Life Game In Other World
Chapter 399: The Velora (Long - Please Subscribe, Bookmark, and Vote for Monthly Tickets)

Chapter 399: Chapter 399: The Velora (Long Chapter Please Subscribe, Bookmark, and Vote for Monthly Tickets)

After class...

"Hey, have you seen that video?"

"Which video?"

"The one about the sea train that’s gone viral online."

"Ahhh, the one where the train runs on the sea? I’ve seen it. That’s got to be special effects, or maybe it’s a teaser for some movie. You can’t even see the tracks underneath it. How could there really be a train running on the sea?"

"Maybe the tracks are hidden? The angle at which it was shot could be just right to miss seeing the tracks..."

"Could be..."

People around were discussing as they walked by, and He Ao also started packing up his books.

"Are you coming for lunch later?"

Liu Nan asked softly as he packed his books.

"I’ve got a meeting later, over at the Research Institute."

He Ao glanced at his phone and slung his backpack over his shoulder.

"Alright!"

Liu Nan nodded and said no more.

The three said their goodbyes, and He Ao left the classroom, casually opening the Research Institute’s software and then putting on his earbuds.

The software interface displayed the chat history with Yang De from just moments ago.

[Do you have time at twelve? Let’s talk on the phone.]

This was the message Yang De sent him after he confirmed that he had also heard that strange noise.

Of course, Yang De originally wanted to call him right away, but after saying he was a bit busy, Yang De changed it to twelve.

Judging from Yang De’s reaction, the matter seemed urgent, so He Ao didn’t push further.

Classes ended at half-past eleven; that half-hour was enough for him to walk home.

When He Ao got to the bottom of his apartment building, he suddenly noticed a middle-aged man standing there.

Seeing him return, the man hurried over, "Ao."

"Brother Fang, what’s up? Is Grandpa Fang feeling better?"

He Ao greeted him with a smile.

Grandpa Fang was an elderly man who sold noodles at the entrance of the neighborhood, and he had looked after He Ao ever since he was a child. Recently, he fell into a coma due to exposure to some twisted Qi from a crazed Transcendent, and He Ao barely managed to save the old man using water mixed with Corpse Flower.

Upon reflection, that incident was just about a week ago, yet it felt as if much time had passed.

"Much better, he’s arranged to be discharged this afternoon,"

Fang Cheng also smiled as he looked at He Ao, "Originally, they said to stay a couple more days for observation, but the old man didn’t want to stay in the hospital. After discussing with my brothers, we’ve decided to move him to the city."

"That’s good. Grandpa Fang is getting older; he needs someone to look after him."

He Ao nodded lightly and then prepared to bypass Fang Cheng to head upstairs, "If there’s nothing else, I’ll go up first."

"Uh, Ao," Fang Cheng quickly called out, clutching a roll of money in his hand and trying to stuff it into He Ao’s hand,

"Your medicine really worked. We don’t know how much it cost you, but we can’t let you suffer losses..."

"It’s fine," He Ao said with a smile, waving his hand, "Without Grandpa Fang, I might have starved to death when I was little."

He gently blocked it, and Fang Cheng felt as though a solid wall had stopped his movement. By the time he realized it, He Ao had already disappeared from sight.

----

After shaking off Fang Cheng, He Ao made his way upstairs. Just as he was about to insert the key into the door, Yang De’s call came through.

"Hello."

He Ao unlocked the door while answering the phone.

"Mercenary?" A soft voice asked on the other end of the line, "Can you hear me clearly?"

"Yes."

He Ao responded and then locked the door.

"Here’s the thing," Yang De didn’t beat around the bush and said directly,

"At around eight o’clock this morning, Central Earth time, all personnel at the Research Institute, C-level and above, ’heard’ a strange voice. Everyone heard something different, but the effects seemed to be the same.

"The voice was soft, but it seemed to easily trigger some of our most primal emotions. Just now, two of our injured colleagues almost lost control when they heard this voice.

"How about you?"

"I’m okay here; it basically had no effect on me."

He Ao answered calmly, sitting down in a chair in the living room.

At that moment he suddenly realized that C-level individuals in the main world couldn’t hear this kind of murmuring. It’s not like Transcendents in the Copy World who have been enveloped by these mutterings from the moment of their promotion and have gradually become accustomed to it.

Although the muttering is soft, it rises constantly and can easily drive a person insane.

······

Transcendents from the Copy World seemed to be much more irritable than those from the main world, and this was undoubtedly influenced by these mutterings.

"Has the Research Institute figured out what happened yet?"

