Chapter 101 - 90: Contacting Tran

Chapter 101: Chapter 90: Contacting Tran

With a thought, Zhang Ji reappeared in the outside world.

You come out from the same place you go in.

The Ruins Realm itself had a physical form; it was just equivalent to a special folded space that ordinary people couldn’t touch.

Zhang Ji picked up the cross. The next moment, the space around his palm distorted slightly, rippling as the cross vanished from his hand, stored away inside the Ruins Realm.

The "Hope’s Ark" was now spiritually bound to Zhang Ji. He only needed to use his Spirit to open and close the Ruins Realm.

Currently, the largest passage he could open was about the size of the space itself.

This characteristic could be used in warfare.

For example, if you loaded a small mountain into the Ruins Realm, flew a plane over a city, and just opened it up to drop it, you could instantly crush a huge number of people.

Zhang Ji knew that a player had done this before.

However, that guy had gone straight to the ocean, filled it with water, and then artificially created a torrential flood that submerged an entire city.

Of course, this was a very crude application.

Even if one were to use it as a warehouse to transport and deploy combat supplies, you wouldn’t be moving a small mountain.

After carefully surveying his surroundings, Zhang Ji squatted down and tried to pry out the clay tablet.

He jabbed his five fingers down, but only managed to leave some light marks on the brickwork, penetrating less than an inch.

’The materials used to build this pyramid are something special...’

Slightly surprised, Zhang Ji immediately circulated his Primordial Qi. His muscles bulged as his palm vibrated like a cutting machine, quickly carving out the entire clay tablet.

According to the guide information he knew, this clay tablet was also a good item.

It was a substance from some Otherworld called "Void Soil." Through mental control, it could be shaped and its hardness fixed. It would then maintain that form, and even if damaged, it could quickly repair itself.

The guide had mentioned briefly that this stuff could even be used to patch spatial rifts at its peak, after which it would become as sturdy as a Spatial Barrier.

And to shatter space, one would need to be at least S-rank or higher.

Zhang Ji weighed it in his hand. The clay tablet was about five kilograms and felt like modeling clay. It could be freely kneaded, deformed, and stretched, but it couldn’t be torn or cut.

Moreover, if he just left it alone, it would return to its original shape in about ten seconds.

To use it, one needed to use their Spirit to control its shape.

Zhang Ji’s spiritual strength was not weak, but at his current level, he still couldn’t directly project his Spirit to interfere with matter.

He could only use resonance techniques with his spiritual frequency to manipulate air currents and water particles.

He figured that once his True Qi Nourishing Spirit Skill obtained ten crystals and synthesized them into a higher-tier (Excellent) combat crystal, he should be able to do it.

At that point, even without a superpower like Telekinesis, he could touch upon the domain of mentally controlling objects.

Speaking of mentally controlling objects, one had to mention the Concentration Sect, a fighting style faction of the [True Self Stream].

There were a total of four factions within the [True Self Stream].

Three were mainstream: the Solid Body Sect, corresponding to physical body enhancement; the Spiritual Intent Sect, corresponding to control enhancement; and the Primordial Qi Sect, corresponding to energy enhancement.

Besides these three, there was also a more obscure faction: the Concentration Sect.

It corresponded to the pure Spirit enhancement path.

This was a rather extreme path.

The Solid Body Sect at least considered how the physical body could nourish the Spirit, but the Concentration Sect didn’t concern itself with the physical body at all.

It only required the constant strengthening of the Spirit; in this faction, the physical body itself was a shackle limiting the Spirit’s potential.

When the Spirit became powerful to a certain degree, it could directly control matter, causing it to change according to one’s will.

That’s right. It wasn’t like the Profound Heart Stream, which used existing elemental substances as a means of attack, but rather direct control and manipulation to change their very nature.

Even without matter to manipulate, immense power could be unleashed using only spiritual particles themselves.

That Saint King, Tran, was one who walked this path.

