CHAPTER 1220: CHAPTER 576: THIS IS THE "OLD FRIEND" YOU WERE TALKING ABOUT?!

He tried to perceive, but what he perceived was exactly the same as what he "saw"—everything was shrouded in a foggy scene!

The next moment, a piercing sense of tearing surged through the puppet and invaded his will. He felt like a fish tightly entangled in a fishing net, with every bit of flesh within the meshes pinched by a pair of pliers. When the wind struck, countless pliers pulled him fiercely in all directions until he was torn into countless pieces!

"Hoo—"

Lin Yi felt his consciousness completely torn apart, then began to reorganize under his will.

When he reassembled himself, the field of vision before him transformed into a desk...

He was thrown back, his whole body hurled backward and slammed heavily into the back of his chair.

"Hoo!"

After leaning back, Lin Yi sharply sat upright and noticed, upon looking closely, that he had returned to the classroom!

"I...?!

"What was that just now...?!"

"What happened just now..."

Those things, they were clearly real, yet at this moment made him feel immensely dreamlike.

It seemed like a fleeting dream, hard to distinguish truth from falsehood.

He was a bit bewildered.

But the next moment, an anxious wave suddenly appeared.

Immediately, an unprecedented sense of tearing emerged directly within his soul, like magma suddenly gushing from a cracked underground, deeply enveloping him.

This seemed to be the pain caused by the puppet being blown into pieces by that gust of wind, which, tracing the path of "Will Transition," descended upon him!

This was a kind of delayed intense pain, roaring like a tide, permeating every inch of his consciousness.

Lin Yi’s face turned as pale as paper in an instant, bead-sized sweat drops rolled down his forehead, and his body shivered uncontrollably, nearly unable to recover from this sudden agony.

He was almost suffocating; it took a long time before he could gasp large breaths of air.

"Damn... it feels like being slashed through the river of time by the force of causation, like in a novel."

Lin Yi couldn’t help lamenting in his heart. That so-called special calamity perhaps was like this...

"But speaking of which..."

When his will was vested onto the puppet, it had already been transferred once, but that gust of wind tracked him and slashed two levels, knocking him back into his body!

Without Tian Bufan’s summon, it was like lacking coordinates, making it seem a bit difficult to transition his will again.

He looked down at his watch.

10:16.

The figure of Class Teacher-040 at the podium had already left.

In the classroom, Xu Shunkang and the others had also left, presumably all heading to the cafeteria.

The cafeteria opens at 10:40; theoretically, leaving the classroom at this point makes sense.

However, he hesitated, as the cafeteria is open until 13:20, allowing him to address Tian Bufan’s matters a bit later.

Only...

"Why hasn’t Young Master Tian summoned me yet?"

Did Tian Bufan prepare so many puppets just to use them as cannon fodder once?

He glanced at Wei Liang.

Wei Liang had switched to a different book, but didn’t urge him to the cafeteria.

"Liangzi, let’s sit a little longer and then go to the cafeteria?"

Wei Liang bowed his head, engrossed in his book, oblivious of him.

"Liangzi...?"

"Alright, alright, you go ahead, call me when you’re leaving, don’t disturb my appreciation of art." Wei Liang waved impatiently, his gaze hardly leaving his book.

Lin Yi somewhat understood, Wei Liang wasn’t in a hurry.

And if Wei Liang wasn’t in a hurry, it was probably because he knew what Tian Bufan was doing.

After all, he was referred to by Tian Bufan as Fortune Life Wei Liang the Celestial.

Just then, Tian Bufan’s calling voice emerged in his ears again.

"Old Lin..."

Lin Yi’s eyes brightened, he immediately began to sense.

This time, as he expanded his perception, a new intuition appeared.

Just like last time, he saw twisted, broken spatial lines that defied physical description, and this time, he also clearly saw a faint light point within.

"Is that Young Master Tian’s ’coordinate’?"

