Chapter 923: A New Attempt

923. A New Attempt

“No. I have a better way to scout ahead. I’ll disappear for a while, so you’d better stay where you are and not wander off.”

Lin Ye took out the small knife he had used to pry open Su Yue’s skull and cut off one of his tentacles.

The symbols on the surface of his body activated, and a duplicate appeared before Lin Ye. He entered a third-person state.

Within seconds, the corridor was packed with duplicates.

Some of them touched the black patches, and all of those duplicates naturally merged into them.

As soon as a duplicate made contact, it merged with the black patch. It was like a completed action, an unchangeable, fixed result.

Lin Ye lost his connection to those duplicates. He couldn’t control them or move behind them.

The other duplicates were unaffected, however, and soon they had spread throughout the base.

The black patches spread across the entire base as well. Lin Ye kept sending duplicates into them, wanting to test how many they could absorb.

The black patches could reduce the number of duplicates, which was a good thing for Lin Ye.

Lin Ye sent duplicates into the black patches continuously for an entire day, but they showed no obvious change.

Zhao Jie was on the verge of breaking down. There was plenty of food and water in the base, but he had no idea how much longer they would have to hold out here.

Lin Ye had planned to keep sending them in for a few more days, but the problem with the special spiritual imprint had pushed his body close to its limit.

There was another problem, too. When the number of duplicates reached the annihilation threshold, would the duplicates that had merged into the black patches still be annihilated?

If they were, he might come into contact with energy related to these black patches.

For Lin Ye, this was both a hidden danger and an opportunity.

In his current state, he couldn’t kill himself, so he could only wait for the problem with the special spiritual imprint to erupt, or deliberately bring the number of duplicates up to the annihilation threshold.

Lin Ye chose the latter. His simulation attempts were limited, and he needed to find a way to complete this simulation mission as soon as possible.

The number of duplicates began to increase. As long as he kept them from touching the black patches, they would soon reach the annihilation threshold.

“Just a few more… That’s enough.”

All the duplicates collapsed at once. Lin Ye appeared beside Zhao Jie as a vast amount of special energy surged into his body. The special spiritual imprint activated, and his body began to undergo alienation.

“What… is this?”

Black patches appeared all over Lin Ye’s body. He couldn’t sense the parts covered by them, but he could sense another, incredibly vast “space.”

“Hey, are you all right?!”

Seeing Lin Ye suddenly appear, Zhao Jie, who had been on the verge of breaking down, felt a little relieved. But soon, Lin Ye collapsed onto the floor, his body covered in black patches.

Lin Ye didn’t answer. His body was undergoing some kind of deeper change.

“You can’t die! Don’t leave me here alone!”

Zhao Jie let out a roar and reached out to grab Lin Ye’s tentacle, which was covered in black patches.

As a researcher, he knew very well how dangerous this was, but he absolutely didn’t want to be left alone in a place like this.

The moment Zhao Jie touched the black patches, Lin Ye regained a little consciousness. He struggled with all his might and broke free of his body, darting out of it.

He had now become a grayish-white brain covered in black patches, and its structure was changing.

Just now, Lin Ye’s consciousness had passed through the black patches to another place. Zhao Jie’s touch had reached the patches on his body and happened to sever that connection. If it weren’t for Zhao Jie, he might not have made it back.

“...What a pain.”

Through this contact, Lin Ye had finally figured out what was happening here, but he still hadn’t thought of how to solve the problem.

“This attempt is already a bust. I came into contact with this thing. Next time…”

Lin Ye glanced at Zhao Jie. He still had no idea what to do.

This simulation mission was a real headache. He needed some reliable helpers.

“Ugh, I’ll just have to try it first.”

Before he completely lost control, Lin Ye used his nerve bundles to end his own life.

………………………………………

【Simulation Attempts Remaining: 6】

Lin Ye got out of bed in the dorm. This time, he didn’t go to the toilet. Instead, he lay on the bed and played on his phone.

He didn’t wander around that afternoon, either. He only began to act that night.

“Su Yue, there’s something I’d like to talk to you about.”

Lin Ye found Su Yue and led her to a deserted corner.

“What is it?”

Su Yue watched Lin Ye warily. She was afraid he had something to do with those corpses.

“I wrote a novel. I’d like to tell you what it’s about.”

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Thinking of his first simulation, Lin Ye put it as tactfully as he could.

“A novel? I’m not interested in that, and I don’t have time to listen to one. Please find someone else.”

Su Yue refused him outright.

“It’s a story about corpses,” Lin Ye continued.

“...That sounds good. I like corpses.”

Su Yue stopped walking away and turned to look at Lin Ye.

“Let’s put the corpses aside for now. They’re not the point. What matters is how they came to be here. By the way, do you have any friends? I’d like to find a few people to hear this story together.”

Once he had gathered his audience, Lin Ye began telling his story. He didn’t like lying, but he was very good at making things up.

………………………………

“So you’re saying that we’re actually researchers from some Research Facility, and now we’re trapped in a world of consciousness? Whenever someone dies outside, we see their corpse?”

In the dim classroom, a group of people sat in a circle, listening to Lin Ye tell his story.

“That’s how it goes in the story.”

Lin Ye leaned back in his chair and looked out at the night sky.

The previous few times had been so rushed that he hadn’t had a chance to admire the sky here.

There wasn’t a single star in the sky. Only a full moon hung there, shining with silvery-white light.

“Couldn’t this just be something you imagined?”

Zhao Jie didn’t really believe Lin Ye. Rather than believing this was a world of consciousness, he would sooner believe the corpses were some kind of mass hallucination.

“Whether it’s imagined or not doesn’t matter. The problem is that if we don’t do something, before long, we’ll all die here.”

Lin Ye answered calmly.

“What do you need us to do?”

Su Yue didn’t question his story. She had already felt that there was something unreal about this world.

“I need you to get me to the Moon.”

Lin Ye didn’t know whether this would work. It was just an attempt. He couldn’t bring out that Moon, so his only option was to try going up there.

Of course, it wouldn’t be easy.