Transformation

Omen were not unfamiliar to Feng Xue; in fact, he had dealt with Omen frequently since becoming Wu.

However, without exception, all the Omen he saw were of living beings, or at the very least, undead creatures like Stitched Monster or Bone Woman.

But the Omen before them was a model of a house.

He pulled out the Unspeakable Rod-shaped Object and cautiously probed it into the sand tray made of Paper Scraps, immediately feeling a strange sensation.

Pushing aside the Paper Scraps, roots as thick as eggs immediately came into view.

These roots don't look like the shriveled roots of a plant; instead, they are plump and slippery like worms, but they have no vitality like an animal. Even when poked back and forth by Unspeakable Rod-shaped Object, they don't react at all.

"But this art style looks right. Hmm, could it be a rare plant-type Omen? And what is this house model? Mimicry? Or something like a hermit crab's shell?"

Feng Xue applied a little force, and the Unspeakable Rod-shaped Object sank slightly. After confirming its elasticity and tactile feel, he then poked the rod-shaped object at the building above.

Although it looked like plastic or stone, it was as flexible and elastic as the roots underneath when touched, which reminded Feng Xue of the underworld-style paintings, which were entirely decorated with corpses and skeletons.

As if confirming something, Feng Xue looked up again at the mosaic tiles above her head, which were constantly being swerved by the rolling Stone Pier, and her expression became increasingly subtle.

This amount of pixelation is far greater than even the massive Omen of a real person dying in the Infinite City.

However, considering that the number of players who died in this level is probably more than a few hundred, this number doesn't seem so hard to accept.

Was this situation intentional, or some kind of accident?

Feng Xue's gaze was focused on the Teaching Building when suddenly a spot of light flashed. With his sharp eyesight, it was impossible for him to be seeing things. He immediately followed the fleeting spot of light and saw a tiny Little Figure, less than two millimeters in size, inside the Teaching Building. In his hand, he was holding a flashlight smaller than the tip of a needle.

"This is a security guard on night patrol!"

At that moment, Feng Xue felt her hair stand on end and immediately turned her head to look at the side of the Teaching Building, where she indeed found the rusty iron gate.

"Please don't!" Feng Xue shouted inwardly, but his hands moved quickly, freeing various materials from the Bundle Cloth one by one, and then, with his Masterful Creation craftsmanship, transforming them into a slender pinhole camera.

Linking the camera to the Live Broadcast Drone that served as the Phantom Object, Feng Xue carefully slipped the camera through the iron gate. The night-vision camera scanned the corridor that was exactly the same as the one she had walked through, and she saw the Secret-Keeping automatic door again.

"Call..."

After taking several deep breaths, Feng Xue finally calmed down, turned around, and walked to the automatic door while holding the drone's display port in one hand.

As the Stone Pier rolled along with a clatter, the automatic door slowly opened, and the small door on the display screen also opened.

"Call..."

Looking at the empty room in the picture, Feng Xue finally breathed a sigh of relief. There were no nesting dolls as she had imagined, no other version of herself, and no huge pinhole camera outside the folding door.

This instantly liberated his suppressed emotions; if he hadn't possessed great self-control, he would have definitely jumped up and laughed out loud.

Carrying the Stone Pier, Feng Xue returned to the school model and turned her attention to the dormitory building.

Compared to the nearly empty Teaching Building, the dormitory buildings were much more lively. Although there were no lights, with the help of his night vision, he could still clearly see the sleeping figures in each window.

No, there were not only those who were asleep, but also those who were peering out the window, and those who were sitting on the edge of their beds giving themselves boosts (self-motivation). There were all sorts of people, and Feng Xue even found many familiar faces among them, such as Lin Shu, who had re-enrolled after being expelled without changing his identity, Da Zhuang, who had been fooled by her using Yang Wei's rhetoric to the point that he was afraid to play basketball at noon, and her deskmate who regarded money as dirt.

But Feng Xue, with her keen sense of numbers, discovered the problem—

"The occupancy rate of these dormitories doesn't seem very high!"

Yes, the school has one dormitory building for boys and one for girls, and the number of students is between four and five hundred. That means that even without considering teachers, each dormitory building should house more than two hundred students.

However, the current situation is that many dormitories are not fully occupied, with only a little over 300 students in the two buildings combined.

At the same time, those ghosts and monsters that should be ubiquitous, like the Long Neck Ghost, had no corresponding counterparts on this sand table, which connected many of Feng Xue's previous associations—

"The students appearing on the sand table, have they already fully merged with this Omen? Then what's left are the living players and the dead ghosts that haven't merged?"

Faced with this situation, Feng Xue's first thought was actually of the Nothingness in the Infinite City, but considering that they did not have any Tag or elements, she dismissed the idea.

But at the same time, another thought kept popping into my head.

"Omen and Weird Tale can transform into each other, so what about Phantom Object? Can Phantom Object transform into Weird Tale?"

Once this thought appeared, it spread like a multiplying G, because he had vaguely grasped a key piece of information.

The essence of Phantom Object is the crystallization of fantasy. As long as the rule of [consciousness] exists in the world, it can be applied universally. Weird Tale are the manifestation of cognition, but the source of their power lies only in the world that cognizes them.

From this perspective, Phantom Object is undoubtedly more sophisticated than Weird Tale.

But here's the problem: in Feng Xue's analysis of the Golden Finger ability), Phantom Object are composed of [Element], while Weird Tale are composed of [Element] forming [Tag], and then the [Tag] condense into [Trait].

From this perspective, Weird Tale, in terms of both information content and complexity, should be superior to Phantom Object.

On the contrary, Omen are essentially the product of a mixture of massive amounts of dirty data. Although they seem to resemble neither of the two, they are indeed an intermediate state between Phantom Object and Weird Tale.

As can be seen from the case of the Miss Ke Family, Omen, under the erosion of time, can be re-examined and purified by certain coincidences, thus becoming Weird Tale.

Is it possible for Phantom Object, by incorporating a large amount of obscene data, to transform into a more advanced Phantom Object composed of Tag, using the Omen as a springboard?

Or... directly ignite the Supernatural Tale Fire, turning them into Weird Tale?

If possible...

Thinking of this, Feng Xue's expression suddenly turned strange, because as this logic was being made clear, a name naturally surfaced in his mind—

"Infinite City".

This question has been buried for quite a while. People asked about it back when it was about Golden Finger, but I held back and didn't answer. Now I finally don't have to hold back anymore.