FPE Chapter 30

The flash of inspiration that struck in that instant was like a spark capable of starting a prairie fire, crackling and burning away all of Chi Yizhen’s previous worries.

What he had thought of was: since magic beasts could squeeze through from the other side of the hole, what about people? Could people from another world also be brought over to work for him?

Once this idea surfaced, he couldn’t stop it. He began pacing back and forth, his eyes growing brighter and brighter, then ran over to the hole in the world barrier that had been suppressed, peering through it from behind a glass-like transparent screen.

Over this period of time, Fantasy Amusement Park’s business had grown better and better, directly driving up foot traffic on Taoyuan Street. The vigorous popularity gathered there was clearly enormously attractive to the magic beasts on the other side of the hole. More and more beasts were attempting to squeeze through, and their levels were gradually rising — before, the highest had only been Level 3 magic beasts, but now Level 5 magic beasts would occasionally try to push their way in.

As luck would have it, the moment Chi Yizhen leaned over to look, a Level 5 magic beast tried to squeeze through. Magic beasts of this level were not something the visitors could handle, so every time a Level 5 magic beast appeared, Chi Yizhen would reach directly into his backpack, pull out his large hammer, and knock it away with a single strike.

With a tremendous crash, Chi Yizhen — who had by this point risen to Level 6 — effortlessly hammered the Level 5 magic beast to death. The ferocious creature dissolved into a swirl of distorted smoke and vanished, and at the same time, Chi Yizhen heard a notification in his ear: +500 EXP.

Before Level 5, experience points were calculated as the magic beast’s level multiplied by 10, but starting from Level 5, the multiplier jumped to 100.

He wondered when the visitors would manage to reach Level 4 or 5 — once they did, his own level would be able to rise much faster.

Having finished off the Level 5 magic beast, with no other beasts trying to squeeze through for the moment, he sprawled over the edge of the hole and gazed out into the other world.

The hole had grown larger and larger. Originally it had only been the size of a football, wreathed in drifting, lingering black mist that made it look like a vortex, but now the diameter of the hole had been torn open to half a meter — wide enough for some larger magic beasts to squeeze through. For instance, the three-headed serpent that had been repeatedly fought in Jasmine Town recently; that serpent’s girth was roughly half a meter across, and the visual impact was quite staggering.

After the hole expanded, a fist-sized opening had appeared within the previously pitch-black, swirling mass of mist. Standing on Earth’s side, Chi Yizhen could faintly make out the landscape of the other world through that opening. Even though he had long known that any place capable of producing so many magic beasts would be no paradise, the sight glimpsed through the hole still made his heart lurch. Describing it as an Avici Hell would not be an overstatement.

(TL: 阿鼻地狱” is exactly Avici Hell in Buddhism. It refers to the lowest, most torturous level of hell, so it carries a very intense, almost absolute sense of suffering.)

He withdrew uneasily, feeling that his earlier idea had been a little too fanciful — yet he still couldn’t let go of the temptation of free labor!

For one thing, there were far too few items in the game shop, which simply couldn’t meet the needs of running the park. He couldn’t very well turn the entire park into something like the Purple Lake — if he did, it wouldn’t be called a park anymore, it should be called a scenic area. For another, the children’s play area at the very least needed to be a place where children felt happy and where it could enhance parent-child interaction; it required a fair number of NPCs, and hiring ordinary employees simply couldn’t achieve the desired effect. Using points in combination with game shop items could produce decent results, but that would be both costly and likely to expose the park’s secrets to ordinary people. Third, regardless of what the main storyline quest was, as far as Chi Yizhen was concerned, running the park was about resisting the magic beasts and protecting the world. Now, the hole in the world barrier was growing ever larger, and sooner or later it would attract the attention of the otherworldly evil gods on that side — or rather, before the evil gods even noticed, the natives of that other world might come crawling through the hole. If he made preparations in advance for establishing diplomatic relations between the two worlds, there would be far fewer conflicts between the civilians of both sides in the future.

There was even a chance he could win the civilians on that side over, turning them away from worshipping those evil gods!

The more Chi Yizhen thought about it, the more he felt he couldn’t pass up the opportunity of free labor — cough, couldn’t pass up the great undertaking of establishing diplomatic relations between the two worlds. So no matter what obstacles stood in his way, he had to build this bridge of friendship. The question was how to build it.

Having made up his mind, he swiftly opened the game shop and rummaged through it, finding an item he had browsed before — basic teleportation array materials.

On Earth, teleportation arrays existed only in fantasy novels, but in the other world, they were the most important means of transportation between major cities. Building a teleportation array from one world to another was impossible under normal circumstances, but in the face of such a large world hole, no matter how powerful the barrier force was, it would be weakened by more than half.

