[New Book Period—Please Recommend and Favorite]
“Not good—it’s a Tiankeng! I never thought one would appear at a time like this.”
Thousand-Faced Fox’s expression also turned grave, even paling in alarm.
Tiankeng—this was a mysterious phenomenon that had frequently appeared all over the world in recent years. Enormous pits would appear without the slightest warning, swallowing everything on the surface, while the regions devoured seemed to vanish from the real world, never to be found again.
All that remained were bottomless pits.
When Tiankeng first appeared, the major nations had also dispatched large numbers of personnel to investigate them, yet they had never managed to produce any results. In the end, they could only find ways to seal off the areas surrounding the Tiankeng, treating them as an irresistible abnormal phenomenon.
In the dark world, there were all sorts of conjectures about Tiankeng as well. Some, relying on strength far beyond ordinary people, forced their way down to investigate, but still discovered nothing.
The appearance of Tiankeng had undoubtedly become a kind of taboo.
The hotel shook more and more violently, and the chandeliers on the ceiling came crashing down one after another. Ji Tianhao and Thousand-Faced Fox exchanged a glance, temporarily putting aside their misgivings as they rushed toward the door.
The corridor was in utter chaos. Large numbers of guests were running and screaming in panic.
Ji Tianhao and Thousand-Faced Fox pushed against the flow of people and ran toward the emergency passage. However, when they shoved open the door to the stairwell, they discovered that the stairwell had already warped and distorted. The original steps had turned into floating fragments.
“H-How is this possible?” Thousand-Faced Fox’s eyes widened.
Ji Tianhao took a deep breath. “No matter what, we leave this place first. We can’t take the stairs. If we step in there, who knows whether those fragments will grind us to pieces.”
He immediately turned to look for another route.
“Not good!!”
Suddenly, the entire hotel began plummeting at high speed. Ji Tianhao and Thousand-Faced Fox were pulled by a powerful force of gravity, falling uncontrollably. In that instant of weightlessness, Ji Tianhao saw that the scene outside the window had completely overturned his understanding. It was not the familiar night view of the city, but a mysterious world filled with bizarre creatures and endless ruins. It was as though they had entered some mysterious tunnel and were seeing countless inconceivable images.
There were sword immortals commanding tens of thousands of sword lights, fighting terrifying colossal beasts, spilling blood across the void.
There were martial artists whose qi and blood surged like beacon smoke, battling monsters in bloody combat, fighting to the death without retreat, until not even bones remained.
There were true dragons commanding wind and rain, battling sea beasts amid the floodwaters.
He saw Titan giants roaring in the mountains and wilds, and all kinds of powerful life-forms locked in slaughter.
He saw great armies arrayed in formation, waging bloody war beneath the desolate sky. Someone beat war drums, the sound like thunder. Someone waved a long banner, and countless ghostly souls blotted out the heavens and covered the sun.
Those images entered his eyes through the window as he fell. They seemed like traces of time, brands of space itself.
Afterward, Ji Tianhao felt his vision go black. Under the influence of a mysterious force, he completely lost consciousness.
An unknown amount of time passed.
Ji Tianhao’s consciousness gradually returned. In the next second, he instinctively rolled over and sprang up, assuming a guarded posture. The Desert Eagle was still gripped in his hand. His gaze swept the surroundings. In the earlier rush, he had still returned to the room he had originally booked. The room was somewhat messy, but fortunately, it was mostly intact.
It was clear that no one had entered before this.
“We... where are we?”
Thousand-Faced Fox’s voice carried fear and shock.
The scene of falling into the Tiankeng had been far too impactful. It was a terror born from one’s life being completely beyond one’s own control.
“I don’t know. It’s all dense fog outside. Right now, I can’t even tell whether it’s day or night. We fell into a Tiankeng and didn’t die. I have a feeling we’ve encountered a mysterious incident. We don’t even know where we are now.”
Ji Tianhao shook his head and looked out the window. Outside was a blur, with mist filling everything.
“What rotten luck. I only wanted to come take a look at the Kunlun Jade Disk, but I didn’t expect you to drag me into a pit. Where am I supposed to go to seek justice for this?”
Thousand-Faced Fox gave a bitter smile.
Hadn’t she merely wanted to see what the Kunlun Jade Disk looked like? How had she ended up falling into a pit?
Ji Tianhao did not answer. He tightened his grip on the jade disk in his hand as countless questions surged in his heart. What exactly was this mysterious world?
And what exactly was the Tiankeng incident? What sort of place had they fallen into?
“No matter what happened, we have no room to resist. We can only accept it passively. Since that’s the case, how about we join forces? In the face of life and death, the Kunlun Jade Disk is no longer important.”
Ji Tianhao opened his mouth and proposed.
He had dealt with Thousand-Faced Fox several times before. Whether she was good or bad aside, at the very least, under circumstances where they had suddenly appeared in an unknown place, she was still a decent partner to cooperate with.
Thousand-Faced Fox fell silent for a moment, then stood up and patted the dust off herself. “Looks like we’ll have to cooperate for now, Great Bounty Hunter Ji. But let me say the ugly words first—when we return to the real world, I’m still very interested in whatever is inside the Kunlun Jade Disk.”
“If you want, I can let you study it later.”
Ji Tianhao gave his promise.
“Then I’ll take you seriously. It’s settled.”
Thousand-Faced Fox said with a light laugh, “I need to return to my own room first. I’m staying next door to you. Some of my things are still over there.”
