I'm Trapped in the Block

The Master of Right Words flipped through the book he had written, yet he looked at it as if he were reading it for the first time.

Bai Zhou tentatively extended a tentacle again. He could clearly touch the book in the Master of Right Words’s hands, but not his hand itself.

"Stop waving that around, you’re blocking my view." The Master of Right Words reached out and gently slapped Bai Zhou’s watery tentacle aside.

This time, Bai Zhou finally stopped trying. It seemed whether he could be touched or not was entirely under the Master of Right Words’s own control.

The Master of Right Words continued to read the book with great relish, translating its contents aloud as he went.

"The Method of Discarding the False and Retaining the True. Corruption is the path to the truth of language. Only by letting the flesh rot can one comprehend the true language from within death, open the path to the Gate of Truth, and glimpse the true power of language from the words of the Master of Right Words."

"Introduce a corrupted substance into the blood, letting it permeate the entire body. Allow the will of corruption to pull the soul into a place between life and death called the Spirit Thin Prison. From there, steal the truth from within the disordered language and pull the phantoms of death into reality."

"I have to say, their wording is much better than when I first wrote this book. It makes it sound far more profound."

While he was reading, Bai Zhou backed away to a safe distance, shaking his diving helmet and making the water inside SLOSH noisily.

Only after the Master of Right Words finished reading did Bai Zhou cautiously walk back and demand, "Why did you read that out loud? Are you trying to contaminate me with that knowledge?"

The Master of Right Words was taken aback by his question, then burst out laughing. "Contaminate? All of that is fake. Those guys added it in themselves."

’Fake?’

’Those promotion rituals are all fake? Then why can those robed figures still gain power from them and find the location of the Stone Gate?’

Bai Zhou’s face was a mask of disbelief.

"What is your goal, really?" he demanded agitatedly.

There were too many mysteries surrounding the Master of Right Words. He had appeared out of thin air in the very center of the Black Tower Castle, revered by all the robed figures as the one with the highest status. He knew not only ordinary language, but the distorted language as well.

On top of that, there was his miraculous ability to be untouchable.

Hearing Bai Zhou’s question, the Master of Right Words finally grew a little more serious. He answered earnestly, "My goal is the same as yours: to leave the Black Tower."

...

The Master of Right Words was not a long-term resident of the Black Tower Monitoring Station.

But by chance, he had ended up in the distorted Black Tower and was trapped by its indiscriminate, maze-like nature, completely unable to escape.

Due to his special ability, he hadn’t been distorted and could still travel freely throughout the Black Tower. Thus, he had been searching for a way to escape all this time.

Soon, he found the Stone Gate. This gate led to a strange space within the Black Tower—a place that was inside the tower but couldn’t be entered from anywhere else.

There, the Master of Right Words found something like a core. This core seemed to have a consciousness and was constantly muttering something.

After finding this core, the Master of Right Words tried to awaken it and ask it the way out.

But the core said there was currently no way out; it had sealed the Black Tower.

"Let me out, and I won’t tell anyone what’s happened in the Black Tower," the Master of Right Words negotiated with the core.

"You can leave once the correction is complete."

"I’m not participating in any correction. Let me out." The Master of Right Words realized the core didn’t seem very intelligent, so he began trying various arguments to bypass its judgment.

"Correction is mandatory. You are human," the core replied.

"What if I’m not human anymore?" the Master of Right Words retorted.

"You can leave."

After getting this answer, the Master of Right Words tried all sorts of methods, but the core still identified him as human and refused to let him out.

So, the Master of Right Words began to ask the core what it considered a completed correction.

"When the language is correct, the correction is complete."

The Master of Right Words thought of the humans in the Black Tower whose language had been distorted. ’Isn’t that a completed correction?’

He found a human with distorted language. When the human saw him, he tried to attack, so the Master of Right Words trussed him up and dragged him before the core.

The human furiously summoned all sorts of phantoms to attack the Master of Right Words, but these phantoms passed right through his body, having no effect on him whatsoever.

As he was being attacked, the Master of Right Words asked the core:

"Look at him. The correction is complete. Can I leave now?"

"Correction incomplete. Continue correction," the core replied mechanically.

"Then what counts as complete?" the Master of Right Words asked, growing impatient.

"Standard pronunciation, phonetic power at its peak—that is complete." The core shot a beam of light at the human and slowly uttered a single word: "Unqualified."

The Master of Right Words had no choice but to release the human and rack his brains for a solution.

He didn’t know when those humans would ever complete their "correction." They didn’t even seem to understand the source of their own power.

The Master of Right Words had investigated within the Black Tower. These distorted humans believed they were the original inhabitants. They wore robes to distinguish between companions and "outsiders," lived in crooked houses, and led a primitive existence.

Expecting this group of "primitives" to recognize the source of their power, and then constantly practice and train to achieve the most standard pronunciation... who knew how long that would take.

Besides, the Master of Right Words had no way of knowing how standard the robed figures’ pronunciation was. It wasn’t like he could have them speak every single word just to see how powerful the summoned phantoms were.

Fortunately, he eventually thought of a solution—

—he would learn it himself.

Since he couldn’t rely on the robed figures, he would learn their language himself. Once he had completely mastered it, wouldn’t that count as a completed correction?

He was a man of action. He captured a few more robed figures and began communicating with them through sign language, learning simple vocabulary.

First, he matched the distorted words, then moved on to grammar and intonation. Gradually, he became able to converse with the robed figures.

At that point, he put on a robe and blended into their villages to communicate with them. If he was discovered, he would simply run away and find another village.

At night, he would practice correcting his pronunciation inside the Stone Gate. It was very easy to judge how standard his pronunciation was: the stronger the summoned phantom, the more standard the pronunciation.

Over time, the villagers no longer recognized him as an outsider. In fact, because his pronunciation was so pleasant and elegant, many robed figures began to ask him for instruction on correct pronunciation.

Through extensive communication, he learned more and more vocabulary, slowly mastering the entire language system.

Every language system has its own internal similarities. The Master of Right Words used these similarities to deduce the correct pronunciation of other, rarely used words.

The Master of Right Words had deciphered the entire distorted language system.

He slowly became the person with the most standard pronunciation and vocabulary in the entire Black Tower.

At this point in his story, the Master of Right Words sighed, speaking with a sense of relief:

"Fortunately, it was only a matter of mastering a language. That wasn’t too difficult."