According to the rules of the other world, only extraordinary beings at Level 10 or above could construct a teleportation array. Chi Yizhen was currently only Level 6, so he said decisively, “Game, begin settlement.”

[Ding-dong! Settlement begins.]

[Your park has sold a total of 5,000 tickets over the past five days. You have received 50,000 points.]

[Your believers have slain a total of 660 Level 1 magic beasts, 320 Level 2 magic beasts, and 86 Level 3 magic beasts on your behalf over the past five days, totaling 15,580 EXP. You have received 12,464 EXP.]

[Congratulations, player has risen to Level 7. Your current remaining EXP is…]

[Congratulations, player has risen to Level 10. Your current remaining EXP is 120.]

Having nearly exhausted the experience points that the visitors had accumulated for him during this period, as well as the experience points he himself had earned grinding magic beasts late into the night, Chi Yizhen finally reached Level 10. He looked around at Fantasy Amusement Park, silent in the dead of night save for the distant howling of magic beasts, and found everything before him strangely blurry. He instinctively reached up to adjust his glasses — only to realize his years of myopia had disappeared.

Chi Yizhen was extremely excited. After all, setting aside the inconveniences of nearsightedness in daily life, just the expense of updating his prescription and changing glasses each year was no small sum!

He wondered whether the changes brought about by leveling up also included growing taller.

Chi Yizhen immediately found a ruler and measured himself, only to discover with disappointment that his height had not changed.

“Well, getting a clear world back is still something to be happy about.”

Following the instruction manual included with the teleportation array materials, Chi Yizhen drew upon the extraordinary particles he had already mastered and set up a teleportation array at a spot neither too close nor too far from the hole. Once it was assembled, he cheerfully took photos to commemorate the occasion.

Watching Chi Yizhen celebrate when nothing had even come of it yet, the game was at a loss for words: ……

[Is the player really that confident someone will be willing to come over and do unpaid work for you?]

Chi Yizhen: “The way you’re saying that means you’re admitting you have a way to bring people over, right?”

Game: ……

A teleportation array had both a starting point and a destination. What Chi Yizhen had set up inside the park was naturally the destination, but once it was assembled, he noticed a bit of an issue: although the barrier between the two worlds had become extremely thin due to the existence of the hole, it still existed. In other words, even if he managed to set up the starting point of the teleportation array in the other world, the array would still be unable to activate.

Just as Chi Yizhen was beginning to suspect he had wasted the points he’d spent on the teleportation array materials, the game spoke up: [The player may use an Interdimensional Travel Card as an auxiliary material.]

Chi Yizhen let out a sound of surprise. After several missions, he currently had four Interdimensional Travel Cards remaining in his backpack. He took one out and fed it into the teleportation array, and sure enough, the array lit up, its runic light flickering along with it, signaling that the teleportation array was now complete and ready.

“Thank you, game.”

In response to his thanks, the game maintained its usual cool, aloof silence.

Chi Yizhen paid it no mind. He returned to the security room, then took out two Interdimensional Travel Cards and applied them simultaneously to two of his character cards.

****

The other world. The Kingdom of Theodore.

Palace Captain of the Guards Raymond — or rather, former Palace Captain of the Guards — had, on his very first day on the job, allowed a criminal to infiltrate the royal palace, and then let a death row prisoner escape whom the Queen had ordered to be executed. As a result, Raymond had lost the post he had so coveted and been demoted to Hava City to supervise the slave camps.

Hava City was the nearest major city to the Kingdom of Theodore, prosperous in economy and thriving in trade. For an ordinary person, securing a post in Hava City would already be considered the goddess’s blessing — yet for Raymond, a nobleman of distinguished birth, being dispatched to serve here could only be described in two words: exile.

It was all the fault of that damned swindler!

After wallowing in dejection for several days, Raymond finally pulled himself together. He figured he was young and vigorous, and had through his own cultivation become a Level 10 extraordinary being — looking across the entire royal capital, there were few peers who could match him. As long as he applied himself, there was still a chance of being recalled to the capital.

And so he tidied up his appearance, took up his sword and his beloved horse, and rode out to inspect the slave camp.

“What fine weather today,” Raymond thought as he sat astride his horse, gazing into the distance at the great sun slowly rising over the mountains, his mood rather pleasant.

What fine weather today — Chi Yizhen, wearing Sal’s skin, thought exactly the same thing.

Using the Interdimensional Travel Card, he had set the crossing destination to the slave camp in Hava City.

