Chapter 456: Random Travel
Lin Ye had just turned his head when he saw that familiar hospital room. He stepped forward and knocked on the door, and it opened by itself.
"As I heard, you completed an extremely difficult Mining Area Task and obtained a rather good mining area."
As soon as Lin Ye entered the room, he heard the voice of the young girl from the sickbed.
"Mhm, you found out so quickly?"
Lin Ye leaned back in the chair beside the bed. It had been three months since he last came here.
"This is no trivial matter. Anyone wanting to enter the Rule Mining Area to dig needs to pay a steep price. Only a Survivor like you can come and go from such a place so freely."
The young girl took out a platter of cut fruit and placed it on the small table in front of Lin Ye. The platter contained many kinds of fruit Lin Ye had never seen before, but they were all cut into humanoid shapes.
"I didn't expect either that just completing one task would grant me access to such a valuable mining area for digging."
Lin Ye speared a Kevin that was running around wildly on the plate and bit its head off in one bite.
A burst of rich juice sprayed into Lin Ye's mouth. The fruit was excessively sweet, but fortunately, the sweetness faded quickly. "This was no ordinary task. It was a regional task that had been sealed by the system."
The young girl emphasized the word "sealed."
"What does 'sealed' mean? Someone mentioned similar information during the task."
Raymond had also told Lin Ye similar information, but Lin Ye wasn't sure if what he said was correct.
"It means exactly what it says. When an area very important to the system is about to collapse, the system will temporarily seal that area. This puts the area's collapse into an uncertain state. Afterwards, the system will dispatch a reliable Survivor to intervene in that area until the Survivor solves the problem, or the area completely collapses.
However, because it involves issues of time, the Survivor can only replace a certain unimportant individual within that area to complete the task. Furthermore, the Survivor cannot know information about the target area in advance. So, these kinds of sealed tasks are extremely difficult, and ordinary Survivors can hardly complete them."
The young girl speared a purple head nurse and put it in her mouth, revealing a satisfied expression.
"So that's how it is... Is that Civilization Tower also in such a state?"
Lin Ye thought of what Little Red had said before and asked.
"Correct, but the Tower's problem is more severe and has a tendency to gradually worsen. I sent you to the Tower just so you could learn knowledge about handling God's Blood there. The Tower might not even attempt to have you solve the problem, as each attempt leads to a worsening of the Tower's condition.
By the way, do you want to go to the Tower to study this time? After some time, you might not be able to go anymore."
The young girl took out that pure white book and placed it on the small table.
"We'll talk about that later. I have something to discuss with you this time."
Lin Ye had spent the last two months in the library and didn't have a particularly strong desire to study at the moment.
"If you want to ask me where you can plant the Seed of Spirit, I'm afraid I'll have to disappoint you. I haven't left the asylum for a very long time and have no understanding of those safe mental worlds."
The young girl predicted Lin Ye's question.
"Is that so? Then forget it. I was just thinking of resting for a couple of days anyway."
Lin Ye planned to go to the Rest Area for lunch later. Although it was a bit of a waste of Little Red's Special Ability, it wasn't a big deal.
"Actually, it's not completely without a solution. I can randomly send your consciousness into a Surface Layer mental world, then pull you back after some time. That way, you might just happen upon a suitable mental world.
Don't you have the Fate Rule Fragment? Now is the time to trust in Fate."
The young girl looked at Lin Ye with eager anticipation. She was quite bored right now and wanted to find some fun.
"...Is this reliable? You won't send me to a particularly dangerous place, will you?"
Lin Ye looked at the young girl with a suspicious gaze.
"Relax. Surface Layer mental worlds pose absolutely no risk to you. You can think of this as an unknown journey, to enjoy the fun of travel. In this regard, I'm at a professional level. I guarantee it's completely random. No one knows where you'll be sent."
The young girl said with a smile.
"...Alright then."
Considering the young girl's degree of reliability, Lin Ye agreed to her proposal.
If it were Mia making the suggestion, Lin Ye would have firmly refused.
"Oh, right. Surface Layer mental worlds indeed aren't very dangerous, but what's outside the Surface Layer mental worlds is another story. Don't go running around everywhere."
Before Lin Ye lost consciousness, he heard the young girl say this.
………………………………
"I have a bad feeling about this..."
In the darkness, Lin Ye tried to open his eyes.
But he quickly discovered that he currently had no eyes, nor a body in the conventional sense. Instead, he was in a state akin to a Consciousness.
'This is way too random, isn't it? It randomized my body right out of existence...'
Lin Ye had been thinking of arriving at an unfamiliar town or village, meeting some strangers, and tasting some unseen delicacies. Instead, he didn't even have a body now.
'Is this Fate?'
Lin Ye used his mental energy to sense his surroundings. This seemed to be a dark space without matter or light. The Spiritual Energy Concentration in the environment was relatively high, and a Consciousness could comfortably swim around freely in the darkness.
'It's actually quite comfortable.'
Lin Ye swam swiftly through the darkness. According to the young girl, there shouldn't be many Consciousnesses here that could pose a threat to him.
However, Lin Ye had barely swum a hundred meters when he sensed a Consciousness in the distance whose size exceeded his own by a hundredfold.
'What the hell?! What kind of monster is that?'
Lin Ye hastily 'hit the brakes.' It was like a sports car encountering a large truck driving the wrong way on a highway; if you don't get out of the way, you'll get crushed.
'I fucking knew it would be like this!'
Lin Ye sensed that bloated, gigantic Consciousness. Perhaps due to differences in spiritual purity, the other party hadn't noticed Lin Ye.
'Is someone raising pigs here? How did they get fed so fat?'
Lin Ye carefully sensed that bloated Consciousness. He found that the other party was just large in size; in other aspects, it was quite ordinary.
But in the mental world, size represents the total amount of mental energy. Although Lin Ye was far superior in quality compared to this Consciousness, in terms of raw power, he was no match for a direct confrontation.
Just like how a crude large truck can still crush a sports car.
However, Lin Ye's Consciousness could use the power of various runes, the Abyssal Eye, and Rule Fragments. If he wasn't afraid of injuring his Consciousness, he could try fighting the other party.
But even if he could defeat it, it wouldn't do Lin Ye much good. He couldn't just go and absorb that massive, impure mental energy. That would only muddy his own Consciousness and lower his spiritual purity.
The purification effect of the Rule Mining Area shouldn't be wasted like that.