Family Leaderboard

The Abyss. Yaxiu had heard rumors about this place countless times before. Aside from a small fraction picked up during his days at Shattered Lake, most had come from the Sword Princess's idle complaints. Nearly every place where sorcerers gathered in large numbers had an Abyss crop up nearby, sometimes even right beneath their cities. What was worse, they could never be fully eradicated. The monsters emerging from within were endless, and a single slipup could see a town overwhelmed by a tide of Abyssal beasts. Back when population and civilization were less developed, the Abyss had even posed a mortal threat to nations, standing as a top priority of national defense. However, as the sorcerer population exploded and sorcerer civilization entered an era of rapid progress, the Abyss's threat steadily declined year by year. Even though the Abyss grew stronger in tandem with the rising number of sorcerers, the monsters' growth in strength lagged far behind the technological explosion of sorcerers. Eventually, the Abyss's status dropped from a "mortal threat" to the level of a "daily quest," no longer even warranting national defense attention. The Blood Moon Country chose to leave the Abyss to adventurers—or rather, handed over the barbaric adventurers unfit for civilized society to the Abyss, essentially treating it like a garbage recycling plant. The Gospel Country, meanwhile, deployed Bluebeards to suppress every Abyss. Yet the Bluebeards were not national defense troops, but corporate private armies; to put it simply, the Gospel Country leased the Abysses to corporations, allowing them to run business operations within. In the past, the Abyss was: "Humans, I'm coming in!" Nowadays, the Abyss was: "Stay away from me!" Of course, this applied solely to the first floor. The truly deep levels of the Abyss remained treacherous zones where even Sanctuary Sorcerers and Legendary Sorcerers could perish. For someone like the Sword Princess, a village girl sorcerer, entering the Abyss for training was the single best way to earn cultivation resources and hone combat experience. The materials gathered from Abyssal monsters were often extremely valuable. In addition to crafting equipment, they could be brewed into potions that enhanced "Void Realm resonance with specific sorcery spirits"—for example, concocting a bottle of "Wave Sword Potion" would greatly boost the probability of resonating with and summoning a Wave Sword. Beyond that, Abyssal monsters could even drop sorcery spirits. It was practically a miniature Void Realm. Yet the problem was that the Abyss was not the Void Realm. If a sorcerer died in the Abyss, they were truly dead. Moreover, the Abyss was volatile. If one was unlucky enough to encounter an Abyss surge, where deep-floor monsters strolled up to the first or second floors to catch their breath, even a Sanctuary Sorcerer could kick the bucket. Crucially, this was hardly a low-probability event—if a Sanctuary Sorcerer farmed lower floors to bully noobs and grind gold, it really could attract monsters from the depths. You bully the weak and slaughter my trash mobs, so I bully the weak and beat down your little kids—essentially both sides trading a wave of cubs. Thus, adventuring in the Abyss meant risk and opportunity went hand in hand. In the past, when society was underdeveloped, braving the Abyss was the only way to reap extra resources. Now that society was advanced, everyone naturally preferred to casually cultivate in the comfort of home until reaching the Legendary rank before stepping outside. Who would voluntarily fight to the death down there? Back then, the Sword Princess had not yet competed in school tournaments and was still dirt-poor. When she droned on in Yaxiu's ear about the perils of the Abyss, she naturally had only one agenda: *I'm super cute, please be my sugar daddy. Can you really bear to watch such an adorable young girl risk her life in the Abyss?* Yaxiu had nodded vigorously every single time—of course he could bear it; it wasn't him heading down into the Abyss. *Sword Princess, you have to work hard grinding dungeons so I can live the good life.* Besides, it wasn't that he refused to sponsor her; he simply couldn't afford to pay to win. "Wait, but don't I recall that the Abyss's terrain shifts frequently?" Yaxiu asked. "Precisely because it's constantly mutating and rioting, sorcerers can't garrison troops or build bases to clear it floor by floor." "That's true. The Abyss does indeed shift constantly," Annan nodded. "However, when the Abyss shifts, it doesn't take people along with it. Furthermore, only the terrain alters, while the overall style remains unchanged: a dungeon remains a dungeon, a cavern remains a cavern, and a labyrinth remains a labyrinth. "What comes next is quite simple—because the mermaid fish-mints aren't 'dead' yet, the shifting Abyss doesn't take them along. Even the ground, structures, and walls in direct contact with their bodies stay fixed. As long as there are enough mermaid fish-mints distributed widely enough, the Abyss's terrain can be stabilized." "Then what about the Abyss's monsters?" "The white mist is currently suppressed by a divine miracle, but surely you haven't forgotten that this is the very source of Beauty Mist?" Annan chuckled softly. "If even we sorcerers are affected by the white mist, could the monsters possibly be spared? "Humans and beasts affected by the white mist are flooded with euphoria at every second, completely losing any physiological desire