After hiring employees, Chi Yizhen had more free time and had carefully studied the history and culture of the other world. He found that the known landmass of this world was roughly ten times the size of the Asian continent, though it was not concentrated but scattered, divided into territories according to race. In addition to humans, the local inhabitants included sea demons, elves, dragon clans, dwarves, and many more — over a dozen well-known races alone — which made Chi Yizhen, upon first learning of this, suspect that cracks in the world barrier had existed thousands of years ago and that the other world’s natives had long since been crossing over to Earth. How else could one explain how closely these races resembled those in Earth’s fantasy novels?

Of course, that was beside the point. The point was the races among them that were strange enough in appearance but, by Earth aesthetic standards, rather cute and beautiful.

And so Chi Yizhen had come to Hava City.

In this world, there existed a kind of devil — one skilled in scheming and eliminating rivals, with a wariness toward and crushing of other races practically encoded into their very genes. This devil was called humans.

Hava City was a city-state founded by humans: a human city-state built specifically for the trafficking and exploitation of other races.

And among all the races sold in this city-state, the dryads were the best-sellers, praised and sought-after by all.

There were many powerful extraordinary beings in this world, but there were almost none who moved as covertly and cunningly at Level 10 as Chi Yizhen, so his infiltration of the slave camp went extremely smoothly. By the time he was standing before the captive dryads, the gate guards were still dozing off.

The entire slave camp was enclosed by thick stone walls. Where the dryads were imprisoned, there were no shelters of any kind — only heavy stone locks one after another, connected to chains that coiled around each dryad, holding them firmly in place.

Chi Yizhen noticed that the ground was entirely paved with stone slabs, leaving only small gaps through which the dryads could extend their roots. Such meager nourishment was nowhere near enough to sustain them — it barely kept them clinging to life — and so they were all listless and sickly. Yet this did nothing to diminish their beauty.

Beauty, yes. These dryads bore a strong resemblance to humans in appearance; their dark green eyes and long hair were full of an otherworldly quality, their tresses thick and lush, their features refined and elegant. Wrapped around the ends of their hair, their hands, and their feet were green leaves that seemed to grow from within their bodies. Their skin was pale with a faint, translucent blue-green tint — a complexion that on an ordinary human would have appeared sickly and unsettling, yet on the dryads it possessed a fairy-tale beauty, as though fantastical beings from an animated fantasy film had stepped into reality.

More remarkable still was that the dryads were gentle in temperament, slight in strength, and had voices that were soft and lovely. It was precisely these qualities that had led humans to abduct them from their forests and turn them into commodities.

If Chi Yizhen had been in his true form right now, his personality would probably have led him to show sympathy, then figure out a way to free all the dryads, and after fully expressing goodwill, sit down and properly persuade them to come work for him — because this was simply too wicked, and as a self-proclaimed dryad-lover, he expressed his strongest condemnation.

But he was currently wearing Sal’s skin, and he had to act in keeping with Sal’s persona — otherwise he genuinely feared his eldest son would grow up with a split personality.

So facing the dryads who watched him with guarded eyes, he raised both hands, and let out an exclamation of admiration. “Beautiful, gentle, and powerless. You truly are heaven-sent corporate drones.”

The dryads had never heard the term “corporate drone,” but this did not prevent them from immediately grasping its meaning. Upon hearing it, these long-abused dryads instantly showed expressions of fury.

At this, Sal’s eyes showed surprise. “Why are you surprised? Have you not already come to accept your fate as slaves?”

Hearing this, the dryads trembled with rage, yet drooped their shoulders in helpless, sorrowful resignation. He was right — what did their anger matter? They had long since been reduced to lowly slaves. They could never return to their beautiful forest again.

Sal’s gaze swept from left to right and came to rest on one particular dryad — because among the leaves wrapped around that dryad’s arm, a small fruit had begun to grow.

This was the dryads’ way of reproducing. Once the fruit ripened, a new, tiny dryad would be born from within it.

Noticing Sal looking over, the dryad tensed and tried to conceal the fruit behind their arm. But then they heard Sal say, “You can still feel anger. You can still feel sorrow. That is rare. But I have heard that the Kingdom of Theodore has just passed a new proposal — they plan to establish a school for other races, to take in the young of all races. When the time comes, your children will also be sent there. In that school, they will teach the young that humans are noble and other races are lowly… and that dryads, as one of those races, are born to be the slaves of humans. That way, by the time your children grow up, they will have been tamed into the perfect pets for humans. They will worship and revere humans, and will compete with one another for the honor of becoming a human’s pet. Perhaps the only good thing about all of this is that your next generation will never feel anger or sorrow again.”

Upon hearing this vile scheme, the dryads’ pupils collectively shook with horror.