Running the Map

The blood-colored moonlight gave Zhao Cheng an extremely unsettling feeling—sinister, eerie, and hair-raising.

The negative emotions it evoked were even more intense than the darkness itself.

As Zhao Cheng's gaze followed the blood-colored moonlight hanging on the horizon, a text entry popped up right where the moon sat in his vision.

Blood Moon: A moon illuminated by a strange power, its effects are currently unknown. (Note: The Hyper-Dimensional Body inherently understands all things; its effect is determined by the Hyper-Dimensional Body's upper limit, while the lower limit is determined by the strength of one's own consciousness.)

Zhao Cheng immediately understood that this ability, similar to an "Inspect" skill in a game, was a passive trait of his Hyper-Dimensional Body. The stronger his consciousness, the more powerful this ability would become.

Although the body he currently inhabited was humanoid, it was not human in essence; it was a Hyper-Dimensional Body wearing a human-shaped projection.

A human body could only perceive the most superficial information of the world, but a Hyper-Dimensional Body was born with the ability to see the essence of all things. It was an instinct; in a sense, to the "eyes" of a Hyper-Dimensional Body, the heavens and all things were merely streams of information.

It was only because Zhao Cheng's consciousness was limited that this instinct was restricted.

"Strange power!"

Zhao Cheng muttered to himself, though he did not believe this power was anything positive—like someone burning themselves to light up the world for the sake of good deeds.

With the appearance of this Blood Moon, Zhao Cheng could be one hundred percent certain that the dungeon introduction provided by the Panel earlier had definitely omitted a crucial piece of information.

The blood-colored moonlight was the only source of light in the world. Its glow, like a thin veil, was spread evenly over everything, casting a blood-red hue upon all things.

The world was very quiet, with only a faint sound of wind. In this situation, even though Zhao Cheng was constantly circulating his breathing technique to calm his mind, waves of dread still surged in his heart.

If one were to quantify human sanity, his current state would be akin to a constant "Sanity -1, Sanity -1."

Borrowing the dim moonlight, Zhao Cheng looked around and realized he was in the corner of a massive plaza.

The plaza was grey, but not because of the materials used; it was because no one had been here for who knows how long, allowing a thick layer of ash to accumulate on the ground.

At the very center of the plaza stood a giant sculpture. However, under the mighty power of time, the sculpture's form had long since blurred. One could only vaguely make out that it depicted a man standing tall between heaven and earth.

Even though the face was blurred and the lines had decayed, one could still feel that sense of uprightness from the remaining contours.

"Great... damn... hand."

There was a huge flat surface on the base of the statue. Using the dim moonlight, Zhao Cheng could vaguely see the characters on it.

It was a strange script; he had never seen it before, yet he could read it without any difficulty.

Is this a great person of this world?! Zhao Cheng thought.

I wonder what kind of achievements one must have to possess such a statue.

To have a great person, and to be able to build such a massive plaza and such a giant sculpture—it shows that the civilization level of this world is not low.

But what on earth happened to make the people of this world abandon this city entirely?!

Zhao Cheng looked around. There were many tall buildings surrounding the plaza, but because the light was so dim, even with his keen eyesight, everything looked extremely blurry.

From afar, those high-rise buildings looked like demons and monsters baring their fangs and brandishing their claws.

Nuclear war at the end of the twentieth century? My foot. That's the first thing to rule out. Zhao Cheng thought of the dungeon introduction and was speechless.

Judging by the dust accumulated on the plaza, Zhao Cheng could determine that this city had been abandoned for a long time—at least for years.

Thinking this, Zhao Cheng squatted down, grabbed a handful of dirt from the ground, and kneaded it in his hand.

"The dust has already clumped into soil, and the humidity isn't low, yet in such a large area with this kind of soil, not a single plant is growing."

Thoughts swirled in Zhao Cheng's mind.

Plants were things with extremely tenacious vitality. Forget about the "fertile soil" before him; even in the cracks of cement walls, as long as there was a little moisture and a little dirt, weeds and saplings could grow stubbornly.

Where the Blood Moon passes, not a blade of grass grows?!

It couldn't be that in the nuclear war at the end of the twentieth century, they used nukes to blow up the sun, and then the sun's radiation caused the moon to mutate...

If Zhao Cheng didn't know the principles of solar reactions, he might have almost believed that joke.

After telling himself a joke to ease his mood slightly, he began to explore the map.

Since the world had changed, Zhao Cheng stopped using common sense from reality to measure this world.

He simply designated the place where the moon rose as the East. With a direction, it was easier to plan a route.

As a "newbie" who had just entered the pit, aiming to save the world was far too distant.

He had enough self-awareness to set a small goal for himself first: figure out the situation of this city and, along the way, explore what exactly happened to this world in the past.

According to the Panel's settings, the internal logic of the simulation would lean toward a direction favorable to him.

Since that was the case, if he descended here in the simulation, this city must be beneficial to his development—something like a "newbie village" in a game.

Based on Zhao Cheng's years of single-player RPG experience, when you don't know what to do, just run around the map. Eventually, you'll find clues, characters, companions—you'll find everything.

Running a map in a game just takes a flick of the fingers, but in reality, it wasn't so easy.

Especially when this real-life RPG game had a rather "underworld" art style.

He wasn't afraid of anything else, only of meeting "love" around the corner.

It wasn't that he cherished his life, but compared to losing a "life," the trauma to his soul would be much harder to heal.

However, Zhao Cheng had run for a long distance; although he lacked a timer, he felt that at least an hour had passed.

He was not running, but power-walking, as this better preserved his stamina to deal with any sudden emergencies.

Given his pace, an hour of power-walking would cover roughly seven kilometers.

Yet, over such a long distance, none of the unexpected plot twists Zhao Cheng had anticipated occurred.

There were no ambushes around corners, no damsels in distress being mobbed by goblins—there was nothing at all.

Of course, Zhao Cheng did not come away empty-handed; through observation, he discovered that this city had been abandoned for far longer than he had previously imagined.

The time was so vast that much of the steel had completely rotted away; some of the streetlights, road signs, and shop signboards in the city still left faint traces, while others had vanished without a trace.