Chapter 164
Lu Chuan’s life soon became worse than death.
The living conditions were miserable.
Every day he ate a spoonful of yellow mush — sticky, with every flavor mixed together: sour, sweet, bitter, spicy, salty. One bite felt like it would burst his stomach, and he didn’t need to eat anything else.
Water was just processed, filtered liquid. Drinking it left a bitter aftertaste of suffering.
Ever since Lu Chuan had transmigrated into the infinite worlds, he’d never lived such a hard life. Even before that, at least he’d had his family’s old house, and at his poorest he could afford vegetables with noodles.
Compared to this, vegetables with noodles were gourmet food.
Lu Chuan was miserable. He suspected the dungeon name Forbidden Zone for Humans meant humans simply weren’t suited to exist here.
Apparently, even the yellow mush was in limited supply, reserved only for investigators. If the Night Investigation Squad dismissed him and no other team accepted him, he’d have to find other work — but the pay wouldn’t cover even the mush. The cheaper white paste tasted worse and didn’t fill you up.
Lu Chuan almost felt like he wanted to just die.
Fortunately, this porridge-like mush was only eaten once a day, and just two mouthfuls would finish it. He treated it like drinking Chinese medicine—barely tolerable.
But when it came to sleeping, he didn’t even get a sleeping bag. Sleeping bags were now considered rare treasures, practically family heirlooms. If he wanted one, he’d have to buy it or earn it as a reward.
As a side note, in this world, gold and jewelry were worthless. The only currency was “Eye ingots.”
Yes, exactly those eyes taken from mutated creatures.
White eyes were the cheapest, red eyes next, and black eyes were the most expensive.
Eyes could retain the power a creature had when alive, and could be used to make tools, weapons, and even ingredients for mush. In short, they were versatile and served as a general equivalent currency.
Because of this, lone humans—especially lone investigators—were often attacked, since their eyes were black and very valuable. Ordinary humans’ black eyes, however, had no power, and anyone could tell they were fake and worthless.
Lu Chuan also overheard that top-tier investigator corps had developed a transplant surgery that allowed powerful eyes to be grafted into ordinary humans, granting them great power.
After several days of listening and learning, Lu Chuan had pieced together quite a lot of information.
For instance, this world did indeed have gods—but there was no concept of “benevolent gods.” They were all evil gods. Investigators’ role was to research these mysterious evil gods, obtain items imbued with their power, and in the process of contact, sometimes gain special abilities themselves.
The ways of gaining power varied: transplant surgery, being transformed by an evil god’s servant, accidentally consuming a piece of an evil god’s body or blood, or even just waking up one day with powers. But without exception, all powers came with side effects.
By comparison, becoming an investigator and gradually making contact with evil gods yielded more stable, lower-side-effect powers. That was why, despite the high death rate, people still chose to become investigators.
Aside from the evil gods, humanity also couldn’t stop its old habit of infighting.
Some humans believed the world was beyond saving. The sun, moon, and air were polluted—apocalypse was inevitable. They thought only by serving evil gods and becoming their dependents could they survive.
Thus, many humans became cultists—sworn enemies of investigators.
Once humans pledged themselves to evil gods, they gained abilities that let them feed on other humans. Food was no longer a struggle—after all, humans were everywhere.
Their minds also grew increasingly inhuman, their appearances less and less human. But they called this process “ascending to immortality,” believing it meant they were transcending mortal flesh into higher beings.
In short, those who pledged themselves to evil gods were no longer human.
These converted beings were collectively called “Calamities.” They had no fixed form—even those transformed by the same evil god often looked different.
And it wasn’t only humans; pigs, dogs, cows, sheep—even plants—could be corrupted. This constant encroachment had caused humanity to lose territory again and again, until only tens of millions remained worldwide. Even then, many lived on the brink of death, unsure if they would survive the next day.
As for children, the elderly, and women, their numbers were pitifully few. Reproduction was extremely difficult. Without food subsidies for families who had children, birth rates might have already collapsed entirely.
Rumor had it that, to save collapsing fertility and humanity’s future, large investigation corps had developed assisted reproduction technologies that allowed large-scale births without needing men and women to couple.
From one perspective, humanity was drifting away from what it meant to be “human.” Truly, this world was on the verge of collapse.
Still, there was a sliver of hope.
Lu Chuan learned that from time to time, a special investigator appeared—one with powers that came with almost no side effects. These individuals were overwhelmingly strong, capable of defeating many evil gods, and often possessed prophetic abilities. They were called Legendary Investigators.
Legendary Investigators appeared randomly, but each one’s emergence always led to great victories against evil gods. The last one was named Wen Renxu. On his own, he rallied many fractured investigation corps together, building a city solely for investigators to unite their strength against evil gods.
Unfortunately, his efforts ultimately failed. He disappeared, and many believed him dead.
But although he failed, the city he founded endured, with schools and hospitals established there, giving smaller groups opportunities and keeping humanity barely hanging on.
At this point, Lu Chuan understood.
Anyone who entered the “Forbidden Zone of Humanity” dungeon was a master-rank player—naturally, all extremely powerful, and unlike investigators, their powers had no side effects.
Yet none of them had ever left this dungeon alive. This world itself was always on the brink of collapse.
If nothing went wrong, I must be this world’s new Legendary Investigator, Lu Chuan thought. The problem? My powers all cost money.
Originally, Lu Chuan figured he could just hoard wealth in the dungeon to offset his skill costs. But in this world, there was no money. There weren’t even proper plants or animals; all minerals had been corrupted.
Gold? Silver? Jewels? Never seen. Instead, they had minerals tainted with evil gods’ blood—bewitching and corrupting, but useful for making weapons.
Which meant every time Lu Chuan used his powers, he was burning through his own real money. Worse, he couldn’t even open his system here, so he had no way to check how much his skills were costing him. To him, this was like a thunderbolt from the blue.
He couldn’t just lose both his life and his money in this world.
No, he needed another plan.
The plan he came up with was to head for the city built by investigators.
Now he understood: investigators, with bodies never reinforced by the Main God System, couldn’t handle their powers well.
Players, on the other hand, had their bodies strengthened in various ways, and their powers developed gradually with plenty of time to adapt. If their physical stats didn’t keep up, their skills wouldn’t upgrade.
But investigators gained powers instantly, with no adaptation period—leaving them overburdened, damaging their abilities and sanity every time they used them.
Seen this way, the Forbidden Zone of Humanity was more like a world never touched by the Main God System, but fully consumed by evil gods.
Since this dungeon belonged to the God of Time, creating such a system-free world was trivial for Him.
That didn’t mean the Main God System was some savior—it was just the lesser evil. Once it devoured all gods, who knew what kind of world it would leave behind?
Still, Lu Chuan reasoned, the master-rank players here must have realized the Legendary Investigator was always one of them. And since more players would eventually arrive, he should leave some clues for them.
Besides, the city had been built by Wen Renxu, once a Guildmaster. Maybe he left behind some useful tools. Surely that was better than rotting away in a cave, unable to eat or sleep well.
Hopefully, that Guildmaster had spared some thought for those who came after.
With that in mind, Lu Chuan persuaded his group to head for the city. His silver tongue and feigned earnestness managed to win many of them over.
If they didn’t go to the city, they’d have no information. Plus, they needed to restock on calming potions—better not to wait until supplies ran out.
“Going to check it out is fine,”Little Chun warned him. “But don’t go running around. The city is full of powerful investigators, and many of them aren’t all that stable. If you offend someone and get killed, we won’t avenge you.”
“Of course,” Lu Chuan nodded quickly. “I never cause trouble—really.”
