Sanity Value

The light inside the maze was very dim.

The dark bluish-green tones were intensely oppressive, and the air was permeated with a suffocating aura of terror. The passageway was silent. Occasionally, a gust of cold wind swept through, carrying mournful cries like the groans of wronged souls that echoed in the ears for a long time.

It was as though the pitch-black end of the passage led straight to hell, making every step tremble with fear.

Rusty swords, blades, and axes, shattered clay jars, scattered bones—every detail hinted at terrifying monsters lurking here.

Ji Xun looked around and confirmed that the maze's atmosphere had likely been deliberately arranged.

It was a highly sophisticated psychological suggestion, one that would subtly affect the mindset of intruders.

But he still did not know what purpose such an arrangement served.

As a seasoned puzzle-solving enthusiast, Ji Xun knew that one crucial approach to solving puzzles was identifying the arranger's intentions and ignoring distractions.

Just like the soundtrack in a horror movie—turn it off, and the sense of terror immediately dropped by ninety percent.

The more the environment suggested that you should be afraid, the calmer you ought to be.

Mm.

He had never been one to feel fear easily in the first place.

Having considered that, Ji Xun became even more composed as he walked through the maze passage at an unhurried pace.

As he walked, he left marks on the walls.

The underground maze was completely sealed off. Without knowing the correct route, he could only keep probing with traditional markings.

But Ji Xun knew that if he continued probing like this, he would eventually run into monsters, so he did not dare move too quickly.

As he walked, he kept thinking about where the key to breaking the maze lay.

Three hundred thousand laborers had been killed and turned into monsters. The odds of encountering them were extremely high.

But perhaps the fierce battle elsewhere had drawn most of the monsters away. He passed through several corridors without encountering any danger.

He did, however, frequently see piles of bones in the corners.

Yet he could not make any sense of them.

Ji Xun vaguely felt that he was about to grasp something crucial.

But he could not have been the only one clever enough to think of avoiding the Governor's Mansion group.

Just as he was thinking, he suddenly heard hurried footsteps behind him.

"Captain, there are more and more skeletons."

"Forget the skeletons, hurry! If the Keeper of Secrets notices us, we're dead for sure!"

"That Keeper of Secrets is terrifying! It killed the Frost Knight in one move! Damn it, what the hell happened? Isn't this a D-rank space?"

"..."

No sooner had the voices reached him than he saw three people running over in panic, as though they were being chased by some monster.

Behind them, dense sounds of bones grinding together rang out through the empty passage—crack, crack.

There was no time to avoid them. They ran straight into him.

Ji Xun focused his eyes and saw that it was Captain Dong Jiu and two other Corpse Collector coworkers.

But he did not care who the three of them were.

His attention was drawn to an even stranger sight.

The moment the three arrived, the bones that had been scattered across the passage suddenly seemed to awaken under some mysterious force. Crack, crack—they rose to their feet and turned into skeletal monsters?

Ji Xun narrowed his eyes slightly, a quiet note of surprise sounding in his heart. These dried bones really are monsters?

As if a chain reaction had been triggered, the skeletons that had been lying throughout the passage all stood up, becoming Skeleton Artisans one after another.

The instant these undead creatures appeared, the entire passage became bleak and sinister.

Rather than feeling afraid at the sight, Ji Xun suddenly had a flash of inspiration.

It was as though he had caught hold of something. If that's the case, then I think I understand a little...

The three people fleeing in disgrace were also somewhat surprised to run into Ji Xun in the corridor.

Wasn't that the newcomer?

Sometimes, one glance was enough to know someone harbored ill intent.

As the three came running over, the bucktoothed man's hand had already moved maliciously toward the dagger at his waist.

Ji Xun had been contemplating the skeletons' awakening. Catching that small movement from the corner of his eye, he muttered, "Isn't being alive good enough?"

He understood perfectly well why the three were doing this.

They were not stupid. Skeleton monsters surrounded them on all sides, and once they got tangled up with them, death was almost certain. Clearly, they believed having bait to draw the monsters' hatred would give them a better chance of survival.

