The first thing Han Xuhan noticed after entering the foggy area was that despite keeping his mouth and nose covered with a part of his cloth, a foul smell assaulted his olfactory senses as soon as he had stepped inside. Somehow, the air polluted by the fog had penetrated his lungs despite holding his breath.
A burning sensation began to build up inside him the longer he ran inside the fog. He could feel the heat reaching every part of his body through his blood vessels. The orb was further away than he had thought. Han Xuhan increased his speed even further, not caring about safety measures anymore and focusing on reaching his destination with every cell of his body.
His eyes began to water, affecting his sight. A few yards away from his destination, he tripped and nearly fell down...on corpses.
There were giant corpses that barely resembled humans littering the ground. Han Xuhan noticed some of the humanoid ones that looked very similar to the zombie they had faced outside. The rest...they looked too terrifying; grotesque to the point where he did not want to think about them anymore after a few glances. Some of them would definitely plague his dreams for a long time.
It seemed that these zombies had died fighting among themselves.
Keeping his eyes peeled toward the shining orb, he ignored the squishing sounds and sensations coming from beneath his feet and kept running at the fastest speed possible; which was actually faster than most mortals who had been forced to enter the foggy area by the demonic cultivators. Since he had witnessed a mortal escaping back outside the fog all by himself, Xuhan was confident of reaching his destination safely as long as he tried his best.
Seconds later, he was facing the orb he had been rushing towards.
It was about the size of a beach ball. Its entire body was made of a semi-transparent glassy material. There were countless small words engraved on its surface, barely visible due to the radiance leaking out from it.
Han Xuhan couldn't recognize the language the words were written in. But he was too exuberant to care!
The moment he had gotten within the range where he could see it clearly, Xuhan had felt the searing heat in his body dissipate slightly.
Energized, he ran like the wind and leaped to touch the orb like he had seen Mu Ran's figure do. The moment his hands touched the orb, he felt the world around him twist and disappear, almost similar to how jumping into the portal had felt.
After a brief moment of disorientation, Han Xuhan felt the steady ground rematerialize under his feet. Blinking rapidly, he looked around.
The foggy surroundings, the looming balls of light, the stink of blood and rot...everything had been replaced.
Han Xuhan was standing inside a huge spherical stadium made entirely out of glass. The glass walls were filled with the same unknown writings he had noticed on the surface of the orb before leaping up to touch it. The source of light inside the orb seemed to be the walls themselves, radiating a red hue that pulsed in a lively manner and attracted eyes toward the words on them.
Was this the world inside the orb? How did this even work?!
Had he become a miniature version of himself and been transported inside the orb?
And the most important thing here was that there were other people inside the glass stadium with him. Han Xuhan's sudden appearance didn't surprise them at all. After one suspicious look at his attire and masked face, they went back to minding their own business.
All of these people were standing close to the walls, their eyes glued to the writings there.
Han Xuhan didn't quite understand how his body size had shrunk so much that he could fit inside the orb and feel like he was inside a huge, round stadium. But seeing how strange and magical this world was throughout the last few weeks had changed him.
He didn't freak out as much as he should have. Instead, he found this entire experience rather fun, a very dangerous type of fun. He really felt like one of those protagonists in mystery novels, exploring secrets after secrets on an incredible adventure. It was a refreshing sensation.
Feeling rather energized, Han Xuhan looked around with more focus this time. Mu Ran should be here too, right? Both of them had leaped into the same orb after all.
Yet as he kept turning to look on and on, he realized that Mu Ran wasn't here, at least not inside this particular orb. He could even see some of those cultivators from the stardust sect. But strangely enough, none of them stood close to each other, unlike their previous display of unity outside the fog.
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Brother Feng didn't seem to be among them either.
Deciding not to jump to conclusions, Han Xuhan walked over to an unfamiliar cultivator who wore a cyan robe that covered him from head to toe. Underneath the hood, Han Xuhan could see a featureless glassy, metallic mask completely obscuring his face.
"Cool mask you got there, fellow miniature person. Is it up for sale?"
"...No." The guy sounded unprepared for such a friendly opening exchange.
"Tsk. Could you tell me if you saw a guy wearing a red bandana on his head and black cloth masking his face? He should have arrived here about half an hour ago."
