Chapter 61: Central Zone
A gentle breeze blew, and the grassland was eerily quiet.
Bubuteni trotted across the grassland carrying Su Xiao on his back, having traveled for nearly two hours.
"Bubu, stop."
Su Xiao surveyed his surroundings. As far as the eye could see, everything was a lush green. Earlier, he could faintly see trees, but now only grassland remained.
"What's wrong?"
The Little Emperor, who was riding "hanging ticket," asked. Apart from Su Xiao, anyone else who dared to ride on Bubuteni's back would get bitten by this fool, so the Little Emperor was currently on "hanging ticket," held by Su Xiao with one hand.
"Something's not right here."
"A dangerous creature?"
"No, we might be lost."
Su Xiao jumped off Bubuteni's back and pulled an iron spike from the grass not far away—one he had inserted earlier.
"How could we be lost? Haven't we been moving forward the whole time?"
The Little Emperor looked around. The scenery was largely the same everywhere—an endless expanse of green grassland.
"Bubu, run forward."
Su Xiao stood still, instructing Bubuteni to go in a straight line.
Bubuteni ran normally for about ten meters, but after a hundred meters, his path began to deviate.
It was worth noting that Bubuteni would occasionally turn back to confirm Su Xiao's position, trying his best to maintain a straight line with him.
After Bubuteni ran several hundred meters, Su Xiao could only vaguely see him. Something even stranger happened: Bubuteni actually ran in a semicircle, circled around the grassland, and ended up behind Su Xiao. A few minutes later, Bubuteni rejoined Su Xiao.
They had been going in circles the whole time, yet Su Xiao was helpless.
Earlier, there were no landmarks on the grassland, but even after he acted as a landmark, Bubuteni still circled around.
This was tricky. It seemed this place could disorient a creature's sense of direction.
Su Xiao pondered on the spot. This grassland could confuse one's sense of direction, likely due to a visual distortion effect from the surrounding environment. The more you tried to walk straight, the more you would circle.
He couldn't quickly break this setup unless his perception could cover the entire grassland, which was obviously impossible.
Since he couldn't discern direction, he might as well stop trying to move in a set direction.
This place only disoriented the sense of direction; it wasn't a maze. There was a fundamental difference between the two.
Mounting Bubuteni, Su Xiao began directing him to run forward.
Now, he made two big circles to the left, then a few circles to the right. During this time, Su Xiao occasionally inserted iron spikes into the ground.
After randomly circling about a dozen times, Su Xiao began examining the dozens of iron spikes on the ground.
Some spikes were arranged in a straight line, while others were randomly stuck in the grass.
"Bubu, continue."
Su Xiao took out paper and pen from his storage space, first drawing a circle on the paper, then dotting some black spots on it.
The repetitive circling began. After about several dozen circles, even Bubuteni couldn't take it anymore. This fool had also noticed they were going in circles.
"Forward thirty meters, left fifty meters, right ten meters, no, right fifteen meters..."
Su Xiao racked his brain to find the correct path. Though his expression remained calm, he was cursing the designer of this grassland countless times in his mind.
The designer was a perfectionist. The number of steps for each direction change was different, making it even harder to calculate.
"Bubu, forward thirty meters first."
Bubuteni turned his head to look at Su Xiao, his dog face full of confusion, as if asking, 'Boss, how far is thirty meters?'
Su Xiao sighed inwardly. He had overestimated Bubuteni's intelligence. Bubuteni was indeed a sentient being, but his IQ was somewhat lacking—commonly known as a fool.
"Just walk forward. Stop immediately when I say stop. Don't take a single extra step."
Bubuteni began walking forward, sometimes turning left, sometimes turning right, occasionally stepping back a few paces.
"This direction, run straight."
Bubuteni sprinted. The scenery in his field of vision changed, no longer just grassland.
He had succeeded. He used his intelligence to get out of that grassland.
The surroundings were finally no longer the same. Some low shrubs appeared in sight.
[You have entered the central zone of the 'Birumark Alchemy Testing Ground.' Alchemy toxins have changed.]
[You are being eroded by 'Sderolo' alchemy toxin. Strength -10, Agility -10, Stamina -10. Taking 7 points of True Damage per second.]
[Do you wish to activate the high-grade air filtration device? Cost: 300 Paradise Coins per hour.]
A feeling of weakness set in. Su Xiao felt his entire body grow heavy.
"Activate."
Though it pained him, he had no choice but to use the Reincarnation Paradise air filtration device.
After advancing for half an hour, the grassland was no longer vast. Two stone walls appeared, and the forward path was funnel-shaped, growing narrower and narrower.
At the end, a cave dozens of meters high appeared. The plants on the ground nearby were all yellowed and withered.
A strong burnt smell wafted over. Su Xiao directed Bubuteni into the cave.
Not long after entering the cave, heavy footsteps sounded from behind. Bubuteni quickly ran into a crevice in the rock wall.
"Gaba hak... (Unknown language)."
"Tutu jiu... (Unknown language)."
This seemed to be a language, but Su Xiao couldn't understand a single word. He hid in the crevice of the rock wall and peeked out.
A group of strange creatures appeared. They were only about one meter tall, with thin bodies, dark yellow skin, protruding eyes, very pointed ears, and an overall humanoid form.
There were five of these strange creatures. Though only about a meter tall, they were quite strong. Each carried an iron box over three meters high, filled with a black, shiny stone.
Su Xiao immediately recognized it as coal. These creatures were likely intelligent beings. Could these be the alchemists? Their appearance was really hard on the eyes.
"These look like dangerous species: cave people. But cave people shouldn't have this much strength."
The Little Emperor recognized the origin of the strange creatures.
"Cave people? A type of human?"
"No, cave people are between humans and beasts. They have their own language and generally live on the western side of the continent, numbering around several hundred thousand. They often raid nearby villages. They also have a habit of eating people—actually, they'll eat any living creature. If they're too hungry, even weaker members of their own kind are emergency rations."
The Little Emperor knew quite a bit about dangerous species.
As the two talked, the few cave people had already entered the cave.
Su Xiao was very interested in where these cave people were headed. He began to follow them, with Bubuteni and the Little Emperor behind him.
The cave people were very familiar with the cave's terrain. After winding through for about ten minutes, they entered an open space.
Rumble, rumble.
The sound of large machinery operating came from the open space. Su Xiao looked inside.
This was an open space of about a thousand square meters, filled with large machinery.
These machines were all made of steel. Some metal pipes connected to these machines, with the other end embedded in the rock wall.
At the center of the open space, a furnace over ten meters tall was working. The coal transported by those cave people was all thrown into the furnace.
The temperature in the open space was very high. Hundreds of cave people were working around those large machines, their bare upper bodies covered in oily sweat, their dark yellow skin stained with grime.
Crack!
The sharp sound of a whip came. Several taller cave people stood on the steel machinery, holding long whips to supervise the work of the cave people below.
These overseer-like cave people were about one and a half meters tall, wearing crude armor, with pale blue skin and especially fierce large eyes.
Hearing the whip crack, the cave worker below shuddered and worked even harder, carrying coal and maintaining the machinery.