After a night had passed, the glow of the morning sun shone on a silver-scaled fat fish lying on the deck.

Its protruding eyes reflected four silhouettes—Hong Haocheng, Zhang Miao, and two men with dripping wet hair.

“Alright, this time it’s two centuries. Figure it out between yourselves.” Hong Haocheng said in a deep tone.

“……”

Half an hour later, three people with half-length hairstyles, along with a bald one, finished eating the grilled fish.

Hong Haocheng stood up, repeatedly urged them not to engage in financing, and then started swimming toward the shore.

Cui Rong shot a glance at Li Yongqin beside him.

The man shook his head.

Feeling disgruntled, Cui Rong initiated a Mental Link.

[This guy finally left the two of us on the boat. Should we just take it?]

{I’ve been here over half a year. Apart from the big teams, Hong Haocheng is the first person I’ve seen who can stay here for several days. If you want to swim back on your own, go ahead, but I’m not going back.}

They were the two who had fled into the water last night in an attempt to find help, but in the end, Hong Haocheng returned to pull them out and extorted 200N from each of them.

Cui Rong rubbed the tip of his nose and thought to his teammate:

[What’s the use of staying ten or twenty days? The end of the month will be here soon. And don’t forget, this is our boat!]

{He said the sequence will be enough to last us until next month. I’m telling you, this guy might be able to get his hands on a “Bound Core.”}

At the mention of this term, Li Yongqin’s eyes lit up with intense fervor. A Bound Core—something countless people craved, yet it had only ever been owned by top-tier teams like the Four-Phase Team.

Cui Rong let out a disdainful laugh.

[What a naive idea.]

Suddenly, they all felt a soul-shaking psychic pressure radiating from the island.

Zhang Miao, wrapped in a blanket that had dried overnight from guarding the engine at the stern, stood up and said, “Someone’s run into a Bound Spirit.”

“It might be that Snake-Travel Crew that passed by in the morning. Let’s move a bit closer.”

The group sailed the boat forward.

“Brother Hong, why won’t he let us see his battle?” Li Yongqin sat down next to Zhang Miao and asked ingratiatingly.

Zhang Miao glanced at the two guys beside him, who had their Modal Auras lit but remained silent all along.

“You want to see? You can follow him.”

“…” Li Yongqin shifted his butt.

It wasn’t his fault that he had taken a complete U-turn toward Hong Haocheng in just one night—simply because, that morning when Hong Haocheng went down to the lake to fish, or perhaps fearing they might steal the boat and run, Li Yongqin himself was forced to follow him into the water to pick up the fish.

In that instant when he saw that thread emerge from Hong Haocheng’s palm, Li Yongqin felt his scalp tingle at that moment.

The body of the man, scorched by flames with a broken shoulder, immediately overlapped with the image of the bald head beneath the water’s surface.

From that moment on, ideas like “the boat, escaping, or assassinating” were all extinguished along with the big fish’s belly flipping over.

As Li Yongqin’s questioning hit a dead end, Cui Rong also looked up and said:

“Yeah, that bald guy didn’t look like a good person. He might be dead inside by now. Let us three go back.”

Zhang Miao came over and kicked this guy directly on the thigh.

“I knew you were scheming something lousy,” wrapped in his blanket, he said fiercely, “Now I’ll say it once! Take off your pants.”

“Ah?”

“Offer them to the boss!”

……

Hong Haocheng was hiding behind a house watching off in the distance.

Next to a collapsed building about two hundred meters ahead, seven or eight people who call themselves the Serpentine Group are fighting a monster of relatively short stature.

Zhang Miao informed them that the city residents call these monsters Bound Spirits. Because someone once killed one and obtained an energy core from within its body, with the model feedback name of 【Fetter Core】.

“Yang Qi, watch out!”

“Activate the secret technique quickly, don’t let it chase me!”

“You guys keep it down, if you attract other Bound Spirits here, we’re screwed.”

Hong Haocheng counted them at this moment; there were eight people in total on the other side.

Yet even with eight of them, it’s extremely difficult to deal with a single Bound Spirit with little intelligence. Their energy bodies render weapons useless; only skin contact, like punches, can inflict damage.

Suddenly, Hong Haocheng turned his head and saw a burly man carrying a silver longsword approaching from afar.

He’s been spotted. His newly grown eyebrows frowned slightly.

The newcomer had a broad face with a bushy beard and said with a faint smile, “Where are your teammates? Why are you here alone?”

“I like being alone. None of your business, old man.”

The man was taken aback, then let out a couple of quiet “ha ha” laughs.

“Looks like you’re new around here. Not afraid that line might get you a couple of slashes. Haha. How many days have you been here? Haven’t been scared by these monsters around?”

“I’ve been staying near the island’s edge for a few days now,” Hong Haocheng replied instinctively, retreating two steps while mentally preparing to bolt at any moment.

“After observing for an entire morning, I realized those giants can only be defeated in close combat. But if you’re caught during that, you die instantly—no matter how many Time Sequences you have, it’s useless.”

“You… came to that conclusion entirely from your own observation?”

The man studied Hong Haocheng’s physique, his gaze eventually settling on the boy’s bald head and sparse, barely-grown eyebrows.

Five figures—men and women—emerged from a nearby ruin as one of them said,

“Captain, that guy seems to be from the Red Model. Let’s just leave.”

