Lu Yuan opened his eyes.
A sliver of greyish-white morning light spilled through the window, outlining the bronze door frame. There were no footsteps in the hallway; the early shift at the branch must have already headed out.
He had rarely slept so well. Looking at the light outside, he realized it was getting late.
At the edge of his vision, greyish-white text flickered.
【Sanity: +12... 110/140】
It was almost full, which was good news.
Lu Yuan didn’t rush to get up. Still lying down, he activated his Inner Vision.
The Key floated behind the worm, its dim luster slightly brighter than the night before, slowly recovering. It was good that it could recover; at least it meant the thing wasn’t a one-time use item.
The Knowledge Worm was coiled in the deepest part of his left eye. It was more stretched out than yesterday, no longer curled into a tight ball, its posture much more relaxed.
It was still somewhat large, but the swelling pain in his eye socket had subsided. The flow of colors had recovered by seventy to eighty percent, its speed approaching normal.
However, something that worried Lu Yuan was that the blood-red marks on the Knowledge Worm had increased.
Originally, there had been only one thin red thread on its surface, but now several more had crawled across its body. Many new ones had also sprouted.
Yet the worm seemed to be in decent condition. Its response to the symbiotic link was much clearer than last night, though it was still sleepy.
Very sleepy.
Lu Yuan gently nudged the symbiotic link, sending a short thought over.
The worm replied.
It was hard to describe; a jumble of sensations flooded him. Sleepiness made up the vast majority, accompanied by a bit of "don't bother me" impatience, with a faint layer of stability underneath.
Then it rolled over and burrowed deeper. The flow of colors slowed slightly as it curled back up.
Lu Yuan released the link.
He couldn't figure out why the blood-red marks were increasing.
Fortunately, the Knowledge Worm sent no signals of discomfort or rejection; it seemed entirely indifferent to those red marks.
Having no better solution, he could only let it continue sleeping for now.
Lu Yuan got up and performed a simple wash.
The meal delivery slot in the door had already been opened and closed.
A small tray sat on the metal rack inside the slot: a small piece of white bread, a small pot of milk, and a dish of vegetables he couldn't name. The leaves were thick and a bitter-green color, softened from steaming.
The breakfast was a bit cold, and the edges of the bread were hard. According to Nightwatchers regulations, those at the captain rank or higher could choose their own delivery times.
Lu Yuan hadn't set one, so it defaulted to the early shift delivery.
This was because Lu Yuan himself didn't know how late he would sleep.
He sat by the window and finished the meal.
The white bread had a dry sweetness as he chewed, the milk was slightly sour, and the bitterness of the vegetables lingered at the back of his tongue for a moment, tasting vaguely like a certain vegetable from Earth.
He chewed a few times, then pushed the thought aside.
Returning to his desk, he picked up the thin manual Kraus had given him from beside his pillow.
The cover was heavily worn, the corners frayed, and the glue on the spine had cracked in several places. The pages were thick, clearly flipped through many times.
“This is Nightwatchers internal property; do not share it lightly.”
Those were Kraus’s exact words, but he hadn't said "only you can see it."
Lu Yuan pondered the phrasing in his mind. It meant he was allowed to share the content, but he couldn't give the physical book to others.
He flipped open the inside cover. There was no Nightwatchers ID stamp; it truly was Kraus’s personal possession.
This fact made it carry even more weight.
“Which path did he actually take?”
With a hint of curiosity, Lu Yuan flipped to the first page.
There was a single line of handwritten text. The handwriting was thin, powerful, and the strokes ended decisively—the hand of someone accustomed to writing quickly.
But this line had been written slowly.
“I wish for all travelers who set foot on this path to find that legendary land and see the object of their desire. —Joe”
The ink had turned brown, and the edges of the paper were slightly yellowed. The handwriting was clear; someone had intentionally preserved it.
It seemed the person who wrote this line was very important to Kraus.
Lu Yuan’s gaze paused when it swept over the signature “Joe.”
The strokes of the signature were a bit shaky. Clearly, something had happened when this name was written.
He flipped to the second page.
“The Amber Path is an extremely difficult Eerie Pathway.”
“Its requirements for Sanity are almost harsh, deterring many. To solve this problem, I have traveled to many places and dissected many eerie entities, finally discovering a potentially feasible method. I call it the Amber Preservation Method.”
“When humans face the eerie, no matter the method, their Sanity will ultimately be affected—unless you abandon your human identity. But such an act runs contrary to the destination of the Amber Path.”
“Therefore, to help the travelers on this sub-pathway, here is my method.”
“Extract the final bit of your human ‘Essence,’ and seal it as your absolute core. As long as this bit of ‘Essence’ remains unpolluted, you can continue to climb as a human.”
—Joe
Lu Yuan flipped through the pages one by one. After reading the brief explanation, he finally had a general understanding of the path Kraus walked.
“An Eerie Pathway... the Amber direction?”
Lu Yuan frowned slightly.
Amber counted as eerie? The word carried no sense of pollution; it was warm and harmless.
In contrast, things like writhing and rotting seemed more like the keynote of an Eerie Pathway.
Lu Yuan cross-referenced this with everything he had seen in his mind, and nothing matched.
However, Kraus had never displayed any typical eerie attributes in combat either, aside from the fact that he himself would glow.
