Jiangcheng University, Old Laboratory Building.
This was a red brick building constructed in the 1950s. The outer walls were covered in withered creeper vines, looking like dried, shriveled veins clinging to the structure.
Due to aging wiring and structural issues, it had been abandoned and sealed off five years ago. Only the basement archives still held some unwanted files.
To be honest, Lu Chen was a little scared. After all, rumors of hauntings here were perennial. Although there was no direct evidence, people on the school forum often claimed to hear strange noises coming from inside.
It was a late afternoon in deep autumn; the sunlight was pale and weak.
Before he even walked through the main gate, Lu Chen sniffed the air.
"Hmm?"
He stopped, his brows knitting slightly.
He smelled something.
Not dust, nor mold.
But an... extremely alluring aroma.
It smelled like freshly braised pork belly mixed with the rich scent of roasted lamb chops sizzling in their own fat.
This scent was wafting faintly from the pitch-black basement door, hooking into his stomach and causing his internal "engine" to rev wildly.
Gu——Lu——
Lu Chen swallowed hard, his stomach responding with a loud, timely roar.
Strange... why does an abandoned basement smell like food? Is someone having a barbecue down there?
Hunger instantly conquered fear.
Lu Chen's previously hesitant steps became resolute. He took three steps in one, walked up to the rusty iron door, and pushed.
Creak——
The heavy iron door emitted a tooth-aching friction sound, like a long-sealed giant mouth slowly opening.
A gust of cold, gloomy wind hit him in the face.
But Lu Chen took a deep breath, an intoxicated expression appearing on his face.
"Smells so good..."
He turned on his phone's flashlight and walked into the pitch-black corridor leading underground without hesitation.
At this moment, he didn't know.
He was stepping, one foot at a time, into the folded, Real World.
...
The temperature in the basement was at least ten degrees lower than outside, and the air was thick with mist.
The sensor lights seemed to have broken long ago, leaving only the weak light of his phone for illumination. The corridor was lined with piles of dilapidated desks, chairs, and instruments, taking on various twisted shapes in the shadows.
The deeper he went, the richer the meat aroma became.
Crunch, crunch.
Deep in the darkness, a strange chewing sound suddenly emerged.
It sounded like something gnawing on bones, or perhaps a rat grinding its teeth.
Lu Chen stopped and directed his phone beam toward the source of the sound—the archive shelves at the end of the corridor.
At the end of the light beam.
There were no students eating barbecue.
Lying there was a mass of black, soft-bodied organism that flowed like sludge.
It was about the size of a washbasin, wrapping itself around a metal file box, its body undulating like jelly. As it squirmed, the hard metal box hissed, corroding and melting bit by bit under the strong acid it secreted.
And that "meat aroma" that made Lu Chen salivate wildly was emanating from this very mass of sludge.
Lu Chen froze in place, his footsteps halting abruptly.
His pupils vibrated violently. He subconsciously closed his eyes, opened them again, and rubbed his temples hard.
What the hell is that...
Lu Chen's heart pounded like a drum.
Hallucination? Is my hypoglycemia so bad it's causing retinopathy? Or were there poisonous mushrooms in those steamed buns?
As a staunch materialist college student, his first reaction was that he had gone crazy, or sick.
That wriggling thing, resembling a Slime from fantasy games, was causing his worldview to collapse.
Just as he was too shocked to think, the "sludge" that had been quietly eating suddenly stopped moving.
It sensed the light, and it sensed the presence of a human.
It made no sound—such low-level soft-bodied creatures had no vocal organs.
But this made the ensuing scene even more horrifying.
The basin-sized sludge suddenly contracted inward, flattening its body to the extreme, like a black spring compressed to its limit.
The next instant.
Whoosh—!!!
A piercing whistle exploded in the narrow corridor.
It was the sound of air being torn apart by an object accelerating to extreme speeds in a short distance.
Using the recoil, the sludge launched itself, instantly stretching into a giant "net" dripping with black-gray acid in mid-air. With suffocating wind pressure, it descended straight onto Lu Chen's head!
The pungent stench of blood and acid that hit his face was nauseatingly real.
"Holy sh*t!"
Lu Chen exclaimed. Instinctive fear made him want to retreat.
It can fly?! That speed... is this a freaking Slime?!
However, his body moved faster than his brain.
Just as the acid-laden net was about to cover his face, Lu Chen didn't retreat. Instead, as if possessed by a ghost, he raised his right hand.
Slap.
A crisp sound.
Lu Chen's large, rough hand caught the core of the "Slime" right out of the air.
It was like catching a water balloon.
Only the moment he grabbed it did Lu Chen snap back to reality, a massive wave of terror instantly sweeping through him.
Crazy! Am I crazy?! Why did I grab it?!
This thing has strong acid! My hand is going to be ruined!
Under extreme fear, human instinct is often destruction. Lu Chen was no exception.
He just wanted to kill this dangerous thing or throw it away.
So, fueled by adrenaline, his hand squeezed violently.
Splat!
A muffled sound.
The core, tough as ballistic gel, was as fragile as a ripe grape under Lu Chen's terrifying grip strength. It burst instantly.
A large amount of black liquid and gelatinous matter splashed out between his fingers. The monster, which had been struggling frantically, went completely limp in an instant, turning into a pile of dead flesh hanging from Lu Chen's hand, motionless.
It... died? just like that?
Lu Chen panted heavily, looking at the pile of rotten mud in his hand, feeling a bit dazed.
I... crushed it?
At that exact moment.
Buzz——!!!
A sharp ringing sound exploded deep in his mind without warning, like flipping some mysterious switch.
Immediately after, a cold blue light screen floated directly on his retina like a holographic projection.
[Detected life signs of "Gray Fog Derivative" vanished.]