He Ao had previously speculated that this murmuring was related to the Higher Beings of the Copy World because after the Super Memory was promoted to D-level, some noise like murmuring could be heard upon activation.

This background noise was basically inaudible in the main world, intermittent in the ruins, and very clear in the Copy World.

And clearly, the ruins have a deep connection with the Original Federation of the Copy World.

"Our current hypothesis is," Yang De spoke softly, "that it is likely related to the ruins. Judging by the frequency with which the ruins have opened over the past decade, the ruins seem to be ’approaching’ the main world."

"This brings up another issue. Did you achieve C-level in the ruins?"

Yang De continued in a measured tone.

"Not entirely in the ruins."

To be exact, only a tiny part was in the ruins—the trace amount of Qi produced while practicing Martial Arts in the ruins that nudged him a tiny bit closer towards C-level.

Martial Arts involved gradual leveling up, so he wasn’t lying.

"About right," Yang De revealed a tone of expectation, "Many stable C-levels completed their promotion after returning to the main world."

As he said this, He Ao suddenly thought of the main world’s promotion methods.

Part of these involved using Secret Medicine obtained from the ruins to complete the promotion, while another part involved accidentally consuming the contaminated remains of higher-level exotic beasts in the ruins and then completing the promotion.

The puppet under He Ao’s control, ’Ruthless Bandit Hu Wen,’ was one who had consumed the remains of a C-level exotic beast and achieved promotion amidst madness and chaos.

This method of promotion was actually very dangerous because the transition from D-level to C-level required a ritual. Unprocessed exotic beast remains also carried severe contamination.

Hu Wen must have coincidentally completed the ’Ruthless Bandit’ ritual and consumed the contaminated flesh and blood to finalize his promotion.

However, whether due to the contamination in the flesh or the incompleteness of the ritual, he became bloodthirsty and berserk after promotion, taking pleasure in killing—practically half-mad.

He was one of the lucky ones; the unlucky might die right in the ruins or mutate into monsters. No one knows whether they ever attempted it.

"You must have found that special elixir in the ruins that can help with promotion, right? I’ve heard those test tubes are labeled with something called a ritual."

Yang De continued, "It’s strange how we understand the meanings of the texts on them despite not being able to read them in the ruins. Those who follow the indicated rituals for promotion have a high chance of maintaining mental stability."

"Mm."

He Ao nodded slightly.

The writing on those Mithril test tubes must be in Denis script.

The Copy World likely has a tradition of using Denis script for writing mystical content.

The secret medicine formula for ’Collector’ that he had obtained in the Regit Copy World was also written in Denis script, only he didn’t recognize Denis script at that time.

If it’s a mass-produced secret medicine or a specific product’s secret medicine, it is possible to have Denis script directly engraved on the test tube.

Doing so would enhance its allure and add a selling point.

Moreover, Denis script seems to achieve some magical effects, like the ’Collector’ secret medicine that He Ao obtained, which had a self-destruct effect after reading.

He Ao guessed that the Denis script engraved on the test tubes of those secret medicines with rituals probably also had some sort of ’disappear after reading’ effect.

Since we’re on the subject, He Ao casually asked, "Minister Yang, did you also advance through using potions?"

"No," Yang De laughed, "I wasn’t as lucky as you guys."

He didn’t seem interested in delving deeper into this topic, and He Ao didn’t pursue it further.

In fact, the answer was quite simple: there were only two methods of advancement in the main world, taking secret medicine or consuming exotic beasts.

Since Yang De didn’t advance by taking secret medicine, that meant he had consumed an exotic beast.

Considering that his Research Institute codename was ’warrior’, and the Research Institute liked to use Talents as codenames, Yang De’s Talent Sequence was very likely ’warrior’.

The warrior’s ritual is to rise from death; it was very probable that Yang De advanced by devouring the corpse of an exotic beast in a fight to the death.

No wonder he was so strong.

Compared to other Talent Sequences, the combat power of a warrior was indeed monstrous.

But He Ao felt that Yang De’s combat power was still lacking a bit. If it had been He Ao’s ’warrior’, the subsequent events at sea wouldn’t have happened; he could’ve killed all those C-levels with a single strike each.

At this point, Yang De had already started explaining further, "You probably completed the ritual and advanced to C-level in the main world, so you might not know that C-level Transcendents, in the relics, can faintly hear those ’voices’."

I know...

Those bits of information you thought I already knew from your previous narrative introduction, I didn’t have a clue.

Of course, He Ao couldn’t really say ’I already knew that’; he quickly summarized,

"So, you’re speculating that those ’voices’ are due to the relics?"