He carefully controlled his will to permeate through, and soon, thin mists began to emerge around him again, below which was a fuzzy field like a cotton ball.

Within the domain was none other than the figure of Tian Bufan.

He plunged his consciousness, and it fell into Tian Bufan’s body.

...

In the Green Forest Belt.

Lin Yi’s voice echoed in Tian Bufan’s heart: "I’m back, Young Master Tian."

Tian Bufan’s eyes brightened: "Good."

"What was that thing? It felt a bit like a ’Big Snake’..." Lin Yi couldn’t help but speculate.

"Big Snake" refers to the "Shadow of Origin," also called "Ymir’s Shadow."

If he didn’t know clearly that the location of the "Big Snake" required traversing the Corpse Bone Forest, situated between the campus and the Layer Rift of the Art Building, he might have mistaken it for the "Big Snake."

Tian Bufan said, "How do you know it’s not? That indeed is your so-called ’Big Snake.’"

"But... I remember it’s clearly at..." Lin Yi questioned in confusion.

"Between the Layer Rift, right? Didn’t we just go there earlier?" Tian Bufan said calmly, "By the time you created the puppet, it was already late. Yet from the time we went in until it wiped us out, for Kuai Kuai who’s here, only 2 minutes passed."

Lin Yi’s heart clenched: "Was the time scale stretched?"

"Exactly, time in the depths of the layers is chaotic," Tian Bufan explained, "so..."

"Wait, no!" Lin Yi suddenly thought of something, "That ’Big Snake’! Is it the ’old friend’ you mentioned?!"

"Since when did we have such a friend?!"

"Also, what kind of ’old friend’ blows us up with gold coins on the first meeting?!"

Tian Bufan said nonchalantly, "It has quite a temper, let it vent. Okay, if you’re ready, we’ll proceed inside again."

"Going to get trashed again?" Lin Yi couldn’t help but comment.

"We’ll send a few waves first." Tian Bufan replied, "Let it vent... then it’ll talk to us properly."

Lin Yi suddenly thought of something and couldn’t help but ask, "When you made the deal with Night Watchman-02, wasn’t it like this too? Using puppets? Sending a few waves first?"

Tian Bufan said, "Not sure."

He was tight-lipped, not giving Lin Yi any information.

"So why are we going to it...?" Lin Yi asked.

Tian Bufan’s will penetrated into Puppet No. 2, "Of course, it’s to negotiate conditions."

"Is it relevant to us completing the task?" Lin Yi asked tentatively.

Tian Bufan smiled mysteriously, "Not really related, but it’s crucial."

"If you want to know, come with me."

Lin Yi naturally followed Puppet No. 2 without any hesitation.

Tian Bufan then once again drove the puppet to traverse, heading towards where the "Big Snake" resided.

...

A moment later.

"I’m here to negotiate a dea—"

"Boom—"

...

The puppet was once again blown apart, and immediately, Lin Yi’s consciousness appeared amid the dense mist.

But this time, within the mist, he found the twisted, broken spatial layer and, at the first moment, captured Tian Bufan’s coordinate beneath the mist, seeing that piece of domain.

So he hurriedly descended again.

And then, returned into Tian Bufan’s body.

"Haha, this time I wasn’t flung back to the Teaching Building!" he exclaimed excitedly.

Tian Bufan nodded slightly, "This is your ’adaptation’ trait. Alright, now we still need more puppets..."

"Creating puppets takes a lot of time; will we make it?" Lin Yi hesitated.

Tian Bufan said, "The two puppets earlier were just for your practice. Next, we will head deep into the Corpse Bone Forest and create puppets directly on the edge of the Layer Rift. The time distortion over there is significant, but it doesn’t impact us high-level polluters much, plus you have a watch and the ’Ouroboros Ring,’ it should be enough."

"Should I wear the ’Ouroboros Ring’ now?"

"You don’t need to wear it at all; it will put itself on when necessary, after all, it is also... never mind, let’s not talk about it."

Lin Yi: "Ka...?"