Chapter 1 A Start

Before the players' eyes appeared a group of figures, men and women, old and young, dressed in simple, monotonous clothing made of coarse cloth and linen, holding hoes and pitchforks, with fearful and terrified expressions.

These people generally had pale skin and were thin and weak.

The men standing at the front were slightly better, stronger, holding iron swords and shields, seemingly the village guards.

"Oh, brave warriors from afar, we are the guardians of Holy Mountain."

An elderly man with white hair, leaning on a cane, walked out from the crowd, looked at the players, and showed a somewhat ingratiating smile on his face, "Our village has guarded Holy Mountain for generations, receiving and examining all pilgrims who attempt to enter Holy Mountain to worship—although the last time someone came to pilgrimage was fifty years ago...

In short, can I see the proof of courage you carry?"

Proof of courage?

The players looked at each other, confused. They were directly teleported by the system into the forest area of the script world, passing through the stone tablet barrier.

Listening to this, they needed proof to obtain the qualification to enter Holy Mountain?

The players exchanged glances silently. The village in front of them looked abnormally backward and desolate, and the guarding force did not seem very strong. Ding Zhensi alone could easily sweep through it.

However, it was worth noting that the canines of all the villagers were relatively prominent and sharp, and they all had a very faint special aura—a primal desire for bloodlust, a restlessness for slaughter.

Considering all the characteristics, they were likely a dark creature race such as vampires or werewolves.

Considering their pale skin and the characteristic of being able to appear in the sun, perhaps they were a severely degraded vampire clan?

The vampire village chief, leaning on a cane, looked at the silent players, took their silence as concern, smiled flatteringly, and took out a small, exquisite metal device from his pocket that looked like a flashlight.

"Proof of courage is automatically issued after entering the Holy Mountain range. People in our village also have it..."

As he spoke, he gritted his teeth, as if enduring great pain, and used his left index fingernail to gently cut a small slit on his right palm.

Then, with heartache, he squeezed his palm, pouring the blood into the groove at the bottom of the flashlight.

A faint bloody smell spread in the air. The villagers behind, regardless of gender or age, turned their eyes red upon smelling the blood, and their breathing involuntarily became rapid.

"Hiss..."

The village chief gasped, gently bit the wound on his palm, licked the blood from the wound without wasting it, pointed the flashlight at himself, and pressed the switch.

Buzz—

The flashlight lit up with a dazzling beam of light. When the village chief and the villagers behind him were illuminated by the beam, a line of short red text slowly appeared above each person's head.

[Quarantine: Qualified]

???

The players were dumbfounded by this bizarre plot development. However, when the village chief turned the flashlight and shone the beam on the players, something even more bizarre happened—

The words [Quarantine: Qualified] floated above everyone's heads as well.

What, is going on?

Ding Zhensi vaguely felt that he had fallen into some kind of hilarious and painful manga world, but the lie detector function of the Kui Niu (name of mecha) mecha's sensor showed that the other party's attitude was very serious and solemn, and he was not lying.

"Phew, that's great, that's great."

The village chief wiped the non-existent cold sweat from his forehead, put away the flashlight, turned his head and shouted to the other villagers, "Put down your weapons, brave warriors have finally arrived."

The crowd was slightly noisy. The villagers hurriedly put down their weapons, their faces beaming with joy, with a kind of joyful expression of "The brave warriors are here, there is hope. The brave warriors are here, the village will be peaceful."

"It's windy here, please follow me, brave warriors."

The village chief put down his right palm, whose wound was slowly healing at a speed visible to the naked eye, smiled, turned around, and walked towards the interior of the village.

The players looked at each other and followed the village chief's footsteps.

The village was roughly circular, with a small portion built inside a recessed mountainside, surrounded by blue-black mountain rocks.

The buildings in the village were mostly wooden and stone structures, but the specific architectural style of each house was very... bizarre, like merging and mixing buildings in the real world with Chinese, Japanese, Southeast Asian, classical European, and Mediterranean styles, and stuffing them into one village.

