The Insect Codex!

Darkness, cold!

Yang Yu trembled. It felt as though he had been trapped in a long dream... a very, very long dream...

In it, he had seen strange things unlike anything he had ever encountered.

And... some utterly terrifying life-forms!

Ever since that enormous, mysterious ancient book had sucked him into the black hole, he had been wandering through nightmares like these.

Night.

Shangjing City.

Tianhua Residential Complex, Room 302, Building A.

Inside a private residence on the boundary between the outskirts and the bustling city, Yang Yu abruptly opened his eyes and sat bolt upright in bed!

"Hah..."

"Hah... hah..." In the darkness, Yang Yu gasped for breath.

"That dream again."

"Hah... It's been over a month since I escaped that damned place, but it still feels like it happened yesterday." Yang Yu fumbled along the wall beside his bed. Soon, a soft click sounded, and light flooded the room!

The light was on.

Yang Yu glanced at the desk to the left of his bed. The alarm clock there read 3:20 a.m.

Daybreak was still some way off, yet dawn was not so distant. This was precisely the time when it was hardest to fall asleep again after waking.

"Forget it. I'm not going back to sleep." Yang Yu shook his head, put on a white robe, and got up. He walked straight out of the bedroom and into the adjacent room, which had been converted into a study.

The study was spacious, but it held relatively few books.

It felt as though it served only as decoration... even the seldom-used stretches of floor had gathered a thin layer of dust.

Only the path from the doorway to the middle of the bookshelf bore a few faint footprints.

Yang Yu headed straight for the bookshelf, stepping exactly where those footprints lay. He barely used this study. Its books had been selected at random, too. Aside from a handful that showed signs of having been leafed through, the rest remained exactly as they had been when purchased.

The study was a cover. In truth, Yang Yu had hidden an enormous secret here.

An enormous secret he had brought back and kept entirely to himself ever since Professor Li and the others had been crushed to death by a boulder in that mysterious cave, and he had narrowly escaped with his life!

Clack, clack, clack—

Yang Yu twisted a plastic-wrapped, blue-covered book on the shelf. The book remained fixed in place, turning only slightly. Then mechanical gears whirred behind the bookshelf, and a small black door opened, revealing a cramped compartment.

The plastic-wrapped, blue-covered book was merely a switch disguised as a book.

The entire spacious study existed to conceal it!

Yang Yu took a deep breath and approached the little door. Reaching inside, he easily retrieved something from the compartment.

On closer inspection, it was a black-covered book.

At the center of its cover was the image of a hideous beast, radiating ferocity and bloodlust!

The creature looked seven parts insect and three parts beast, its entire body packed with powerful muscles!

Above the unknown insect-like beast's head were two extraordinarily intricate characters!

The script resembled no language Yang Yu knew.

In the month since his return, Yang Yu had researched the writing systems of many countries—modern, ancient, and even prehistoric pictographs.

None resembled it. He could not find even the slightest similarity!

Although he could not identify the script, Yang Yu knew what those two large characters meant.

After being sucked into the black hole at the bottom of the mysterious cave, Yang Yu had completely mastered this strange written and spoken language in that world that seemed both dream and reality.

As he understood it, the language's name translated to "Insect Language."

Insect Language had been left behind by an immensely powerful race in the universe, from an age unimaginably distant... and this black-covered book was that race's supreme treasure!

The Insect Codex!

Those two strange characters on the black book's cover spelled out precisely that: "Insect Codex"!

"If I can decipher what's inside this thing, then... my life will definitely change forever." Yang Yu extended his right hand and gently stroked the black cover.

"Unfortunately, it's already been a month, and the Insect Codex is still sealed. I can't even turn its pages."

"To break the outer seal and open the book, I need to prepare a great many rare, aged materials... it should be about time now. Over this past month, I've spent almost all the money I earned risking my life over the last several years. With friends pulling strings and searching both at home and abroad, I've finally gathered more than ninety-nine percent of the materials."

"The last material should arrive in the mail within the next few days."

"Fortunately, all the rare materials listed in the conditions for unsealing the Insect Codex exist on Earth... otherwise, no matter what I tried, I'd be helpless." Yang Yu sighed, feeling both delighted and uncertain.

The sight of Professor Li and the others dying remained vivid in his mind. Yang Yu did not know what would happen once he followed the dream's instructions and unsealed the Insect Codex. There might be danger, but it was even more likely that he would gain an opportunity ordinary people could never obtain!

With such a tremendous opportunity before him, Yang Yu had ultimately failed to resist the temptation.

So he had quit his job and even left the urban district, moving to this remote stretch of the outskirts. Here, he lived alone in a rented apartment with two bedrooms and a living room, a full sixty-five square meters for just fifteen hundred yuan a month.

"The Insectoid Civilization in that dream was so powerful. Even an ordinary member could cross the universe with their physical body and command an immense army of ferocious insects, rivaling the mighty gods of legend... it's only a little risk." Yang Yu gritted his teeth and clenched his fists.

"I'm not asking for much. If I can gain just one-thousandth of the power of a single member of that Insectoid Civilization, I'll at least be able to have anything I want here on Earth. And I'll have an incredibly long lifespan, far beyond that of ordinary humans."

"It's just a little risk. How can I expect to gain anything without taking chances?"

"Fuck it, I'm doing it!" Yang Yu's expression hardened, and a fierce gleam flashed deep in his eyes!

Time slipped by, and another two or three days passed.

The final rare material finally arrived.

