I’m Trapped in a Cube - Chapter 126

In the village, robed figures came and went.

It was like a very primitive settlement. Though the robed figures still wore advanced combat suits underneath, their way of life was extremely old-fashioned.

Some robed figures were chopping wood and making fires, using alloy scalpels so blunt they were barely usable to process the carcasses of hunted beasts.

Afterward, they put the meat in metal boxes originally meant for biological samples and roasted them over the fire.

Not only that, Mo Ling saw many examples of technology being misused, most of them extremely wasteful. Piles of discarded junk lay beside the village, probably all broken by misuse.

“Does that distortion make people degenerate too?” Mo Ling wondered.

Peering into the crooked houses, Mo Ling saw robed figures resting.

They lay slanted against the walls, using them as beds.

The more Mo Ling looked, the more uncomfortable he felt.

Bai Zhou and Li Luo’s arrival in the village didn’t attract any attention.

Bai Zhou looked around curiously, secretly taking out recording equipment to document the village’s oddities.

Soon, they reached a market-like area, where many robed figures had set up stalls.

They didn’t use normal currency, but a primitive barter system.

Most of what they sold were hunted beasts, some edible berries, and simple wooden tools.

A few were selling discarded technological equipment, but business at those stalls was poor-almost no one stopped by.

“That’s the robed figure who ran into the monitoring station before. They collect this equipment in there,” Bai Zhou whispered.

Just then, a robed figure walked up to a stall and traded a rack of ribs for a pile of equipment.

After the trade, he put a soft alloy plate meant for a detector on the ground and stomped on it a few times, found it was very soft, seemed dissatisfied, and tossed it back on the stall.

The stall owner just smiled apologetically, showing no displeasure.

“They definitely don’t use these things to make detectors,” Mo Ling thought.

“How did they degenerate this far?”

The most popular stalls in the market were those selling all kinds of strange scraps.

The stalls displayed the same kind used in the robed figures’ previous ritual.

Rotten leaf fragments, withered plant roots, fine wood shavings…

Just like the instruction book described, though the purity didn’t seem high, Mo Ling even saw some crawling insects among them.

But the buyers didn’t care. They’d trade huge chunks of beast meat for just a bit of rotten scrap, but still flocked to buy.

The stalls selling scraps were crowded, and every robed figure who got some wore a look of joy, hurrying off in the same direction.

Bai Zhou quickly followed, arriving at a clearing in the center of the village.

There were no strange buildings here, only a huge blood sphere floating in the sky, with a circle of devout robed figures standing below.

Every robed figure who came here would start chanting that sacred song, then slowly walk underneath.

They would then raise their arms, a thread of blood connecting them to the blood sphere, and the blood would start to flow.

Some robed figures arrived, others left, and the blood sphere kept floating in the sky, always maintained by someone.

No one knew how old the blood inside was, it was full of black scraps, making the whole sphere look thick and dark.

An ancient blood sphere?

The robed figures below kept tossing in scraps, as if these were their ticket to the ritual.

These robed figures’ blood vessels, like those seen before, were clogged with scraps-only worse.

Some, tormented by the ritual for so long, were rotting all over, their blood vessels blackened, forming branch-like black lines on their skin.

Most had become skinny and withered from bodily damage, but still performed the ritual like madmen.

Seeing their expressions-pain mixed with pleasure, Mo Ling felt they were beyond saving.

“Why do they keep doing such a meaningless ritual?”

Just as Mo Ling’s doubts peaked, something strange happened under the blood sphere.

In the crowd, a robed figure in the middle of the ritual suddenly burst into wild laughter.

He stopped chanting the sacred song, crouched on the ground, covering his face with two thin hands, and laughed hysterically, muttering strange words.

Then he struggled to stand, black veins bulging on his skin, eyes bulging, mouth twisted in a terrifying grin.

He suddenly grabbed a companion, shaking him and babbling, as if sharing his joy.

“Did he succeed?” Mo Ling guessed from the robed figure’s expression.

Realizing this, Mo Ling immediately peered into his body.

Inside, a violent transformation was taking place.

The rotten scraps continued to decompose, merging into his flesh, the blocked blood vessels suddenly clearing, blood circulation speeding up.

His heart beat faster and faster, and the strange organs began to secrete rotten scraps.

The scraps flowed with the blood throughout his body, breaking down into black specks, then becoming invisible to the naked eye, gradually dispersing.

The two strange organs in his body also began to blacken, growing more distinct.

Not only that, but with each heartbeat, the once-withered robed figure’s muscles began to swell, as if the black scraps were fueling the change.

His body filled out rapidly, becoming strong, the cloudiness in his eyes fading, vitality returning.

The branch-like black lines on his skin grew out, following the blood vessels to cover his body in intricate patterns.

In just a few breaths, the once-rotting, skinny robed figure became a tall, muscular man.

Even his once-hoarse voice became full and powerful.

His transformation finally drew his companions’ attention. They looked on with envy, chanting louder, as if hoping to succeed too.

The successful robed figure proudly shared something with those around him, who could only force a smile in response, though their jealousy was obvious.

“It really works?” Mo Ling was dumbfounded.

“Was that book really some kind of cultivation method?”

After his success, the robed figure didn’t seem distorted, just unusually excited from his sudden good spirits,nothing else seemed wrong.

Mo Ling quickly scanned his body again.

The black specks from the decomposed scraps crawled out of the strange organ in his brain like worms, climbing onto his brain.

They formed a sentence.