"Yes, actually there’s another piece of corroborative evidence,"

Yang De said slowly.

Right then, He Ao felt his phone vibrate, a picture had been sent by Yang De.

He Ao opened the picture, which showed an old-fashioned train racing across the twilight sea.

Twilight, sunset glow, the sea reflecting the sunset, and the old-fashioned train cutting across the sky and sea amidst the sunset, imbued with a sense of rustic beauty.

"The train in this picture is called the ’Velora’, a transnational train that starts in Ruola Republic of the Western Lands and crosses more than half of the Western Lands to reach the capital of Ankana Kingdom, Velora. The journey takes seven days and nights, passing through seventeen countries, and was known as one of the most beautiful scenic trains in the world at that time,"

Yang De explained.

"At that time?"

He Ao caught the keyword.

"Yes, this train mysteriously disappeared twenty years ago during its route, and all the passengers lost contact as well,"

Yang De explained.

He Ao: "Twenty years ago? I remember the relics only appeared eighteen years ago, what’s the connection between this train and the relics?"

"Yes, the relic passages first opened eighteen years ago, but the impact of the relics on the real world didn’t start from eighteen years ago. In fact,"

Yang De paused for a moment and sent another document to He Ao, "according to our data, someone has seen this train in the relics."

"In the relics?"

He Ao opened the document.

The time ratio between the relic world and the main world is one to twelve. Since it disappeared twenty years ago, if it indeed was in the relics, this train should have over two hundred years of history by now, but the photo showed it to be as shiny and new as if it had been maintained just yesterday.

However, now that it appeared again in the main world after being in the relics, the train was likely not as simple as before.

He Ao flipped through the documents.

There were two sets of documents from two different research institute staff members.

One was from six years ago, the other from last year, both individuals had entered the ruins.

They had all been transported to the wilderness far from the city, where they encountered this vehicle on the road. They were all surprised to come across a vehicle from the main world in the ruins.

Some explorers got on the vehicle, and then the doors closed and it left. They never returned, and they were not transported out after the ruins exploration ended either.

"This vehicle is very dangerous, we suspect it might be a B-grade pollution object,"

While He Ao was looking at the documents, Yang De continued, "In fact, a B-level member of the institute had already tried to find it once. It’s quite cunning and seems to be able to sense the presence of B-level Qi. It disappeared before the director could reach it."

"So it’s now wandering about everywhere?"

He Ao flipped through the documents.

"It possesses some kind of ability to travel through space. It has been appearing in places with particularly beautiful scenery,"

Yang De sent another document to He Ao,

"We’ve used a polluted object that gives us a degree of ’predictive’ ability to roughly determine where it might appear next.

"Based on our past data, it will stop to let some people on, but we do not know what the conditions for stopping and boarding are.

"Intelligence suggests that a C-level from the Tia Empire once wanted to board, but the vehicle did not open its doors for him."

"What do you need me to do?"

He Ao flipped through the document Yang De had sent about the potential stopping points of this B-grade train, as well as the stopping times.

He knew that after so much groundwork, the main point was finally coming.

No one visits a temple without a cause. Since Yang De was so eager to find him, he must have a favor to ask.

"We plan to assemble C-levels to intercept it when it goes deep into the Central Earth territory, then let a B-level director take action to see if it can be detained. We haven’t set a specific time yet; are you available in the next six days?"

A simple, crude, but potentially effective plan. The research institute likely still had some polluted objects that could affect the train’s operations.

"I am. Just contact me when it’s time."

He Ao nodded slightly.

"Good, I’ll get in touch with you again once the plan details are finalized."

Yang De spoke quickly and then hung up the call.

Ten minutes of groundwork for thirty seconds of business.

He Ao smiled and shook his head. He laid his phone on the table; the screen just happened to show the location and time of the train’s next appearance.

Alano Noti Island, local time 6:50 in the morning.

The place was acclaimed as one of the most beautiful sunrise spots in the Western Hemisphere.

He briefly activated his Super Memory to memorize this information.

The world around him flickered for a moment, the uncontrollable force in Super Memory that needed pacifying seemed to have grown slightly stronger.

The time left for him to complete the ritual was not infinite.

——

Alano

He Ao walked out of the mayor’s office, and it was now midnight, the stars bright in the sky.

A night watch pirate quickly ran over, "Boss?"

This was one of the pirates who had followed He Ao to this town; not too bright, but loyal.

"Get me a speedboat ready, and don’t tell anyone."

He Ao looked up at the starry sky overhead and took a multicolored ring out of his pocket, putting it on his left pinky finger.