to fight. And because they are constantly exposed to high-concentration Beauty Mist, their thresholds quickly rise to the point of mental collapse. Roughly once a month, retrieval sorcerers come down to collect the monster corpses—the hazmat suits we're wearing right now are the uniforms of those retrieval sorcerers." "Disposing of surplus population, producing strategic resources, defending against Abyssal incursions, efficiently slaughtering monsters... What a practical facility," Igola remarked. "At this point, I wouldn't even be surprised if you told me the Mermaid Fish-Mint Farm doubled as a sewer and a hospital." "Then what's the deal with Abyss passages?" Yaxiu asked. "This is the first time I've heard of such a mechanism." "Simply put, Abysses do not exist in isolation," Annan explained. "At the very least, all the Abysses within each country are interconnected. The passages between them are special routes where space and time are compressed, allowing someone to swiftly cross space and time to reach another Abyss thousands of li away. When necessary, it serves as a convenient means of rapid transit." "Since such a convenient method exists, then—" "The sole drawback is that Abyss passages shift constantly," Annan said. "An Abyss as stable as the Mermaid Fish-Mint Farm is one of a kind in all of Gospel. Other Abysses don't have this many 'living people' anchoring them, so their terrain is often complex and ever-changing. That naturally precludes Abyss passages from serving as conventional transportation. "Additionally, back before sorcerers fully suppressed the Abyss, they couldn't use these passages at will. By the time they could enter and exit the Abyss freely, they had already invented vehicles that rivaled the passages anyway. "Many people also can't stomach the time-compression aspect. For instance, walking here for several minutes meant several hours elapsed outside. In total, traveling through an Abyss passage doesn't save 'real time,' yet our subjective perception genuinely loses several hours." "Wait, isn't that time travel?" Yaxiu's eyes lit up. "If I stay here for a year, decades will pass outside—" "Setting aside the danger, your body keeps pace with the outside world," Annan said. "Meaning while you only perceive a year passing, your body rapidly ages by several decades. If one merely wishes to leap into the future, sorcerers have plenty of alternatives to delay aging. There's no need to come to the Abyss." "Allow me to grandly recommend the coffin hibernation method." After leaving the Mermaid Fish-Mint Farm, Harvey had grown considerably more spirited. "Converting you into a preserved corpse and restoring you to a normal human after a hundred years only results in a thirty percent loss of current lifespan. Interested in giving it a try?" Yaxiu asked, "Has anyone actually tried it?" "Yes, plenty of dying rich folks have tried it, though every single one woke up dead broke," Harvey laughed. "The Blood Saint clan's research institute even had a department running this business called the 'Hibernation Department,' specialized in fleecing wealthy short-lived species. It's as if those hibernating clients believed future public healthcare would grant them immortality for free." "Those who dare not face time are bound to be abandoned by it," Igola said placidly. "'Hoping in the future' is just a synonym for 'abandoning the present.'" Banjie, walking ahead, suddenly spoke up: "We have arrived." As if passing through an invisible curtain, they stepped out of the natural dark cavern and abruptly arrived in brightly illuminated underground ruins. Dilapidated yet un-ancient brick buildings lined the area, with wall torches mounted every ten paces. Inside the narrow passage wide enough for only four people abreast, it felt as though they had crossed from a modern metropolis straight into the feudal Middle Ages. "Is this another Abyss?" Yaxiu looked toward both ends of the passage. "How come there are no monsters here either?" "It means the Bluebeards here have already finished their daily quest." Annan took off her hazmat suit and mask, saying, "No matter how prolific the Abyss is at breeding, it still needs to rest and nurse its brood... Since we've left Fanmula, let's first perform the demon-removal surgery to thoroughly purge the effects of the Beauty Mist." The demon-removal surgery could completely uproot addictions brought on by Beauty Mist. However, it only removed the addiction, ensuring the subject would not physically crave Beauty Mist products; elevated thresholds would not decrease. In theory, any Fanmula citizen could undergo the surgery and leave this white-mist city behind. Yet for the people of Fanmula, lost in their dreams, purging the demon from the flesh was easy, while exorcising the demon from the heart was nearly impossible. Aside from essential business trips, they hardly ever stepped outside Fanmula to travel. Banjie produced six white cups from his briefcase. Rolling up his sleeve to reveal his left hand, etched with a coat of arms, he stuffed a ball of flame into one of the white cups and slammed it firmly onto the back of his hand! As the flame consumed the air, atmospheric pressure sucked the white cup tightly against his skin. At the same time, specks resembling insect eggs surfaced all over Banjie's body, rushing toward the white cup like students charging the cafeteria, looking as though they were being sucked away by the vessel! "Implement Spirit: Demon Removal," Annan introduced. "Besides eradicating addiction, it