What Joe described as “Amber” might not refer to the form of the eerie, but rather the core action of this path.
Sealing?
Lu Yuan’s finger stopped on the line “Extract the final bit of your human ‘Essence.’” His fingertip pressed against the page, causing it to indent slightly.
“Excavating the Essence?”
It sounded like cutting a piece out of oneself and sealing it up. If it wasn't that, then it was digging out something that was already there.
Lu Yuan leaned toward the latter.
The former sounded too much like an eerie entity talking, while the latter sounded like a method devised by a man named Joe after painstakingly traveling through many places.
The handwriting changed in the second half of the manual.
The strokes were more square and compact; this was Kraus’s writing.
Written at different times, the ink varied in darkness. Some parts were repeatedly circled and underlined, with the pen tip having pressed indentations into the paper.
The earliest pages had greyish ink, while the most recent pages were still very dark.
This manual had been used for many years.
The core of what Kraus recorded was one thing: continuously excavating the “Essence” within himself, extracting it bit by bit, and sealing it bit by bit. The process was tedious and the methods obscure.
The knowledge contained in this book was probably not much different from what Ink had given him.
Unfortunately, after a few glances, Lu Yuan was certain that the method Kraus used was indeed not suitable for him. This was because all the cultivation within it was based on one thing: ‘Amber.’
Lu Yuan didn’t have that.
But there was good news. Some of the suggestions were somewhat similar to Guard. If he could thoroughly digest this book later, it seemed it would provide an excellent reference.
As Lu Yuan thought this, he flipped to the end with curiosity to see how far Kraus had traveled on this path.
On the last page, three sentences were written. The final one was...
“I wonder if there is still time.”
Seeing this, Lu Yuan realized that Kraus also seemed to be on the verge of stepping into rank 5.
He wondered how Kraus would ultimately fare.
Lu Yuan pushed the stray thoughts out of his mind and recalled his sensations when practicing Guard.
He was also excavating that flowing river of Sanity, probing inward, feeling deep within, advancing a little bit every day.
Different methods, same principle.
He finished flipping through and closed the book.
He had two judgments.
First, this set of methods could only be fully walked by someone on the Amber Eerie Pathway. Only someone on that path could see the fall of their own drop of amber. It couldn't be replicated.
Second, the action of “excavating one's own Essence” could be used as a reference. At the very least, it confirmed one thing: the existence of an “Essence” deep within a person. Since he could now use Inner Vision, this would be somewhat helpful for future exploration.
Lu Yuan flipped back to the first page to look at Joe’s handwriting, then closed it and placed the manual on the corner of the desk.
He closed his eyes and activated Inner Vision.
Just as his consciousness sank an inch inward,
A knock sounded at the door.
“Who would be looking for me at this hour?”
Lu Yuan opened his eyes, got up, walked to the door, and pulled it open.
It was Bolen, leaning on his cane, with Kail following behind, carrying the small toolkit he had used for a long time. A ring of old cloth strips was wrapped around the corners of the box to prevent bumping.
The moment Bolen saw him, his gaze paused on Lu Yuan’s left eye for a split second before moving away.
“Sorry for the intrusion, Captain Lu.”
Lu Yuan stepped aside to let them in.
Bolen entered the room without waiting for an invitation, found a chair, and sat down, leaning his cane against the armrest without any ceremony.
Kail placed the toolkit at his feet and stood quietly beside Bolen’s chair.
Bolen looked up at Lu Yuan.
“Captain Lu, are you all right? How did the trip go?”
“I’m back, and I’m fine.”
Bolen looked at him for two seconds, his gaze sweeping from his face to his left eye, and then to the scabbed wounds on his palms.
The old man swallowed the words at the tip of his tongue and changed direction.
“The matter at the Polymath Tower... did it work out?”
“The rite is finished. The Nightwatchers who went are all fine and have been withdrawn, though they all need rest.”
“So everything went smoothly? Weren't there mostly students at the Polymath Tower...”
Lu Yuan let out a sigh when he heard this.
“Twenty-three students from the Polymath Tower. Not a single one returned.”
Bolen’s fingers pressed against the head of his cane as he fell silent for two seconds.
“Lives at the Polymath Tower have never been worth much.”
No one followed up on that.
After a few seconds of silence, Bolen brought the conversation back himself, the corners of his mouth lifting slightly.
“By the way, my injury is healed.”
As he spoke, he held out his right hand.
A ghostly blue light surged from his palm, and a tiny inscription ring condensed in the air. The structure was one layer more complex than the one he had shown Lu Yuan before, with an added ring of inner spiral patterns, and its rotation speed was steadier.
After it spun twice, he withdrew it and cleared his throat.
“My state wasn't right the last time we went down into the pipe network. It’s different now. I’m confident that if I look at those inscriptions on the copper pillars again, I can read more from them.”
Bolen leaned back against the chair, adopting a consultative tone.
“Shall we find a time to go down again?”
Lu Yuan nodded.
“We’ll bring Kraus along too. We didn't get a single bit of benefit last time we went down; this time, we’ll lay everything out in the open.”
Having just finished reading that manual, he realized that Kraus’s path might actually be the optimal solution for facing the inscriptions below.
“In the next few days, once I’ve finished recuperating. I’ll ask the Vice Director then.”
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