Further down this path, one could abandon the physical body, exist directly as a spiritual entity, and evolve into a being of pure spirit.

However, this faction was also unpopular among players, even more so than the Spiritual Intent Sect.

This was because a pure Concentration Sect fighter had almost zero combat power without B-rank spiritual strength.

But after reaching B-rank, there was a qualitative leap in power.

The related Concentration Sect combat skills all had terrifyingly high damage.

...

Mulling over these miscellaneous thoughts, Zhang Ji distorted the space in his hand and stored the clay tablet away as well.

Then, he headed outside.

Although the pyramid had collapsed downward, blocking the main gate, a skylight that had previously gathered light had now become a new exit.

Zhang Ji emerged from it and saw that the pyramid’s collapse into the ground had formed a massive chasm over a hundred meters long. However, a metal bridge still connected the two sides of the chasm.

With a single leap, Zhang Ji pushed off the bridge lightly and cleared the hundred-meter distance in one go.

Standing on the edge, he looked back and down. The two colossal statues had sunk into the earth along with the pyramid and were now buried under a great deal of soil.

He felt it was a bit of a pity. Although the statues felt like they were one with the pyramid, their construction seemed far from simple. He had originally planned to move both statues into the "Hope’s Ark" Ruins Realm.

Trying to get them now would be too troublesome; just digging through all that earth would be a hassle.

’The spatial passage of the "Hope’s Ark" Ruins Realm doesn’t have a cutting effect. Otherwise, I could just take them in, soil and all, and deal with it later...’

Of course, he could climb down and then store them, but Zhang Ji was worried about causing additional trouble. The power of these two statues was unknown. God knew if they were activated, a fight with them could go south.

"Forget it. I got the best stuff already, so the rest doesn’t matter. Worst case, I can come back for it later," Zhang Ji said.

Without any further lingering, Zhang Ji turned and left directly.

When he arrived, he had slowed his pace to cautiously observe his surroundings, moving step by step. He didn’t need to do that on the way back.

He just had to stretch his legs and run.

In less than five minutes, Zhang Ji had run to the shore.

His boat was still docked there.

With a single leap, Zhang Ji jumped directly onto the boat and activated the winch to automatically raise the anchor.

He started the fishing boat and headed out. He had gone less than a hundred meters when he heard a tremendous ROAR.

Looking back, he saw the island was shaking and disintegrating. Everything on it was sinking into the sea.

Watching all this unfold, Zhang Ji felt a stir of emotion.

The ruins left behind by this once-glorious civilization had now vanished completely.

From a certain perspective, did this also mean their civilization had truly disappeared, having completed its historical mission?

The fishing boat gradually sailed out of the mist. On the distant horizon, the morning sun was rising.

-----------------

「Back in Knight Town」, Zhang Ji contacted Bai Xiaoxiao.

He quickly rushed to the seaside.

Zhang Ji handed off all the matters concerning the fishing boat’s return to him and said, "After you finish up, you can take a day off. I’ll reimburse you for anything up to one hundred thousand Romance Coins. We’re heading back to the Roman Country tomorrow."

"Thank you, Sect Leader!" Bai Xiaoxiao was pleasantly surprised, smiling as he bowed. Then he added, "Sect Leader, there’s something you should probably know."

"What is it?" Zhang Ji asked.

"Earlier, there was an old man..."

Bai Xiaoxiao briefly explained how Tran had patted him on the back, sorting out the Primordial Qi in his body.

After that, Bai Xiaoxiao had even bought fruit to visit Tran.

But Tran didn’t respond; he didn’t even open the door.

"Mm, I understand," Zhang Ji said with a nod.

It was truly Bai Xiaoxiao’s good fortune to have such an opportunity.

However, Zhang Ji wasn’t going to approach Tran because of this.

If that man wanted to meet him, he would have done so already.

His continued absence clearly meant he didn’t want to get involved in any more trouble.

