Dark Clouds Looming

Qing Chen had only wanted to pry for information, but he had not expected Nan Gengchen's mindset to change so quickly.

Just moments ago, he had been trembling with fear. After one class, he was already planning to become the protagonist of the world.

What could Qing Chen say? As long as you were happy.

By then, Nan Gengchen was seriously discussing it with Qing Chen. "I mean, hypothetically. If I could travel over there, wouldn't I be able to bring back some high-tech stuff and sell it?"

"I don't know," Qing Chen said. "You might not be able to bring anything back."

"But look, they brought back mechanical arms and stuff," Nan Gengchen said. "Don't worry. If I really strike it rich, I'll treat you to something good."

Qing Chen knew that world was dangerous. Friends could have secrets, but he still hoped Nan Gengchen would return safely, so he kindly advised him, "A lot of travelers have said they encountered danger, so be careful. Don't keep thinking about getting rich."

Nan Gengchen fell silent for several seconds, then asked, "Where do you want to eat when the time comes?"

Qing Chen: "..."

Nan Gengchen silently calculated his dreams for after he became rich. Only Qing Chen knew that people could not casually bring things back when they returned.

When Nan Gengchen treated him to a meal, would he slap his own arm onto the counter and yell for two bowls of dan dan noodles? That would be quite the festive sight.

Suddenly, someone in the class asked in confusion, "What exactly are the rules behind this traveling thing? So many people have gone over there. Why haven't we?"

Nan Gengchen muttered softly beside him, "Maybe only people with truly extraordinary talent can do it..."

Qing Chen's eyebrows rose as he listened.

There was more and more news about travelers, both domestically and abroad.

Gradually, Qing Chen summarized two patterns:

First, every traveler's previous countdown had been six hours, while the return countdown was forty-eight hours.

In other words, everyone entered at the same time, and everyone would return at the same time.

Then, after seeing the travel incident, some people stepped forward and said they had not traveled, but after midnight today, a forty-eight-hour countdown had appeared on their arms as well.

They should be the second batch.

Next time, the first and second batches would travel at the same time.

The second pattern was that all those who traveled were young people, currently between the ages of ten and thirty-five.

Suddenly, a girl said, "A streamer says he's a traveler and is livestreaming himself showing off his mechanical arm. I'll send the link to the group."

Students all carried phones these days, which made communication convenient.

When everyone opened the link, they found an outdoor streamer inside, displaying his mechanical arm.

Qing Chen felt that something was off, because he had never seen such a plasticky-looking mechanical limb...

Before the man had even shown it off for two minutes, the mechanical arm fell to the floor with a crack...

"Damn it, he's wearing a prop to ride the hype!"

Qing Chen did not know whether to laugh or cry. Whenever something exciting happened, all sorts of frauds and weirdos crawled out of the woodwork.

At that moment, he guessed that Nan Gengchen had not been part of the batch from yesterday at midnight. Instead, he must have gotten a new countdown in the early morning. Otherwise, he would not have been so shocked by Jacob's press conference.

So there were currently two possibilities. One was that the number of travelers was fixed, and whenever someone died, a new traveler would take their place.

The other possibility was that the number of travelers was constantly expanding, and there would be more and more in the future.

For now, Qing Chen had no way of estimating how many travelers there were across the country.

Gradually, all the students arrived. Someone suddenly cried out, "A traveler has appeared on the streets of Luo City too! I saw it in my Moments feed. Someone filmed him!"

Hearing this, all the students crowded over.

In the video on Moments, a young man hurried along with a strange mechanical pattern on his cheeks, giving him a uniquely technological beauty.

Then someone noticed that as he walked, his gray steel ankles were exposed.

Clearly, the young man's legs had also been replaced with mechanical prosthetics.

The person filming wanted to continue recording, but the young man suddenly leaped onto a roadside rooftop four or five meters high and vanished without a trace.

A female student said softly, "So cool."

"It would be great if our school had a traveler like that. Then we could ask him directly about that world."

At that moment, Qing Chen suddenly remembered that there really was someone at this school who had traveled at the same time as him: Huang Jixian, the son of Yongli Group's chairman.

If he remembered correctly, Huang Jixian should have been in Class 7, Year One.

After Huang Jixian broke down that day, he had been taken away by the mechanical prison guards and had never appeared again. Logically, he should have returned by now. Even if he had died, his corpse should have returned as well.

Thinking of this, Qing Chen stood up and headed downstairs to the Year One classrooms while there were still more than ten minutes before class.

Luo City Foreign Language School was extremely lively at the moment. Everyone was discussing the traveler incident. Even the teachers passing by were scrolling through their phones as they walked.

Probably no one had imagined that a traveler was right beside them.

Qing Chen looked at those people and suddenly felt a sense of distance from them. It was as if, at some point, he had become somewhat different.