The decoration materials used were also different, including colored cement, glass, stone, iron plates, steel plates, crystals, luminous crystal ore, and even biological scales—to be precise, dragon scales.

Ding Zhensi's eyes widened. Several half-meter-diameter square red dragon scales were pasted on the outer wall of a villager's house as wall decorations.

The dragon scales were dull in color, and the surface was covered with deep cracks, obviously damaged, and could no longer be used as armor.

However, the results of the scanner analysis showed that it was undoubtedly a scale that had fallen off an adult red dragon.

In addition to dragon scales, there were quite a few valuable "junk items" in the village.

A two-meter-high steampunk-style power armor, which had been scrapped, was placed on the edge of an alley.

A bell that was obviously a Taoist magic item, used as a wind chime.

An Yin-Yang magic sword hanging at the door.

A near-future-style Gauss sniper rifle used as a clothesline.

Like the dragon scales, these weapons and equipment were also in disrepair. Judging from the thick rust on them, they were at least decades old and completely unusable.

The narrow medieval village was like a world expo, with everything.

Li Ang put his hands in the pockets of his white coat, looked around,啧啧 (ze ze) and marveled, and casually released the [Group Telepathy] among his psychic powers.

He sent out psychic threads, extending to his other teammates.

Li Ang: [Hey, can you hear me?]

Hohenheim: [I can hear you.]

Liu Wudai: [Yes.]

Group Telepathy establishes a mental link between a group of people and can be used to transmit messages. Since there are differences in the mental forms of each person, the words spoken in the mental link will also have similar differences in sound.

Ding Zhensi: [What was with the "Quarantine: Qualified" just now? Why did we have that mark on our heads?]

Li Ang: [The font of the mark I saw was Chinese.]

Liu Wudai: [Me too.]

David: [What I saw was English. Um... It seems that the text itself should be the native text of the other world, but it was translated by the system into the text familiar to the players. Considering that the village chief said that the "proof of courage" would be automatically issued after entering the Holy Mountain range, perhaps there is some kind of plague in the world outside the Holy Mountain range. When outsiders enter the forest, it will automatically check whether there is an infection, and it can only enter the Holy Mountain if it is confirmed that there is no infection.]

Hohenheim: [The old equipment in this village should all be creations of the natives. At least my detection spells show that they are at least fifty years old. This is very strange. Generally speaking, a native world's tech tree will only have one or two branches, because a civilization's attention is limited. If they have clean and efficient magic energy, they will not go back to study inefficient steam engines. Unless the territory of this world is extremely vast, and the continents are not connected to each other, or...]

Anbuli: [Or the owners of these equipment are like us, falling from the sky.]

The conversation in the mental link paused for a moment. Everyone's eyes turned to Anbuli, causing the latter to scratch her cheeks subconsciously, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

David coughed awkwardly.

Since entering the script world, Anbuli hadn't said much, and had been staying in the corner watching the scenery, leading others to think that she really didn't like to think as much as the rumors said, and would never use her brain to solve problems that could be solved with a scimitar.

David continued in the mental link: [In addition, there is another possibility. Transcendents from other worlds, including but not limited to players, have entered this script before. The equipment and props they had with them were left here (of course, it is also possible that they died), were picked up by the natives here, and developed completely different tech trees in different regions through analysis...]

[That...]

Ding Zhensi couldn't help but interrupt: [Aren't you worried that this village is a black shop? Specially harming adventurers, stripping them of their equipment, etc.]

Li Ang glanced at him strangely: [What's there to worry about? If this village is a Cross Slope specializing in killing adventurers, why would they hang the things used by previous brave warriors all over the village? Isn't it too obvious? Besides, in all types of RPG games, the brave warriors are the most vicious and have the initiative, right? At least they openly steal and break into houses, stealing all the fruits, vegetables, gold coins, chickens, ducks, and geese, and euphemistically call it "raising funds to defeat the demon king." At worst, they bully the local people, oppress the civilians, tear down the villagers' houses as building materials, trick the villagers into joining the team, and then strip them of their equipment and kick them back to the village. We are not good people, what are we afraid of?]

