could be freely chosen. According to the game's setting, the player would be swept into a temporal-spatial vortex for some reason, then wake up in an entirely new world. There, the player would encounter a great book called the "Dimensional Codex" and begin a brand-new journey.

In the game, after obtaining the "Dimensional Codex," the player would become a "Dimension Mage." As the name implied, they were mages who traveled through various Dimensional Worlds. They could use the Codex to teleport to various dimensional Planes and complete all sorts of quests to earn Dimension Points. These points could be used to summon Soul Stones containing "the power of powerful souls from beings from other Planes," or to enhance the attributes of those Soul Stones themselves.

At this moment, what Fang Zheng had equipped was the Soul Stone he had received from his first "beginner summon"—Lich King Arthas.

As the producer of this game, Fang Zheng naturally knew how to use Soul Stones. There were two ways to use them. One was simply to "embed" one in the Dimensional Codex like this. That would grant Fang Zheng a permanent buff, though such buffs could only provide a certain degree of enhancement. Only by using Dimension Points to strengthen the Soul Stone could he gradually gain new abilities and skills, much like leveling up in a game.

The other method was to fully activate the Soul Stone's power. During activation, Fang Zheng could use every ability possessed by that being, with almost no difference from the original. Just like the power he had used during his previous battle against those Knights—it had been the true power belonging wholly to the Lich King. Before the king of the Scourge, even the Holy Kingdom's regular Knights had been so frail and vulnerable.

Unfortunately, while activation mode looked amazing, it came with many restrictions. First, after activation, it would enter a cooldown period, just like a skill's CD. Second, activation itself had a limited number of uses. The Arthas Soul Stone Fang Zheng had summoned this time could only be activated five times in total. Once those activations were used up, Arthas's Soul Stone would completely collapse and vanish.

That meant Fang Zheng could either summon other Soul Stones again, or... simply wait to die.

Executor: Fang Zheng

Dimension Points: 0

Equipped Soul Stone: Arthas

Buff Received: Undying King (Undead creature detection +50%, damage against Undead creatures +50%, protection against Undead creatures +50%)

Strength: E (You are no different from an ordinary person)

Agility: D (Running faster than others is always useful)

Constitution: E (When people are killed, they die)

Perception: D (Watching in all directions and listening in all directions is basic for you)

Charm: D (As long as they are not blind, they will notice your outward beauty)

Equipped Skills: None

Exclusive Quest: Frostmourne's Curse

This demonic sword longs to devour souls filled with pain, and all you need to do is satisfy its desire—Frostmourne is hungry. (Requires the wielder to obtain no less than 1000 Soul Power in the next Quest World. Random reward +1 upon quest completion. Upon failure, the wielder will suffer Frostmourne's Curse. Countdown: 24H.)

"This is really fatal..."

Looking at the quest prompt, Fang Zheng could not help grinding his teeth. He already knew that the Soul Power mentioned here was probably human souls, and completing this quest meant killing a thousand people... Those were not a thousand pigs! Even if a thousand pigs lined up and let him chop them, he probably could not finish in a day!

But give up the quest? Heh... Fang Zheng had played World of Warcraft before. How could he not know how terrifying this sword was? Frostmourne's Curse? It would be a miracle if he could withstand it.

What frustrated Fang Zheng, however, was that he had no idea how he had drawn this thing. He remembered clearly that he had only completed the system's basic framework and settings. As for the Soul Stones and other quest Planes within it, Fang Zheng had not completed them at all, and the Programming Team had not even started work. So why was he able to summon a Soul Stone through this unfinished product—and the Lich King's Soul Stone, no less?

And there was also this Plane Teleportation...

"Ah..."

Staring at the panel before him, Fang Zheng let out a long sigh. If he could, he truly did not want to complete this quest. After all, no one knew what world the system would send him to. But if he did not go, Fang Zheng knew full well that with his current strength, if the Holy Kingdom sent someone after him, he would have no choice but to surrender.

It was not as if Fang Zheng had not considered hiding in a Quest World and never returning. Unfortunately, he clearly remembered setting a time limit for each stay in a Quest World. Furthermore, just like Soul Stones, every time Fang Zheng returned from a Quest World, the teleportation function would enter a cooldown period and only reactivate after some time. Thus, Fang Zheng could neither hide in Quest Worlds forever nor evade the Holy Kingdom and the Day of Destruction cult's pursuit by endlessly undertaking quests.

Other than increasing his own strength, he had no other choice. Moreover, Fang Zheng had a feeling that if he did not enter a Dungeon now, he might never get another chance to leave.

And his instincts had always been accurate.

"Teleport!"

With that thought, Fang Zheng stopped hesitating. He snapped the Codex shut in his hands and muttered softly. Soon, the heavy Dimensional Codex in his hand abruptly transformed into rings of light that spiraled around him, enveloping Fang Zheng. In the next instant, his figure vanished. The scattered halos then quickly dispersed into tiny motes of light and disappeared without a trace.

Whoosh... whoosh...!

Not long after Fang Zheng vanished, a dense fluttering of wings sounded through the air. Then several pure-white winged Pegasuses descended from the sky, landing where Fang Zheng had previously hidden.

"My sister, have you found anything?"

Riding atop a Pegasus, a man dressed similarly to the Silver Knights Fang Zheng had seen before studied the ground carefully and asked in a low voice. Hearing his question, the female Knight riding another Pegasus closed her eyes and sensed the area for a moment before shaking her head.

"I cannot sense any trace of him, brother. I believe the enemy has already left this place."

"Those cursed Cultists..."

Hearing the female Knight's answer, the man clenched his fists tightly.

"They not only killed our companions, but even desecrated their corpses and souls! Such acts can never be forgiven! In the name of the Goddess of Order, we will never let our comrades die in vain! Justice will prevail!"

As he spoke, the man forcefully waved his hand.

"Let's go. Continue the search. That Cultist could not have gone far! He must be nearby. Search for him!"