Chapter 1 New Talent

Of course, Hao Ren was a bit surprised that the little fledgling suddenly displayed a new talent, but not to an unbelievable degree. What could be more unbelievable than the little fledgling's existence itself? A wisp of chaotic thoughts, brainwashed by Raven 12345 for over a month, and inextricably linked to Vivian herself. With all these preconditions put together, frankly, even if the little thing transformed into a pikachu with a lightning tail and discharged 100,000 volts in front of everyone, Hao Ren should be able to accept it calmly...

He and Vivian studied the little fledgling's attributes as a summoned unit and basically confirmed three characteristics of the little thing. First, she was still a fledgling, even after establishing a deeper connection with Vivian; her biggest trick was still *biubiubiu*. The second characteristic was that this little thing was as brainless as ever, and basically wouldn't obey any instructions except those relating to food. The third characteristic was finally better than the previous two: if she reintegrated into Vivian's body, her aura would be completely concealed – a setting that was useless but at least not as坑人 as the first and second characteristics...

"Scare!!" The little fledgling was impatient. After discovering that Hao Ren didn't intend to give her food, she quickly showed resistance, threatened him with a shout, and then transformed back into a cloud of blood mist and returned to Vivian's body.

"She's a little angry," Vivian shrugged. "I can feel she's also a bit frustrated because she thought she could scare you."

"She already has such complex emotional reactions?" Hao Ren looked at Vivian in surprise, and then even more surprised. "You can feel her emotions?"

"I can feel it when she's absorbed back into my body, a vague and subtle feeling, like a partial sharing of emotions," Vivian said with a frown. "It's a bit like when I first absorbed all those chaotic thoughts, but without that feeling of 'digestion and absorption'. The little thing is still a completely independent entity. It's incredible... she really is growing."

Hao Ren thought for a moment. "In my opinion, this is mostly a good sign. Maybe someday we'll open our eyes and see this little fellow saying good morning to everyone."

"I hope that day comes." Vivian smiled and refocused her attention on the book in her hand.

She was currently leafing through an old book that looked like a heroic saga. This book was on the same shelf as various unofficial histories and anecdotes, and was clearly not a verified biography, but rather a hero novel mixed with legends, myths, exaggerations, and embellishments. But the more these things were, the more likely the contents were to be connected with those dangerous places that ordinary people couldn't access but were still incredibly famous: like the Great Pit Road that Lily had mentioned before.

Of course, the information found in such books was definitely vastly different from reality, and it was unreliable to use it as a source of intelligence. But for Hao Ren, the primary task wasn't to find out the true history, but to at least understand what the Great Pit Road was all about.

This was the seventh book of a similar theme that Vivian had picked up. The book mentioned many impressive-sounding place names and seemingly well-known historical events. Of course, this also included the Great Pit Road. In fact, it was easier to find written information about the "Great Pit Road" in this library than Hao Ren had expected. Basically, all historical and geographical books, as well as a considerable number of hero biographies, contained relevant references.

This seemed to be something with great fame. Historians and geographers respectfully recorded it in their works, while heroic figures throughout the ages were particularly fond of entering the Great Pit Road for an adventure. Just like most protagonists in fantasy stories had to kill a dragon (of course, recently a batch had started proposing to dragons) to have the nerve to call themselves the protagonist, the basic condition for becoming a hero in this world's legends was to wander around the Great Pit Road.

However, Hao Ren could easily see through the phenomenon to the essence:

The more something was repeatedly defeated by protagonists in novels, the more awe-inspiring its real-world counterpart would be. Just like ninety percent of the heroes were barbecued when challenging dragons, probably few people in this world dared to actually enter the Great Pit Road. That was definitely a dangerous place.

"According to the records in these books—" Lily had picked out the relevant texts about the Great Pit Road that she had found and spread them out on the table one by one, along with other useful information found by the others. "The Great Pit Road doesn't refer to a mine or a specific underground cave, but to a network of underground cavities that cover the entire continent, and may even extend into the endless ocean, covering the entire world."

Vivian also spoke of what she had summarized: "Beneath this continent called 'Lahem Rhein', there are countless crisscrossing cavities, like a honeycomb, and that is the Great Pit Road. Their distribution isn't uniform, and their depth isn't constant. In the fertile land of the eastern continent, the Great Pit Road is buried very deep, and the locals are hardly affected by it. But in the far north, within the territory of the ancient Ten Northern Kingdoms, the Great Pit Road is very close to the surface. It is said that some shallow pit roads are even directly connected to human mines. There are occasional terrible accidents where miners dig through the 'rock ceiling' while mining and fall into the Great Pit Road. Because of this, the north of the continent is now the most desolate place in the world: it's too unsuitable for human habitation."

