Chapter 1 – Fangxian

There are no second chances in life.

Once we die, there may not even be a next lifetime.

Fangxian knew this fact very well because he himself is a 'Traveller'.

Since the death of the last lifetime, he has then arrived into this world.

As usual, the alarm sounds off early in the morning.

Fangxian woke up, washed up, stared at the slightly pale face in the mirror, as well as the subtle eye bags under his eyes. He couldn't help but smile bitterly, and muttered to himself: “Who said that traveling required golden fingers, can it be developed?”

With more than 20 years of experience with traveling lifetimes, he has proven that a 'salted fish' traveling past lifetimes is still a 'salted fish'!

We live in a technologically advanced world that can even navigate interstellar travel. Yet, in this lifetime he still doesn't know the level of civilization.

Therefore, whatever is necessary to travel through ancient times, not to mention old-fashioned projects can be directly shot dead.

Because of the completely different historical development, there is no hope in riding the wave and following trends to reap the benefits in an urbanized economy.

As for bringing forth classical civilization?

Haha… Fangxian was so tragically sad that he realized that he couldn't even recite the first chapter of the four masterpieces! But just remember that knowing the plot summary, there wasn't a better writing to perfectly interpret it.

Needless to say, the essence of the interstellar civilization world would be a straightforward battle, and there were countless and countless of masters. It would be delusional to attempt to be famous at once.

Most importantly, Fangxian realized that there was a problem with his mentality. To summarize, “salted fish” is not terrible, rather what's terrible is that deep in his heart, he has already become a “salted fish”.

“Live in the lower class for the rest of your life, anyways surviving one more day is already a win… Only peace and serenity are real, and it is a blessing to live your life surreptitiously…”

After hypnotizing himself by comforting himself, Fangxian successfully accepted the fact that he had failed in life. He hurriedly filled up his stomach with scraps and opened the door.

His current location is at a two-story concrete building, living on the second floor and a facade on the first floor. The slightly outdated signboard is printed with the five faded characters: 'Fang's Pawn Shop'.

This is Fangxian's greatest asset and daily income.

“Pity… Under the premise of a large number of undeveloped planets, real estate is really not worth anything… Wait, why am I thinking so much? Every day I work hard to earn money, go on blind dates, marry a not-so-good-looking but still decent wife, and have a few children, and life will just pass like that…”

Fang Xian looked down the Moncoro hall and made himself a pot of tea. He was feeling nonchalant.

This was his pawnshop, basically, there wasn't much business. It wasn't much but it was enough.

“There seems to be no business today, why not just close business and go online, I still have a mission in 'Legend of the Olden Days'…”

In this technologically advanced world, all virtual reality games have already been invented, giving people an immersive experience, causing countless people to be addicted in the regular civilian districts, even resulting in them being completely unable to distinguish between virtual and reality. They are married in the game and plan to live a lifetime there. These “Net worms” are by no means uncommon.

Although Fangxian wasn't addicted, he inevitably relied on this as a means to spend his days.

“Hey hey… maybe this was what those elite elders meant. In order to relieve pressure and contradictions, virtual games are used to entice inferior people like us. Alas… the social class, civilization development…”

He murmured, and then smiled bitterly: “So what if I can see clearly? I'm just a nobody, I have no strength and I don't have the mood. I can do whatever I want…”

Fang Xian forlornly drank a mouthful of his tea and was about to close the door to play his game. Suddenly, a figure flashed at the door and a lanky middle-aged man walked in.

He was around his mid-thirties. His hair was as messy as a bird's nest, he had a gaunt face and his eyes were bloodshot.

“How much time was spent grinding games overnight here…”

Fangxian secretly felt disapproval of that statement, but he continued to flash a gentle smile on his face: “Welcome dear customer, are you pawning or redeeming an item?”

“Pawning!”

The middle-aged man tossed a small black cloth bag onto the tabletop and revealed that inside the bag was a quaint paper bag book.

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“Oh… Antique…”

Fangxian was overjoyed on the inside.

In this era, the way of storing data has long become digitalized with various electronic means. This kind of paper bag book is really rare, and the upper-class community seems to have started a retro trend recently. Such ancient books can be redecorated and sent to large auction houses and it may get a good price.

In the antique business, it was normal to close business for three years and reopen for business for the next three.

He remained expressionless, donned on his gloves, and began inspecting the book carefully.

The book cover was pitch black and the words on the pages were unrecognizable to Fengxian.

After opening it, the paper pages on the inside were also a little strange. It was light yellow and thicker. Even without gloves on, it felt indescribable to the touch.

“Parchment? There are only seven pages, much thinner than expected… And what language is the text of this book?”

There are many languages developed on this planet since the beginning of time, but Fangxian was almost certain that this was not a language that originated from this planet.

He frowned and began to ask: “It would be hard to decipher the text, which makes it impossible to confirm its content, origins, rarity, or whether it's a limited edition… The price is… May I know if you are going to redeem it back after you pawn it?”

“Nope, I wish not to ever see it again…”

The middle-aged man's lips trembled, his eyes seemed to brim with unimaginable fear.

“It isn't stolen goods, is it?”

Fangxian felt a little stunned, but he wasn't too concerned about it. Instead, he started to haggle with the man with his silver tongue and slashed his offer. Finally, at a tenth of the price, he managed to claim the ancient paper bag as his own.

“Profit, Today is a profitable day!”

Fengxian quickly wrapped up business after sending off the middle-aged man. He hurriedly shut the door with a hint of glee, whilst carefully studying the treasure he had just received.

“Well… Can't find it on the internet, it seems like it is a very uncommonly spoken language…”

He began to scrutinize the countless wriggly inscriptions and started to feel dizzy.

The distorted font, the inexplicable color… It was like it had a life of its own, slowly coming to its senses.

“Interesting…”

He knew about “Peripheral Drift Illusion” pictures from online sources, pictures that are clearly still, yet able to reflect a dynamic effect and looks as though it is moving.

The texts on this book seem to have some meaning with regard to this aspect.

He removed his gloves and touched the booklet. That unspeakable feeling intensified.

Fengxian's thoughts began to wander off unconsciously, wondering about the origins of this ancient scripture.

Hiss… Hiss…

There were mixed noises in his ears, and scenes of illusions flashed over his eyes.

A trembling palm, its owner appeared to be mentally and emotionally unstable while copying something from a huge book.

In the vicinity of the huge book, was an altar full of fresh blood and internal organs, an atmosphere that was punctuated with horror.

As the scene changed, that transcript began to circulate in the hands of different people, resulting in a terrible fate and bad luck to befall them.

At last, it was pawned by the previous owner into his own hands…

“Was it… an illusion? Maybe I played too many games and I can't distinguish between the virtual world and reality? Can't possibly be, I don't want to be admitted into a mental hospital… also this book, is it really a book of doom? Perhaps it is a pretty good gimmick, but why am I starting to think that it is not an original?”

Fangxian started to pant uncontrollably, his expression was constantly changing: “Let's give it a name… 'The Inexplicable Book'? 'Secret Scriptures of the Profound Lands'? No, no, no, it's better to call it 'The Secret Transcript of the Mysterious Caverns'… Eh?”

He looked at the cover of the black book, his expression suddenly stagnated.

The originally distorted fonts, the constantly squirming combinations of unfathomable words becoming readable to him, forming the six characters: “The Secret Transcript of the Mysterious Caverns”.