CHAPTER 447: CHAPTER 415 BOOKS

The feeling of weightlessness vanished in an instant. Li Cheng did a forward roll and landed steadily on the ground.

The electronic eye installed on his back scanned side to side, capable of literally seeing all around and hearing everything, guarding against any imminent attacks.

"Is this... a library?"

Li Cheng stood up, slightly surprised. The surrounding area resembled a modern library,

the central air conditioning blowing cold air, LED eco-friendly lights embedded in the ceiling emitted bright light, the tiled floor was spotless, and the two-meter high solid wood bookshelves were filled with books from all eras and countries.

Crack!

A faint sound of whipping came from deep underground, created by the Estate Guard —

It had arrived a second before Li Cheng, following his command to target all non-human entities within its line of attack, pursuing them.

’The Estate Guard can be maintained for up to 15 seconds, its whipping causing immense psychological and spiritual pain...’

Li Cheng silently recited the skill description. At least during these fifteen seconds, he was relatively safe.

The Information Integration Glasses quickly scanned the surroundings. This place was indeed an undefined space that disregarded the laws of physics, as surface players had speculated—

Outside the windows were thick brick walls, and there were no bacteria on the floors or bookshelves, comparable to the cleanest sterile rooms.

And a few dozen meters away on the ground lay two devices, a drone produced by Whale Song, and a robotic dog from Prometheus. Both had modes for manual remote control and AI automatic exploration.

The Information Integration Glasses showed that these two devices were deployed inside by surface players nine minutes and fifty seconds ago,

just about to explore automatically. At nine minutes and forty-one seconds, they were suddenly drained of all energy and shut down.

"So, the ambusher here aiming to attack me is an anomaly capable of extracting energy?"

Li Cheng’s mind raced, immediately taking out boxes of lithium cobalt oxide-graphite solid-state batteries from the Three-dimensional Warehouse, ready to plug the charging cable into his chest at any moment.

These batteries were what Gray Rain had pestered him to buy earlier; stuck at the Bronze rank in the game and unable to climb, Gray Rain had wanted to overclock to boost brainpower, but overclocking increased power consumption, thus needing batteries as backup hidden energy sources.

Ten seconds, eleven seconds, twelve seconds...

Li Cheng counted the numbers silently. The fifteen-second summon time had passed, and the surroundings remained eerily quiet. The Information Integration Glasses hadn’t scanned any anomalies either.

Could it be that the Estate Guard was too ruthless in dealing with that energy-draining anomaly and scared it away?

Li Cheng raised an eyebrow. The potential death scenarios shown in the Suicide Notebook didn’t include the current library, suggesting his safety for now.

After pondering for a moment, he released Gray Rain from the Electronic Pet Egg, briefly explaining the situation.

Gray Rain scratched their head, "Where did the White Horse Tombstone go?"

"No idea, but they won’t be here."

Li Cheng casually remarked while attaching blade-shaped solid-state batteries like bulletproof armor to his chest and back, "Before me, there were three waves of players and a bunch of drones came down.

Yet there are only two unpowered drones nearby.

Either this area actively devours foreign objects, or the teleportation points to the Secret Realm change each time.

Considering the drones ran out of power nine minutes ago, the second guess is more likely."

With that said, he stepped forward, picked up the two drones, plugged them into the power source, and recharged them to reboot.

High-end scouting drones used by players have real-time video recording functions,

Li Cheng played the recordings, and saw that once the two drones were teleported into the library, the signal transmission with the outside world abruptly cut off, switching passively to automatic exploration mode.

The drones had just started to move out a few meters when a flash occurred, and a baby appeared out of nowhere ahead.

The baby somewhat resembled the character from the animation film "Boss Baby," chubby and adorable with fluffy hair, a pacifier in their mouth, wearing a suit and tie, and carrying a briefcase in the right hand.

However, unlike the Boss Baby, this baby bore a sorrowful expression, akin to an office worker forced to work overtime.

The sad suit-wearing infant reached out with their chubby left hand and touched the two drones. Instantly, power able to last for eight hours was zeroed out, and the recording cut off.

"Whoa, is there child labor in this Secret Realm?"

Gray Rain exclaimed in shock, "I thought only I hired elementary school students online to write my assignments."

"No wonder you haven’t been doing your assignments lately."

Li Cheng multitasked, flicking Gray Rain’s forehead while also attaching a blade battery to her and his own heel.

Bioelectricity is still electricity, and if touched by the suit-wearing infant, things could get risky.

Having prepared all necessary precautions, Li Cheng activated the Assembly Puppet Effect, violently connecting new batteries to the drones, sending them off to continue exploration.

Then he turned toward the bookshelf, randomly pulling out books on radio communication, maternal and child education, success theory, and art history, quickly leafing through them.

Gray Rain was puzzled, "Hey, aren’t we looking for the White Horse Tombstone? Why start reading now?"

"This area is an undefined space, possibly spanning dozens or even hundreds of square kilometers. Finding people without clues is difficult."

Li Cheng replied without looking up, "As for reading, books in all types of illusions, dreams, and undefined spaces, are quite special.

If books merely have covers with blurred text inside, it likely signifies an illusion or that the Secret Realm itself is of low quality."

He flipped open the books, finding text clear and paragraphs neatly organized. Publisher info, printing house address, expert reviews, everything was intact.

It didn’t resemble an illusion.

The two peculiar things were perhaps the books being too eclectic, languages from all over the world mixed in, and not organized by categories.

Additionally, all the books’ latest print was two years ago.

’Two years ago...’

Li Cheng squinted his eyes. Whether it was Gary Hoy, the Vietnamese Female Ghost, or the person with facial dysmorphia, all time points were two years ago.

Could this time point be crucial? Related to the entire Secret Realm’s creation?

Suddenly, a thud was heard as a book from one of the shelves fell off.

"Don’t go over."

Li Cheng stopped Gray Rain, who was about to run over, cautiously approaching with the Ape-man Degeneration Gun.

The book was titled "Robot Motion Programming," published in 2022, very thick.

Its pages automatically flipped upon falling, revealing two incomplete human faces printed on the torn paper.

They were Whale Song’s Binary Tree and the Red Spider from the Suited Thugs guild.

These two individuals only had their right and left half faces respectively, with the rest of their faces and bodies missing.

To some extent, they were still "alive," possessing some ability to perceive the outside world. Seeing Li Cheng appear, they immediately struggled and blinked frantically, imploring Li Cheng to rescue them.

"WTF?"

Li Cheng’s eyelid twitched. Binary Tree and Red Spider were skilled players at levels 28 and 27, and yet they had been directly sealed into a book.

However, what shocked him even more came right after.

"[Stage One Task Objective: Rescue Binary Tree and Red Spider before they’re digested]

[Task Time Limit: 10 minutes]

[Task Reward: None]

[Task Failure Penalty: Permanent stay in the Secret Realm]"

The system notification sounded.