I'm Trapped in the Block

Robed people came and went in the village.

It resembled an extremely primitive settlement. Though the robed people still wore advanced combat suits underneath their robes, their way of life was utterly archaic.

Some of the robed people were chopping wood and building fires, using alloy scalpels—now impossibly dull—to butcher the carcasses of hunted beasts.

Afterward, they would place the meat into metal containers originally meant for preserving biological specimens and roast them over the fire.

Moreover, Mo Ling saw many misapplications of technology, most of them incredibly wasteful. The outskirts of the village were piled high with refuse—likely objects they had broken through misuse.

’Does that distortion also cause people to regress?’ Mo Ling wondered, confused.

As his vision swept past the lopsided houses in the village, Mo Ling also spotted robed people resting.

They were leaning against the walls of the houses, using the vertical surfaces as beds to rest.

The longer Mo Ling watched, the more unsettling he found the scene.

Bai Zhou and Li Luo, who had just entered the village, did not attract the attention of the other robed people.

While curiously observing the village, Bai Zhou discreetly took out a recording device and began documenting the strange phenomena.

Soon, the two of them came to an area that resembled a marketplace, where many robed people had set up stalls.

They weren’t using any formal currency, instead relying on the primitive method of bartering.

Most of the goods for sale were hunted game, edible berries, and simple wooden tools.

A few stalls sold scrap technology, but business was terrible; almost no one patronized them.

"Those are the ones who ran into the monitoring station. They collect this equipment from inside," Bai Zhou whispered.

As he spoke, a robed man walked up to one of the stalls and traded a single rack of ribs for a huge pile of equipment.

After the trade, he placed a malleable alloy plate used in detectors on the ground and stomped on it. Finding it too soft, he seemed displeased and tossed it back onto the stall.

The stall owner, for his part, just gave an apologetic smile, showing no sign of discontent.

’Whatever they’re buying this stuff for, it’s certainly not to build detectors,’ Mo Ling thought.

’How could they have regressed to this extent?’

In the market, the most popular stalls were those selling all sorts of strange debris.

The stalls were piled with the same kind of material used during the robed people’s earlier ritual.

Fragments of rotted leaves, withered plant roots, fine wood shavings...

It was exactly as the guidebook described, though the purity didn’t seem high. Mo Ling even saw small insects crawling among the material.

The robed people buying it didn’t seem to care. They would trade huge chunks of beast meat for just a tiny amount of the rotted debris, yet they still flocked to it eagerly.

The stalls selling the debris were thronged with people. Every robed person who managed to acquire some showed a look of joy on their face before hurrying off in the same direction.

Bai Zhou quickly followed them, arriving at a clearing in the center of the village.

There were none of the strange buildings here—only a giant sphere of blood floating in the sky, with a circle of devout robed people standing beneath it. 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

Every robed person who arrived here would begin chanting that sacred song, then slowly walk to join the circle below.

Then, they would raise their arms, and a thread of blood would connect them to the sphere, initiating a circulation of blood.

Some robed people would arrive as others departed, but the sphere of blood remained perpetually floating, its suspension constantly maintained by new participants.

There was no telling how old the blood inside was. It was riddled with black debris, making the entire sphere look dark and viscous.

’An aged sphere of blood?’

The robed people below were constantly tossing more debris into the mix, as if the specks were their ticket of admission to the ritual.

Just like the ones he had seen before, the robed people here had their internal blood vessels clogged with debris, and the condition was even more severe.

Some of them, seemingly tormented by the ritual over a long period, had bodies that were beginning to fester. Their blood vessels had turned black, forming branch-like, dark patterns across the surface of their skin.

The physical damage had left most of them withered and gaunt, yet they carried on with the ritual as if possessed.

Seeing the expressions of both pain and ecstasy on their faces, Mo Ling felt they were beyond saving.

’Why perform such a meaningless ritual?’

Just as Mo Ling’s doubt reached its peak, something strange happened beneath the sphere of blood.

From within the crowd, one of the robed people performing the ritual suddenly burst into frenzied laughter.

He stopped chanting the sacred song and suddenly dropped into a crouch, covering his face with his gaunt hands and laughing wildly while muttering strange words.

He then struggled back to his feet. The black veins on his skin bulged, his eyes protruded, and a terrifying smile remained plastered on his lips.

He suddenly grabbed a companion, shaking them and saying something incessantly, as if sharing his joy.

’He succeeded?’ Mo Ling guessed from the man’s expression.

Realizing this, Mo Ling quickly focused his vision inside the man’s body.

Inside the robed man’s body, a dramatic transformation was underway.

The rotted debris began to break down further, integrating into his flesh. The clogged blood vessels were suddenly cleared, and his circulation began to accelerate.

His heart beat faster and faster, and the strange organ within him actually began to secrete rotted debris of its own.

This newly-secreted debris flowed with the blood to all parts of his body, where it slowly broke apart, turning into small black specks that then shrank until they were invisible to the naked eye, gradually dissipating.

The two strange organs inside the robed man’s body also began to slowly darken, becoming exceptionally distinct.

Moreover, in time with his heartbeat, the muscles of the once-gaunt man began to swell, seemingly fueled by the black debris.

His body seemed to inflate, rapidly growing stronger. The cloudiness in his eyes faded, replaced by renewed vitality.

The tree-like black marks on his skin sprouted new branches, spreading along his veins to every part of his body and forming an intricate web of patterns.

In just a few breaths, the frail robed man, who had reeked of decay, transformed into a tall, muscular giant.

Even his once-hoarse voice became resonant and powerful.

His transformation finally caught the attention of his companions. They watched him with envy while increasing the volume of their chanting, as if that would help them succeed as well.

The successful man proudly shared something with his companions. The others could only respond with strained smiles, unable to hide the jealousy in their eyes.

"It actually works?" Mo Ling was dumbfounded.

’So that book really is some kind of cultivation method?’

After his success, the robed man didn’t seem to have suffered any "distortion." He just seemed unusually excited due to the sudden improvement in his condition; otherwise, there was nothing abnormal.

Mo Ling quickly scanned the man’s body again with great care.

The tiny specks that had broken down from the black debris were being secreted from the strange organ in his head like insects, crawling all over the man’s brain.

They formed a sentence.