Preferably bait that bled.

Hunters often used this method to lure monsters in the wilderness.

The bucktoothed man confidently drew his blade, apparently thinking that his second-stage Card Disciple strength would let him easily slice through Ji Xun's thigh?

But at that very moment, something he never expected happened.

The unfocused look in Ji Xun's eyes abruptly turned sharp as he drew his gun at lightning speed.

Almost at the same instant the cold glint of the bucktoothed man's dagger flashed, the pitch-black muzzle of a gun pressed against his head like a bolt of lightning.

With a gun aimed at his head, the bucktoothed man's expression instantly changed from contempt to boundless terror. His pupils dilated wide, filled with shock.

But this was already the final image of his life.

Bang.

A gunshot like muffled thunder exploded through the passage.

Without the slightest hesitation, Ji Xun pulled the trigger the instant he drew his gun.

He did not spare a second glance for the man whose head had exploded before him. Swiftly swinging the muzzle around, he aimed at Captain Dong Jiu several meters away and decisively pulled the trigger again.

He had not intended to kill anyone, but once he did, he would show no mercy.

The three were together.

Since he had acted, he had to kill quickly.

Bang!

Bang!

Two shots fired in rapid succession.

In an instant, the bullets carved two trails through the air.

Dong Jiu had been watching from the corner of his eye. When he saw the bucktoothed man's head blown apart by a single shot, he was startled. Then, seeing the muzzle already aimed at himself, every hair on his body stood on end. He instinctively stopped short and twisted aside, using his combat footwork to make an extreme evasive maneuver.

He was a sixth-stage Curse Power Card Master Apprentice who followed the "fighter" path. Both his neural reaction speed and muscular explosiveness were several times greater than an ordinary person's.

That extreme dodge caused one of the two shots originally aimed at his chest to miss, while the other struck his shoulder.

The bullet pierced through his shoulder.

Moreover, a transcendent's body was far tougher than an ordinary person's. That shot did not cause much damage.

"You!"

Dong Jiu stared at Ji Xun, who coldly kept his gun trained on him, his expression full of disbelief.

Was this really the timid newcomer from his team who did not dare utter a word even when his wages were docked?

Before he had time to think, Dong Jiu endured the sharp pain in his shoulder and abruptly flipped himself forward, kicking off the ground. The muscles in his thighs bulged as they exploded with force, his soles scraping the floor with a hiss. He lunged at Ji Xun like a leopard.

He was incredibly fast!

So what if Ji Xun had a gun?

At such close range, firearms were not necessarily faster than combat footwork.

Ji Xun's expression did not change in the slightest when his two shots failed to kill Dong Jiu.

He had to admit that Dong Jiu was indeed quite capable.

Using money earned from exploiting newcomers, he had bought a large amount of supplies and built physical attributes far beyond those of ordinary people. His fighting skills were not bad either.

Ji Xun knew that he himself would not have been able to evade those two shots.

Having strength did not mean knowing how to use it.

That was the difference in fighting technique.

Yet even after missing, not the slightest emotional ripple could be seen on Ji Xun's face.

His gaze remained locked on Dong Jiu. Once his arm had steadied from the recoil of his earlier shots, he decisively pulled the trigger again.

Yet the third shot missed as well.

This distance was no longer suitable for using a gun.

During that brief interval between shots, Dong Jiu lowered his body and charged forward, slamming into Ji Xun's waist. He rejoiced inwardly. This guy's dead!

Now that he was in close quarters, this was the ideal posture for an over-the-chest throw. As long as he used the momentum to lock his opponent's waist, he could immediately lean back and slam him hard into the ground. The target's skull and spine would shatter in an instant.

This was a lethal move.

But Dong Jiu's relief lasted only a moment.

The next second, his facial expression changed drastically!

Instead of lifting Ji Xun as expected, Dong Jiu felt as though he had crashed into a powerful bull. He was stunned. This guy isn't moving at all?

How was that possible!

