Ging led Bai Zhu through an unremarkable little wooden cabin at the edge of the camp.
Inside were only a table, two chairs, and a few yellowed documents on the tabletop. Ging walked to a corner and kicked aside the worn rug with the tip of his foot, revealing a flight of stone steps leading down.
"Follow me."
Ging went down first.
Bai Zhu followed him. The moment he entered the passage, he felt the temperature plummet.
Glowing patterns covered the stone walls on either side.
The patterns spread irregularly, like some creature's blood vessels or a long-lost script. Bai Zhu studied them for a moment, feeling that they bore some resemblance to the ancient markings he had seen in the ruins surrounding the Black Tower in Oasis.
After about five minutes, they reached a fork.
Bai Zhu stopped.
He crouched and traced his hand just above the glowing circuits on the ground, narrowing his eyes.
"You noticed?" Ging turned around, sounding slightly surprised.
"These patterns..." Bai Zhu pointed at the veinlike trails of light beneath his feet. "They're flowing in the wrong direction."
"Oh?"
"Normally, if these were your game system's power supply lines, they should spread outward from some core source to supply the whole island." Bai Zhu stood and pointed down the left branch. "But these circuits are all converging inward."
The smile on Ging's face froze for a moment.
He fell silent for a few seconds, then shook his head with a rueful smile.
"Nothing gets past you, does it?"
"So?" Bai Zhu waited for him to continue.
"There's a ruin beneath this island." Ging stopped beating around the bush. "To put it plainly, Greed Island's core mechanisms were built on the power leaking out of it."
Bai Zhu raised an eyebrow.
That wasn't much of