Chapter 358 357. Abandoned Case
In the far north, there is a vast ice field north of the Stone Castle underground city.
“Hiss! It’s so cold!”
"Indeed... It's been a while since I've experienced this kind of biting cold. I should have brought a heating pad with me!"
Two mushroom people were sitting on a simple cart, rubbing their almost frozen arms.
The cart was piled high with all kinds of magical materials, and pulling the cart were two rows of hardworking sled pullers, who were running diligently on the ice and snow.
Their destination was a small open-air testing site built against a steep ice wall.
This is the place Lin Jun specially selected to experiment with dangerous abyss magic.
It is remote enough, uninhabited, and covered by a vast fungal blanket.
Even if any accidents occur, there is enough buffer zone to deal with them calmly.
Xinghuo had arrived early and was currently drawing a complex magic circle on the ground using materials.
The abyss-related magic book obtained from Malgas originally recorded some mysterious and advanced abyss magic, and Lin Jun could only get a general idea of it.
But after picking up many basic Abyss Magic books in the Stone Forest, Lin Jun finally understood one thing: It was really deserved that Abyss Magic could not be developed!
Its most notable feature is that all Abyss magic must be cast through a complete "ritual", and there is no type of magic that can be cast instantly like Fireball.
Moreover, for magic of the same level, the complexity and taboos of the Abyss rituals far exceed those of other factions.
Take the relatively basic "Servant Summoning Ritual" that Lin Jun is about to try. In the entire book, only a quarter of the content explains the materials and arrangement methods required for the ritual, while the remaining three quarters are all chattering about various precautions, warning signals and insurance measures!
For example, in addition to the regular materials required for the magic circle core and a low-level contract scroll, the ritual must also add an independent "disruption magic circle" to ensure that the caster can forcibly interrupt the ritual at any time before the summoning is completed.
There are many similar insurance methods recorded in the book, and the words seem to be soaked in the lessons learned by our predecessors with blood.
The sacrifice is also a rigid requirement of the ritual, and it must be a healthy, sober, and energetic intelligent creature.
Their function is to "resist the erosion of the abyss" at the critical moment when the caster initiates the ritual.
According to Lin Jun's understanding, these sacrifices are essentially "human buffers" that carry information garbage. Until they are filled up and collapse, the flow of garbage information will not directly impact the caster himself.
However, Lin Jun did not plan to use sacrifices this time.
In his eyes, every living intelligent creature, even those collected dregs of society, are valuable talents and should not be wasted.
Furthermore, Lin Jun had already intended to collect and analyze those "junk messages", so without any sacrifice, he could kill two birds with one stone.
The most frustrating thing about Abyss Magic is that even if you prepare everything in detail, the result is still full of huge uncertainty.
The book in Lin Jun's hand lists dozens of abnormal situations that require the immediate activation of interference arrays as soon as signs appear. It makes people's scalps tingle, and it seems that the success rate of normal spellcasting is hopelessly low!
At the end of the book, a conclusion was written in bold: "The abyss offers no gifts, only equal exchange. Every bit of power you gain is built on the ashes of sacrifice and the risk of sliding towards the brink of collapse. No one is exempt."
Further down, there's a line of slightly scribbled notes in a different handwriting, like the sentiments of a previous owner:
"They are not knowledge, but the embodiment of a curse... But the power is real..."
Supernatural.
After the arrangement was completed, Lin Jun asked the mushrooms to go back, and a group of Puji crawled out from the fungal carpet.
Controlling Puji, he carefully checked every detail of the magic circle again to make sure there were no mistakes.
Afterwards, several Pujis took the initiative to crawl onto the magic nodes that were supposed to be occupied by the living sacrifices and squatted quietly.
Finally, a Puji, who was specifically responsible for casting spells, activated the entire ritual array.
The dark magic lines suddenly lit up, emitting an ominous glow.
Almost at the same moment when the magic circle was activated, Lin Jun once again clearly felt the complex and disordered "junk information"!
【Arm length 1.2 meters, four-finger structure】
…
[Reproduction level: 3.3]
…
Perhaps because the level of this ritual was lower, the intensity and total amount of information flow were far less terrifying than the last time when they faced the void directly.
It feels like an old radio with poor signal, constantly emitting meaningless noise.
Lin Jun felt that with his current information processing ability, there didn't seem to be any big problem in continuing to receive information like this.
The only problem was that this makeshift, low-level magic circle beneath his feet couldn't hold out for that long...
He put the junk information aside for the moment and focused his attention on the ceremony itself.
The magic ceremony was proceeding smoothly. In the center of the magic circle, a chaotic and blurry black mist emerged out of thin air and began to gradually condense.
The fog rolled, and it seemed that something was struggling to condense into a solid entity.
Through the hazy mist, the gradually taking shape outline looks like... a... ball of yarn?
A tangled, wriggling ball of thread?
This form was not among the seven known forms considered "safe" in the magic book, but it was also not on the blacklist of 42 "dangerous" forms.
Unknown form, according to the book, the safest thing to do at this moment is to interrupt the ceremony immediately.
But Lin Jun didn't do that. Because he had already seen its panel information:
[Race: Shadow Bug (Abandoned)]
[Level: LV3]
[Skill: Shadow Dissolution LV1]
The ball of yarn was actually the tangled body of an insect. It twisted and melted into the shadow cast by the stone wall little by little, but not very fast.
Before it completely merged into the shadow and disappeared, Lin Jun used the pre-established contractual connection to forcibly issue an order and pulled it out from the edge of the shadow.
However, at this time, Lin Jun's attention was no longer on the summoned creature itself.
What a damn scrapped project! When I first came into contact with the Abyss Information, I felt that those things were some kind of discarded data. Now it seems that it is indeed the case!
Is this world really a game?
So, who is the "planner" of the game?
Are they those high and mighty gods in the legend?
Lin Jun feels very bad now. If this world is really just a designed game, then who is he?
A player who is addicted and doesn't even realize it?
Or is he an NPC who thinks he has free will, but whose fate has actually been written?
What about Xiao Hei, Norris, Xiao Zhu, and Shou...what are they?
Pieces of data with rich background stories that can be reset or deleted at any time?
What a disgusting feeling, even more disgusting than being dried out...
(End of this chapter)
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