Mechanical Alchemist

"Mr. Su Lun, I'm sorry I'm late..."

Yuta's sorrowful, self-blaming sobs echoed through the space.

Su Lun's first reaction was that he was hallucinating.

He immediately tried various methods, only to find that he wasn't in an illusion, nor was he influenced by some special spiritual power field.

The attribute panel was all normal.

Right now, everything was very real.

Meanwhile, the sobbing sounds continued next to his ear.

"I came as soon as I received the communication signal, but you..."

Su Lun confirmed it was Yuta's voice.

She was crying very sadly.

Am I dead?

Su Lun, listening to the content of the words, realized something: Yuta must have seen his body, which was why she was crying so sadly.

But there seemed to be a missing link, which made the scene very eerie.

I am clearly alive and well, so why would "Yuta" say I am dead?

Moreover, where is the voice coming from?

....

Su Lun's thoughts in his mind started to whirl.

Assumption 1: I am hearing hallucinations (mostly ruled out)

Assumption 2: It's really Yuta, or some other 'Yuta' speaking (✓)

He instantly had an analysis of the current situation in his mind.

Having ruled out the first assumption, his thoughts automatically went to complete the possible logical links of the second assumption.

The Wolf Fang Amulet hanging from Su Lun's neck was Yuta's actual Wolf Fang, which had some kind of spiritual connection with her.

Su Lun didn't know exactly why he could hear Yuta's cross-dimensional conversation, but it probably was because of this Wolf Fang.

So, Yuta was here and had seen his own body?

But why can I hear her speak yet not see her?

Su Lun ruled out that he was in a spirit state.

He considered that it might be something similar to a "phonograph"?

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A chaotic timeline?

Su Lun suddenly realized something.

If I'm not dead now, could there be a possibility: Yuta might have seen "the future me"?

....

Yuta was just in this corridor, maybe even right in front of his eyes!

But not on the same timeline.

Was it after I had died?

Some special force allowed him to hear her cries across time and space.

"So... will I be trapped here to die?"

Su Lun concluded, his gaze immediately becoming serious.

Black crows give warnings, so this space must definitely have some "lethal danger."

There's no doubt about that.

Wasn't Yuta supposed to be outside, so how could she appear in the cursed space?

A thought flashed through Su Lun's mind; he instantly understood that probably she had sneaked in for Dalu tribe's inheritance. This silly girl probably didn't tell him because she was afraid he would worry.

But now was not the time to think about that.

If another timeline's version of himself had really died, Su Lun had to quickly figure out the cause of his death, perhaps now he could avoid it and survive.

He tried calling out to Yuta, discovered she couldn't hear him speak.

"Yuta" saw his body, the best way was to ask her directly.

It would also confirm if his guess was correct.

But since the voice could only travel one way, how could he let her know?

Su Lun saw the Wolf Fang Amulet on his chest, an idea flashed through his mind, and he immediately thought of a method.

"That's it! Since my body is still here, it means the Wolf Fang Amulet is also still there..."

Su Lun's eyes whirled, he pulled off the amulet, then carved a line of small characters on it: "I am Su Lun, Yuta I can hear you speak. If you see this, tell me what you saw."

He quickly carved these characters, his eyes sparkling with anticipation.

If things were as he guessed, Yuta in a later timeline saw his body.

Then, she should be able to see the characters on this Wolf Fang!

.....

The moment he finished carving the characters, the sobbing sound by his ear suddenly stopped!

The Yuta on the other side seemed stunned for a moment, then cried with joy, "Mr. Su Lun, is it really you?"

Su Lun, hearing those words, felt elated: My guess wasn't wrong!

He hurriedly carved another sentence on the Wolf Fang: "It's me! Can you see the characters on the ground?"

The Wolf Fang being quite small, he wrote some more words on the ground: "I might have fallen into a space with a chaotic timeline. Describe in detail what exactly happened and what you saw."

Just after writing those two sentences, indeed, Yuta's response came through the air, "I can see them! I'm sorry, Mr. Su Lun, I didn't heed your advice and sneaked into the cursed space..."

Indeed, just as Su Lun thought, Miss Druid had sneaked in.