In the past, he might have focused on studying hard, reviewing and preparing whenever he had time, striving to get into a good university and leave this place.

But now? His path seemed no longer to be here.

Qing Chen arrived at the entrance to Class 7, Year One. Seemingly casually, he stopped a bespectacled boy and asked, "Hello, has Huang Jixian come to school today?"

"No, I haven't seen him yet," the boy answered.

"Oh." Qing Chen nodded. "Do you know where he lives?"

"I only know he lives in Yinrun Central Garden. I don't know the exact address. Do you need something from him?" the boy asked. "When he gets to class, I can pass on a message."

"It's nothing. Thanks," Qing Chen said, guessing that Huang Jixian might not be coming after all.

The mentally shattered boy had suffered a severe trauma. It was entirely possible that he had gone insane.

Qing Chen returned to class, lost in thought. During the first math lesson, almost none of the students had any interest in studying.

During the second half of class, the young male math teacher, Tian Hailong, saw that everyone was distracted and simply joked with them. "None of your attention is on me anymore. Looks like I need to get myself a mechanical arm or something before you can listen to my lesson properly, huh?"

The classroom burst into laughter. Then Tian Hailong actually began chatting with the students about this trending current event instead of continuing the lesson.

If it had been an ordinary hot topic, teachers and students would not have acted this way. But what was happening now was different, because it was changing the world.

Nan Gengchen had been scrolling through his phone throughout class. When the bell rang, he suddenly handed it to Qing Chen. "He Xiaoxiao posted a guide!"

"He Xiaoxiao?" Qing Chen asked in confusion.

"He's a big gaming content creator, basically an expert in the gaming community. He often finds Easter eggs and details in games, like how to find hidden storylines, hidden legendary weapons, and hidden classes. He has a lot of fans," Nan Gengchen explained. He knew Qing Chen did not play games much, so Qing Chen definitely would not have followed a streamer like He Xiaoxiao.

Nan Gengchen continued, "A few hours ago, he posted a game guide video, but nobody had ever seen the game he was talking about. He was seriously making a guide for it. Now that this traveling thing has come out, everyone suddenly realized that his game guide might be related to that world. He might be one of the travelers too."

There were no visuals in the video, only a black background and white subtitles.

A young, magnetic male voice said in the video, "Because this game is rather special, I can't show everyone gameplay footage. I call this game... the Inner World."

"And the world we are currently in is called the Outer World."

He Xiaoxiao continued calmly, "As for this game, I only just entered it myself, so the information I have is quite limited."

"For now, I haven't discovered any way to obtain hidden legendary weapons."

"There are currently three known paths to gaining a class. The first is to use technology to modify yourself. You can directly purchase that at a mechanical hospital."

"Mechanical limbs are relatively expensive. Since I haven't found a money-farming bug yet, I can't try it. Selling your own organs seems to be the easiest way to obtain money here, but I do not recommend that anyone try it."

"The second path is to join the Tribunal of Taboos. You can become a new human after receiving a genetic injection, but I have not yet found the relevant organization's NPCs. This organization is rather mysterious."

"The third known class path is in Prison No. 18. Once you get inside, you need to find an NPC called Li Shutong. This is currently the known class path with the highest potential."

"If I discover other class paths in the future, I will continue sharing them with everyone."

The more Qing Chen watched, the more stunned he became.

He was certain that was a real world. Even bruises from being pinched could be brought back. If it was not a real world, then what was it?

Yet this He Xiaoxiao seemed utterly obsessed, treating the place like a game to grind!

He had even treated Li Shutong as an NPC for class quests!

Qing Chen did not know what identity the other person had in the Inner World. The only thing he could be sure of now was that Li Shutong was indeed extremely well-known there. He Xiaoxiao had heard of him within forty-eight hours of entering.

And now, He Xiaoxiao had actually already labeled Li Shutong as the class path with the greatest potential.

After watching the video, Nan Gengchen muttered beside him, "Wasn't that the same as saying nothing? Buying mechanical limbs costs money, the Tribunal of Taboos can't be found, and Prison No. 18 might be possible, but he didn't say how to get in either."

Qing Chen suddenly wondered whether this video's influence was fairly large. When he traveled back seven days later, would people really run to Prison No. 18 to grind Li Shutong's questline?!

But if anyone really treated Li Shutong like an NPC to grind, their ending would probably be miserable. Li Shutong himself would likely be utterly baffled too.

The excitement over traveling continued all the way into the afternoon.

Until a news report appeared: a young man overseas who had been confirmed as a traveler was found dead in his home. The mechanical legs he had displayed in an earlier video had been cut off and were nowhere to be found.

Like a dark cloud, the news suddenly shrouded everyone's enthusiasm.

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