Seven Days

Lu Li sat on a chair in the Candy House, pondering the plot development he had arranged. He hoped to assemble another group of actors and that it would be a success.

Otherwise, staying cooped up in this small space all the time would be too boring.

"It must have been intentional." Looking at the colorful Candy House around him, Lu Li thought to himself, "Although these Candy House restricted his movement, they did help him once. Otherwise, the person standing here now would just be Grotesque, who is completely irrational."

"Once this experiment is completed, I should be able to make a breakthrough," Lu Li thought. His semi-shadow form was becoming increasingly Deepening, and more and more characteristics of shadow creatures were manifesting on his body.

For example, their charm, which had become irrational before, meant that most monsters capable of mating with humans and producing offspring possessed beauty above human standards before leaving human society.

For example, the Deep One Lu Li had encountered before, before they became Deep One, were all extremely good-looking, because this helped them attract humans and reproduce through crossbreeding.

Many other monster hybrids are like this, such as Ghoul. Before they become Ghoul, they are all handsome men and beautiful women, and it would be no problem to call them gods and goddesses. But once they become Ghoul, they grow gelatinous skin and a dog's face.

Lu Li is in a similar situation now. Because of his partial shadow transformation, he is currently at the peak of his appearance. Although his personal charm is mainly reflected in his temperament, once he is completely transformed into a shadow creature, he will become a genderless, pitch-black shadow, just like his own shadow.

Of course, at that time his control over shadows will also reach its peak, and he may be able to condense the shadows into a human-like body.

Lu Li suddenly heard a strange roar coming from the doorway again, which meant that the monsters called Wendigo were attacking the Candy House again.

Since he first appeared here decades ago, those monsters have attacked him out of instinct. After Lu Li killed them, he discovered that the monsters' bones were a good magical material.

During his three months in Theseus, Lu Li learned some basic rune knowledge and later learned a little about magical items from Matchstick. However, because this knowledge was too one-sided, Lu Li's understanding was insufficient.

With the idea of applying what he has learned and True Knowledge through practice, Lu Li refined these monsters and created the white bone and scale robe he is wearing. Of course, due to the tight schedule and his own lack of knowledge, the robe does not yet have any special abilities.

If you look closely, you'll find that each scale on the robe has a rune on it. If Lu Li inputs magic power into it, these runes will react. However, Lu Li's rune knowledge is not advanced, and he has not yet learned how to link all the runes together.

So, in short, the only function of this robe at present is decoration.

This mission instance is quite strange. Lu Li descends directly into a Dreamlands. The reality of this world is shrouded, or rather, concealed, by the Dreamlands. To enter the real world, one must break through the Dreamlands.

When Lu Li arrived at the edge of this world, his own Dreamlands involuntarily unfolded, crawling around this world like a parasite, absorbing its resources. As a result, Lu Li did not enter that Dreamlands, but instead landed in his own Dreamlands.

If it were just like that, it wouldn't matter. However, Lu Li's shadow was trapped in his own Dreamlands. As the Dreamlands unfolded, Lu Li's shadow also wriggled over, instinctively wanting to complete the final step of evolution.

If the pebble that brought Lu Li here hadn't suddenly unfolded and transformed into a colorful Candy House, he would have been enveloped in shadows and passively undergone evolution, which was not what Lu Li wanted.

The Candy House blocked Lu Li's shadow, but Lu Li was also trapped afterward. The outside of the Dreamlands was an unknown environment. If he went out directly, the probability of death was extremely high. The remaining chance was that he would mutate in the unknown environment. If that were the case, it would be better to merge with his own shadow.

If Lu Li hadn't discovered it later, he might still be trapped in his own Dreamlands with the Candy House.

Dreamlands are generally similar, but each has its own unique characteristics. For example, Lu Li's Dreamlands has abilities related to shadows, while the Dreamlands next to him seems to have a rhythmic breathing.

According to Lu Li's observation, with each rhythmic movement, a year has passed within this Dreamlands, and at each rhythmic juncture, Lu Li's own Dreamlands will merge and overlap with it.

So afterwards, Lu Li moved the location of the Candy House to the area where the overlap would occur. With each breath, it would appear in this world, and when the next breath changed, the overlap would disappear. Even if Lu Li left the overlap area, he would still be sent back to his Dreamlands.

This timeframe is approximately seven minutes outside, but within this Dreamlands, it takes about seven days.

In other words, with each rhythmic movement, Lu Li can appear here for seven days each year in this world. These seven days are Lu Li's experimental time. Lu Li has already passed through dozens of rhythmic nodes here, and several decades have passed in this world.

When Lu Li first arrived, he encountered a middle-aged man who was seriously injured. Lu Li healed him and obtained some information from him. He then casually tossed the man aside and went to explore other places. As a result, seven days later, he was directly sent back to this world.

The following year, Lu Li reappeared. In order not to waste the seven days, he ran out of the forest to catch experimental subjects and immediately began the experiments. However, the efficiency was indeed a bit slow because experimental subjects with the corresponding characteristics were not easy to find.

Lu Li then discovered that the person he had saved seemed to still harbor designs on the Candy House, so he directly told him that the Candy House would only appear if a sacrifice was made to the Black Mist River every year, and then told the person about the characteristics of the sacrifice.

Therefore, every year thereafter, as soon as Lu Li released the Dark River, he would receive experimental subjects, happily conduct seven days of experiments, and then wait for the next breathing rhythm node.

Driven by desire, the old village chief, despite his doubts, diligently helped Lu Li find experimental subjects every year because of his greed. If there weren't enough people in the village, he would look outside. In any case, Lu Li never lacked experimental subjects over the years.

Now, Lu Li's experiment is nearing completion. The last batch of test subjects has also been attracted by Lu Li's hidden hand. Once this experiment is completed, they can go back and undergo the final evolution with Shadow.