Bai Xiaoxiao said, "Sect Leader, I’ll get to it then."

"Go on," Zhang Ji nodded. Then, as if remembering something, he added, "When you come back tonight, stop by a seed shop and bring me a bag of corn seeds."

"Oh, I got it," Bai Xiaoxiao said.

Zhang Ji didn’t want the corn seeds for any other reason; he simply wanted to plant them in the Ruins Realm to test the effects.

As for why corn?

It was mainly because Zhang Ji had seen a cornfield on his way here and figured it would be the easiest to buy.

...

That evening, Bai Xiaoxiao brought several bags of corn seeds to Zhang Ji.

It basically included every variety of corn currently grown by the town’s farmers.

Zhang Ji didn’t really care.

Returning to his bedroom, he closed the curtains and directly entered the Ruins Realm.

Then, Zhang Ji tore open the bags of corn seeds. He dug into the soft soil, casually tossing two or three kernels into each hole. After finishing one bag, he found it too troublesome and simply cut open the rest and scattered them randomly.

Zhang Ji didn’t know how to farm.

And he had no intention of learning.

But he had faith in the "Hope’s Ark" Ruins Realm.

Even if the real world behaved differently from the game, and he couldn’t get a batch of crops to mature in ten minutes like in the game, based on the game’s time calculation, these crops should only need about a day to grow inside the "Hope’s Ark" Ruins Realm.

After exiting the Ruins Realm, Zhang Ji opened the curtains and saw the old man by the sea again.

After a moment of thought, Zhang Ji decided to cast aside his reservations and go make contact with him.

...

「By the sea」, Zhang Ji walked up to Tran’s side. Both of them gazed out at the ocean.

Only by getting this close to such a figure did Zhang Ji realize just how terrifying the other man was.

His Spiritual Power was as deep and vast as the ocean. Compared to him, Zhang Ji was like a single drop of water facing a river.

The difference was just that obvious.

The man probably had A-rank spiritual capacity long ago; he was just lacking in quality.

"That Sacred Artifact contains a powerful energy. I hope you use it with caution, or it will surely bring disaster," Tran said suddenly.

Zhang Ji knew at once that Tran was talking about the cross.

He actually wasn’t aware of this. His Spirit was still unable to probe the cross’s interior, let alone channel its energy for an attack.

He only knew that the thing radiated energy outward.

For Tran to say it would bring disaster, the energy inside this cross must be truly terrifying.

’It could probably unleash an attack with a power of A-rank at minimum.’

’If I accidentally unleashed an attack of that intensity and was too close, I’d probably be killed by the aftershock.’

"Thank you for telling me."

Zhang Ji expressed his thanks, then said, "If you have the time, sir, you might want to take a trip to ’Dean City.’ I met a girl there named Melia Nash who bears some resemblance to you."

That’s right, Zhang Ji was talking about Tran’s descendant. According to the background story, she should be a little girl of four or five right now, and living a rather unhappy life. Only after she encountered Tran would she receive princess-like treatment because of him.

However, Tran didn’t know he still had descendants; he had always thought he was the only one left.

Loneliness and solitude were the reasons for his desolation.

Tran had no ambition to rule the world, nor any desire to climb to the pinnacle of combat. Among the Five Saint Kings, he was the one with the least drive, the most down-to-earth, and the most like an ordinary person.

He just wanted to live a peaceful and happy life with his friends and family, experiencing the simple routines of each day.

His "heart of a powerhouse" was a peaceful life. Anyone who shattered his daily routine would see the terrifying side of the Saint King.

Yes, many players had experienced it.

Zhang Ji had experienced it too.

In the game, right after breaking through to A-rank, he had wanted to find a Saint King to practice on and had fired a wave attack at Melia.

And then he learned the meaning of despair.

This was also why Zhang Ji was so wary of a Saint King described as friendly, benevolent, and down-to-earth, and why he hadn’t dared to approach him proactively before.