At the beginning, I traveled through the wilderness, and I controlled the beasts to survive...

The strange situation in front of him was something he had never encountered before after he broke through to the fifth-level beast master, tempered the first stage of the spiritual treasure body, and reached the Xuan Yue level in spiritual quality.

When it comes to his own life, Han Ning doesn't care.

He first calibrated the star chart navigation and directed Feilin's flight trajectory to return to the route.

Then his eyes fell back on the giant catfish.

In his eyes, a faint blue light flashed.

Panel identification function, activated!

【Drip~】

[Located in the subspace area, the space may overlap multiple times, and the energy consumption increases. 】

[Under identification...]

[Estimated time consumption, 3 hours and 59 minutes...]

"4 hours."

Han Ning's heart trembled.

This is the first time the panel has taken such a long time since it evolved many times.

In the past, it took an hour at most, half an hour in most cases, ten minutes, or just a few minutes to identify and analyze a target.

It is enough to see how strange and dangerous the situation in front of you is!

Time passes little by little.

Just when the remaining time of the panel reaches 0.00 seconds.

A harsh warning sound suddenly echoed in Han Ning's mind: [Warning! When the system analyzes the subspace abyss, it triggers the abyss's self-protection mechanism. 】

[The current coordinates have been locked by the consciousness of the abyss]

[The space storm is expected to arrive in 10 seconds. In order to ensure the safety of the host, the system will soon fall into a self-protection hibernation mechanism]

【10...】

"what's the situation?!"

Han Ning looked at the dazzling lines of information passing by on the panel.

Suddenly, he discovered that the huge catfish in the distance had approached him at some point.

【5...】

"Damn! Feilin, speed up and escape from here!"

"Easy!!"

Even the always invincible system had abnormalities. Han Ning had to calm down and command Feilin to quickly escape from this strange place.

However... Feilin's flying speed was far less fast than the catfish's attack speed.

The shadow in front of me is getting bigger and bigger.

Until finally, a huge mouth covering the sky and full of fangs bit down on Feilin and Han Ning above them.

【0...】

boom!

Consciousness shook violently.

Han Ning's eyes darkened.

Before his consciousness dissipated, he could only vaguely hear, "Help me..." Three weak bytes echoed above his consciousness.

……

"What is your relationship with Li Lu?"

"what?"

"I asked you what is your relationship with Li Lu?!"

In the brightly lit interrogation room, a middle-aged man in uniform stared at the young man in front of him with a serious face.

"Ah? Ah!"

After the young man fell into a daze and experienced a brief silence, his expression quickly changed from shock at the beginning to calmness.

The change of face was so fast that the middle-aged man in uniform almost felt that the young man opposite him seemed to have suddenly changed into a different person.

"I'm her colleague." Han Ning felt the inexplicable memory in his mind and began to answer calmly.

"Tell me specifically what you were doing sixteen hours ago."

"Last night, my colleagues in the project team organized a script killing activity. Halfway through the game, she said she had a stomachache and needed to go to the toilet."

"But after waiting for more than an hour, the limited time for script killing was almost over, and we still didn't see her. Then we realized that something was wrong and quickly called her. When the call was connected, she said there was an emergency. Let’s play first.”

"After confirming that she was fine, we didn't worry too much and then went home."

"How was her mental state last night?"

"It's normal. We were chatting and laughing. I don't see anything unusual."

"What's her personality like? Does she have any special hobbies?"

"She has a very cheerful personality. She is the product manager of our project team. Because the games our team is responsible for are about the urban horror genre, she usually collects some weird horror stories."

"..."

Exactly two and a half hours later, Han Ning took the transcript handed over by the other party, read it carefully, and nodded: "No problem, it is completely consistent with what I said."

"Okay." The man in uniform pointed to the end of the transcript, "Please sign and fingerprint, and then you can leave."

Han Ning stood up, signed and stamped, and after obtaining the other party's confirmation and consent, walked out of the office, walked through the long corridor, and stepped out of the building.

It was midsummer, and although it was approaching dusk, the scorching sunlight still shone slantly on his body, dragging a long shadow on the ground.

In the morning, "Han Ning" received a notification that at four o'clock this morning, a homeless man found an unknown female body in a trash can near "Canghai Building".

