“What are you doing?!” The vet was too weak to resist. The man before him was more cunning than any ghost, he wouldn’t be surprised if the man threw him to the demons. “Please let me live. I’ll stay to help you…”
“Do you know where these animal carcasses come from?”
“They are the monster’s victims, I love animals too much to torture…”
“Do you think the monster is really capable of opening wounds and closing them using medical needles and threads? Would it have that kind of medical knowledge?” Han Fei’s question stumped the vet. “I’m a very kind person, I would never harm an innocent person. Since this is between you and your creation, you’ll resolve it among yourself.” Han Fei dangled the vet before the ghost tattoo. After getting Nine Lives’ attention, he started a simple training session with the kitten using the vet as leverage. The most basic training Han Fei needed to instill in the kitten was—As long as Nine Lives didn’t harm Han Fei, Han Fei would help it seek revenge. The vet probably didn’t expect he would end up as a cat toy. With the vet’s ‘help’, Nine Lives finally learned how to obey simple order but its royalty remained a firm 0. Looking at the kitten who had gotten cuter in Han Fei’s eyes, he picked up the vet’s lingering soul and sighed, ‘Is it why people choose to keep pets? It’s quite stress-releasing.’
10 minutes passed, and the cat’s royalty hadn’t changed. In the end, Han Fei sent the vet into the ghost tattoo. After Nine Lives consumed the vet, its loyalty finally increased by 1. At the same time, another system notification came. “Notification for Player 0000! You’ve explored 10 buildings and successfully activated Yi Ming Street on the map. You’ve obtained a random exploratory chest, please open the map tab to accept it!” This was a mission Han Fei got before he went to Cattle Alley, he finished accomplishing it. ‘I almost lost my life just from exploring this street.’ In other games, normal players would have left the newbie village already but for Han Fei, he was still wandering about his first spawn point and his level was a pitiable 11. He had no idea whether he was progressing slow or fast.
Opening the map, a few weak lights were added to the endless darkness. If one didn’t look closer, one would miss them. Only by amplifying the map to its maximum that Han Fei managed to find himself. All the buildings he had visited joined together to form a glowing line that was about a finger long. ‘Just how big is the cryptic world? I don’t think I’ll finish exploring it in my life.’
The map of darkness was despairing to say the least. Han Fei sighed softly. He refocused and clicked on the exploratory chest.
“Drawing Random Rewards…
“Congratulations to Player 0000 for obtaining Grade G Support Exploratory Skill—Collector of Specific Item!
“Please select one specific item type, for example, food, gold, weapon or so on. After your selection is made, when you explore the map, when said item is near you, there is a chance for you to receive a notification about its location.”
This was the first time Han Fei encountered a skill like this and it was immensely useful. ‘Money is worthless here, food of unknown origin is no different from poison, weapons are not bad but I already have Rest in Peace. What I need now is cursed objects.’ If Han Fei was not heading to the Ziggurat, he might consider picking spirits. However, since spirits would be teleported to random places when they entered Ziggurat, it was pointless as well. However, cursed objects were not placed under the same restriction. After giving it some thought, Han Fei selected cursed objects as his interested items of collection.
“You’ve obtained Grade G support Exploratory Skill—Cursed Objects Collector!
“This is a passive skill. When there are cursed objects near you, there is a chance you’ll be notified by the system!
“Notification for Player 0000! There are undiscovered cursed objects at the pet store! Please claim them while you can!”
Han Fei had just activated this passive skill and it already paid off for Han Fei.
‘There are still hidden cursed objects here?’ Han Fei and his neighbours ransacked the place before their eyes turned to the caged Medium Lingering Spirit. The red chains that restricted the spirit appeared to be the cursed object they were looking for.
“Open the cage. The man doesn’t matter but be careful of harming the chains.” Han Fei’s neighbours immobilized the spirit for Han Fei to deliver the final blow. Rest in Peace easily cut through the man’s body. Due to his immense sin, the blade sliced through his chest like butter. The spirit groaned in pain. The wound on his body melted with the Butterfly tattoo. Black blood leaked out from the gaping wound and then a broken cocoon dropped to the ground.
“A human cocoon?” Han Fei hadn’t seen this in a long time already but he remembered that a lot of the outsiders controlled by the Butterfly had this cocoon inside them. The Butterfly used them to control the outsiders and made the outsiders a warm bed to nurture the cocoon. The broken cocoon was covered in sticky blood. The unknown worm inside wiggled weakly, it was about to die. Han Fei wasn’t paying it any attention until the lingering spirits at the pet store appeared to be attracted by this strange worm. They all wanted to crawl into the worm’s body like they could seek salvation that way. The worm that was cut open from its cocoon prematurely didn’t have the beautiful wings of a butterfly, it instead was covered in wounds. It couldn’t support the weight of so many animal spirits, it gyrated for several seconds before it went totally still.
‘The human cocoons are used by the Butterfly to control the spirits. The cocoons feed on flesh and humanity, the more complex their host, the prettier the Butterflies which would birth from it.’ Han Fei took out the human cocoon that he found earlier from his inventory. The small human cocoon had been properly fed. The skin was almost translucent, the thing inside was about to be born. ‘What will happen if I stop feeding it humanity but animality?’
Han Fei had no use for the human cocoon anyway. After a moment’s hesitation, he dug out a pool of blood in the mass grave under the pet shop and placed the mature cocoon inside it. Initially there was no change but slowly blood lines appeared on the cocoon surface as it sucked in the animal blood around it. Han Fei dropped the sewn together animal bodies into the blood pool. The spirits on the animal wailed and cried. As the cocoon took in the blood, the lingering spirits appeared to sense hope and they surged towards the cocoon!
The blood pool was soon filled with animal spirits. The spirits accumulated at the pet store gushed towards the human cocoon. ‘What is happening?’ The human cocoon should only feed on humanity but after it was stuffed with endless animal souls, the worm inside the cocoon started to mutate. The human cocoon which was originally just a thumb wide grew. The blood layers washed away the beautiful pattern, only madness and gore remained. After sucking all the animal blood dry, the human cocoon started to crack.
Han Fei and his neighbours were on high alert as they stared deep into the hole. With a ting, the cocoon broke but it was not a butterfly that crawled out but a strange insect that had two horns on its head and was covered in spines. It looked ferocious. The neighbours looked at each other before they turned to Han Fei. Han Fei was confused too. Why would Butterfly’s human cocoon give birth to something like this?
The system could only identify something if Han Fei touched it but seeing the spines on the insect, Han Fei didn’t dare to wander too close.
“Boss, for the time I’ve worked at the convenience store, I’ve not seen anything like this.” Drake tried to approach the insect but the moment he did, the insect made to attack Drake. It was incredibly aggressive. Everyone gave it a try and the insect was only slightly at ease around Han Fei. “Is it because I’ve fed the human cocoon with my own blood before?’
With courage, Han Fei approached the insect. Seeing a lack of resistance, he tried to touch the insect.
“Notification for Player 0000! You’ve found Grade G Curse Organism—Big Sin.
“Big Sin: An extremely rare insect that resides in the cryptic world. They are covered with spines that contain Soul Poison. They will only appear in years of big tragedies, they are portents of misfortune.” Han Fei couldn’t help but turn to look at his finger, “There is poison inside the spines?”