You say "I'm not a good person" so matter-of-factly!

Ding Zhensi was speechless, especially after seeing the expressions of approval on the faces of the others, he didn't know how to complain.

Wait, is it possible that I am the only one here with a conscience?

The group chatted casually in the mental link. Wherever their eyes passed, the villagers curiously, fearfully, and vigilantly returned to their respective houses and closed the doors.

The village chief led the players to his own home, told the servants to serve tea and water, and lit the stove.

The room quickly warmed up. The village chief, sitting in the chair, looked at the silent players and patted his thigh awkwardly, "Where are you brave warriors from? Is it the Kingdom of Rosa?"

Hohenheim smiled and asked, "Why do you say that?"

"Because the style of the armor worn by this brave warrior is very similar to the power armor unique to the Kingdom of Rosa."

The village chief said happily: "My grandfather's grandfather had the honor of seeing a brave warrior wearing power armor from the Kingdom of Rosa, and even took a photo with him. It's this photo."

He got up from the chair, picked up a photo frame from the cabinet next to him. In the dim, faded color photo in the frame, a vampire youth who looked similar to him was standing next to a tall and burly power armor.

The style of the power armor was somewhat similar to the Kui Niu (name of mecha) mecha.

"We are from a small place, not worth mentioning."

Hohenheim retracted his gaze from the photo, cleared his throat, and asked, "To make a long story short, Village Chief, can you tell us how to enter Holy Mountain?"

"Holy Mountain..."

The village chief rubbed his palms, took a breath, and said somewhat awkwardly, "Uh, the thing is, our village had some accidents before, so I'm not sure if the pilgrimage process can continue normally..."

Hohenheim raised an eyebrow, "Accidents? What do you mean?"

After the village chief's explanation, everyone understood the basic situation of this world.

The script world that the players were currently in was quite vast, with land separated by oceans, and items would fall from the sky from time to time.

The residents of the script world were already accustomed to this daily occurrence of objects falling from the sky, and developed their respective tech trees by analyzing the objects that fell from the sky. The travelers from other worlds would not be killed for being different. In most cases, they would be warmly welcomed by the local kingdoms.

Compared to Earth, the residents of this script world had adapted to living as a hub for all worlds, and were proud of it.

However, some travelers from other worlds (according to them, many of them were passively teleported in under inexplicable circumstances, and some were even commoners from other worlds) would also be eager to return to their original worlds.

At this time, they could travel across the ocean to the island where Holy Mountain was located and make a pilgrimage. The temple on Holy Mountain would give the brave warriors many trials and challenges. If they could pass, they could realize their wishes, such as teleporting them back to their hometown.

The native residents of the script world also had this opportunity to participate in the trials as brave warriors to achieve their respective wishes—such as reviving cherished family members and loved ones, obtaining coveted ultimate knowledge, etc.

The village at the foot of Holy Mountain was the family of guardians of Holy Mountain. They were responsible for guarding Holy Mountain for generations, receiving brave warriors from all over the world, and proposing preliminary trials to the brave warriors.

If they could pass their assessment, they could obtain the key to Holy Mountain. Some brave warrior teams would also give the items on their bodies to the villagers after teleporting away, realizing their wishes, or failing the trials, which were the weapons and equipment that the players had seen in the village before.

"In theory, the trial content should be issued by me as the village chief,"

The village chief said awkwardly, "My ancestors would usually ask the brave warriors to go to the surrounding forests and caves to kill beasts, or collect some kind of rare flower.

Then, they would give the key to open the door of Holy Mountain to the brave warriors.

But now, the door of Holy Mountain was destroyed by a strange magic beast fifty years ago, and no brave warrior has come since then.

If you brave warriors want to enter Holy Mountain, you must first kill that magic beast and retrieve the materials to repair the door—this can also be regarded as the trial content I have given, is that okay?"