Free Web NovelChapter 415: Chapter 32: Escaping is Shameful but It Really Can Relieve Loneliness
(Unable to use extra updates for the Silver Alliance, progress 49/100.)
"He is someone willing to explore divine traces, but he is also a very negative person. Carbonites come in two types; one type you have already met. He, within the closed loop of eternal spacetime, appears enthusiastic to everyone he meets, full of adventurous spirit, and always holds hope for the future.
However, the person in front of you is of another type. He is willing to explore, but the conclusions he reaches are always negative, to the point where eventually, he wants to find a place to seclude himself.
Eternal life is a shackle on him, leading him to pursue the past and become immersed in it. He can return himself to a past state, but he cannot return to the past itself.
In the end, the mystery is solved. He has many Spirit Possession items and Talent Sequences on him. It can be said that he has quite a number of Sequences.
Do not be deceived by his feeble appearance; even without the powerful Sequence 12—Temporal Return, he is an incredibly strong being."
A lengthy note that Bai Wu quickly grasped the key points of.
The first person in the High Tower.
Perhaps not just the first human to enter the High Tower but also possibly the strongest human to have emerged from it.
Suddenly Bai Wu understood—if the other person had Temporal Return... could it be that the reason he hadn’t detected the other person was just that the other used Temporal Return to go back to their past location?
But he hadn’t actually returned to the past?
Yes, is this not what Yan mentioned—
He can return himself to a past state, but he cannot return to the past itself.
Indeed... the appearance of this person did startle Bai Wu. He had the look of someone not at all resembling a powerful figure.
"Who are you?"
The three words were spoken lightly as if the person didn’t mind being intruded upon, showing no displeasure, just simply not recognizing him.
"Your behavior, however, is different from those who came before."
"You are flipping through my diary? This has never happened. Because the people who came here before all knew my past well."
Bai Wu was taken aback. What was this person talking about?
After turning around, what Bai Wu saw was a person with a long beard and disheveled hair, looking dejected.
It wasn’t the kind of intentionally kept long beard, but more like the wild men from tribes one might encounter in a deserted island survival scenario.
His bare upper body revealed his skeletal figure.
He had expected to meet someone with a strong physique... at least someone like Lin Rui, who appeared somewhat tall and thin, but actually had well-defined muscles.
But this person was too gaunt.
Seeming to have suffered from long-term malnutrition, with his head appearing somewhat large, especially with such exaggeratedly long hair and beard, it looked even bigger.
"Then it seems we shall have an interesting conversation, but you’ll have to wait for me; promise me, don’t disappear."
Bai Wu didn’t comprehend the man’s behavior.
He just saw the man rush to the moss-covered wood outside the cabin. Then he deeply inhaled the scent that the moss emitted.
"Ah... the world has become colorful again! Do you hear it? The bustling noise of a crowd! The town has come back to life!"
This first person of the High Tower was high like someone on drugs, very excited.
Bai Wu watched him, beginning to understand somewhat.
This person looked at Bai Wu, puzzled again:
"Strange... why is your silhouette getting blurry. No, that’s not right... Shouldn’t it become clearer? Hahaha, to hell with it, it doesn’t matter my friend, tell me, which family from the town are you from?"
Bai Wu said:
"How long have you been living here?"
"How long? Don’t ask me this question. What concept is being ’long’? And what concept is ’not long’?... I’m confused."
The hallucinogenic effects of the moss made this mighty yet emaciated human appear mad and delirious, like an addict.
Bai Wu, however, was not surprised.
The diary entries of this person were all from unknown times, and it was also mentioned in the diary that this person’s concept of time was fading.
Temporal Return itself is a Sequence that could be considered immortal; he could use Temporal Return to revert his body to its youthful state.
But he couldn’t return to the actual era of his youth.
When hungry, he would revert to a state of being full.
When near death, he would revert to a healthy state.
If he was too far from home, he would return to the position he was in at home.
From the moment he obtained the Sequence, Temporal Return, he no longer belonged to mankind—he was almost a demigod.
For mortals with their short lifespans, the world is infinite. But now, for him, the world has its limits.
Especially after drinking well water, he found that his immortality had shifted from active to passive. The concept of time became even more intangible.
All the times in the diary were unknown, so of course, he could not remember how long he had been outside the Tower.
Was seven hundred years as brief to him as a few decades, or did he feel as though thousands of years had passed?
No one knew, not even he himself.
Once time becomes drawn out, the most terrifying enemy becomes loneliness.