Izhaks took over: "The Great Pit Road is a very terrifying thing in this world, because it's not only filled with poisonous or corrosive gases, but monsters often run out of it, and some strange existences that humans can't understand or fight against will emerge from the pit road. One of the unofficial histories I found records that a kingdom in the north had to dig shelters underground because it was mired in war, but accidentally dug through the rock ceiling of the Great Pit Road. As a result, the 'shadows of nothingness' drilled out from underground, and the entire country, along with all the armies invading it, were swallowed by the night. When the next morning arrived, the kingdom had turned into an entire black forest. That place seems to still be very famous now. It is said that almost no one who goes in comes out alive."

When Hao Ren heard Lily and Vivian's descriptions, he couldn't help but think of the First Born parasitizing deep within the planet, and when he heard words like "kingdom swallowed by the black forest" and "unfathomable, unconquerable entities," he became even more convinced. He frowned: "Sounds familiar... vast underground caverns, and monsters crawling out of them. Is this another First Born?"

"I don't think so," Vivian said. "First of all, this is the Dark Domain, near the divine kingdom of the Creation Goddess – never mind why it looks like this now, in any case, the location can't be wrong. And according to the information we have, the Creation Goddess didn't plant any Seeds of Origin so close to her divine kingdom – those seeds were what she used when exploring the depths of the universe, and they were all scattered very far away, so there shouldn't be any First Born in the Dark Domain. Secondly, we found a lot of information about the Great Pit Road, and none of it mentions the First Born itself: no giant tentacles buried underground, no throbbing organs in the caves, or source blood, nothing at all. The First Born can't be hidden. He's so huge, and he's active under the entire planet's crust. It's impossible that he wouldn't leave any traces, right?"

Vivian's words made sense, and Hao Ren couldn't help but nod in agreement. "Then, what other discoveries do you all have? About the Great Pit Road?"

"Yes, a scholar named Ronzel wrote a book dedicated to studying the Great Pit Road. Although his research results don't seem to be recognized in related fields, he still mentioned many interesting discoveries," Nangong Sanba said, holding up an old book he had found. "This scholar claims that he once practiced the Druid path with a mysterious old man, and during a certain communication with the spirits of nature, his soul left his body and mistakenly entered the Great Pit Road. He said that he saw many man-made traces in the Great Pit Road, ancient writings, relics, and even magnificent ancient ruins. Therefore, he believes that the Great Pit Road was actually a refuge built by the civilization of the last era to escape the 'surface cataclysm.' The reason it covers the entire world is because the ancient civilization was extremely advanced and had the ability to build a miracle of this scale. The monsters that emerge from the Great Pit Road may be guards left by the ancient civilization, or even ancient humans who have mutated and gone mad underground."

Hearing this, Izhaks couldn't help but laugh. "This scholar with his wild imagination even calculated the scale of the 'surface cataclysm' encountered by the ancient civilization based on the degree of danger of the monsters and toxic substances emerging from the Great Pit Road, and even discussed in detail in the second half of the book a refuge plan for a modern civilization encountering the same cataclysm..."

Lily perked up her ears when she heard halfway through, and couldn't help but interject at this time: "Hey hey hey, I think this setting sounds super cool!"

"Cool doesn't necessarily mean convincing," Izhaks shook his head. "This 'scholar' has a good imagination, but unfortunately, four-fifths of his entire book is full of conjectures and legends, and in the only part where he cites evidence, he even quotes a fairy tale – which has led to almost everyone attacking his theory, and even his book being classified as absurd fiction."

"But with our perspective and the information we have, his conjecture isn't unreasonable," Hao Ren looked at everyone and said very seriously, "This world fell here along with the Creation Goddess's divine kingdom, so the ancient civilization and the surface cataclysm mentioned by the scholar named Ronzel are very likely to be true. The conjecture that the Great Pit Road is a refuge for ancient civilizations may also be true – if the previous generation of civilization in this world really relied on some kind of underground facility to avoid the impact of the divine kingdom explosion, and rebuilt the current ecosystem on the surface, then many things can indeed be explained."

Vivian nodded. "A clumsy scholar, but with keen intuition. This kind of thing isn't uncommon. This Ronzel may just not be good at writing a convincing paper."

Lily picked up the book that Izhaks had brought and waved it in the air. "If what's said in this book is true, then that so-called Great Pit Road is very worth exploring."