Parchment

Chapter 6: Parchment

In the end, perhaps he resigned himself to his fate.

Instead of fear, a self-deprecating smile touched the corners of Lin Shan's mouth, the only lingering regret being that he had not yet had the chance to properly repay the parents who raised him.

He felt his heartbeat slowly fade away, his body temperature gradually growing icy, and the light before his eyes being progressively devoured by the darkness.

Right at that moment.

"Lin Shan... Wu Wang... Jin Tianzong!"

Shouts drifted from afar, and Lin Shan recovered a sliver of awareness, parting his lips to tell them not to come over, yet unable to produce a single sound.

Immediately following, a burst of firelight came into view, and three figures approached slowly, holding torches.

The moment the firelight appeared, the dense darkness suddenly scattered, and Lin Shan felt his entire body relax, collapsing limply onto the ground.

It's afraid of fire! The thought flashed through his mind, and he knew he was saved.

Footsteps drew progressively closer, followed closely by an alarmed cry: "Over here!"

"He's still breathing. Who knows why he passed out-hurry up and carry him back."

Upon hearing the final sentence, Lin Shan slipped into unconsciousness as well.

When he opened his eyes again, a warm campfire greeted his vision. Struggling to prop up his body, he found that Wu Wang and Jin Tianzong had already regained consciousness and were warming themselves by the fire.

"You're awake. What happened by the river just now? You were the last one to pass out-did you see anything?" Zhang Zhonghua was the first to notice Lin Shan waking up.

After a moment of silence, Lin Shan said in a deep voice: "It was some kind of anomaly..."

Hearing that it was an anomaly, everyone's bodies trembled, their gazes revealing sheer terror. An anomaly had actually been nearby!

Pondering for a moment, Lin Shan continued: "However, it seemed afraid of fire. As soon as it saw the firelight, it dissipated."

The group let out a sigh of relief. Having a weakness was better than anything; as long as it had a weakness, there was a way to resist it.

Zhang Zhonghua said earnestly: "Tomorrow, go scrape more tree resin to make torches. If all anomalies are afraid of fire, our survival probability will increase significantly."

Sweeping his gaze around the circle, he went on:

"Men and women will form pairs to take turns keeping watch, adding firewood to the blaze while the others rest."

"There's an extra man... I'll take the first watch by myself. It's still early and shouldn't be dangerous, and I don't feel sleepy right now." Lin Shan raised his hand.

"Alright, then we'll rest first. You haven't eaten yet-there are some fruits over there, help yourself. We ate them earlier and had no adverse effects. Call us if there's any disturbance during the night."

"Can do."

Once everyone else fell completely asleep, only Lin Shan remained awake in the silent, dark night. He looked at the fruit in his hand, first sniffing it to find no pungent, unusual odor, and then took a bite. An extreme sourness flooded his taste buds, but he could only pinch his nose and force it down.

Right at that moment, he suddenly noticed the river not far away reflecting a blood-red full moon.

Lifting his gaze to the sky, he found that it was indeed blood-red, looking extremely distant and only slightly larger than the moon on Earth.

So everything he had seen earlier, including the gigantic blue moon overhead, had been conjured by that anomaly...

An anomaly? He suddenly recalled that in the depths of his mind, he still possessed a parchment and a quill.

With a slight shift of his thoughts, the parchment and quill appeared in his hand. The dark yellow leather felt somewhat soft to the touch, yet exceptionally ice-cold, appearing rather eerie.

The tip of the quill was white, and its feathers were black as ink, belonging to an unknown beast. It was a palm-length and carved with mystical patterns.

"A quill and a parchment... What should I write? Should I write the wishes in my heart or the puzzles I cannot solve?"

Pondering for a moment, Lin Shan wrote gently upon the paper:

[What are you?]

The characters he wrote presented a golden hue, flickering before the writing vanished. A moment later, several lines of black text appeared on the parchment-standard Chinese characters.

[I am merely an ordinary, unpretentious parchment. Pay with your lifespan, and you shall know what you wish to know. Current remaining lifespan: seventy-two years and five months.]

Lin Shan stared at the black text on the parchment over and over again until the writing disappeared.

Well, well, an ordinary, unpretentious, all-knowing parchment... It even knew the balance of his lifespan so clearly.

Lin Shan: [How to return to Earth?]

Parchment: [Requires payment of one year of lifespan.]

Lin Shan: [Pay.]

Parchment: [Unable to return. Earth humanity will entirely cross over into the Ash Fog Universe within a millennium, and a millennium later, Earth will also merge into the Ash Fog Universe.]

Lin Shan: [How to increase lifespan?]

Parchment: [Requires payment of one month of lifespan.]

Lin Shan: [Pay.]

Parchment: [Transcendence.]

"Crossing over entirely..." Lin Shan muttered, staring at the paper's surface.

Lin Shan: [Where are my parents?]

Parchment: [Requires one month of lifespan as payment.]

Lin Shan: [Pay.]

Parchment: [Not yet traversed, unable to locate.]

Lin Shan was speechless, not knowing it would charge a fee as well. This was way too unscrupulous, and he felt he would die very quickly using this Parchment...

He wrote on the Parchment once more:

Lin Shan: [How to become a Transcendent?]

Parchment: [Any race is born with it, possessing only a single physique. Yet because of the Parchment, you were bestowed the 'Specter Physique', possessing two physiques so you can bear two Pathways. The 'Life Physique' Pathway has known formulas, requiring a 20-year lifespan payment to obtain the material acquisition methods and locations. The 'Specter Physique' Pathway has no existing formulas, requiring a 40-year lifespan payment to obtain the Sequence 9 formula.]

Twenty years-that was directly a third of his lifespan... This Parchment was not omniscient either, and he could not completely trust its words since it was inherently some kind of anomaly.

As for paying a 40-year lifespan to obtain the formula, Lin Shan did not consider it at all. Paying a 40-year lifespan to get the formula would in all probability still require paying lifespan to get the material locations. Even if he ultimately became a Transcendent lifeform, he would not have many years left to live.

Lin Shan calculated in his heart: if he used 20 years of lifespan to acquire Transcendent abilities, his remaining lifespan would only be 50 years, but without Transcendent abilities in this world, he might not even survive a week.

Lin Shan: [Pay twenty years of lifespan.]

When he wrote this sentence, he instinctively felt as though he had lost something, and a wave of weakness flooded his entire body.

After the golden handwriting flashed and vanished, a large patch of black handwriting emerged.

Parchment: [Sequence 9 -- Heart Light. Specter Thread Fish: Appears only at night. Plant torches around the Specter Thread Fish, and the Specter Thread Fish will have its movement restricted. Burn the main body of the Specter Thread Fish with fire to obtain its ash. Note: The Specter Thread Fish as an anomaly cannot be killed.]

After the Parchment explained the method for obtaining the Specter Thread Fish ash, the handwriting disappeared and the surface of the paper turned into the appearance of a radar. The gold dot representing Lin Shan and the black dot representing the Specter Thread Fish completely overlapped in the center, while the gray dot representing Ashatu and the white dot representing the Purple Soul Flower were at the very top of the paper, showing distances of 20 kilometers and 70 kilometers respectively.

"Was that thing really a Specter Thread Fish..."

Seventy kilometers; walking would take more a dozen hours, and there was no telling what dangers he might encounter along the way.

However, for the sake of Transcendence, for the sake of surviving, he had to go.

Looking at the red moon above his head, Lin Shan thought to himself: Tomorrow night, I'll get my hands on the spiritual ash of the Specter Thread Fish first!