CHAPTER 251: CHAPTER 61: CENTRAL ZONE

The breeze blows gently, and the prairie is unusually quiet.

Bubute Ni carries Su Xiao running on the prairie, having been moving forward for almost two hours.

"Bu Bu, stop."

Su Xiao surveys the surroundings, seeing only a vast expanse of green, where there were once trees now only grassland remains.

"What’s wrong?"

The Little Emperor, sitting on a ticket, asks. Except for Su Xiao, anyone else daring to ride on Bubute Ni’s back would be met with a bite, so the Little Emperor is currently on a "ticket," being held by Su Xiao with one hand.

"Something is wrong here."

"Dangerous creatures?"

"No, we might be lost."

Su Xiao jumps off Bubute Ni’s back and pulls out an iron spike from the grass nearby, which he had placed earlier.

"How could we get lost, weren’t we always going straight?"

The Little Emperor looks around, the scenery is almost identical everywhere, a boundless emerald grassland.

"Bu Bu, run forward."

Su Xiao stands still, letting Bubute Ni move straight forward.

When Bubute Ni runs a dozen meters ahead it seems normal, but after running over a hundred meters, the path begins to shift.

Bubute Ni frequently looks back to check Su Xiao’s position, trying to maintain a straight line with him.

After Bubute Ni runs hundreds of meters, Su Xiao can only vaguely see his position, and something even stranger happens. Bubute Ni actually runs in a semicircle, circling the grassland and ending up behind Su Xiao. A few minutes later, Bubute Ni reunites with Su Xiao.

They have been circling in the same place, but Su Xiao is helpless.

There were no markers on the prairie before, but even after Su Xiao served as a marker, Bubute Ni kept circling.

This is tricky. It seems this place confuses the sense of direction of living beings.

Su Xiao contemplates; the prairie confusing one’s sense of direction might be due to the surrounding environment causing a visual distortion effect, the more you try to walk straight, the more you end up circling.

He can’t solve this setup quickly, unless his perception can cover the entire prairie, which is clearly impossible.

Since he cannot discern directions, he might as well stop determining directions while moving forward.

This place only confuses directional sense and isn’t a maze, which is fundamentally different.

Riding on Bubute Ni, Su Xiao begins directing Bubute Ni to run forward.

He circles left twice, then right several times, occasionally inserting iron spikes into the ground.

After circling haphazardly a dozen times, Su Xiao begins checking the dozens of iron spikes on the ground.

Some of the iron spikes are in a straight line, while others are randomly stuck in the grass.

"Bu Bu, continue."

Su Xiao takes out paper and pen from the storage space, drawing a circle on the paper, then dotting some black points on it.

The endless circling continues. After dozens of circles, even Bubute Ni is having a hard time, realizing that they are circling.

"The first thirty meters, left fifty meters, right ten meters, no, right fifteen meters..."

Su Xiao is racking his brain for the correct path, his face calm, but internally he’s ’greeting’ the designer of this grassland countless times.

The designer is a perfectionist, making every step count change every time he changes direction, making calculations trickier.

"Bu Bu, first thirty meters ahead."

Bubute Ni turns to Su Xiao, with a puzzled dog face, seemingly asking: ’Boss, how far is thirty meters?’

Su Xiao sighs internally, having overestimated Bubute Ni’s intelligence. Bubute Ni is a wise creature indeed, but his IQ is quite touching, commonly known as a simpleton.

"Just continue forward, stop the moment I shout stop, not a step more."

Bubute Ni starts moving forward, sometimes turning left, sometimes right, occasionally even stepping back a few steps.

"This is the direction, just keep running."

Bubute Ni races forward, and the scene finally changes, no longer just a grassland.

Success, he navigated out of that grassland using his wits.

The surroundings are finally different, with some low trees appearing in view.

[You have entered the ’Bilumake Alchemy Testing Ground’ central area, alchemy toxin changes occur.]

[You are suffering from ’Stedrolo’ alchemy toxin erosion, Power -10, Agility -10, Stamina -10, receiving 7 points of True Damage every second.]

[Do you want to activate the High-level Air Filter Device, costing 300 Paradise coins per hour?]

Weakness Feeling appears, Su Xiao feels his entire body starting to get heavy.

"Activate."

Although it pains him, he has to use Reincarnation Paradise’s air filter device now.

Half an hour of advancing forward, the prairie no longer seems vast, two stone walls appear, forming a funnel-shaped path that narrows the further it goes.

At the end, a cave dozens of meters tall appears ahead, with all nearby vegetation yellowed and withered.

A thick burnt smell fills the air as Su Xiao directs Bubute Ni to enter the cave.

Shortly after entering the cave, heavy footsteps echo behind, prompting Bubute Ni to quickly dart into a crevice in the rock wall.

"Gaba-ha-kha... (unknown language)."

"Tutu-Chu... (unknown language)."

This should be some language, yet Su Xiao can’t understand a word. He hides in the rock wall’s crevice, peering cautiously outward.

A group of strange creatures appears, each about one meter tall, with emaciated bodies, dark yellow skin, bulging eyes, pointy ears, and overall humanoid shape.

There are five of these strange creatures, despite being only about a meter high, they are quite strong. Each holds a large iron box over three meters tall, filled with some shiny black stone.

Su Xiao immediately recognizes it as coal, and these creatures are likely wise beings. Could they be alchemists? Their looks are a grave injustice to any audience.

"These seem to be a dangerous type: Cave People, but Cave People aren’t usually this strong, right?"

The Little Emperor recognizes the origins of these creatures.

"Cave People? A kind of Human?"

"No, Cave People are somewhere between human and beast. They have their own language and generally live on the western side of the continent. Their population is around hundreds of thousands and they often raid nearby villages. They even have a habit of eating people; or rather, they will eat any creature. When extremely hungry, even weaker kin become emergency food."

The Little Emperor knows quite a bit about the dangerous types.

While they talk, the Cave People have already entered the cave.

Su Xiao is very interested in the Cave Peoples’ destination, so he begins to follow them, with Bubute Ni and the Little Emperor trailing behind.

The Cave People are very familiar with the cave’s layout, winding for about ten minutes, they reach an open area.

Rumble.

The sound of large machinery echoes within the open area; Su Xiao looks into it.

There is an expanse over a thousand square meters filled with large machinery.

These large machines are all metal constructions, with some metal conduits connected to these machines, and the other ends burrowing into the rock wall.

At the center of the space, a furnace over ten meters tall is in operation, and all the coal transported by the Cave People is poured into the furnace.

The temperature in the open area is very high; hundreds of Cave People are working around the large machinery. Their bare upper bodies glisten with sweat, and their dark yellow skin is covered in grime.

Crack!

A whip cracks sharply, and several larger Cave People stand atop the steel machinery, holding whips and supervising the Cave Laborers below.

These overseer-like Cave People are about 1.5 meters tall, wearing simple armor, and their light green skin is exceptionally fierce-looking.

Upon hearing the whip crack, the Cave Laborers below shiver, pushing themselves harder to transport coal and maintain machinery.