“Fine. If anything happens, send a signal immediately. I feel there’s something wrong with the dense fog outside. It’s not safe.”
Ji Tianhao nodded and did not stop her. At a time like this, he likewise wanted some private space to sort things out.
As the door closed, he was once again the only person left in the entire room. He had no intention of tidying up the mess right away. Instead, his gaze turned to his left wrist. There, on his wrist, at some unknown time, a watch-like pattern had appeared—or perhaps it could be called a mark, a tattoo. It was engraved on his wrist, vivid and lifelike.
“Hm? What is this? There definitely wasn’t any tattoo or birthmark like this on my body before.”
Ji Tianhao was immediately astonished. He was absolutely certain he had not remembered wrong. Such a mark had definitely not existed on his body before.
Just as his gaze fell on the watch pattern, a profound stream of information naturally appeared in his mind. It was as if some supreme and mighty force had made him understand its message.
“Guixu Watch, a gift from Guixu. It can detect all information about oneself in real time. This is a bestowal from Guixu, and also a symbol of one’s identity in Guixu. It is a lifelong supreme treasure, a divine artifact that can continuously grow. How many functions it possesses and what level it can reach can only depend on one’s own nurturing. The initial watch only possesses the ability to monitor one’s own data and has no other functions.”
The appearance of this information left Ji Tianhao astonished as well.
“Guixu Watch, Guixu? What exactly is going on? Could it be that after falling from the Tiankeng, the place we fell into is this so-called Guixu?”
Ji Tianhao murmured to himself.
No matter how one looked at the word Guixu, it gave off an ominous premonition.
No matter when it was, Guixu never seemed to carry any good meaning. A place that could be named Guixu—no matter how one looked at it, it did not seem like anything good.
Unfortunately, that stream of information had only informed him about the Guixu Watch and told him that where he now was was the land of Guixu. As for anything else, there was no extra information whatsoever. The feeling it gave was only the unknown and bewilderment.
“What can be confirmed is that I’m truly no longer on that little broken ball. I really have come to some mysterious place. To be able to directly engrave a watch onto my body—this is already an irresistible mighty power. This world must belong to the extraordinary.”
All sorts of thoughts naturally surfaced in Ji Tianhao’s mind.
Immediately afterward, he fixed his gaze on the watch.
Whoosh!!
On that black watch brand, a black stream of light naturally flashed by. As the flowing light flickered, Ji Tianhao also instinctively felt a special tingling numbness pass through his entire body. Then, the watch that had originally seemed no different from a mark appeared to be perfectly activated.
At the same time, Ji Tianhao could clearly feel that he and the watch had already fused into one completely.
The watch was like a part of his own body.
How to use it, what effects it possessed—everything was clear at a glance.
It was a companion divine artifact that would accompany him for his entire life. At the beginning, they were all the same, but in the future, due to cultivation and nurturing, they would undergo different changes. According to the information obtained from the watch, the Guixu Watch possessed almost limitless potential. This was a gift bestowed by the will of Guixu—or rather, this was the brand Guixu left on every life-form that entered Guixu.
Ji Tianhao
Age: Twenty-six
Life: Black Iron
Realm: None
Talent: Black Hole Twin Stars
Essence: 3 [Standard for an ordinary adult human: 1]
Qi: 2 [Standard for an ordinary adult human: 1]
Spirit: 8 [Standard for an ordinary adult human: 1]
Skills: Taiji Fist [Proficient 3/100] Five Animal Frolics [Proficient 9/100] Bajiquan [Proficient 2/100] Xingyiquan [Proficient 9/100] Baguazhang [Beginner 87/100] Firearms Shooting [Minor Accomplishment 45/100]
“This is... an attribute panel. Those numbers behind the skills—could they possess the ability to permanently record every proof, to ensure that training always yields gains?”
As Ji Tianhao looked at it, a thought instantly surfaced in his mind. He could not help growing excited inwardly, his heart thumping hard. Even as a bounty hunter, as a young man, he had never been unfamiliar with things like web novels.
The moment he thought of this, he grew excited as well.
Without holding back, he moved into the open area of the room. Raising a hand, he assumed the posture of Taiji and began practicing Taiji Fist. The Taiji Fist he had learned was the real thing. He had accepted a mission on the dark web, and the other party had paid him with a Taiji Fist manual. The fist art combined hardness and softness; when performed, there was softness within hardness and hardness within softness. It was not the health-preserving Taiji practiced by old men and old women in parks, but genuine national martial arts that could be used in real combat.
The coiling silk force and the parry-and-punch were even more symbolic of the circulation of its internal force and the shifting between hardness and softness.
Before he knew it, he had finished one complete set of the fist art.
He looked once more at the attribute panel displayed on the watch.
Taiji Fist [Proficient 3/100]
“No change. It isn’t diligence making up for lack of talent, nor permanently recording every proof. This is only a panel that displays my personal attribute status, allowing a person to see their own abilities more directly.”
After checking it, the heat in Ji Tianhao’s heart also calmed considerably.
Although he was somewhat disappointed, he also knew that this was not a game, and he could not ask for too much. To have a panel that allowed him to intuitively see his own condition was already a miracle countless people could only dream of. The reason many people gave up halfway or abandoned certain things partway through was, in truth, largely because they simply could not see any gains or any future prospects. It was just like practicing boxing. You trained for a month, a year, even several years, yet you had no idea at all what realm your fist art had reached, or what level it stood at.