She continued, "I suddenly received a communication from you through the device specifying a route, asking me to come over... I came and then I saw you... no, a corpse. The corpse had the Wolf Fang Amulet I gave you, and then I thought it was you."

"..."

Su Lun, hearing this, his mind went blank again.

Was it my corpse that contacted Yuta through the communicator, leading her to this place?

What is this situation, resurrecting a body?

...

Su Lun hastily carved another line on the ground: "What else?"

The Yuta from another dimension saw the characters on the ground, obviously also hoping it wasn't Su Lun's body.

But after looking carefully, she probably suspected she was caught in an illusion or something else, her tone becoming uncertain, "It's a mummy, appears like a natural aged death, very old, very old. It seems... it truly is your body. Mr. Su Lun, are you a spirit now?"

A naturally dead mummy?

Su Lun heard this, his gaze shifting.

It meant, he didn't die from an accident but was trapped until he died of old age?

No!

If there was no misfortune, Su Lun felt he should at least have a hundred and eighty years of lifespan left.

Moreover, the food supply simply couldn't support dying of natural aging.

Doubts flashed through in succession.

Su Lun's mind raced at high speed.

He rapidly ruled out some incorrect logic.

Thus the only possibility left was, there was some strange "chaotic timeline" in this space, "letting" "himself" age and die in a moment?

....

Su Lun thought about this, and immediately realized the problem was serious.

Since he was not dead now, he thought about saving himself.

"If it is really my own body, since I have tried to contact Yuta using the communicator, I must have considered something. I definitely wouldn't let her take the risk... even, 'I' was very aware that I would die."

Su Lun knew himself too well.

He quickly thought of something and carved another line: "Yuta, check the storage ring on the body, and see if there is something like a notebook."

As he spoke, he also took out a notebook and began to record everything that was happening now.

Perception can be deceived, and even memories can be distorted, erased, or altered by some extraordinary powers.

But a "poor pen" won't!

This clumsy method sometimes works wonders in certain situations.

And Su Lun himself had the habit of taking notes, and he thought that if he were trapped in a maze, he would definitely leave notes to crack it!

Once the line was carved, Yuta's response indeed came through the air, "Eh... there really is one!"

Su Lun felt like he had grasped the key point and immediately carved: "Read what is on there."

....

"Yuta, you received the communication, which means you definitely sneaked in here, you... When you see this notebook, it means that the delayed communicator I made could withstand the erosion of more than two hundred years. Tsk tsk, the craftsmanship is pretty good... In the last moment before deciding to step out of this space, I recalled my life. Although it was brief, it was splendid. I have no regrets about coming here. I'm writing this because I've left some things for you, and some words... Oh, don't be sad. I quite liked you."

Su Lun was surprised to hear Yuta reading these words from the notebook; he wondered if he had heard wrong.

Such grandiose words, were they really written by "himself"?

Could it be that he thought about these things in a desperate situation?

In the air, Yuta's reading turned into uncontrollable sobbing.

She continued reading.

"You must want to know what happened, why I died here. If nothing unexpected occurred, am I a dried-up corpse by now? Hopefully, it wouldn't scare you. If I'm not wrong, I've fallen into a 'time distortion zone' where the time ratio to the outside world is 1:3700. That is, if I spend one day in this space, the equivalent of ten years passes in the normal space. And I've been here for over twenty days, so if I were to go out, my body would instantly age two hundred years. Thus, what you see should be a corpse that died of old age."

That was it!

Upon hearing this, Su Lun immediately realized how the events had unfolded.

He abruptly looked around the cursed space and blurted out a curse.

In this place, one day equals ten years outside?

No wonder people are trapped to death.

But at the same time, he grew hopeful.

Because according to his character, he would definitely not wait to die but would find ways to decipher this space.

And moreover, since he had left notes, it meant there must be a detailed process to break it!

...

Yuta continued reading: "I explored every part of the maze and found a way to break it, but it was too late. I spent more than twenty days in this space to break it, and after coming out, it was more than two hundred years. If I had stayed hidden in the space, I could have lived much longer. But when I came out, I would turn into nothing but dust... I never lived a life of compromise. So, I decided to come out. This is how I chose to leave this world, with peace of mind. Don't be sad. By the time you read this note, it simply proves that everything I predicted was right. If you encounter similar trouble, you can also use this method to get out."

