The Highest Bounty

Although he did not have to take part in the compet.i.tion anymore, Gu Ding still felt that he could not afford to lose his position as a pharmacologist, as every team was required to have one. His talent in medicine refining was undisputed; it was not acceptable for him to yield the position to someone else.

While Gu Ding was busy purchasing medicinal materials, Liliath and Elsa were also happily trying out new clothes in the bazaar. As for Biggie and Tagore, they had reached the market that was a little further away.

Looking at the eye-catching variety of ingredients, Biggie was all the more convinced that this was his field. Compared with being a swordsman, he felt he was more suited to being a chef, since he did not possess the appropriate disposition for a swordsman to the extent that if he was not under hypnosis, he was incapable of even using his weapon against another person.

Tagore perched excitedly on Biggie"s shoulder, gawking at their surroundings. Suddenly, it saw a large gla.s.s fish tank that held a fifteen-meter giant star ribbonfish. The moment it caught sight of that fish, its eyes sparkled and it bolted madly in that direction.

Biggie was standing in front of another stall tasting some specialty local spices. All of a sudden, his vision went black as if everything around him had completely vanished.

“What"s happening?” Biggie suddenly yelled in the darkness.

“You don"t need to shout anymore. This is my personal domain; no one will hear you even if you yell yourself hoa.r.s.e,” A female voice announced, seeming to come from every direction.

“Who are you? What do you want?” Biggie"s heart sank. Of course he knew what a personal domain was—a world projection that could only be created by someone who had attained the rank of a demiG.o.d. Within one"s personal domain, that person"s ability would be unleashed to its full potential.

“Don"t be nervous. I only want to play a game with you.” As the female spoke, the lights suddenly turned on all around.

Biggie squinted to block out the strong light. Very quickly, his vision adjusted to his surroundings.

He seemed to be trapped in a huge paG.o.dshaped building that had two doors. Biggie did not make any rash moves. Instead, he scrutinized the area warily, trying to find any other useful information.

“Your mental fort.i.tude isn"t as bad as I thought it would be. You didn"t make any hasty moves but observed your surroundings very calmly. If you had chosen to rush through any of those two doors, the chances of you dying would be very high. Therefore, I will now spend a bit of time explaining the rules of the game,” the female voice intoned again.

“The game is like this. There are two doors, and only one of them is the correct one. As for the other, even I don"t know what"s behind it. However, I am absolutely certain that whatever lies behind that door will cause you immense pain. Therefore, please make your choice wisely. Of course, you can also choose to stay here and wait for your friends to come and save you. However, I do need to tell you that my personal domain is called the Nightmare of h.e.l.l, and I have now pulled you into the third level of a dream state. The time ratio here to that of the outside world is 1,000:1, which means if you remain here for 1,000 days, only one day will have pa.s.sed in the real world.”

“If I manage to escape, will you guarantee that you won"t attack my friends instead?” Biggie asked very calmly. He reckoned the other party was not lying to him. Furthermore, the crux of the matter was that a demiG.o.d powerhouse was more than enough to cause total destruction to the team. Right from the start, therefore, he did not hope for Gu Ding to come to his rescue; he knew that this time he could only rely on himself to escape from this predicament.

“As long as you can escape, I promise not to make another move,” the female voice answered. “In the first place, I don"t hold a grudge against any of you. I am playing this game with you simply because I was tasked to do so. You may rest a.s.sured, all your companions are safe.”

“Why me?” Biggie asked right away. He could not escape the feeling that there was something fishy about this whole matter.

“Don"t ask me this question. I am merely carrying out orders. As to what the person who set the mission was thinking about, I have no idea, and I don"t care,” the female voice continued nonchalantly.

“One more most important warning—don"t think that dying in the dream state means that your body won"t suffer any harm. The time ratio reduces your lifespan exponentially. This means that if you remain here in the third level of this dream state, for every year that goes by in the outside world, your lifespan will be reduced by one thousand years. You are currently at Rank 11 Gene Body, and your lifespan is 1,200 years. That is to say it will take less than 1 year and 3 months pa.s.sing by in the outside world for you to exhaust your entire lifespan. Once that happens, it will signify true death for your physical body. Furthermore, this is the third level of the dream state—if you die an unnatural death here, you will immediately drop into the fourth level. There, the time ratio is 10,000:1. If you die an unnatural death on the fourth level, you will drop into the fifth level, the time ratio will increase tenfold, and so on and so forth. As you can see, the further you drop, the more difficult it will be for you to return to the real world.”

“I have another question. If every year in the real world is equivalent to one thousand years in this place, does this mean you"re going to waste more than a year of your time in here with me, and then I die?” Biggie pointed out what he thought was a loophole.

