Chapter 29: A Nocturnal Encounter

Night.
A strange dream...
"Wetland Park... Wetland Park..."
In a haze, it felt as if someone was constantly whispering in his ear.
"Strange, this dream again..."
Qin Yuan opened his eyes, his face dazed from just waking up.
He climbed out of bed and leaned against the headboard for a while before gradually waking up, instantly realizing that something was wrong.
"I seem to have had a similar dream when I returned last time, but I can't quite recall the specific details. Thinking back now... the only impression I have is that the content repeated then was different from this time; it wasn't Wetland Park, but somewhere else entirely."
Qin Yuan frowned, quickly organizing his thoughts.
"What’s wrong?" The Whispering Grimoire on the other side, being a light sleeper, was startled awake by the movement.
After a moment of thought, Qin Yuan recounted the phenomena that had occurred over the past few days.
"This..." The Whispering Grimoire pondered for a while before saying hesitantly, "It sounds a bit like a legendary Revelation Dream."
"A Revelation Dream?"
Qin Yuan recalled the information in his memory regarding Wetland Park.
It was a park located in the suburbs, quite old. The facilities inside had long been unusable, and although it had been slightly renovated in recent years, it still didn't attract many visitors. It wasn't far from his home, only a few kilometers away.
"Does this place really exist? And it's not far from here?"
"Yes."
After receiving confirmation, the Whispering Grimoire hesitated and said, "Why don't... we go and take a look?"
Qin Yuan checked his phone; it was past eleven at night, not yet the early hours of the morning.
After deliberating for a moment, he nodded and made his decision: "Let's go take a look and see what exactly is going on."
...
Riding his family's small electric scooter, Qin Yuan reached the edge of Wetland Park.
The night breeze was blowing, and it was quite cool along the way.
Parking the scooter, he didn't rush in. Instead, he summoned the Owl Feather and let it fly into the sky to scout the situation.
Sure enough, the feather returned in a hurry after only a short while.
It had discovered an emergency.
"Qin Yuan, there is a ghoul active in the very center of this place..." the owl said in a rapid tone.
"A ghoul?" Qin Yuan frowned, connecting this to what Zhang Wenbin had told him during the day.
Ghouls had also appeared in the suburbs a few days ago...
However, his inner confusion did not diminish because of this discovery. On the contrary, the questions only multiplied.
Why would he have such a bizarre Revelation Dream? And why was he being guided here?
"A ghoul is a low-level creature, typically ranging between Level 2 and Level 4," the Whispering Grimoire explained from the side.
"Check again. Are there any other creatures besides the ghoul? Observe carefully, and be careful not to expose yourself," Qin Yuan thought for a moment and whispered to the owl.
The feather nodded and flew back into the sky to circle for a while.
After landing again, the owl said with certainty: "Confirmed, there is only one ghoul."
Qin Yuan took a deep breath, suppressing the surging thoughts in his mind, and said, "Let's go and take a look."
For safety's sake, he first cast a spell to summon the Bear Spirit.
Then, he stepped onto the cobblestone path, identified the way ahead, and walked toward the depths of the park.
Not long after walking along the path, the trees on both sides parted, revealing an open field.
A monster was wandering in the field.
Its skin was withered, and its clothes were ragged.
...
[Ghoul (LV 2): A lowest-tier scavenger creature, low intelligence.]
...
It seemed the monster had sensed the nearby movement.
The ghoul's gaze swept over.
It didn't like to think about overly complex matters; most of the time, it was driven by instinct.
However, at this moment, its barren brain was filled with joy.
It smelled the fragrant scent of food.
...
Two minutes ago, after crossing a light gate, it had arrived in this strange world in a daze.
At this moment, it was still in its initial state of confusion, but when the food emitting an alluring fragrance suddenly appeared, the instinct to feed brought on by hunger caused it to temporarily abandon all thought.
Then.
The ghoul quickly opened its mouth, glared with scarlet eyes, and moved its legs to rush toward the human in front of it.
A silent roar emanated from its throat.
—The fight ended very quickly.
A few seconds later, the headless corpse of a ghoul collapsed to the ground.
Perhaps everything had happened too fast; the eyes on the severed head rolling to the side were still wide open, looking as if it had died with deep resentment.
The incision at the neck was smooth and clean.
What had just happened was easy to guess; a simple Wind Blade from the feather had directly separated the body from the head.
This result was naturally within Qin Yuan's expectations.
[Notification: Your pet, the Feather, has killed a Ghoul (LV 2). This unit cannot carry experience points; you will receive all experience instead.]
It even yielded experience...
Qin Yuan raised an eyebrow.
"Look here!" The owl suddenly said, having discovered something.
"What?"
He followed the direction the feather was pointing and made an instant discovery.
Inside the ghoul's stomach, there was something emitting a faint light.
"Did it drop something?"
After having the feather cut it open, Qin Yuan abandoned that thought at the first sight.
