Deep Warehouse

Old Morgan looked Lu Yuan straight in the eyes, his tone grave.

"If, in a highly polluted environment like Thorn Manor, faced with a killing trap that was almost certain death, you could still maintain absolute rationality, then that means... you're safe."

"At least, safe for now."

At that, Old Morgan gave a self-mocking smile.

"After that sewer mission, Hans wanted to let you pass the test directly and make you official. But I vetoed it."

"Why?" Lu Yuan asked.

"Because you weren't the main force that time. At most, you counted as support." Old Morgan shook his head.

"Those who haven't seen The Abyss have no right to speak of rationality."

"So I had to throw you into The Abyss and let you take a walk through it—to see whether you were still human when you crawled back out."

"Now it seems my eye for people isn't too bad."

After saying that, Old Morgan took a deep drag of his cigarette, then viciously crushed the butt into the ashtray.

He pulled out a brass Key from his waist and set it on the table with a crisp clink.

"Deal."

"Go in and choose. You've earned it."

Lu Yuan picked up the Key, feeling the lingering warmth on it. The chill in his eyes faded somewhat.

"Thanks."

"But before you go in, there's something else you need to know."

Old Morgan turned the map around and pushed it in front of Lu Yuan.

Several districts of Grim Port had been marked with red crosses, while the dock district had been painted a glaring scarlet.

"You think you were the only one risking your life tonight?"

Old Morgan pointed at that scarlet patch.

"Some unfamiliar faces arrived in Grim Port a while back. They call themselves the 'Deep Sea Cultists.' Their methods are far more ruthless than those scum from before—and far more secretive."

"The fish-flesh contamination across the city this time was actually something we deliberately let in."

Lu Yuan's gaze sharpened. "You were fishing?"

"Yes, fishing." Weariness tinged Old Morgan's voice.

"If we didn't make them think their plan had succeeded, those rats hiding in the sewers would never show themselves."

"Our original plan was to contain the Source of Pollution, then catch them all in one sweep."

"But something went wrong."

Old Morgan tapped the edge of the map with a finger.

"That bunch of lunatics infiltrated us far more deeply than we anticipated."

"The intelligence originally showed only two Sources of Pollution, but after tonight's operation began, we discovered there were actually two more!"

"We didn't have enough people."

"Hans, Mary, Jack, even my old comrades from the guard—we threw every last one of them in, and only barely managed to plug the gaps."

At this point, Old Morgan looked at Lu Yuan with a complicated expression.

"So, Lu Yuan, you really were bait."

"But what you were fishing for wasn't the main force behind this contamination."

"Judging from this letter and that Baron's methods, the ones who targeted you were another group."

Old Morgan lowered his voice. "They're a bunch of lunatics who specifically target 'Doctors' and 'High Inspiration.'"

"Though they probably have some connection to the Deep Sea as well, they aren't remotely of one mind with the group behind the fish-flesh contamination."

"Two groups, two conspiracies, crashing together on a rainy night."

Old Morgan sighed and patted Lu Yuan's shoulder.

"Welcome to the real Grim Port, Lu Yuan. From today onward, you've officially stepped into this quagmire."

Lu Yuan looked at the alarming red crosses on the map, then touched the Revolver in his pocket, which had grown slightly hot.

"A quagmire... heh."

Lu Yuan put away the brass Key that still carried body warmth and watched Old Morgan don his that tattered black trench coat again, then push open a hidden door behind the office Bookshelf.

"Stay close."

Without looking back, Old Morgan carried a dim Oil Lamp into the hidden passage.

"The Deep Warehouse isn't on this level. Those things absolutely cannot be allowed to leak out, so they've been buried pretty deep."

The two of them descended a narrow, slick spiral stone staircase.

As they went deeper, the smell of alcohol and tobacco in the air gradually vanished.

In its place came an old, moldy stench, along with a faint heaviness pressing on their hearts.

[Environmental anomaly detected. High concentration of Spirituality residue detected...]

Lu Yuan silently calculated the depth.

They had descended at least fifty meters when Dark Red glowing moss began to appear on the surrounding rock walls, like eyes peering through the darkness.

After a while longer, Old Morgan finally stopped.

The Oil Lamp's glow stretched forward, illuminating an ancient, imposing door at the end.

This was the deepest place the Night Watchers had buried—the Deep Warehouse.

Standing before the door and gripping the brass Key, Old Morgan spoke.

"You have ten minutes."

Old Morgan turned the Key. The heavy clatter of mechanisms echoed through the dead-silent underground.

"Remember, don't touch anything inside carelessly. Every item has a placard beside it with a simple description of its pros and cons."

"If you see something you like, you can try to take it. But if you feel it resisting you, or if you feel even the slightest discomfort, let go immediately and move on to the next one."

Old Morgan took a deep breath and pushed open the door. "The extraordinary items here all possess a certain instinct... don't anger them."

Lu Yuan nodded and stepped inside.

Unexpectedly, this so-called Deep Warehouse was not dark at all. Instead, it was bright as day.

Countless pale Alchemy Lamps illuminated every last detail, leaving not a shred of shadow.

The warehouse was not very large—or rather, there were not many things inside. There were only several rows of low black metal shelves, sparsely displaying several dozen items.

Most were bizarrely shaped objects.

Lu Yuan had barely passed the first shelf when a transparent glass bottle caught his eye.

The bottle was filled with yellow preservative fluid. Inside, an earth-colored heart, as though carved from stone, was slowly and powerfully going thump, thump.

With every beat, a visible ripple spread through the surrounding air.

[Sustained a mid-level mutation impact... Sanity check in progress... Check passed.]

Grayish-white words flashed across his vision.

Lu Yuan stopped and looked at the placard beside it.

Name: Unknown harmless replaceable heart

Description: Fuse this heart with your own to greatly improve physical fitness and eliminate one fatal bodily weakness.

Side effect: Unknown.

"Side effect unknown?" Lu Yuan raised an eyebrow.

But in his vision, another line of more detailed gray text quietly surfaced, revealing the item's true nature.

[Item Name: Petrified Heart of the Cave Lord (Half-step extraordinary item)]

[Details: Originated from the juvenile form of an Abyssal Cave Lord. After fusion, the host will gain a certain degree of physical enhancement.]

[Side Effect: Loss of taste. The host will gradually lose interest in human food and develop an intense appetite for ore and soil, eventually possibly mutating completely into a cave-dwelling creature.]

"Eating rocks..."

The corner of Lu Yuan's mouth twitched, and he decisively looked away.

This kind of enhancement that changed one's species was not within his considerations.