He was already a sixth-stage Curse Power Card Master Apprentice, definitely an expert among Card Master Apprentices. His strength and explosiveness were both formidable, and he even possessed intermediate combat specialization. Yet he could not throw this newcomer?

Dong Jiu immediately realized that this newcomer was also a close-combat Card Master Apprentice! And his strength was even greater than Dong Jiu's!

But he could not understand it. Someone this strong would earn far more as a hunter or in any other profession than as a Corpse Collector. Why become a Corpse Collector, and why pretend to be so weak?

But Ji Xun gave his enemy no time to figure it out.

Seeing himself held around the waist, he took a step back to steady himself, pressed the muzzle against Dong Jiu's waist, and decisively fired twice.

At this distance, the throw would have been deadly.

But firearms were deadlier.

At least against Card Master Apprentices without Curse Power Bodyguard, bullets could still easily penetrate flesh and bone.

The gunshots rang out, and blood instantly gushed forth like a spring.

The bullets pierced his internal organs, and the color rapidly drained from Dong Jiu's face.

Ji Xun looked at Dong Jiu, who slowly collapsed at his feet and was still gasping, then gave him another shot to the head.

This time, he was completely dead.

The corpse fell into a pool of blood.

Having killed two people in succession, Ji Xun did not even spare the corpses on the ground another glance. He turned his gun again and aimed at the final survivor ahead.

Baldy Liu was completely stunned, his eyes filled with nothing but terror and disbelief. Captain Dong Jiu was dead?

He could never have imagined that the usually submissive newcomer would be so ruthless, killing two people without even a tremor in his hand.

Seeing the gun aimed at him, Baldy Liu trembled all over in fear. "Brother... no, big brother, don't kill me!"

Ji Xun tilted his head and looked at him, but did not pull the trigger. He simply stared at him coldly.

Pulling the trigger would only waste another bullet, but he did not do it.

Leaving one survivor alive

would allow him to verify his earlier judgment.

The killings had taken only moments. By now, the maze's skeletal monsters had gradually closed in.

These skeletal monsters were not particularly fast, nor were they especially powerful. Only three to five small skeletons attacking together posed a lethal threat to ordinary people.

But while their combat power was lacking, their numbers were enormous.

In the blink of an eye, hundreds of white-boned skeletons had flooded into the passage where the two stood, clattering as they ran about.

And more kept coming from behind.

Some of these monsters carried old axes, swords, and shields.

Though these weapons were worn-out, they were still deadly.

Watching more and more ghastly white skeleton monsters swarm toward them, Baldy Liu was so terrified that he lost all presence of mind.

He wanted to run.

But the dark muzzle was pointed at him, and he did not dare.

What Baldy Liu could not understand was that the newcomer aiming the gun at him was not running either.

Don't you just want to use me as bait? Why aren't you running too?

Ji Xun did not say a word. Holding his gun, he quietly backed toward another fork in the passage.

His experience at the 407 Abnormal Biology Research Institute had given him much experience and inspiration.

He now knew that obeying the Spatial Rules was the only reasonable way to clear the space.

Though the information he had obtained through Revelation had not been much, it was already very clear.

The keyword was: puzzle-solving.

Three hundred thousand laborers had been massacred in this maze, which meant there were three hundred thousand skeletal monsters.

To a Spell Card Master, these low-level skeleton monsters were indeed one-punch kills.

But there were three hundred thousand skeletons in this Great Cemetery Maze. Could you throw three hundred thousand punches?

Not to mention that there was apparently a Keeper of Secrets capable of killing the Frost Knight in seconds.

Ji Xun did not believe killing monsters was the correct way to clear the space.

So at this moment, he needed to clarify a few things first.

For example, the monsters' aggro mechanism.

Ji Xun's gaze remained carefully fixed on every movement and bodily detail of the skeleton monsters.

Standing at the fork meant that if his judgment proved wrong, he could still retreat calmly.

He was prepared for both possibilities, able to advance or retreat.

