Abyssal Rift and Inverted Rain

"Wooo, woo, woo..."

After a long blast of its horn, the train slowly came to a stop.

Finally, Sinless City.

The latter half of the train journey had been uneventful.

Ji Xun felt that was only natural.

After the fierce battle earlier, almost everyone would probably assume he was in league with the wanted criminal "Lone Wolf" Baron.

Now that the mastermind had escaped by jumping off the train, there was no point in looking for him, the subordinate.

Besides, they wouldn't be able to find him anyway.

After the chaotic fight, the scents in the carriage had become completely mixed. Even the scent-type Spell Card Master hadn't been able to pinpoint him before, making it even harder now.

Most importantly, the train had arrived at its destination.

Once off the train, there would be no spatial limitations; it would be a vast ocean for fish to leap.

The people in the carriage were already packing their belongings, their faces filled with eager anticipation.

"Old Meng, where are we going after we get off?"

"Of course, we're heading to the Pleasure Pavilion for a good half a month!"

"Hahaha, I was thinking the same thing. I heard the Ginza Pavilion recently got a batch of new girls, really good ones. Little birdies say they're nobles exiled from the Royal City."

"Pah, those old madams and pimps are all full of crap! Come on, let's go check them out ourselves."

"..."

Upon arriving in Sinless City, the hunters talked the most about various entertainment venues.

After risking their lives on adventures, nothing released that kind of pressure better than physical pleasure.

Over these ten hours, Ji Xun had heard the names of dozens of different taverns and pleasure houses. He already had a clear impression that the entertainment industry in Sinless City must be very developed.

As everyone else prepared to disembark, he calmly moved away from the iron crate containing corpses.

Looking at the changes in his status panel, Ji Xun couldn't help but feel a sense of emotion. "My Strength stat increased by 0.09 in just over three hours, that's pretty good."

From "0.76" before boarding the train to the current "0.85," he could clearly feel a significant increase in his strength.

His Constitution, Agility, Resilience, Elemental Affinity, and other stats had all seen an improvement.

Although he still felt a sense of weakness.

But it was important to remember that this was the result he achieved without any strength training or potions.

It only took a few hours!

If there were more corpses, couldn't he just get stronger by lying down?

"If only there were more corpses..."

Ji Xun savored the sweetness of his gains, muttering to himself.

The [Demon Feast] skill might have even stronger effects after an upgrade.

But there was no rush for that.

He stood up and squeezed into the crowd.

He wondered if the corpses whose Extraordinary Traits he had devoured would be noticed as abnormal by others, so it was best to leave the train quickly.

Leaving the carriage, which was like a tin can, he immediately felt the air was fresher.

Although the air was thick with the smell of coal ash, it was a hundred times better than the mixed stench inside the carriage.

Once the train was steady, workers in blue coarse cloth clothes began operating various steam machinery arms to unload the cargo from the train. Almost all the steam machinery equipment had "Gold Digging Dock No. XX" sprayed on them.

The docks?

Not the station?

Ji Xun felt a slight doubt.

He put on his half-face gas mask and pulled down his deerskin hat, blending into the crowd as he walked.

He glanced around with his peripheral vision but saw no suspicious figures.

However, the group of poorly dressed little brats darting through the crowd caught his attention. Despite their young age, they were all skilled little thieves. Everyone knew that hunters returning from exploring ruins were loaded with treasures, and the little brats' dirty hands were already stealthily reaching out.

Ji Xun only had a tactical backpack on him, and his expression didn't suggest someone who had just made a fortune and was overjoyed. Thus, no thieves bothered him.

The crowd was all heading in one direction, so he followed along.

The buildings near the station were similar to those he had seen at the Demon Cross camp, with tall chimneys spewing white smoke everywhere.

The surrounding lights were still gas lamps. Ji Xun looked up and could vaguely see traces of rock, which made him wonder, "Still underground?"

He could understand ruins being underground, but how could it still be underground after the train had been traveling for ten hours?

Holding his doubts, he continued to follow the flow of people.

After walking for just a short while, his vision suddenly opened up dramatically.

At that moment, Ji Xun was utterly stunned by the sight before him.

