After the Combat Academy’s training course ended, the alchemist professor had already forgotten about the papyrus in his pocket. He excitedly pulled Evan aside and questioned him for quite a while, finally managing to extract the source of the special phoenix-tail butterfly.
The professor returned to his residence as if sleepwalking, casually hanging his coat on the rack. Only then did the papyrus that had been hidden away for half the day flutter down from the pocket, swaying as it fell.
“Oh!” The professor picked it up and stared blankly for a moment, then slapped his forehead. “I forgot to give this to Evan!”
He glanced at the heavy twilight outside the window, hesitating as he placed the papyrus on the shelf by the door, muttering quietly to himself, “There’s no time specified on it anyway, so it probably isn’t urgent. I’ll just bring it to Evan tomorrow…”
Thus, by the time Evan saw Ji Chi’s note the next day, Ji Chi was already at the southernmost part of the continent.
The southernmost part of the Demon Sword Continent—the Land of Buried Bones.
The Land of Buried Bones was an uninhabited gray zone. The maps sold on the continent only sketched a rough outline, and within that outline was complete darkness, representing that there was virtually nothing there.
This was also Ji Chi’s first time coming to the Land of Buried Bones—whether in the real world or in the holographic game.
This was a game map that the production team had not yet developed. Players had very limited knowledge of it, only knowing that it should be a gloomy and terrifying place, not suitable for minors.
Oh right, it was also the place of origin for most undead monsters, permeated year-round with dense death energy.
Ji Chi had just arrived here, and at the moment he too was completely in the dark. He had no advantages as a player from the future; all his clues consisted of only two ambiguous lines of verse.
“Thorns grew in profusion, and the underworld river flowed through the shadows.”
“A sea of bones coiled about it, and beyond the river the abyss revealed itself.”
Ji Chi chewed over these two lines of verse repeatedly, then angrily swung his demon sword. The heavy scabbard made a “bang” sound as it shattered a skeleton soldier that had been swaying toward him.
What I hate most are riddle-speakers! Ji Chi kicked away the skeleton head rolling around at his feet, then sat down cross-legged on a pale, hemisphere-shaped boulder in a sullen mood.
He ignored the wandering shadows in the eerie mist, propping his chin in his hands as he frowned in thought.
He was very familiar with the first line of the verse. He had once possessed a legendary equipment piece called the [Thorn Amulet by the Shadow River], which unfortunately had later been lost thanks to a few friendly teammates who’d screwed him over.
This amulet had been crafted by Hephaestus, the former God of Forging. Bard had recognized it at a glance at the time because Hephaestus had mentioned it to him.
Bard had once casually mentioned the story behind this amulet to Ji Chi.
“Do you remember that amulet I recognized when we first met?” Bard had suddenly brought it up one day, speaking to Ji Chi. “Long ago, my student saw descriptions of it in the God of Forging’s manuscripts.”
As Bard spoke, a look of longing appeared in his eyes. “You know, an engineer’s inspiration usually comes from the scenery they’ve seen and the events they’ve experienced. These are unique treasures, and also indispensable materials for crafting equipment.”
“According to legend, that Thorn Amulet was created when the God of Forging traveled to the Land of Buried Bones.” Bard hammered at a piece of red-hot iron while speaking slowly to Ji Chi. “He followed the thorns, traced the shadows to find the underworld river, and there experienced how precious life was, so he created that protective amulet.”
Bard stopped to rest for a moment, wiping his sweat with the towel on his shoulder, and sighed deeply. “I really want to see it for myself—just what kind of river could move the God of Forging so deeply.”
The memory ended there. Ji Chi casually picked up a bone fragment at his feet and scratched out on the ground: [Shadow + Thorns = underworld river]
What were shadows, and what were thorns? Ji Chi drew a nice round question mark over these two unknowns.
He raised his eyes to look at the flat, barren Land of Buried Bones. There were no buildings here, nor could one find a single plant—only bone fragments scattered across the ground in pale white, and undead monsters gradually approaching through the thick fog.
Crack crack crack—
A teeth-grating sound of grinding bones suddenly came from behind him. Ji Chi’s ears twitched, and he nimbly jumped up, reflexively dodging to the side!
