Chapter 40 [Fate] Bonds: Anomalies in the Spirit World: Who's there...?

Chapter Forty

As mental energy was focused into the brain, spirituality became incredibly active, and everything around faded instantly, leaving only a bright purple hue flowing from the fingertips.

Du Yu opened her eyes, and a gray moth flew by, curiously looking at the woman lying on the bed with her eyes closed.

This spirit world journey was different from the last one. Last time, it felt like a game had altered her body, and her entire being entered the spirit world. This time, she clearly sensed that only her spirit had entered. Was it because she used a vessel this time?

With a thought, Du Yu's mind pierced through the wall, and his vision suddenly rose. The world he "saw" was as if it were covered by a blurry filter, with only large and small dots of light of different colors clearly visible. However, those dots of light were surrounded by a hazy gray, dimming to the point of almost going out.

At this time, most people are asleep, and the light spots are relatively solid, mostly appearing on their heads, with a few appearing at the heart.

Among the few gentlemen on night duty, their points of light were more blurred, perhaps more accurately described as "halos," dimly gathered on the upper body, with no clear center.

Du Yu randomly selected two lucky individuals for the experiment. The sleeping one's gaze lingered on that spot for more than three seconds, and the familiar feeling of about to enter a deep dream surfaced.

Du Yu shifted his gaze and found that staring at the halo around those who were still awake did not evoke the familiar dreamlike feeling.

As they gazed at it for a while, some of the halos hesitated, some were afraid, and some even seemed to have a faint thought of submitting to Du Yu. Some of the more sensitive ones had cold sweat seeping from their foreheads.

Du Yu looked away. She didn't want just any believer. Turning these bald men into believers would expose her existence.

However, the will of mortals is so fragile in the face of gods... A strange thought flashed through Du Yu's mind: Am I still the same species as humans?

You have completed a leap and are shedding your mortal body.

The system suddenly popped up, uttered a nonsensical sentence, and then disappeared, leaving Du Yu alone to ponder the meaning of the word "leap".

She had heard this word during her first journey through the spirit world, but the second half of the sentence had nothing to do with gods; it was "You have completed a [leap] and heard the echoes of [chaos]."

At the time, I thought it was an effect of my first journey into the spirit world. Now it seems that the meaning behind this "leap" is not so simple, so the second half of the sentence also needs to be reconsidered: what is the "echo of chaos"?

All the extraordinary things in this world can be attributed to the nine superior elements. Are [Leap] and [Chaos] the same as the known [Fate], and both among the nine superior elements?

So, to which superior element does the corpse oil refined by the purple fire that I collected belong?

Du Yu suddenly became very interested in these nine superior elements. Could the so-called godhood in the game be the process of collecting these superior elements?

"Gurgle~"

The cooing of pigeons interrupted Du Yu's thoughts. After listening to 166's report, Du Yu raised an eyebrow in surprise: "You said that woman is in a special state, and you can't enter her dream?"

Du Yu sent 166 into that woman's dream because her behavior at the mine made Du Yu subconsciously feel very uncomfortable.

There must be secrets and conspiracies behind the mine that the Gentlemen's Guild stole from the Catbeard Pirates. She had a feeling that the strange woman was connected to those conspiracies.

Now even 166 says she can't enter the other person's dream?

Du Yu's curiosity was piqued, and he looked in the direction from which 166 had come, letting out a soft "Eh."

In her spirit-wandering state, she could see the spirits of all the people in their dreams, but the woman's spirit was completely covered by a layer of dark brown, not even a ray of light could see through it, and Du Yu almost didn't notice the woman's spirit at first glance.

What's even stranger is that most people's spirits reside in their brains, while a few reside in their hearts. Yet, this woman's spirit orbs appeared in her hand, and the number was incorrect—there were two of them!

Du frowned, remembering the concept of spirits that 166 had explained to her. The soul is the sum of the physical body and the spirit; ordinary people can only have one physical body, and naturally only one spirit. This woman wasn't even a superhuman, so why did she have two spirits?