He finally understood that this was indeed a dock.

And the real Sinless City was still on the opposite cliff!

"What… what is this?"

Ji Xun looked at the colossal cliff, which seemed like the edge of the world, unsure how to describe the overwhelming scene.

He felt that even discovering he had transmigrated hadn't surprised him this much.

Deep within the earth, there was a massive chasm, like a bottomless pit, unfathomably deep and impossibly high.

Ji Xun finally realized what the "Abyssal Rift" the hunters had spoken of was.

He had thought it was just a crack in the ground, but he never imagined it would be this exaggerated.

It felt like reaching the end of the world, with no path forward, only emptiness ahead.

And!

This world didn't have a sky at all?

Ji Xun looked up; above the rift was an endless expanse of mist and darkness.

No wonder he rarely heard words like sun, moon, or stars from the hunters.

To facilitate passage, dozens of massive steam boilers on the Gold Digging Dock were puffing out white smoke. Huge cable cars, powered by steam, slowly shuttled back and forth across the rift, pulling carriages.

But even the hundred-meter-tall steam boilers seemed like tiny millet grains dropped in dirt compared to the rift.

Ji Xun felt a profound, primal sense of awe at the sheer scale of it all.

Humans were like imperceptible specks of dust before this immense Abyssal Rift.

Even more astonishing was the rain within the rift.

In his vision, raindrops fell in a dense, curtain-like pattern.

But the raindrops weren't falling down; they were falling upwards, towards the sky.

This was the "Inverted Rain."

Looking again, the massive cable cars, upon reaching the cliff face, suddenly flipped 180 degrees before continuing forward.

Ji Xun truly couldn't comprehend it: "Is the gravity in the rift reversed?"

Did this underground world actually have two directions of gravity?

It felt as if the world was a mirror that had shattered, creating a rift that had also cleaved the entire world.

Below the cliff was a bottomless black void; falling into it felt like being banished into infinite emptiness.

Collecting his thoughts, Ji Xun joined the queue, paid for his ticket, and boarded a cable car.

As the cable car moved out over the cliff, it abruptly flipped. The hunters, long accustomed to it, stood on the "roof" of the carriage as if it were normal, and then, with the cable car, they shot rapidly into the sea of clouds.

Ji Xun also felt the sudden reversal of gravity, marveling inwardly.

As the cable car continued forward, the surrounding mist grew thicker, but the path ahead remained unseen.

He looked out the window; above was nothingness, below was the bottomless abyss, and he thought he could see the massive shadows of unknown creatures moving through the mist.

Gazing into the abyss, the abyss seemed like the world's eyes, watching the comings and goings of its visitors.

The cable car was like a small boat, sailing through the endless void, surrounded by mist and clouds, so vast it felt unreal.

Ji Xun was deeply captivated by this suffocating sense of mystery.

This rift seemed to be a gateway to another world, a new and unknown world beckoning to him.

After the cable car had traveled for more than half an hour, a hazy light finally appeared at the edge of his vision.

Ji Xun looked into the distance, finally snapping out of his awe at the immense scale of things.

He roughly estimated the distance; the rift was easily over ten kilometers wide.

And on the opposite cliff face, there was a dazzling spectacle of lights!

Rows of houses, like stilt houses, were adorned with various brilliant and eye-catching neon signs.

Sinless City had arrived!

With a clang, the cable car inverted, and gravity reversed back.

As soon as he stepped off the cable car, a group of alluring tavern girls and touts surrounded him.

"Oh, handsome, want a drink? The girls at our Catwoman Tavern are famous for being delicate and soft, guaranteed to satisfy you~"

"Our Train Tavern is having a masquerade party tonight, where you can do as you please~"

"Emperor's Bathhouse, where you can enjoy king-like service, with fully nude attendants for your bath, and the second person gets half off!"

"."

Ji Xun ignored the touts soliciting business and walked down the street.

This was "Downing Street," the place the hunters talked about the most on their journey.

The few city blocks, packed with hundreds of gambling dens, taverns, and various establishments catering to different tastes, were Sinless City's sleepless districts.

These intoxicating night spots would drain the wallets of returning hunters the moment they arrived.