“It seems that you haven"t figured out how a personal domain works at all, but you can"t be blamed for that,” the female voice commented before explained slowly, “Only those who have created their personal domain would understand that it"s a projection of a mini world. Although this projection can be controlled, it is also an individual ent.i.ty operating on its own at all times. In other words, once I"ve pulled you into my personal domain, I don"t have to bother about anything anymore. I can do whatever I please; anything you do within my personal domain won"t affect me at all. Of course, there"s a caveat to this—your abilities have to be much weaker than mine. If you are almost on par with me, it"s possible for you to destroy my personal domain. At your current level of ability, however, I would recommend that you not waste your time in such useless attempts.

“Alright, I"ve given you all the rules of the game and some advice; I don"t believe I"ve missed anything out. You can make your choice now, and I"ll leave you to it.” Once it had finished speaking, the female voice ceased.

Biggie stood in front of the two doors and studied them for a long while. Both doors were identical to each other; even the distribution of the metal granules was identical. The female voice was not heard again.

With no other alternative, Biggie randomly selected a door and pushed it open.

As he crossed the threshold, he found himself in a strange room.

“Have I escaped?” The moment the thought crossed his mind, Biggie abruptly realized that everything around him seemed to have grown larger. He looked down at his body and discovered that he had transformed into a thin, weak little child.

Only now did he notice that the room he was in seemed to be a prison cell.

“Biggie, it"s so late but you"re not asleep. What are you standing over there for?” A voice came from the top level of a bunk bed.

Biggie lifted his head and looked over. He saw a youth, black eyes gleaming in the night. Biggie felt that his appearance seemed slightly familiar, and he sat on the lower bunk bed in confusion. “What the h.e.l.l has happened?”

“What"s up with you? You look so out of it. Even if Brie has threatened to beat you up tomorrow, you don"t have to be so nervous about it. I"ll teach you, just concentrate on protecting your head tomorrow and don"t let them hit you there. I"ve heard people say that if you get hit on the head you"ll become stupid. If your body hurts a bit, just bear up for a while, it"ll pa.s.s…” The youth"s words jogged a segment of Biggie"s memory.

He saw himself as a youth, cowering and protecting his head while being beaten up by a bunch of kids. That time, he saw a guard standing not too far away with a blade in one hand. He had s.n.a.t.c.hed the blade from the guard and slashed at the leader of the bullies, decapitating the boy in one blow. The guards had gotten a fright and immediately tried to restrain him; instead he ended up killing them all. The rest of the kids had been struck dumb at the sight, fleeing frantically, but Biggie had gone berserk with rage and ma.s.sacred every single person in the reformatory, including his cellmate Bel.

Only after he had come to his senses again did he realize the terrible thing that he had done; he knew he would be sentenced to death. In the midst of his dismay, an old man in a long black robe appeared before him.

“Do you wish to become stronger? To become so powerful that everyone will fall trembling at your feet?” The man extended a hand toward Biggie, and from that very second, the nightmare truly began….

When this scenario resurfaced in his mind, terrible pain filled Biggie"s head. He held his head tightly, his entire body trembling in agony; all he could do was to try and stop himself from crying out.

“Biggie, are you all right?” Bel seemed to be rather worried. Although Biggie tried his hardest to control himself, Bel heard him tossing and turning, and hung his head down the side of the bunk for a look. At the sight of Biggie in pain he immediately jumped down from the top bunk. “Do you want to go to the infirmary to be looked at?”

Bel and Biggie were the same type of character; both suffered the brunt of bullying in the reformatory. Because of this, they mutually took care of each other more than the rest.

“No… no need… I"ll be ok after a rest.” Biggie waved his hand in refusal. Once the visions had stopped, the pain in his head began to subside slowly.

“Why not just go to the infirmary for a while? You"ll be able to avoid the confrontation with Brie and the others tomorrow,” Bel advised. “You look as if you"re in a lot of pain so it can"t be anything trivial. If you can stay a few days in the infirmary, that would be even better. Moreover, if you"re really sick and they get their hands on you, the infirmary staff will intervene because they"re afraid you"ll be beaten to death.”

“That won"t be of any use. Even if I can hide for a time, I can"t avoid the conflict forever. You don"t need to worry about me, I"m fine. This headache of mine is an old ailment—I suffer from it once or twice a year. Even the doctors couldn"t find anything wrong with me after they examined me. The small infirmary here would only think that I was faking it. That would only make things worse,” Biggie spun a lie. He had already given things some thought; this time he needed to tough it out. At most he would suffer from bodily injuries; he absolutely could not follow his previous footsteps. Even though Biggie"s own memory still had not completely recovered, if he followed in his previous footsteps, he was afraid he would fall into the abyss, doomed and without any hope for redemption…