How could there be people in the little town?
How could someone possibly visit him in this place?
It’s all fake.
They were all people he had conjured within the hallucinogenic effects of the moss.
After Bai Wu guessed this, it’s not hard to imagine why he became curious about looking through his own diary.
The people he conjured naturally knew about him. So there was no need to flip through diaries.
And the reason why it became blurry was because Bai Wu was real.
The stronger the hallucinogenic effect, the more realistic the conjured people become. But the more tangible a real person is, the blurrier they seem.
That’s why he found it odd, why this unfamiliar face did not appear clear, but instead became even blurrier.
Bai Wu said,
"Can you revert your body to a sober state?"
"I can, but there’s no need. Indeed, I no longer wish to see most of the people in the town, but I haven’t seen you. If I sober up, you’ll leave. Come on, let’s talk about something cheerful. Last time, I talked about eating meat with Butcher Zhang from the town. Sadly, I have no money for meat. What do you do?"
Well, having no concept of time and staying too long in a world devoid of humans, he hallucinated an entire town of people?
He even assigned places and jobs to these people within the small town...
How lonely must he have been?
Lin Rui had also faced this kind of loneliness, but Lin Rui would return to the past, not to a former state of the past.
So in a sense, Lin Rui was not lonely. He could even appear in times past, talk to certain people, and change some simple events that were not enough to trigger a butterfly effect.
Temporal Return was different. frёewebnoѵel.ƈo๓
This Sequence allowed oneself to revert to a past state, but the environment around him continued on the normal timeline.
"I am not from this small town."
"That is rare... I have forgotten where my last settled location was... Hmm, I need to flip through the logs..."
"My name is Bai Wu. I come from the High Tower. I am not someone you have imagined, so you might as well allow yourself to become clear-headed."
"High Tower... Oh, that’s a memory from very long, long, long, long ago. I don’t like it there. I took a very long nap, and when I awoke, there was no longer just me inside the Tower."
The master of Temporal Return sat down, paying no mind to Bai Wu’s latter statement, as in his eyes, Bai Wu was just a person he had made up.
Bai Wu didn’t immediately explain either, as he saw that the man had a strong desire to speak.
"I was originally very happy, finally not so lonely anymore, but... they fought, they struggled, they schemed for power. I was quickly ostracized... because I did not want to fight."
"The cost of dealing with others is killing another group of people. They call this ’diplomacy,’ ’strategy’... I can’t understand," he said.
"Such a High Tower must be very corrupt, right? I don’t know what happened to the High Tower later, after I left that place, someone came to assassinate me... but I got away," he continued.
Assassination?
Bai Wu had a feeling that they were talking about the grandeur of Versailles; they all owe their lives to your mercy for not annihilating them.
Assassinate... Perhaps it’s this person in front of me, who seems to have no desire to fight, and that’s why he’s never shown his strength, right?
But this person is indeed very passive; who can be certain about things from seven hundred years ago?
Yet he wasn’t wrong; the High Tower is very rotten. From the top down, rotten to the core.
"The High Tower is indeed very corrupt. Those who crave power have made it a murky mess," Bai Wu said.
"Really? You are different from the others, able to catch on to what I’m saying," the person remarked.
Is this person actually treating me as if I were a figment of his imagination? Bai Wu smiled and said:
"However, if you really feel lonely, you might also..."
HIs smile abruptly stopped.
Bai Wu suddenly remembered something.
If this person is the owner of the Temporal Return, doesn’t that mean he is the "food" that the sixth floor monster of the High Tower yearns for?
"Forget it, pretend I didn’t say anything," Bai Wu said.
A figment of imagination would not pause as if holding back words. Bai Wu’s behavior made the owner of the Temporal Return frown.
The next second, something strange happened.
The person’s beard disappeared, his hair turned into a buzz cut, and the skinny body instantly became muscular.
Bai Wu swore he only blinked, and the thin, wild-looking man suddenly changed into someone brimming with vitality.
There was no sense of aging, but he had become... much more robust.
After getting rid of his hair and beard, the person didn’t look particularly handsome, but at least his facial features were well-defined, less haggard, with a much gentler vibe.
In the blink of an eye, a complete transformation? Like flipping frames and suddenly changing into a whole new person?
Bai Wu understood the principle behind it—returning oneself to the healthiest state from the past. What Bai Wu didn’t understand—was that even the big-bearded, skinny state was also a state from the past.