Ji Xun walked into the city.

Sinless City remained an underground city, its architectural style unique, with steam and machinery forming the city's primary theme.

The city was vast and its layout extremely complex.

Buildings were tall, built against the mountainside. Hundreds of meters high structures formed dense forests, with various pipes and high-altitude bridges connecting them. There were also many buildings with hollowed-out iron frames inlaid with glass, giving them a dark, magical appearance.

From the distance, a faint green glow emanated from the city's depths – the luminescence of drifting alchemical dust.

And Downing Street was the most prosperous area, with brass often replacing steel, adding a touch of bright nobility to the streets. The colored glass inlaid in the taverns, illuminated by the lights, cast a dazzling, decadent spectrum of colors.

Ji Xun finally understood that Sinless City itself was an ancient relic.

The clothing on the streets was no longer limited to various adventure outfits; there were punk youths in leather jackets and pants adorned with bright metal studs, young girls in Lolita dresses, and steady middle-aged men in suits and leather shoes, girls in simple clothes selling flowers, and boys wearing deerstalker hats with cigar boxes slung around their necks.

If not for the fact that almost everyone was equipped with firearms, blades, and mechanical gear, it would have been a harmonious and lively city street scene.

Ji Xun walked down the street, observing this entirely new world, the crowds of people reflected in his eyes.

At this moment, a new world had opened up to him.

Without realizing it, he arrived at a Y-junction. A graffiti-covered, rusty tin sign on the street corner read "Downing Street 13".

Here stood a building shaped like a giant locomotive, its lit sign featuring a massive wine glass, bearing the name "Old Gun Tavern".

Ji Xun figured he needed to find a place to sit for a while, so he went inside.

He had heard from hunters that taverns were one of the best places to gather information in Sinless City.

For professional hunters, spending time in taverns was even more common than spending time at home.

As soon as he entered, Ji Xun saw that the walls were covered with various recruitment notices.

A group of people were pointing at the notices.

"War Banner Hunter Group recruiting exploration hunters, ¥1000/day, paid daily! Major discoveries offer up to a million in bonus!"

"Lion Mercenary Group recruiting professional mercenaries, veterans preferred. Card Master Apprentices ¥13000/month, formal Spell Card Masters by negotiation, excellent benefits!"

"Hunter's Guild recruiting contract hunters for exploration and reconnaissance."

"..."

Ji Xun glanced over them. The wages for hunters were generally good, with daily-paid exploration hunters earning the most.

Looking at another recruitment board, the wages for ordinary people were much lower.

"City Hall recruiting sewer cleaning workers, 1800/month."

"Hessen Pharmaceutical Company recruiting alchemy apprentices, 4500/month, requires basic alchemy knowledge."

"Green Machinery Factory apprentice, ¥2800/month, includes room and board."

"Gold Digging Dock boiler operator, ¥3000+/month, earn more by working more."

"..."

Ji Xun looked around, getting a general idea of Sinless City's cost of living and wage standards.

The risks of a profession were clearly proportional to the rewards.

He even suspected that the original owner of his body had been one of those so-called "exploration hunters."

In simple terms, they were cannon fodder who gambled with their lives.

Lacking strength, with poor equipment, and being poor.

It was like that Alternate Dimension, 407. Every time an unknown door was opened, there was a potential unknown risk. In such situations, cannon fodder proved very useful.

Sacrificing one piece of cannon fodder to gather some unknown intelligence was worth the expense for large mercenary groups.

Ji Xun didn't linger, and entered the tavern.

He wanted to have a drink to relax, understand this world, and gather some information.

For example, the "Thirteen Divine Pathways" and "Fifty-two Extraordinary Professional Sequences" he had heard about on the train.

And those magical Cards, the Abyssal Rift's Inverted Rain, the wondrous Steam black technology...

There were too many secrets in this world.

Mystery was right before him, within reach.

Dancing with the wind when it blew, walking alone under a dim lamp when it was dark, even falling into the abyss, he could still smile brightly.

Ji Xun liked this new world.

Thanks to 'Super Pineapple' for 1000 and 'Mu Chenxi' for 500 for their generous tips.