Yuta likely had tears streaming down her cheeks, touched by the emotion across time and space, and she began to cry, "Wah... Mr. Su Lun, please don't die..."

But in Su Lun's heart, there was a different feeling, hearing this he immediately conceived hope.

He carved on the ground, urging Yuta to read everything out loud, afraid the signal might suddenly cut off: "We are not dead yet. But if you don't finish reading, I might really die."

"I" spent over twenty days figuring out how to get out last time, and another attempt would likely take no less time.

One day equals ten years; he couldn't afford that.

Fortunately, fate did not play tricks on Su Lun, nor did any accidents happen.

Yuta too realized the seriousness and kept reading the contents of the notebook.

"The notes towards the end are a bit chaotic, but I've organized them for your ease of reading. If you need, you might want to see what I did at the end of my life. Nevertheless, this 'time distortion zone' is quite interesting... this world is wonderful, it's just a pity life is too short. I understood some of the meaning of death, it seems I also grasped some of the meaning of life... give me some more time, I could possibly make my life even more splendid, letting the world know I was here... but, there's no more maybe."

"..."

The rest of the content was mostly the methods to break the "time distortion zone."

Su Lun carefully recorded on the notebook the method "he" had left behind to break the region.

He had also seen "himself" take too many detours.

Because he had to grope through the entire maze to find clues to get out, he had wasted too much time.

Now, all he needed to do was follow the strategy in "his" notebook, bypassing the exploration process.

Soon after, Su Lun finished understanding the method and determined in his heart, "So this is how to get out..."

With this strategy, he was confident that he could handle it in half a day at most!

....

The notebook read up to this point; logically, there shouldn't have been any important content left.

What needed to be explained had been explained, and everything that needed to be said had been said.

However, in the last few pages, Yuta read a few sentences that caused Su Lun's just-calmed heart to suddenly feel a chill down his spine.

"It feels like I have forgotten something very important, which is astonishing. How could I have done such a thing? Was there something guiding me to do it? Or did I see something that made me think this way?"

"Huh... Why did I write down these words? Was it due to some external influence? I am sure that there is something else in this space, something beyond my understanding!"

When Su Lun heard these sentences that sounded like "mad ravings," his hair instantly stood on end.

He looked around at the dim space and couldn't help but think, "Could it be there is some other terrifying presence here besides the chaos in time?"

Fear stems from the unknown.

Since he had written those words in the notebook, then that thing must certainly exist.

Some kind of monster?

The chaotic rules of the God Burial Ground?

Or something else...?

Su Lun's eyebrows were tightly furrowed.

At least that "thing" hadn't killed his other self in that timeline, it had only caused him to forget something, which seemed not too serious?

However, there was one more sentence at the end of the notebook.

"I wanted to understand the source of this feeling, so I carefully searched through all the items I was carrying, item by item... Then, I finally noticed something unusual. That is: I couldn't remember how I got the [Replica of the Original Rune]!"

Upon hearing this, Su Lun suddenly became very alarmed.

He instantaneously felt a chill down his spine as if a ghost had blown on the back of his neck.

A deep, terrifying thought.

Su Lun was surprised to find that he actually couldn't remember how he had acquired that [Replica of the Original Rune]!

"I remember, it seemed like I had fallen under a monster's illusion, and I then scraped it off from the stone wall?"

Su Lun saw the [Thousand Illusions Demon Crystal] in his storage space, recalling the origin of the rune.

Just like that?

Scraped off from a mural?

It seemed logically sound.

But it felt like it shouldn't have been that easy.

Su Lun immediately realized why he had written that sentence in the notebook.

It was then he discovered, his memory was missing something.

Not much, but crucial.

Within this cursed space, there might be a "special presence" that his subjective consciousness had forgotten or otherwise overlooked.

....

However, now was not the time to ponder this question in detail.

Time in this space passed so shockingly fast that every second wasted was a massive loss of life.

Su Lun engraved the last sentence on the ground: "I am going to break the space now, Yuta, be careful."

A gentle response also came through the air: "Okay. Mr. Su Lun, you... be careful too."