"Not disappearing... not disappearing... are you real?"
The master of Temporal Return was hopping with excitement.
Bai Wu said:
"Senior, my name is Bai Wu, and this is the second time I’m introducing myself to you."
"Oh... so you are really the actual person... I’ve just sensed it, your presence is not weak," the man responded.
Not weak?
Isn’t that a bit of an understatement?
Bai Wu previously didn’t know how strong he was, but after clashing with Qin Ye and Liu Long, he had a clear idea.
One could say the Well Water had taken his body to the human limit.
But in this person’s eyes... it’s just ’not weak’?
"My name is Bai Wu," Bai Wu said for the third time.
"Damn it! Did you also drink the Eternal Spring Water?" the person exclaimed excitedly, forgetting to exchange names.
[His name is Xu Wei. This is too awkward, I can’t watch anymore—kindly provided by the benevolent guide teacher Yan, free of charge.]
Teacher Yan had provided Bai Wu with the answer.
Xu Wei’s excitement, coupled with too much time... not interacting with others, meant he had forgotten the protocol.
He interacted with the people he imagined in a very casual way.
Sometimes, when he needed a woman, stimulated by the moss, he would directly imagine a naked woman.
Sometimes, when he wanted to interact with children, child stars from the Pre-Tower Era would appear.
He arranged residences for each imagined person.
To him, this town was a bustling little place, filled with all sorts of people.
It was the opposite of reality. As for reality... Xu Wei hadn’t faced reality for a long time.
He had realized hundreds of years ago that maybe there were a few people still struggling in the world, but the world was beyond saving. freewebnovёl.ƈom
For example, he had encountered a Masked Strange Person. He seemed to have some powerful ability too, but that was meaningless.
Although this person appeared enthusiastic and seemed to have beautiful illusions about the future, Xu Wei knew very well that the world was beyond saving.
Humanity had completely died out, and the outside world was no longer suitable for human habitation.
So such a reality... was unbearable.
Bai Wu showed some anomalies that caused Xu Wei not to hold any expectations; he just gave it a try. After returning to his most lucid state of cognition, he found that Bai Wu was real.
This surprised him greatly.
This surprise was just like the one he experienced hundreds... or was it thousands of years ago when he met that Masked Strange Person.
He couldn’t remember clearly because his concept of time had faded, so he didn’t know whether it had been seven hundred or seven thousand years.
"Senior Xu, I am a real person, a living person; there’s no need to be happy for so long," Bai Wu said.
Xu Wei didn’t find it strange that Bai Wu knew his name; after all, every person he imagined knew his name.
He was still in a state that was half in reality and half out of reality.
"How did you come here? Oh, were you transferred by the High Tower Stele? But that shouldn’t be right. This is a black zone, and although a few small animals left recently... humans shouldn’t dare to touch that stele, should they?"
It seemed that Xu Wei knew about the secret of the stele too?
And he must have visited many places to come to that conclusion, right?
Small animals in the black zone? Could there be small animals in the black zone?
Bai Wu’s heartbeat quickened slightly... Temporal Return might not be within the top ten of the Sequence, but looking at the dim Sequences in the stele of the sixth layer... the strongest Sequence wielded by humans was Temporal Return.
This man’s strength might be even greater than he imagined.
Could he... possibly contend with a Well Level being?
This was a master.
Even though this man might not realize how strong he was himself.
Bai Wu said:
"Senior Xu, since you can’t perceive the passage of time and have no concept of it, why... don’t you wear a watch?"
"Many years ago... no, many, many years ago, I discovered that there was something off with my perception of time. Clocks, for me, only give a sensation of speeding up and slowing down. Without a watch, I merely fail to notice the change of time. If I wore one, I’d go mad," Xu Wei said.
Bai Wu understood; perhaps it was a side effect of Temporal Return?
Indeed, some Sequences have side effects. For example, Taotie, which acquires power by consuming others, has not only a low probability, but also a tendency to produce strange growths.
Temporal Return was powerful, yet it robbed Xu Wei of the concept of time.
Bai Wu wanted to understand this man better; he wanted to know how much information this man truly had.
Did he know the person with the Ten Thousand Phantasmal Bodies?
Why did the monster on the sixth floor of the High Tower desire to devour them both?
Of course, none of that was important. What mattered most was...
"There are no people in this town, Senior. You must be very clear about that. But I know a place that is full of people, where you won’t need to escape from reality, and it isn’t decrepit like the High Tower."