Naturally, Ji Xun had nothing to panic about.

But Baldy Liu, with the gun pointed at him, was already scared out of his wits. Terror had turned his face as pale as paper.

He could not understand why the other man still was not running when the monsters had already arrived.

In that brief moment, the skeleton monsters had charged to within ten meters. The creaking grind of bone against bone made one's hair stand on end.

At last, Baldy Liu could no longer endure the terror of death closing in.

Either way, he was dead!

Waiting to die was worse than running!

The guy let out a strange cry and, ignoring the gun aimed at him, spun around and bolted frantically down another passage.

A large swarm of skeleton monsters immediately gave chase.

Even as the skeletons surged in like a tide, Ji Xun remained perfectly still.

He neither fired nor fled, keeping his breathing as faint as possible as he hid in a pitch-black corner.

Because something bizarre was unfolding.

It was as though the skeleton monsters could not see the living man right beside them in the passage. Every last one of them went after Baldy Liu instead.

Watching countless skeletal frames race past right in front of him, Ji Xun's eyes gleamed. "So that's how it is."

He finally reached an accurate conclusion: the skeleton monsters tracked targets through fluctuations in their sanity. Or, in terms from his previous life, Sanity Value!

When Ji Xun had heard Dong Jiu and the other two mention the maze's skeleton monsters in the carriage, one question had already occurred to him: the skeletons were nothing but bones, so how did they sense and lock onto their targets?

Ordinary creatures relied on various sensory organs to detect targets—smell, temperature, sight, sound.

But skeletons had no organs.

They did not even have brains.

This was a wondrous fantasy world, but that did not mean it lacked basic logic.

Since skeletons could sense living people, there had to be some objective factor responsible.

He had not been able to test anything while alone, but then Dong Jiu's group had shown up.

His luck was not bad. He now had the conditions for verification.

Two corpses lay on the ground, their flesh and blood still fresh.

They had warmth and smell.

Yet the skeleton monsters showed no interest whatsoever.

That directly proved that flesh, smell, and temperature were none of the factors that drew the skeletons' aggro.

The possibilities immediately narrowed.

Ji Xun had also left someone alive just now to rule out the remaining possibilities.

In fact, when the three of them first barged in, Ji Xun had closely observed the skeletons' physical reactions and noticed something unusual.

The instant the skeleton monsters appeared around the corridor's corner, nearly every skull that detected a target tilted as though looking at it.

That did not mean their hollow eye sockets had actually seen anything. It was most likely an instinct left over from when they had been alive.

But it allowed him to determine the monsters' aggro targets.

Clearly, all their attention had been on Dong Jiu's group. They had not noticed Ji Xun at all.

Only a few of the larger Elite Skeletons seemed to notice something and turned their heads toward him. But the moment he put on the Clown Mask and suppressed his emotional fluctuations, the monsters instantly lost their target.

This allowed Ji Xun to rule out two more ways the skeletons might sense him: soul and breath.

There were not many possibilities left.

They were both living people. The biggest difference was that one was consumed by fear, while Ji Xun had kept his fear under control.

The evidence was right before his eyes. Every skeleton had gone after Baldy Liu, who was terrified out of his wits.

Thus, he reached his final conclusion: the drop in Sanity Value caused by fear was the most important trigger that attracted the skeleton monsters!

And when he thought back to walking alone through the corridor earlier, those dry bones had not awakened. At the time, Ji Xun had not understood why.

Now it seemed that from the moment he entered the maze, his Sanity Value had fluctuated very little, never reaching the threshold that would trigger the monsters' aggro.

The maze's environment constantly projected terrifying suggestions in order to influence the Sanity Value of intruders.

But it had little effect on Ji Xun, who had noticed the anomaly long ago.

Having figured that out,

the danger within the maze immediately dropped by more than half.

This was the level of difficulty the Great Cemetery Maze, originally rated as a D-rank space, should have had.

Ji Xun could already see hope for breaking the deadlock.

Of course, that did not include the Keeper of Secrets, whom no one had ever seen.