Everything About Him Felt Wrong

"This powder can reveal souls. It's a shame there's so little of it. Otherwise, we could mass-produce a medicine that would let people on the verge of death briefly exist as souls after they died."

"Oh? That's still pretty good. How much can you make?" An Qi perked up as she listened to the researcher's report. Many research institutes in Longcheng had studied souls. Their world wasn't one with a high Energy Level, so preserving souls wasn't impossible, but the conditions were extremely demanding.

Whether souls could appear easily depended on the world's Energy Level. If it was too low, then even if that world had a very high Strength Level, its powerful inhabitants wouldn't turn into ghosts or anything like that after they died.

They would simply follow the saying that death was like a lamp going out. A person might have the strength to move mountains while alive, but once dead, all that strength was gone.

Her family had conducted extensive comparisons and research. Although their world was a low-level environment, neither its Strength Level nor its Energy Level was at the very bottom.

You could tell from the average person's physical fitness. A healthy adult could fairly easily run a hundred meters in under ten seconds, while in some worlds, only professional athletes could manage that. Whatever their Energy Level, those worlds definitely had a low Strength Level—well below that of their world.

If there was a big difference in Strength Level among ordinary people, then their physical fitness would also vary noticeably. If the standard for an ordinary person's physical fitness was being able to run a hundred meters in ten seconds, that was the standard in a world with a low Strength Level.

In a world with a high Strength Level, the standard ordinary person might be 25% faster over a hundred meters, going from ten seconds to eight. Of course, that kind of improvement only occurred in worlds with an exceptionally high Strength Level.

Most worlds fluctuated within that range. Few exceeded 20%. Longcheng was only a few percentage points above the baseline they'd established, but that baseline was the absolute lower limit.

Even the top athletes in their world could run a hundred meters in under nine seconds, and that was compared against ordinary people. In some worlds, even outstanding athletes struggled to break nine and a half seconds.

Based on these baseline comparisons, Longcheng's Strength Level certainly wasn't at the bottom. As for Energy Level, there were people with unusual abilities in their world who could produce flames. Supernatural Events happened too, and not infrequently—each year, plenty of witnesses filmed them on the scene.

A low-level environment with a decent Strength Level and Energy Level was an ideal place for development.

"Not much. At most, we can make twenty tablets," the researcher replied with an exact figure.

"Make all of them." An Qi nodded. Twenty wasn't many, but that was precisely what made the powder valuable. As a special product, it would be hard to find the right buyers among ordinary people, but she knew exactly who would want it.

Losing an entire Hunter Team had been a huge setback. This new discovery could make up for some of the loss, but overall, they were still down. If the Hunter Team had survived, further training could have made them far more valuable. Now they were simply gone.

The unexpected turn of events had left An Qi a little annoyed, but she'd already adjusted her mindset. Hunters weren't hothouse flowers. Besides, no one could have expected an anomaly to appear in that place, let alone for something ghostlike to emerge from it.

Based on the study of the powder and the investigation of the battle site, they could more or less determine what the Hunter Team had encountered.

It would have been better if they'd faced Undead Creatures like Skeleton Soldiers. At least those heaps of bones had physical bodies, so firearms worked against them. Ghosts were also vulnerable to guns, but only because of the heat generated by bullets rubbing against the air.

To creatures like those, such damage was no more than a slight burn. Against a powerful one, even that mild scorching might have no effect. Faced with such an enemy, the Hunter Team would have been overwhelmed no matter how well equipped they were or how strong each member was.

The investigation of the site indicated that there had been more than ten "enemies." It was a shame about the hunter who'd intervened afterward. He'd managed to destroy the ghosts with just a gun, something an ordinary hunter couldn't do. More importantly, he was adaptable enough to enter the anomaly.

Yet that hunter hadn't made it out. He'd passed through the anomaly and remained in another world. Even An Qi, who was usually full of ideas, couldn't think of anything now. The chances of him returning to Longcheng were simply too slim.

"I finally found people." Zheng Yichen looked at the town in the distance and let out a long breath. He'd been walking for nearly a whole day. Unfamiliar with the area, he'd at last found a place where people lived. He looked at the townspeople's clothes, then down at his own.

Well... He was wearing a standard modern combat Protective Suit. It was damaged in places, but that didn't make him look any less out of place among the people of this world.

Zheng Yichen couldn't help wondering if they'd come at him with pitchforks and driven him away. Probably not, right?

"Who are you?"

"I'm a traveler? Wait... Shit." The wary locals charged straight at him. Zheng Yichen immediately grew annoyed. He swung the Fishing Rod in his hand without coating it in Black Gun, and its sheer strength snapped the crude wooden spears they were holding.

After that brief exchange, Zheng Yichen clearly felt the difference. His strength had indeed weakened somewhat, but he was still more than a match for the weaker townsfolk.

His superior physical abilities alone were enough to take them down, to say nothing of the firearms he had.

"Now tell me, why did you attack me right away?" After knocking down the locals who'd charged him, Zheng Yichen looked at the others, who were still on guard. The brief fight had drawn half the town. There were plenty of weapons like sickles and manure forks. Considering what those things were used for every day, Zheng Yichen took a small step back. He didn't want to get poked by one.

"We've had a few murders around here lately, so we're wary of people whose origins we don't know. We only wanted to drive you away..." the town's mayor said with an embarrassed smile. Since they couldn't beat Zheng Yichen, all they could do was talk it out. He'd easily taken down several of the town's strongest adults, so he wasn't someone to trifle with.

To them, Zheng Yichen was a stranger with unknown origins. His clothes were strange, and they were torn in places as if something had clawed at him. His outfit looked completely different from theirs, and to their eyes, everything about him felt wrong.

Usually, they would have just treated someone like that coldly. But these were unusual times.