The police confirmed that the deceased was his colleague, Li Lu.

"This is the Abyss? It seems to be a completely real world. My mental power has been suppressed to the limit. I can't communicate with Yinyi, Egg Pancake and the others at all..."

Han Ning frowned, observing the surrounding environment while recalling the inexplicable extra memories in his mind.

This seems to be another time-travel, or is it a time-travel to a different plane?

But compared to before, his accumulation in the Amethyst World has not disappeared, but has been suppressed by a strange force, and there is no way to release the suppression for the time being.

"Yinyi, Egg Pancake, Little Fat Silkworm, Feilin, Huaimiao?" He tried to contact the little ones with his weak mental power.

Spiritual information is like a stone sinking into the sea, with no feedback.

"Panel, panel?"

No matter how he calls, there is only one sentence on the panel:

[Beep~ The system energy is exhausted. Please replenish a certain amount of energy and restart the system. 】

"Well, for the time being, we can only take one step and see what happens."

Seeing no response from the soul beasts and the panel, Han Ning let out a long sigh. The many encounters in the Amethyst World gradually made him develop a big heart.

Now he is no longer Wu Xia Amon, and he will no longer make a fuss when encountering such a strange situation.

He quickly surveyed the situation.

This body in this world looks at least 90% similar to him. He is a software engineer who works from 9 to 10.

Currently, he works for a well-known game company in Ludao City, Tangers Federation, and is the main developer of the "Wedding Dress" game project team.

After living an ordinary life for more than twenty years, Han Ning's predecessor discovered that the world was not as calm as it seemed.

He often saw on the Internet that netizens were very longing for a profession called "warrior", but when he actually searched for relevant information about warriors, he only got some vague answers.

Gradually, the predecessor also understood that warriors are a mysterious profession that is outside the lives of ordinary people, similar to "special forces".

Officially, it seems that they are deliberately hiding their relevant information.

Not only that, on the local social forums where I used to surf frequently, netizens would occasionally share their bizarre experiences, but the relevant posts would soon be deleted.

Now, Li Lu’s unexplained death has cast a shadow on the hearts of everyone in the project team.

Some say she died of love murder.

Some people say that she liked to tinker with occult knowledge from the Internet, and she probably died in some evil ritual.

Some people also said that she had the idea of ​​​​suicide because she was under too much pressure at work.

The predecessor was non-committal about these, and his relationship with Li Lu was limited to work-related exchanges.

All speculations can only be made after the results of the police investigation are announced.

The police station where the transcript was taken is very close to Haicang Building.

Han Ning crossed the zebra crossing in front of the police station. Thinking of the script killing he participated in last night, he turned his eyes and subconsciously looked towards the Haicang Building not far away.

The weather in August changes at any time.

The sky that was clear just now was now covered with lead clouds, and the dark sky seemed to be about to collapse.

The towering Haicang Building stands under the gloomy sky, and there is a sense of depression in the air.

Han Ning squinted his eyes, and in a daze, he seemed to see a black figure flashing past the shadows at the corner of the street.

When I blinked again, there was nothing.

Call ~

got windy.

Rumble.

Roaring thunder filled the sky.

He withdrew his gaze and hurried to the bus stop.

The apartment he lives in is about 10 stops away from the police station.

When the bus arrived near the residence, a series of heavy raindrops came down, covering the sky.

With a bang, Han Ning stepped on the puddles of water on the ground, crossed his palms to symbolically cover his head, and ran towards home in big strides.

The dense rain curtain completely blocked the view ahead, and everything around seemed to be in a gray world.

So much so that while running, he didn't even notice what was under his feet.

He only felt that he had kicked something soft, and his body staggered, and he almost fell into pieces and was chewed in the mud.

what?

He stabilized his body and looked down.

A pair of pale, bloodless hands slowly climbed up to his ankles.

These skinny palms were like biting ice, with a chill that penetrated deep into the bone marrow. They grabbed his feet tightly and slowly climbed up along his ankles.

"!"

The cold and biting feeling spread along the thighs and gradually to the chest.

A head full of blood, with rolling eyes, pressed tightly in front of him, letting out an eerie and harsh cry.