The man looked him up and down for a few seconds before replying in a rumbling tone,
"Was he your friend?"
Han Xuhan suddenly felt that being known as the protagonist's friend in a xianxia world was...not very advantageous. He had no idea what Mu Ran had done after entering this place. It was better to take no risks. Carefully, he answered in a measured tone.
"We are acquaintances who decided to venture in here together. We got separated in the fog. He owes me some spirit stones and a precious treasure."
"He raised quite the fuss after entering this place. He left just a few minutes ago, faster than anyone managed to on this platform. Quite the performance, I'd say." The cyan-robed man answered his question this time.
Han Xuhan found the keyword in his answer.
"Left? How did he do that?"
This time the guy in the cyan robe didn't answer immediately. After staring silently at Han Xuhan for nearly ten seconds, he stretched out a hand which held a paper and quill.
"What is this, fellow man with a cool mask?"
"...It's a formal agreement. Read the terms and conditions and sign it if you want to. If you're illiterate, find somebody to read it to you."
Han Xuhan was confused.
What was wrong with this guy now?
He just wanted to know the answer to his question. How did it turn into signing a deal?
Han Xuhan wrapped up the corner of his robe around his fingers. Then he carefully pinched the corner of the paper and took it from him. After all, it was common sense to not touch anything offered by a stranger!
Han Xuhan read the words on the paper loudly, to show that he wasn't illiterate.
"The following deal shall bind the one(s) who sign it according to the rules written on this paper.
Any type of rule-breaking will result in immediate punishment and said punishment may cause the death of the offender."
Underneath the paragraph were multiple blank slots to put their names in. Beneath the blank slots were a few rules written using the standard contract template that could be found in courtrooms.
Han Xuhan suddenly remembered getting scammed on his second day at the sect during choosing his education curriculum. He immediately scrutinized each and every sentence written on the page and tried to find any existing loophole.
If he signed the paper, he would be agreeing to reveal any information he knew regarding the secrets of this world fragment. In return, he'd receive the information he wanted from the other guy provided that he knew the information beforehand, or acquired afterward.
The laws behind the technique used to create and bind the agreement would judge whether both parties could offer equivalent information or not automatically so that they could both benefit from the agreement and not scam each other. Lying would immediately result into severe punishments such as being struck by heavenly thunder, odd accidents that cannot be countered, a streak of misfortune that can snowball into disastrous events, qi deviation during breakthrough, and many more.
Was this a cultivation technique? Amazing!
Han Xuhan read the entire thing full of legal mumbo jumbo three times. Then he considered whether he should really put his actual name in there while signing. If this guy was some sort of demonic voodoo artist, Han Xuhan would be screwed...
The man in cyan robes seemed to have understood his dilemma. He cleared his thought and impatiently said, "you don't need to sign with your real name. Anything written by your hand will do."
Han Xuhan hesitantly considered the deal. He had never heard of such a strange cultivation technique in his life...well, lives. But it wasn't that difficult to understand how the technique worked.
There was one thing, however, that still struck him as odd.
"Fellow cultivator with a fishy cultivation technique, why do you think I can provide you with any sort of information regarding the secrets behind this world? I entered just now from outside, as you've seen."
"Stop addressing me with those strange titles," the cyan-robed man said in irritation.
"Well, what do I address you as, then?" Han Xuhan said doubtfully.
The fellow cultivator didn't answer that.
"Your companion broke all the previous records in this stage while trying to leave this place. As his friend and partner, you should be able to display similar performance too. It's fine even if you do not know the information that I require for now. If you ever catch up with him, I can use the amount of information you would owe me to compel you to interrogate him on how he did it."
Han Xuhan nodded honestly. This was fine with him. He didn't need to worry about breaking his part of the deal.
Taking the quill from the cyan-robed man's hand, Han Xuhan signed on top of one of the blank slots.
"Your contract sounds very fair, fellow cultivator who can't even come up with a fake name.
I'm also an honest man who loves such deals with equivalent exchange of information. So I'll definitely not play any trick with you."
The cyan-robed man nodded after hearing Han Xuhan's sincere words and took the signed paper. Examining it for a second, he signed his own name on it and put it inside one of the pockets of his robe.
"I hope for a satisfying conclusion to our deal, Shen Kai."
"Me too, fellow cultivator who's very easy to get along with."