[Kill confirmed.]
[Player System accessing...]
[Welcome to the Real World. Enjoy your game.]
Lu Chen stared blankly at the pale blue text moving with his line of sight, his mind blank.
System? Cheat code?!
He subconsciously looked down at his hand covered in black slime.
Logically, the strong acid that could melt iron should have corroded his hand bones by now.
But the expected agonizing pain of skin splitting open never came. There was only a slight tingling sensation, like wiping his butt with a fuzzy leaf when he was a kid.
The system panel flickered again, like an observer recording experimental data:
[Observation Log: Encountered strong acid attack. Passive Skill "Thick Skin (Mutated)" triggered. Damage Immunity 99%.]
Lu Chen was stunned. He looked at his unscathed (just slightly red) palm, then at the crushed monster corpse in his hand.
Shock, confusion, and a sense of absurdity flooded his mind.
I'm not afraid of acid?
As if responding to his confusion, the system refreshed the information, locking onto the "dead meat" in his hand.
[Monster Bestiary Unlocked][Name: Dark Cavern · Corrosive Slime (Deceased)][Weakness Analysis: The semi-transparent crystal nucleus floating within the body.][Observation Log: A very creative execution method. It is usually recommended to use sharp weapons to destroy the core, but the player chose to... squeeze it?][Evaluation: Heh. Savage, efficient, and delightful. S-Rank Brutality.]
Lu Chen had no time to mind the system's strange tone.
Because his body—or rather, the "monster gene" that had been starving inside him for eighteen years—completely took over his brain the moment he saw the small print at the bottom of the system panel.
[Energy Content: High (Rich in active mutated proteins)]
The system panel flickered, immediately popping up a warning line:
[WARNING: High-risk corrosive source detected.][Suggestion: Move away immediately! Do not touch! Do not...]
The red warning flashed frantically before his eyes, trying to stop this madman.
But Lu Chen's brain had filtered out all the text, seeing only three shining golden words—High Energy.
With the death of the monster and the shattering of its core, an unprecedented, extremely alluring aroma exploded from the splashing black juice, rushing straight to his brain.
He finally confirmed it.
The smell of "roasted lamb chop fat" he smelled outside was this thing in his hand!
It wasn't a scent perceived by the nose; it was an appetite cheered by every extremely deprived cell.
The feeling was like a person who hadn't eaten for three days and nights suddenly having a steaming, oily meat bun stuffed into their hand.
Lu Chen's brain screamed: "Throw it away! It's a corpse! It's poisonous!"
But his hand seemed to have a mind of its own, clamping onto the rotten meat like a steel cable, forcibly bringing it to his mouth.
Reason was roaring, but salivary glands were partying.
"No... no..."
Lu Chen's eyes were bloodshot, as if possessed. His mouth said no, but his body violently opened his jaw.
The next second.
In the dark basement of the old lab building, a scene occurred that made even the System lag for a moment.
The college student who was shocked and afraid a second ago, now looked like he was possessed by a beast. Revealing two rows of eerie white teeth, he took a fierce bite of the viscous monster corpse in his hand.
Gulp.
As the cold gelatinous mass slid into his esophagus, there was no expected nausea.
The moment it entered his mouth, it was a cold sensation with a strong rust taste, like chewing on raw iron soaked in mint water.
Immediately after, the jelly exploded on the tip of his tongue, turning into a spicy, scalding heat flow that poured madly down his throat into his stomach.
BOOM—!
An indescribable terrifying heat wave exploded instantly in his stomach.
It wasn't the warmth of ordinary food digestion; it was the burning sensation of magma rolling through blood vessels!
[WARNING! WARNING! Player is ingesting unprocessed Gray Fog organism!][Scanning... Digestive system running at overload... Purifying energy...][Conversion Successful!][Obtained: 5 points of "Bio-Source Energy".](Conversion reference: 1 point of Bio-Source Energy ≈ Total calories of 10kg premium beef.)
[Current Status: Cell Energy Overload (120%)!][Hunger Level: 0% (Saturated)]
Lu Chen's pupils constricted to pinpoints.
"Ugh—!"
He let out an uncontrollable grunt, stumbling back two steps and leaning heavily against the wall.
In this instant, every cell in his body was screaming, expanding, trembling.
It felt like an electric car that usually charged on 5 volts was suddenly plugged into 1000 volts of high voltage.
The blood flow in his vessels accelerated instantly, making a clear swish sound; his heart beat violently as if trying to break through his ribcage; his originally shriveled, sunken eye sockets filled up at a visible speed.
Hot.
So hot.
Muscle fibers all over his body were twitching madly due to "energy surplus," as if countless ants were crawling under his skin.
Lu Chen gasped for air, his exhaled breath actually carrying white heat waves, clearly visible in the cold basement.
That was the first time in eighteen years he experienced what it meant to be—"Stuffed."
Not the stomach being stretched, but the essence of life being filled with energy.
At that moment, the faint green glint that had lingered in his eyes for over a decade finally extinguished.
Replacing it was a scarlet glow, tinged with a hint of intoxication from the energy overload.
Lu Chen leaned against the wall, slowly sliding down to sit on the floor, looking at his hands.
His originally pale skin was now flushed with an abnormal red, his fingertips trembling slightly from the overcharge.
He let out a burp.
Exhaling a hot breath that smelled of sulfur.
"This kick..."
Lu Chen's eyes were glazed, his scarlet tongue greedily licking the black residue from the corner of his mouth.
Satiety? No.
The furnace that had been dormant for eighteen years had just been ignited, and it was roaring for more fuel.
Lu Chen slowly raised his head, those crimson eyes shining terrifyingly in the darkness.
"...is just barely, a little strong."
Still not enough.