Chapter 1 The Dense Ropes

Dense hemp ropes hung down from the corridor ceiling, coiling around Li Ang's neck like pythons, rapidly tightening.

Li Ang was suspended in mid-air, the cracking sound of his neck bones echoing clearly in his ears.

Bang, bang, bang.

Muffled gunshots rang out continuously from the second-floor platform.

Wang Congshan emptied her handgun's magazine, the enchanted bullets flying out and hitting some of the ropes binding Li Ang's neck and wrists, causing them to snap and break.

Thump!

Taking advantage of this brief respite, Li Ang kicked hard against the wall, propelling himself towards the right side of the corridor.

At the same time, he released the Level 1 ability [Shrink Body Technique] from the Metamorphic Alteration school of psychic abilities—the effect being to use psionic energy to compress the skin, muscles, and bones, proportionally shrinking parts of the body.

Unlike other schools, the Metamorphic Alteration school primarily affects the self.

Psionicists of the Metamorphic Alteration school can freely modify their own bodies.

They can either strengthen their bodies, becoming like martial monks capable of subduing dragons and tigers, unleashing the force of a thousand jun with a single punch,

Or they can cast strange spells, transforming into all sorts of incredible things like thaumaturgists—steel, wood, stone, shadows, dragons.

They can even achieve permanent bi gu (grain avoidance), reducing their metabolism to a level barely observable to the naked eye during closed-door cultivation, extending their lifespan to the scale of civilizations.

Of course, this is only the theoretical limit of the Metamorphic Alteration school.

Metamorphic Alteration isn't Li Ang's forte, and his progress in the real world lags far behind the Enchantment school.

But it's still usable.

As he released [Shrink Body Technique], the psionic energy in his mental ocean rapidly depleted.

Correspondingly, his body shrank by about 15%, his height becoming around 1.5 meters.

Because [Shrink Body Technique] proportionally shrinks all parts of the body, his neck also became thinner.

The rope around his neck left a small gap.

Just enough for Li Ang to take advantage of his rightward swing, lower his chin, and let the rope trap graze past his face, so his head wouldn't be caught.

The snake-like hemp ropes reacted just in time, trying to tighten their grip.

However, Li Ang had already freed his hands as well. He landed on the ground, flicked the Xin Yuan (Mind Monkey) staff that had fallen earlier into the air with his toe, and grabbed it with both hands.

He swung it heavily towards the ropes in mid-air.

At the same time, he released a Level 1 ability from the Conversion school of psychic abilities, [Matter Agitation], on the golden hoop at one end of the Xin Yuan staff—the effect being to heat an object or creature.

With the addition of [Matter Agitation], the golden hoop on the Xin Yuan staff rapidly heated up.

The hemp ropes in mid-air instinctively wrapped around Li Ang and the weapon in his hand, but came into contact with the scorching hot surface of the golden hoop, instantly emitting smoke.

Some of the hemp ropes were even charred, and immediately released the Xin Yuan staff as if electrocuted, retreating backward.

Most of the hemp ropes that came to chase retreated one after another.

Li Ang immediately withdrew from the corridor and returned to the second-floor platform, canceling the effect of [Matter Agitation].

Wang Congshan had also arrived by now.

She ejected the empty magazine from her handgun with her right hand, replacing it with a new magazine from the tactical belt around her waist.

With her left hand, she held the narrow kitchen knife she had scavenged from the Fujimura family's kitchen in a reverse grip.

She cut the last hemp rope wrapped around Li Ang's hand, and after some effort, severed the rope, and the two quickly retreated behind the second-floor platform.

"Are you okay?"

Wang Congshan breathed a sigh of relief, throwing the broken rope heavily into a corner of the second-floor platform.

"I'm fine."

Li Ang shook his head, reaching out to touch the shallow rope mark left on his neck.

That was a close call. The hemp ropes in the corridor were troublesome but not fatal. Their power was only equivalent to an adult tightening a rope with all their strength.

Without worrying about psionic energy consumption, Li Ang had more than a dozen ways to escape the corridor trap.

However...

He looked up at the corridor filled with ropes.

The narrow L-shaped corridor had returned to calm, the ropes hanging silently.

The hemp ropes that had been destroyed in the battle had now grown back, as if nothing had happened.

Those hemp ropes seemed to have grown out of the ceiling?

Li Ang frowned slightly. The humanoid figure covered in black hair had indeed disappeared at the end of the L-shaped corridor, but the hemp ropes hadn't attacked him.

Could it be that the traps in the corridor were set up by the black-haired figure, deliberately luring Li Ang into them?

Or were the rope traps in the corridor a feature of the Hiratsuka family's mansion itself, with some kind of special mechanism that allowed certain people to pass through without being attacked?

Li Ang frowned and pondered seriously, but then he heard Wang Congshan let out a laugh that was hard to decipher.

"What's wrong?"

Li Ang turned to look at Wang Congshan, and saw her with a mischievous smile, reaching out and pressing her palm against Li Ang's forehead, comparing the difference in height between the two.

The effect of [Shrink Body Technique] hadn't been canceled yet, and Li Ang was still 1.5 meters tall, shorter than Wang Congshan.

"How nice."

Wang Congshan looked at Li Ang in his 1.5-meter state with emotion, patted him on the shoulder like an old man, brought her face closer, and laughed, "Little Ang, call me big sister."

"Get lost, get lost."

Li Ang rolled his eyes and brushed away Wang Congshan's arm, "Will I get a red envelope from you for Lunar New Year if I call you that?"

The effect of [Shrink Body Technique] was passively triggered, and could be actively canceled.

However, in order to save psionic energy, it was better to wait for the duration of [Shrink Body Technique] to end and let it dissipate naturally.

"Strange, there are no doors on either side of this L-shaped corridor.

If the abnormal phenomenon hasn't changed the terrain, then it was deliberately set up by the Hiratsuka family who built this place.

The corridor points towards the right, I wonder which room it leads to..."

Li Ang stood on the second-floor platform and carefully observed the hemp rope corridor for a while. He suddenly noticed a faded piece of paper hanging at the entrance of the corridor, almost the same color as the wooden planks.

"Hmm?"

He narrowed his eyes, squatted down, and slowly approached the corridor.

He carefully used the Xin Yuan staff to push the paper over, without causing the hemp ropes in the corridor to attack.

Wang Congshan frowned and reminded him, "Be careful."

"Okay."

Li Ang responded, stood up, and without touching the paper directly with his hand, used the Xin Yuan staff to gently flick it on the ground, cleverly flipping the paper over.

The paper was rectangular and had basic lines on it, looking like it had fallen from a notebook.

The front was densely filled with a long string of Japanese characters, faded but still clearly legible.

"...Research on the Legend of Mount Yueliang"

Li Ang and Wang Congshan exchanged puzzled glances, then looked down and found that the writer of the paper seemed to be a folklorist.

The content of the paper was a mythological story based on Mount Yueliang, and a legend describing the reason for the founding of Yueke Village.