Chapter 62: Stepping Toward the Future

[Back Again]

Zhang Chengyi felt the familiar emptiness and, in a deeply human-like gesture, let out a long sigh deep within his mind.

After leaving Bianliang, he had casually chosen a direction, found some unfamiliar, towering mountain, and used the Six Meridians Divine Sword with his bare hands to carve out an underground chamber. Anyway, since he practiced the Turtle Breathing Art, he had no need to breathe, and his inner Qi flowed endlessly without fear of exhaustion. When logging out of the game, he used a speed-altering gear to accelerate the world's time while decelerating his body's subjective time, living years as if they were a single day in the truest sense.

Considering that moving too fast might cause him to miss many events and perhaps fail to see some old friends in the future, he hesitated for a moment before adjusting the time ratio to one month to twenty years—meaning one month passed for his body, while twenty years flowed in the world.

Because his true body existed outside the world, the time anchor was himself, and the "game" time across different worlds was synchronized.

In other words, by spending a month or two resting peacefully in a world, he could see whether martial arts had made any breakthroughs in the future.

Transforming from a martial arts RPG into an idle cultivation game—not bad at all. When he was on Earth, he used to play games with very complex genres, and the sense of fulfillment from idle cultivation was bound to be immensely satisfying.

[Next, let's find a game to log into.]

Having stayed outside the world for just a short moment, that sense of emptiness quickly spread from the inside out. His perception and emotions seemed to be constantly draining away. Outside the world, there was nothing, and nothing could be felt; for a "human," it was simply too agonizing.

With a thought, countless tiny stars welled up in his mind. The fundamental reason he couldn't determine what kind of world he was logging into was simply that these worlds were all too small.

In his perception, trying to figure out what those worlds—countless as the sands of the Ganges—were actually like was just like a person lying on a beach trying to see clearly the carvings on a single grain of sand.

He couldn't squeeze his true self in, and to his eyes, countless worlds were mere grains of sand; how could a "person" possibly squeeze into a grain of sand?

Therefore, if he wanted to find a body to accommodate himself, breaking through the native world was truly a basic requirement.

[Hopefully, it's a world with a decent power level.]

Zhang Chengyi picked a few grains of sand quite casually. Once his ability activated, his consciousness split, burrowed into the "sand," and entered the "game."

[Low-level data interfacing...]
[Sensory synchronization...]
[Loading successful...]

In some world, Zhang Chengyi (Number One) opened his eyes. Huh? Instead of a clear view, what met his eyes was as if he were looking through a layer of frosted glass; the whole world was blurry.

Damn it, surely he wasn't unlucky enough to log into a blind body?

Immediately afterward, a mad, ravenous appetite surged up. He directly ignored it; what did the state of a game character have to do with a player like him? However, sensing vaguely that something was amiss, he quickly opened his status bar and attribute panel.

[Zombification]
[Strength +-] [Speed +-] [Decay +-] [Infection +-]

Oh ho.

Zhang Chengyi roughly understood what was going on; the game he had logged into was a zombie.

There was one point worth noting: the data that could be modified through addition and subtraction differed depending on the "game" of each world. Based on the system scan, he could freely adjust the data that the body's physical limits allowed to change.

For instance, with a human in the Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils world, the data he could adjust after logging in was: [Physique +-], [Age +].

Physique encompassed all-around enhancement, with the future possibility of decrease or increase, so he could adjust it freely. However, the initial age at the time of logging in was fixed, so he could only increase it and then decrease it.

As for things like comprehension and innate talent, since the body itself had no possibility of changing them, they could not be modified.

The bodily data of this zombie had quite a few interesting aspects. What could be adjusted wasn't physique, but strength, speed, the degree of decay, and infectious capacity—things that should normally be impossible for a normal human to possess.

Should he just discard this body?

Zhang Chengyi hesitated for a moment, then decided to take a look around this world first. Zombie settings usually meant an apocalyptic background, and a real-life apocalyptic experience sounded rather thrilling; discarding it right away would mean losing out on a novel experience.

He would observe for the time being.

He decisively modified the degree of decay and infectious capacity all the way down to zero. His vision cleared up a bit, though things were still somewhat indistinct. His sense of smell recovered slightly, feeling rather like having a stuffed nose from a cold, while his hearing was quite decent. Reaching out, he fumbled around his surroundings; he seemed to be in a wooden hallway, with corpses lying directly in front of and behind him.

The sticky, gooey texture of the blood was disgusting.

Zhang Chengyi wiped his hands repeatedly against the wall, slowly braced himself against it, and stood up. The quiet environment allowed him to hear heavy panting from not far away, and he walked step by step toward it.

Although his vision was still inadequate, it was enough for him. As long as he didn't engage in violent movements or drastic environmental changes, he could completely rely on his blurry sight and sound, utilizing blind-fighting techniques in his mind to gather information and simulate the environment.

"Who is it?"

Accented Japanese rang out. To him, language was not a problem; whatever he spoke, even if it were random gibberish, would be translated into something the other party could understand and conveyed to them. Meanwhile, what others spoke, as long as it was a systematic "language," would be translated into something he could comprehend.

The voice sounded somewhat aged, belonging to a very weak man. As he drew closer, he could also sense a blurry little figure beside the man.

It should be a child.

"Hello, is anyone there?" Zhang Chengyi asked aloud.

"Cough..." The man gave a heavy cough and asked, "Is that you, Nakano-kun?"

"I'm sorry, I've dragged everyone down with me..."

So close that even he could make out shapes, yet the man on the opposite side still couldn't see him?

Zhang Chengyi had already prepared himself to be attacked as a zombie, but who would have expected to hear such a weak, questioning remark? The crucial point was that the bodies he had logged into were both deceased—the hunter in Demi-Gods and this zombie were both dead, and they couldn't inherit memories either. So how should he reply?

He pondered for a few seconds and replied, "I'm not Nakano. Who are you?"

"I see," the man muttered to himself, then suddenly gave a hard cough and said, "Whether you are Nakano or not, I am deeply sorry, comrade."

He seemed to be suppressing some kind of emotion, and for no apparent reason, he began to sing:

[Perhaps I want to hear an eternal lie]
[That is why I am still getting dead drunk on the streets today]
[I want to hear an eternal lie]
[Saying that we are still on the journey, moving ever forward]
[You, just give me an eternal lie...]

"Bang!"

A gunshot rang out, and the singing abruptly stopped.

"This song..." Zhang Chengyi was momentarily stunned. As a Chinese person, a successor of socialism, who had once harbored a heart full of passion, he knew the meaning of this song.

An address like "comrade" was something he hadn't heard from anyone in a very long time.

Long-dead memories were violently assaulting him. He stood in place, silent for a moment, before returning to reality and speaking out: "Hey, kid, let's go."

With eyesight this poor, if he wanted to continue exploring this new world, he would inevitably need a pair of "eyes."

Trading survival for the right to use those "eyes," while incidentally gaining some information about this world, was a transaction he could accept.