CHAPTER 609: CHAPTER 531: LUNG REPLACEMENT

The resonant tolling of the bell echoed from afar.

"An hour has passed? So quickly?" Claudia, sipping on her magic refilling potion, downed the rest in one gulp, feeling as though it had been just a moment since the players had received their task from the little jump rope girl, yet they were hearing the bell again.

The players dared not delay, hurriedly grabbed the gas cylinders and rushed back to the Robinson Store,

The shop’s front door was wide open. The Hundred-legged Octopus, soaking in the tank, was simultaneously controlling a broom, mop, cloth, and wrench with telekinesis to clean the house and fix leaks. There was still some work left to complete the repairs.

"Back already?" The half-transparent shop owner Robinson sat behind the counter. Seeing the players appear, he put down the box of cigarettes he was toying with, "Didn’t run into any trouble, did you?"

"The priest in the church was parasitized by some kind of mechanical python and attacked us. Do you know what that’s about?" Wanli Sealed Blade asked solemnly,

"Maybe it’s the work of the Return Sect? They’re fond of launching terror attacks, targeting all residents unwilling to stay in their rooms."

Robinson said nonchalantly, taking the metallic gas cylinder reflecting a silver sheen with his left hand, while lifting his shirt with his right, exposing the intricate mechanical organs beneath his ribcage.

The pupils of Claudia and the other players shrank. Companies like Prometheus on Real Earth also produced small batches of high-precision embodied intelligent robots for medical, elderly care, and military use.

However, their refinement was far inferior to Robinson’s—each finger, each muscle had degrees of freedom, driven by independent joints at millimeter, or even micrometer levels.

If the advanced level of the embodied intelligent robots in reality was 100%, and the T-800 in the movie Terminator was about 130%, then Robinson was at least 220%.

As for Gray Rain, she couldn’t be measured by that standard—she could write tearfully with genuine yearning for increased national precipitation, river drainage, solar energy, and wind energy in a middle school Chinese essay.

It gave the grading AI quite the headache.

"..."

The players watched silently as Robinson disassembled his metal-cylinder-shaped left lung from his chest and replaced it with a new bottled lung, breathing a long sigh of comfort, "Haa—"

The old lung, placed on the table, showed zero pressure inside on the gauge, no residual high-pressure gas.

As soon as the two new lungs were installed, they also turned semi-transparent. Robinson closed his lung’s skin, casually opened the refrigerator, and quickly said, "Haven’t breathed this freely in so long. Grab the ice cream you wanted. Also, a friendly reminder,"

His expression turned serious, "You’re running out of time."

"Understood, thank you." Li Cheng found the matcha ice cream in the freezer, adding some ice cubes, insulated it with an aluminum bag, and ran out to the street without hesitation, sprinting toward the town center.

"Why, why not wait for the Hundred Feet to finish repairing the house first?"

Mian Yue was chasing, gasping. As an agility system long-range Transcendent, she could run marathons without panting, yet now she felt as though weighed down, every motion consuming increasingly more energy.

Li Cheng didn’t look back, "There were six high-pressure gas cylinder lungs in the church. Two were delivered to Robinson, leaving us only four."

"What do you mean?"

Mian Yue’s eyelids twitched. She viewed the Land of Beautiful Dreams with a script task mindset, naturally assuming the church’s six cylinders were a system tolerance, to prevent cylinders from being damaged in battle.

Li Cheng continued running toward the town center, deftly turned around, and like Robinson, revealed his incredibly precise mechanical organs by lifting his chest and abdominal skin.

"?!"

Claudia was so shocked she nearly jumped. She initially thought Pifu was pulling some trick again, installing mechanical parts on himself with his splicing tool,

Then quickly realized Pifu had been with the team the whole time, with no chance to do such a thing.

Li Cheng turned back without a glance, "This is the passive effect of the Land of Beautiful Dreams.

Once we feel abnormal fatigue, our bodies have already become like the mechanical bodies of the town’s residents. Like them, we need to regularly replace our lungs to sustain life. Otherwise, we’ll grow increasingly exhausted."

Mian Yue’s expression drastically changed, she reached for her own hair, indeed finding a liftable skin layer beneath.

Upon uncovering it, she saw the bottled lung showing only 10% of high-pressure gas left.

The same was true for Mushroom King. His fungal fiber organs were fully replaced by mechanical ones, so perfectly done he hadn’t even noticed the abnormality himself.

"No wonder the magic potion’s effect was greatly weakened, no wonder the player’s panel couldn’t open," Wanli Sealed Blade pressed his lips tightly, more regretful than shocked.

Regretful that as an experienced Level 33 player, he hadn’t noticed sooner.

"No need to dwell on it. We’re in the Land of Beautiful Dreams now, constrained by its rules. Plus, the carbon-based biological brain is very straightforward. Feed it pain, it believes pain; feed it pleasure, it believes pleasure."

Li Cheng casually comforted, crossing the streets directly under the bell tower.

The little girl with the jump rope emerged from the shadows, quickly said, "You’re almost late."

"Almost late, but not yet," Li Cheng handed over the insulated bag with the matcha ice cream, "How do we enter the castle?"

"Here." The little girl took out a brass key from her close-fitting pouch and handed it to Li Cheng, "This is the key my brother Will gave me. You’ll still need to find a way past those stone gargoyles.

If you see Will, remember to pass on a message."

"Mom’s calling you home for dinner?" Li Cheng tossed the key lightly.

"No, it’s time to let go." The little girl took a deep breath, disappeared again.

Along with her disappearance, the stone gargoyles perched atop the castle towers also noticed Li Cheng and the others, letting out sharp screeches and diving down.

After a series of fierce battles, fatigue set in. Li Cheng silently replaced his own left lung with a new one, then tossed the remaining three bottled lungs to Wanli Sealed Blade.

Brother Xiao Dao, Claudia, Mushroom King, Mian Yue. Four players, three cylinders, which was insufficient no matter what.

Hiss—

Before Wanli Sealed Blade could discuss distribution, Mushroom King drew two cleavers, passed the others, slightly turning to ask Li Cheng, "After finding the astronaut Will, can we end all this? Retrieve the banished Griffin and restore our original bodies?"

Li Cheng nodded, "Yes."

"If that’s the case, I will go to battle." Mushroom King turned back, his billions of fungal filaments spreading and stretching, autonomously without wind.