By then, Yang Yu's study had changed dramatically. A huge glass tank occupied the previously empty space, and the concealed compartment in the bookshelf that held the Insect Codex stood open.

The tank was filled with churning hot water. Numerous precious medicinal herbs, a hundred or even several hundred years old, bobbed and rolled within it. As the herbs dissolved in the heat, their medicinal potency, packed with an astounding concentration of nutrients, spread through the water.

Even... merely smelling the herbs was becoming too much for Yang Yu. He felt drunk, his body noticeably unwell.

An ordinary person's body was fragile. Malnutrition caused problems, but excessive nourishment could be equally dangerous!

There were no fewer than one or two hundred precious medicinal herbs in that glass tank.

Every one was at least a hundred years old, and many were over four or five hundred! As the boiling water released their medicinal potency, just a few breaths of their scent had an effect comparable to eating several ginseng roots!

With such a sudden flood of nourishment, it was no wonder Yang Yu felt unwell.

Splash, splash, splash...

The medicinal liquid churned in the glass tank. At the bottom of the increasingly murky water, a dark shape rested without moving. A closer look revealed that it was the Insect Codex!

Vortices occasionally swirled around the Insect Codex. Each one separated the medicinal juices from the surrounding cloudy, boiling water, then absorbed every last drop!

As this repeated, a hazy white glow appeared over the Insect Codex. The bottom of the tank remained clear throughout, allowing Yang Yu to see the changes inside easily.

"It really works!" Yang Yu was thrilled!

"The unsealing method from that dream was right. The Insect Codex looks exactly like it did in the demonstration... now I only need to add my blood and bind it to my soul. Then I can use this medicinal power to blast through the seal on its first page!"

"This medicinal power is too weak to undo many seals, but as long as I open the first page, I'll at least be able to begin using the Insect Codex's power!"

"Please, don't let anything go wrong!" Yang Yu gritted his teeth and prayed. He had been an atheist, yet now he was like the most devout fanatic. If the heavens were filled with gods and buddhas, he had already prayed to every last one of them!

If he could wield even the slightest fraction of the Insect Codex's power, Yang Yu would gain an enormous advantage in the world of ordinary people... whether he used that power to enjoy a life of ease or continued finding ways to gather rare treasures and resources to unseal the remaining pages would be entirely his decision.

Bubble, bubble...

The boiling water in the glass tank churned ever more violently. Although no external equipment was heating it, the surging medicinal power still released vast amounts of energy. Converted into heat, that energy drove the water's temperature even higher!

This phenomenon did not surprise Yang Yu.

He had seen this scene in the dream world's simulation of the Insect Codex's unsealing. Its appearance was a sign that the process was proceeding smoothly!

"Good!"

"Everything's going perfectly!" A smile appeared at the corner of Yang Yu's mouth, and his tense expression eased. Until now, he had been deeply anxious, terrified that something unexpected might happen. Only at this moment did he relax a little.

The most important and dangerous stage of unsealing the Insect Codex had already passed.

All that remained was patient, steady work.

He simply did not know whether, once unsealed, the Insect Codex would truly be just as the dream world had shown—a legacy of power left behind by the Insectoid Civilization...

Or whether it contained something else as well.

The sun rose and set.

The entire process of unsealing the Insect Codex lasted a full day.

A day later, the cloudy medicinal liquid in the glass tank had become clear again. Only a few useless remnants of herbs remained at the bottom, and Yang Yu had already taken out the Insect Codex, which had once gleamed with a dark luster.

Now, an inexplicable radiance suffused the Insect Codex!

It was as though dust accumulated over hundreds of millions of years had been stripped from its surface, leaving it brand-new once more...

Rustle!

Yang Yu casually lifted the cover. It no longer remained immovable, as though glued shut, but opened easily. As he turned to the first page, the strange radiance enveloping the Insect Codex grew brighter and richer. He even felt an indescribable aura of deadly menace settle over the entire study!

The first page of the Insect Codex contained several lines of small text and an illustration of a strangely shaped Insect Beast with eight bladed legs and a blue-and-red carapace.

Below these were densely packed, peculiar diagrams and incantations written in Insect Language.

Yang Yu tried to turn another page. As he exerted force, he immediately felt a tremendous suction coming from it. That thin sheet of paper seemed like an immensely heavy boulder, utterly impossible to budge!

"So it really only unsealed the first page? Not even one more?" Yang Yu frowned.

"Hm?" Suddenly, Yang Yu froze. Instinctively, his gaze focused on the strange Insect Beast's back on the first page of the Insect Codex. The creature in the illustration seemed to have come alive. It was actually beginning to move!

Little by little...

Whoosh...

At last, the Insect Beast in the illustration fully exposed its back carapace to Yang Yu.

His eyes instantly widened!

At that moment, Yang Yu felt as though a massive hammer had struck his chest. His heartbeat suddenly surged, and even the blood in his veins flowed faster!

Thump, thump, thump!

As Yang Yu's heart pounded wildly, a startling burst of red light erupted from the Insect Codex in his hands!

The red light poured from a diagram resembling a four-cornered magic array on the strange Insect Beast's back carapace. In the blink of an eye, it surged out like a raging river and enveloped Yang Yu's entire body.

As the red light spread, Yang Yu's study, too, was completely engulfed in a blood-red glow in mere moments.

P.S. This new book is up! Please add it to your favorites, vote for it, and send tips! Every little bit of support will help this book go further. I hope everyone who enjoys it will fight alongside me!