Lin Wu looked up at the path and all he could see was a straight and plain path. If such a path were horizontal, he would not even have had a single problem and would have sauntered effortlessly. But just with the angle changing by ninety degrees, the path had become impossible to traverse.

Lin Wu looked closer and could see small indentations on the walls going up. This gave him an idea.

"Seems like I'll have to find a suitable adaptation to this." Lin Wu spoke to himself.

He then activated the innate skill 'cellular crystallization' and imagined his body changing. A few moments later, the texture of his body started to change. Small spikes appeared on the surface of his body that jutted outward.

"Let's see if this works." Lin Wu muttered before propping his body upwards.

He pushed his head up and rested it against the wall, then he moved his tail and popped it against the opposite wall. Forcing with his tail, Lin Mu moved his head up again.

Repeating the same thing except for this time with his tail, Lin Mu moved even farther ahead.

"Ahaha, seems like this is the way." Lin Wu spoke while taking a look downwards.

Repeating the same steps alternating between his tail and his head, Lin Wu traveled upwards in a zigzag manner.

Still, it took him over an hour before he could even reach the next turn. Lin Wu peeked down from the ledge that he had reached and saw the lake far below him.

"Damn, I'm quite far up now." Lin Wu said before looking up. "I'm close enough now, just a little more."

The system was now pointing him towards a thin ledge that went across the wall all the way up to the opening of the roof. Still, with Lin Wu's control getting better over his innate skill, he was able to reduce the size of his body, which allowed him to traverse the ledge with relative ease.

Lin Wu came to a halt at the point where the opening of the roof was. This place was relatively dangerous as one wrong move could lead him to fall into the lake below, making him waste his entire effort.

"I gotta make this count." Lin Wu muttered.

~Huu~

Lin Wu hung out his head from the side and then moved it upwards to get it stuck into the wall. He then curled his body and pulled in his tail. Then latching it to the other end, he pulled in his head as well.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

~phew~

"Well, that was stressful. Though I'm in now and the way should be easy enough." Lin Wu spoke to himself.

Lin Wu was now in the same fissure that he had jumped down from. While the fissure was a little tight for his current body size, he was still able to adjust it slightly.

Lin Wu also discovered that the maximum amount by which he could reduce his size was by fifty percent. Anything beyond that and his innate skill would just stop working.

Half an hour later he was finally out of the hole and could see the night sky above him.

"Ah~ finally," Lin Wu exclaimed in joy before getting out of the crater.

But then his expression changed pretty fast once he took a look at the surroundings.

"What the hell happened here?" Lin Wu questioned in shock.

The scene in front of Lin Wu was different from what he had seen back when he was here two years ago. There were more craters than he had seen before. While the molten lava had now cooled and solidified, the ground was more cracked than before.

Sharp fissures could be seen spreading all around from the smaller craters. It looked as if a battle had happened in the area. Lin Wu went a little ahead and could even see some broken fragments of weapons scattered around.

Right in front of him, he could see a half-broken spear stuck in the ground. The half of it was also rusted and caked with mud. Looking all around again, Lin Mu could not begin to think about what could have happened there.

"System, show me the updated map of the area." Lin Mu ordered.

~Ding~

——————————————————————————————�����—

UPDATING MAP: Error!

NOTIFICATION: System energy storage is depleted, please transfer some energy.

————————————————————————————————

"Ah, I forgot about that. Let's see… Umm, I think two hundred units should be enough to last me for a bit at least." Lin Wu talked to himself as he looked at the data window.

"System, transfer two hundred units of energy from the spirit qi storage to the system energy storage and update the map." Lin Wu ordered again.

~Ding~

————————————————————————————————

UPDATING MAP: Please wait a moment.

NOTIFICATION: Map has been updated. Please check it in the relevant window.

WARNING!: Dangerous environment detected. Toxic gases and radiation has been detected in the area.

UPDATING PARAMETERS: Please wait a moment.

PARAMETERS UPDATED: Warning status will be lowered as the host is resistant to the environment.

—��——————————————————————————————

Lin Wu was shocked to see the system's notifications. Looking at the area, even he could tell that the area was dangerous, but hearing from the system that he was resistant to it made him feel relieved.

~Phew~

"I guess I finally get to experience the benefits of my newly modified physique." Lin Wu said to himself with a slightly joyous tone.

He then remembered what he was going to do and focused his attention again.

"System, open the map." Lin Wu ordered.

~Ding~

Another notification sound rang in his mind, and then the newly updated map window appeared in front of him. Back when he was still in the underground lake, all he could see on the map was the four confines of the cave. It seemed to him that perhaps the map was stuck to that area because it had not been updated, and when he saw the changes, he knew he was right.

Looking at the map, Lin Wu could see the rest of the craters and cracks in the area that was far from his vision and could not be directly seen from now. The ground had become Grey from the previous black and the area of devastation had expanded more than before.

"System, what happened here?" Lin Wu asked with confusion and surprise.