A long, thin white bone tail grazed his toes and whipped against the magical beast skull he had been sitting on. The hard skull instantly shattered into pieces, sharp fragments flying in all directions.
Ji Chi quickly spun around and met eyes with the bone dragon’s dark, hollow eye sockets.
This was a Level 60 bone dragon. In the wider world, it would already count as a mid-to-high-level boss, but Ji Chi glanced around and realized that in the Land of Buried Bones, it could only be considered a common mob.
“Wow… Is this map really this difficult? Isn’t the production team afraid of being cursed to death by newbie players?” Ji Chi, who had obtained early access to the new map, let out an exclamation and silently lit a stick of incense for the distant production team.
However, while this difficulty might be a nightmare for newbies, for a certain god-tier player who was both a grinder and a whale with a miraculous thought process, there was no difference between Level 60 and Level 1—both could be dealt with in one second.
One second later, the bone dragon crashed to the ground with a thunderous sound, attracting the attention of many undead. They moved toward his direction through the thick fog, their shadowy forms gradually approaching like the shadow of death itself.
Ji Chi had no mood to tangle with them and lifted his leg to move to a different location.
But as he walked, his peripheral vision swept across the uneven ground, and he suddenly stopped, whipping his head around to look at the scattered remains of the bone dragon.
The pale bone fragments jutted out irregularly, spreading across the ground in clusters. They looked just like a thicket of pale white thorns, adding a heap of chaotic markers to the Land of Buried Bones.
“Following the thorns…” Ji Chi murmured as he walked toward the bone dragon remains, searching around them. “Tracing the shadows…”
He discovered that beneath the silent bones, a patch of shadow was silently imprinted on the ground.
Ji Chi raised his head to look at the sky. The Land of Buried Bones was perpetually shrouded in a sea of mist; the sunlight was scattered and separated by the dense fog. By normal logic, it shouldn’t be possible to clearly reflect the direction of shadows.
Ji Chi nudged the deep black shadow beneath the bones with his toe, the corners of his mouth lifting in pleasure. “Found you.”
The rest of the journey wasn’t difficult. Initially, bone dragons had gathered toward Ji Chi because they smelled fresh blood. Now, whenever Ji Chi spotted a bone dragon, he would pounce on it like a madman and brutally beat it into a pile of bone fragments.
After countless more patches of white bone thorns were added to the Land of Buried Bones, Ji Chi finally saw a black river in the distance, spreading across the pale white ground like a ribbon of ink.
Ji Chi slowly walked toward the river. The closer he got, the nearer the river became until it was right before his eyes, yet he couldn’t hear even the slightest sound of flowing water.
“You found it so quickly. It seems you’ve experienced much as well…” At the bank of the underworld river, a tall, thin figure like a shadow stood with his back to him, speaking softly.
Ji Chi came to his side and clearly saw his appearance beneath the black shadow—this was a man wearing a mask on the right half of his face. His exposed pale left cheek made him look quite young, but his eyes harbored endless sorrow.
The man gave Ji Chi a faint smile. “I thought you would come here with your friends.”
Ji Chi glanced at him, then returned his gaze to the underworld river. “Dragging your friends along to meet the God of Death or something—that sounds like something only someone with serious brain problems would do.”
The man was amused by this and laughed, not at all surprised that he had guessed early on. “You’re right. With my identity, I’m certainly not a good reason.”
“Then, Lord God of Death, what is your purpose in summoning me here?” Ji Chi squatted down by the riverbank and reached out, wanting to touch the dark-colored river water.
“Don’t touch it. It’s not something pleasant.” The God of Death first reached out to stop his movement, then explained softly, “I asked you to come here because I want to give you half of my divine authority.”
His tone always carried a trace of sorrow that couldn’t be dispelled, just like the underworld river before them—silent and heavy.
Ji Chi pulled his hand back into his embrace and looked up at him warily. “Although it’s not exactly a secret that I’m collecting divine authority, are you really okay with giving it to me so readily? What are the conditions?”
“I can give it to you, but I’ve placed the other half of the divine authority somewhere even I cannot reach. You’ll need to obtain it yourself.” The God of Death smiled faintly, then lowered his eyes. “As for conditions…”
He pondered for a moment, then said to Ji Chi, “Then just listen to me tell a story.”