“Alright.” The man acknowledged, then turned to Hong Haocheng. “Better leave here soon. I hear your aircraft has already been destroyed. No one will come after you anymore. Go back to the city—this isn’t a place people like you should tread.”

He figured out where I’m from already? Hong Haocheng shouted softly toward the departing men, “Hey, may I ask who you all are?”

“Jiang Junyi, Captain of the Longteng group,” the man replied, waving a hand. “We’ve got some outdated model devices. You can come pick through them later.”

“But they’re not free,” the others added.

At that moment, one member of the Serpent Group finally killed the over-two-meter-tall “Bound Spirit” that had been restricted by someone’s slippery ability.

The tall, lean, and capable captain crouched down to pick up a small object glowing faintly red.

“What a shame—another low-level ‘Fetter Core,’” he said.

With that, the man glanced in Hong Haocheng’s direction before carefully leading his group away along the island’s edge. Their route diverged from the Dragon Rise team’s, as if they had pre-agreed to go their separate ways.

After both teams had vanished into the distance, Hong Haocheng approached the dead monster. On the ground lay a large smear of crushed, spread-out deep blue sludge.

A faint ethereal energy shifted in the air.

“Is this body still human?”

Hong Haocheng felt his mind grow dazed, as if sinking into a nightmare state.

Within his pupils, faint rings of an earthen yellow hue naturally emerged.

[I… smell… delicacy…]

The bloodline activated on its own.

Within the spreading energy field, the boy glimpsed not-yet-faded Sail-Ink Drawing lines, flickering gray-white in the air like dying embers.

After a trance, Hong Haocheng felt he could regain control of his body.

Before acquiring the model, he had been devouring the other’s soul unconsciously. But now… he followed the guidance of his “instinct,” raising a hand. The bloodline energy, which he couldn’t yet fully master, stirred at his will, pinching them just like the Sail-Ink Drawing that had consumed those fish.

[Soul traveler, beginning the grafting of new Sail-Ink Drawing lines.]

Hong Haocheng felt his consciousness racing along certain pathways across the land, or perhaps it was like the land’s images being continuously funneled into his mind along certain routes, akin to the perspective of an invisible race car. However, this path had an end but no exit.

[I sensed that its entire life was confined to an area of 8.4 square kilometers.]

[I have acquired 3.3 km of Sail-Ink Drawing.]

Hong Haocheng opened his eyes.

In the air, lines of varying lengths still lingered. He walked toward a trace of gray-white energy that had fragmented and was floating, then reached out and stuffed it into his mouth.

[I have acquired 23 m of Sail-Ink Drawing.]

Naturally, parts of the surrounding terrain surfaced in Hong Haocheng’s somewhat congested and blocked consciousness, as if he had traversed them hundreds or thousands of times.

Suddenly, a new mental pressure surged from the distance.

Mixed with the fading commotion, Hong Haocheng guessed that this time the “Shexin Group” had provoked a giant they couldn’t contend with.

……

“Damn it.”

On the shore, Yang Qi of the Shexin Group had barely managed to shake off the pursuing giant Bound Spirit.

Several people gradually gathered by the lake. A girl with slightly blue hair walked out panting and said to the equally sweat-drenched team leader:

“Brother Bin, how about we head back for now. Once I’ve synchronized the Training Contract more deeply, we can come again. Probably by next month, I’ll have reached sixty percent.”

“No,” Captain Chen Bin shook his head. “Although your talent is outstanding, using the ‘Frost Snow Sword Technique’ to restrict their movements is only a secondary measure. The main thing is to rely on Yang Qi’s close-quarters combat. If you overdo the snow, Yang Qi will slip too.”

Yang Qi sighed, “It would be awesome if we could get that secret technique called ‘Silent Night.’ With it, we could handle deeper terrains, and our explorations would be a bit safer.”

“Stop dreaming. That secret technique, with tens of thousands bidding for it, isn’t something an ordinary person can snag. We were already damn lucky to land this ‘Frost Snow Sword Technique.’”

The group looked at the shattered city and let out a sigh.

“If only we could push deeper. Who knows when we’ll be able to safely enter the island’s center and head to ‘City 11.’”

……

A young man’s slender figure moved briskly through the deep corridor. After navigating several turns and flights of stairs, Yang Zicang returned to the entrance of his apartment-like room.

As the employee card unlocked the door, the grumpy face icon on the nameplate, representing an empty room, switched to a “yellow smiley face” with the corners of its mouth tilted up.

Quietly feeling the calm mindset that hadn’t waned a bit over this day, as if surrounded only by the mountain forest listening to the wind through pines and bamboo, Yang Zicang also let out a smile, just like the emblem on the doorplate.

It was only then that he pushed open the door, and immediately saw a paper—airmail-like letter on the floor.

His gaze swept across the slanting mail slot on the door, then the young man bent down and picked up the envelope. The sender’s name was printed on the bottom right corner of the cover.

—First Operation.

“A letter from the Operations Department?”

After thinking for a moment, Yang Zicang tore open the envelope and pulled out the folded letter paper inside, which still carried a faint scent of ink. Normally, this subtle smell would go unnoticed by ordinary people, but now, with his keen sense of smell, he could naturally detect it.

—If you’re like us and want to escape this damn mental torment, join us in the Ops Department’s Cleanup Team.