clears heat, detoxifies, preserves youth and beauty, refreshes the mind, grants dreamless slumber, and invigorates yin and yang. This item is exceedingly expensive, one of the primary sorcerer tech exports of Fanmula. Using it merely to cure addiction is actually a waste; ordinary folks just visit hospitals on the city outskirts to have a regular healer perform the surgery." Since the surroundings were safe, they rested here for the moment to complete their demon-removal surgeries. The white cups looked as though they would suction the skin painfully, yet Yaxiu found the sensation remarkably comfortable. His skin itched faintly, as though hundreds of mosquitoes were feeding inside, vacuuming up fat, blackheads, acne, and all sorts of accumulated grime... "Hahaha, Daddy, you're so filthy!" Lisi pointed at the speckles emerging across Yaxiu's body and mocked him loudly. Yaxiu glanced at Lisi and found that she was surprisingly clean; the white cup could barely pull anything out of her no matter how hard it tried. On his own skin, however, a massive swarm of dirty spots had surfaced—an effect that would be hard to replicate even if he worked construction every day without showering. It looked like hundreds of cockroaches crawling over him. "Oh...?" Catching the eerie curl at the corner of Yaxiu's lips, Lisi sensed trouble and scrambled backward. "Wh-What are you smiling at... Aah, stay away from me!" "Behold my trypophobia attack!" Yaxiu swooped in, scooped Lisi into his arms, and rubbed against her like cuddling a cat. Terrified by this aesthetic terrorist, Lisi outright failed her sanity check. Her eyes rolled back as she foamed at the mouth, barely managing to pull out her hand mirror. "H-Help..." Feeling "Lisi" suddenly stop trembling in his embrace, Yaxiu blinked and cautiously let her go. Had he gone too far and scared her unconscious? It was just the equivalent of tossing a cockroach trap covered in hundreds of bugs at her; she shouldn't have passed out over that... Yet "Lisi" broke free of his arms, turned around, and looked at him quietly. "Was that amusing?" "If I say it wasn't, it definitely was. But if I say it was, it wasn't really that amusing..." "Lisi" knit her little brows, planted her hands on her hips, and said, "Do you find disgusting me fun?" For some reason, Yaxiu felt "Lisi's" figure expand and tower over him, as if transforming into a sensible older sister next door who loved reasoning with people, while he had become the mischievous kid caught red-handed. He gave a bashful laugh. "Well, not that fun..." "Don't do that in the future, or I'll hate you." "Lisi" looked down at his frozen right arm. "Does your arm still hurt? You're covered in wounds, yet I still made you carry me..." Yaxiu took a step back in shock. He reached out a hand, then hastily withdrew it, turning to shout at Igola: "Igola, Lisi's mind broke because I disgusted her! Quick, come here... Wait, Igola, what are you doing?" Unlike the others quietly waiting for their demon-removal surgery to finish, the Swindler was currently huddled completely under a blanket, not an inch of him showing. No need to ask—he had definitely gotten it from Banjie. Annan was also covered in a blanket, hiding off to the side. The two of them looked utterly out of place with the rest of the group. "If a kid has mental issues, just beat them within an inch of their life. Either way, between the problem and the one raising it, one will definitely be eliminated," Igola's voice drifted out from beneath the blanket. "All you need to do is draw your belt as the weapon of choice." Yaxiu walked over curiously. "What are you hiding under there for? Let me see—" "Like hell I'll let you look!" A fist shot out from beneath the blanket and knocked Yaxiu flat on his back. Yaxiu had genuinely never expected this mind sorcerer to have a side specialty in hand-to-hand combat; he hadn't even been able to dodge! Lying on the chilly floor, Yaxiu felt his arm and abdomen begin to ache again. He slapped a Joy Sword onto himself, sat up, and saw "Lisi" standing beside him. Before he could speak, "Lisi" reached out, wrapped her arms around his neck, rested her chin on his shoulder, and nuzzled against him of her own accord. "Stop acting up. I can be less mischievous from time to time, but no matter which 'me' it is, I like you just the same." Held by "Lisi," goosebumps erupted across Yaxiu's entire body, an overwhelming sense of discord washing over him—*Wait, shouldn't lines like that, delivered in the tone of a mature older woman, come from Qinna? Or Annan at least? Talking like this is going to make people question my parenting!* *Never mind Annan and Banjie—even Harvey is looking at me like I'm a pervert now! I feel like my social standing in the Funeral Agency is about to drop to untouchable!* *I get it now. Is this your way of getting revenge?* *Lisi, you're despicable!* *Clack.* Suddenly, everyone's Book of Gospel popped out simultaneously, shimmering bookmarks tucked inside. Everyone froze for an instant before realizing what had happened. "We walked for only a few minutes in the Abyss passage, but more than two hours have passed in reality," Banjie said. "It is past midnight... Today is already May 20th!" "The second leaderboard updated right at midnight?" "What kind of leaderboard will it be?" "Did Annan's plan actually work?" With all sorts of thoughts swirling in their minds, they unveiled their bookmarks together, and the title of the second leaderboard caught their eyes— *Family Leaderboard*.