"Help me...save me...please help me..."

"Li Lu, I didn't kill you, you found the wrong person!" Han Ning looked calmly, looking directly at Li Lu's pale face with blood flowing all over it.

"help me……"

"I said, I didn't kill you..."

Just when Li Lu's mutilated face was about to touch Han Ning's cheek.

"court death!"

A sharp light flashed in his eyes, and his weak mental power turned into a sharp sword, shooting out with electricity.

Swish!

Invisible wave spread.

Almost at the same time.

A burst of dazzling blood suddenly erupted from his chest.

The pale face was like butter meeting a hot knife, and with a painful wail, it suddenly turned into white smoke and disappeared.

The sky is still gloomy and hazy, the wind is raging, and it looks like the calm before the heavy rain.

"Huh? What is this?"

Han Ning looked at the direction in which the shadow disappeared, and clearly remembered that nearly one-third of the shadow was shattered by the bloody light erupting from the chest.

He blinked and subconsciously touched the chest where blood had just erupted.

Unexpectedly, suddenly, the spirit fell into a trance.

A thick blood mist slowly appeared in front of my eyes. Many illusory figures rose and jumped in the blood mist. The sun, moon and stars shone with strange light, and the mountains, rivers and rivers were twisted and unsteady.

A bloody inscription album emerged from the blood mist, with four characters engraved on it: Sequence: Controlling the Beast.

[Sequence 9: Cooking Scientist]

[Characteristics·Cooking]: Touching the corpse of a dead ferocious beast can generate a series of corresponding cooking menus, and eating the dishes on the menu can enhance certain attributes of the contracted beast.

[Characteristics·Contract]: Release mental power and sign a contract with the target creature, making the other party a contracted beast under your command. When the sanity is low, the emotions will be affected by the emotions of the contracted soul beast. (Maximum limit: 1)

[Promotion Conditions]: 300ml of own blood, Culinary Scientist’s secret medicine.

[Promotion Ritual]: When consuming the blood of the target creature, drink the secret elixir of the Culinologist.

[Culinologist’s Secret Medicine Formula]: Culinologist’s Characteristics

Pour the above ingredients into a container and cook over high heat for 30 minutes.

As Han Ning read the last line, the light red text turned into a red amber-like object, floating in front of him.

Touching the blood light lightly, a memory that did not belong to him suddenly appeared in his mind.

"Interesting, the inheritance of beast masters in this world?"

"Is this the characteristic of a cooking scholar?"

Han Ning lowered his head, looked at the blood-red jade Pixiu in his palm, and murmured to himself. He still remembered that this piece of Pixiu was given to him by his (predecessor) grandfather before his death.

"This is not a place to stay for a long time. Let's leave first..."

Feeling the memory in his mind, he quickly came to his senses, put the red amber in his pocket, and continued towards home.

After running a few steps, the long-simmering rain finally poured down.

When he returned to the rented apartment, his whole body was already soaked. Han Ning took off all his clothes and pants, ran to the bathroom, turned on the water heater, and took a hot shower.

After coming out of the bathroom, he walked to the door, took the takeout he ordered in advance, put it on the computer table, turned on the computer, searched for local news, and ate the takeout absently.

dong dong~

The communication software icon in the lower right corner of the screen moved.

Call out window.

It turned out to be a message from Liu Yiran, a colleague from the project team.

Liu Yiran: "You went back? What did they ask you?"

Han Ning completely replaced his predecessor without any sense of disobedience. He replied to the message:

"When I got back, I asked about some things we did in the script killing shop yesterday, as well as the details of Li Lu's daily work."

Liu Yiran: "I just got home not long ago... I think this thing is a bit strange. Do you still remember that twenty days ago, Li Lu asked us to add a strange pattern on the paper man's clothes in the game? ?”

Han Ning: "Remember, didn't you mention that it was a clue set up to guide players to complete the puzzle task? Is there anything unusual about it?"

He remembered that it was made up of several twisted lines intertwined together, and the whole was light gray, like a line of quietly burning flames.

Apart from looking a little twisted and weird, there is nothing unusual about it.

After all, there are a sea of ​​weirder and more confusing symbols on the Internet.

However, that was before, and now Han Ning doesn't think so anymore.