What appeared before him was a small black box.
...
[Unknown Mystery Box: Can be opened by continuously injecting mana for a period of time.]
[Notification: It seems to be stained with some kind of intense aura.]
...
"What is this?!"
The Whispering Grimoire didn't recognize the item either.
Qin Yuan shared the information he saw through the Eye of Revelation.
"An intense aura?"
It muttered in confusion.
Holding it in his hand, one could tell the box was very light. Qin Yuan tried to inject mana to open it.
He felt as if he were casting into an abyss; he channeled for dozens of seconds, but there was no reaction at all.
"It seems like it requires quite a lot of mana, and I don't know if I have enough right now..."
Seeing that it wouldn't open for the moment, Qin Yuan simply put it into his backpack, planning to check it again when he got back.
Next, he checked the scene once more.
There were no other discoveries.
Moreover, not long after the ghoul died, it began to emit a thick and nauseating odor.
Qin Yuan hesitated, but took out his storage bag and, enduring the nausea, packed the remains inside.
He planned to find a place to dump it in the Soul Spirit Realm another day.
Although there shouldn't be any surveillance on this road, this was safer for insurance.
Even on the way back, the confusion in his mind did not diminish in the slightest.
It was mainly because this matter was indeed strange...
"...Does this so-called Revelation Dream, guiding me here, exist just for this thing?"
"I'll wait until I open the box to see what's inside before deciding..."
...
Ten minutes later, Wetland Park.
As Qin Yuan left, the area returned to calm, and the bloodstain lingering in the air was dispersed by the wind.
Suddenly, a light flickered.
A figure seemed to emerge from the shadows out of thin air.
He was wrapped in a black robe, and even when facing the light, his face seemed covered by a layer of mist, making it impossible to see his specific features.
Most striking was the very strange-looking staff he held in his hand.
At the top of the staff was an entire dark gold skull.
It was very eye-catching.
Even more magically, the staff seemed to be able to devour light; the moment it appeared, the entire surrounding environment seemed to dim significantly.
The man in black frowned and said, "This isn't right; logically, it should be here."
His hoarse voice carried deep confusion.
After looking around, he had some new discoveries.
On the ground somewhere ahead, there remained some wet bloodstains.
The man in black quickly stepped forward, leaned down, and twitched his nose twice:
"Sure enough, it's the smell of a ghoul... It seems someone else took it a step ahead of me."
With a "whoosh" sound, ghostly green flames rose from the eye sockets of the skull on the staff.
The flames were dark and profound, as if one would lose their soul just by taking a glance.
The skull's mouth moved, and an ethereal, phantom voice came out:
"It seems there are other closed-beta players in the vicinity besides you. This is interesting."
The man in black remained silent for a moment, activated the effect of his robe, and his figure slowly vanished.
...
After returning home, Qin Yuan began to inject mana into the small box.
Because his total reserves were not high at this stage, he had to chug down potions from the Mana Spring as a supplement.
After doing this for over half an hour, Qin Yuan felt cold sweat breaking out on his body from overexertion.
Finally, with a click, the box opened, revealing its contents.
Qin Yuan looked over.
In the center lay a red collar.
Underneath it was a pile of gold coins, roughly estimated to be about a dozen.
The Eye of Revelation provided new text.
...
[Carl's Taming Collar]
[Type: Special Item]
[Item Description: An item crafted from spirits. It can be used to tame certain creatures to establish a servant contract (can only be used on specific creatures).]
...
"A special item?"
Qin Yuan picked it up and examined it carefully in his hand.
"Although it doesn't describe the specific probability, the effect seems quite interesting..."
"Maybe I can consider getting a mount."
After putting it down, he counted all the gold coins.
There were ten in total.
However, after clearing them away, he found a purple bead at the very bottom of the box.
Next, the text that appeared on the Eye of Revelation made his eyes widen.
...
[Unknown Item: Emits an intense aura, specific purpose unknown.]
...
Even the Eye of Revelation couldn't see its specific purpose?
This was the first time he had encountered this...
He asked the Whispering Grimoire, but it also said it didn't know.
Finally, the two discussed it, and after taking out the other items, he casually closed the box.
"I'll search through my old memories another day to see if I can find some clues," the Whispering Grimoire said after thinking for a while.
He hadn't found many clues in the box, but he did get a nice unexpected harvest.
Qin Yuan checked the time; after all the tossing and turning, it was already two or three in the morning.
However, he didn't rush to sleep. Instead, he took out the storage bag containing the ghoul's corpse and threw it into a corner of the small room, only then letting out a sigh of relief.
He had done something similar when he hid the banshee last time.
Otherwise, it would be hard to get past the mental hurdle of sleeping while carrying this thing...
Since his rest period was 48 hours and tomorrow was a day off, he didn't have to worry.
Throughout the rest of the night, he didn't have any more strange dreams.