Du Yu's doubts grew to their extreme. With a thought, her spirit appeared beside the woman, carefully observing the woman's hands.

Upon closer inspection, she immediately noticed something unusual. Even though the colors were the same, each person's spirit was unique, and Du Yu could tell the difference at a glance.

Ignoring the rusty brown glow on the surface of the two spirit spheres, only one of these spirits belongs to this physical body, but the structures of the two spirit spheres are surprisingly similar!

They were so similar that Du Yu had to look at them carefully for a long time before he could finally discern a few differences in the lines.

The existence of two spirits within a body can be explained by some extreme cases, such as when she fought with You Shi for the container in her dream last time, the two spirits in "Xiao Ran's" body coexisted briefly for a moment.

But the two spirits are very similar. What is the principle behind this?

Physical resemblance is due to blood ties, but what causes spiritual resemblance?

"Gu~ 166 knows that under certain circumstances, the spirits of two people can become very similar."

The pigeon perched on Du Yu's shoulder, tilted its head, and stared at the two spirit orbs for a long time before speaking as if suddenly realizing something:

"It's the bond of fate! This happens when two people share very similar fates over a period of time!"

Fate... again, fate. Du Yu chewed on this word several times, feeling that since his transmigration, everything around him seemed to be manipulated by fate.

She narrowed her eyes, a flash of coldness passing through them: "Is this kind of 'bond' easy to form?"

"A very difficult 'gu'."

The pigeon tilted its head laboriously in another direction, clearly also confused about the current situation. "Fate is very elusive, and it is extremely difficult to define similarities in fate. Even twins who have lived and eaten together for ten years have very different fates."

Du Yu lowered his eyes to look at the two glowing spirit orbs in his hands, his hands...

She suddenly remembered something, looked up at the cramped one-person apartment she was in—the communal dormitory for the miners—and turned to instruct 166, “Go and see if anyone else in this building is showing the same abnormalities.”

166 obeyed the order and flew away, quickly returning to Du Yu's side. The confusion in Green Bean's eyes became more and more obvious: "There are more than 600 people in this building, of whom 35 have abnormal spiritual entities. One person even has four spiritual entities stored in his physical body!"

Two is already too many, what would happen if there were four?

Du Yu followed 166 to a dormitory room upstairs. Looking at the woman sleeping on the bed, a look of realization flashed in his eyes.

The unusual spiritual entities appearing on these miners are inextricably linked to the mine!

The woman Du Yu met in front of the mine was already quite thin, but the person lying on the bed was now practically skin and bones! Her weak chest seemed to be on the verge of collapse, making her normal mining-type prosthetic arm look particularly out of place.

Du Yu found the woman's name tag by his pillow. She had indeed been there longer than the woman with two spirits in her possession!

Looking at the ID photo pasted in the middle of the work badge, Du Yu's eyes darkened. This woman named Wang Erqi had slightly round cheeks and a shy smile. She had only been in the mine for more than ten days, and she had already turned into this half-human, half-ghost-like appearance!

Du Yu lowered his gaze. In the woman's hands, which were curled up beside her, were two very similar orbs of spiritual light.

With a sullen face, she tried to touch one of them, and as expected, just like 166, there was no reaction.

The brown light on the spirit sphere twisted slightly, as if mocking, or like a giant mouth opened to its widest extent, its tongue pressed tightly against the spirit's surface, devouring it bit by bit.

The strange mine has made all the miners' fates similar. The bond of "fate" has created very similar spirits, but where did these superfluous spirits come from? What is the brown light outside the spirits that is preventing them from entering?

Du Yurang was about to go find a place similar to a data room at the dock when he stared at Wang Erqi's healthy hands, which seemed out of place with his withered body. A cluster of purple flames was emerging from his fingertips. Just as he was about to test the purple flames that seemed to burn anything, his gaze suddenly sharpened:

"Who's there!"

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Author's note: Thanks to Qiqi for the 50 bottles of nutrient solution! Hehe, now I have more nutrient solution than I have favorites, yay!