Chapter 150: Sinkhole?

"Could this be... a sinkhole?" Qiu Huarui suddenly had several dark veins throbbing on his forehead. As someone who had played Don't Starve, he naturally knew this was content introduced in the DLC, where all the basalt formations on the original map would transform into entrances to sinkholes.

However, was this really a sinkhole?

Qiu Huarui hesitated. In the source material, sinkholes were teeming with all sorts of monsters, most of which carried a nightmare aura. Without adequate lighting and food, the only outcome of entering one was death. Yet at this very moment, his Origin was using an unusually urgent signal to urge him to enter quickly.

"Impossible! My Origin would never lie to me!" Qiu Huarui's tone was filled with certainty, but his feet refused to budge an inch. He was still thinking, searching for a reason sufficient to convince him to walk forward.

"That's right! The sinkhole entrances in the DLC are no longer made of basalt. Although they are in the same locations as the basalt, that rock is closer to crystal, and the stone it yields consists of pebbles and flint! Exactly! This definitely isn't a sinkhole!"

Qiu Huarui shouted as if trying to hypnotize himself. At that moment, he finally made up his mind and stepped into the cavern. Yet, at this very moment, Qiu Huarui failed to realize that the instant he chose to walk into this cave, the Origin that had never ceased its activity since his awakening suddenly fell completely silent...

...

Leaving the camp, Feng Xue headed in a direction he had not explored before. He knew this direction should lead to swamp or mining biomes, and it was likely the primary contested terrain for all transmigrators. However, as a foodie, he cared much more about the abundant and exotic species within the swamp. Although the monster meat dropped by creatures in the original swamp was poisonous, what did poison matter to Feng Xue?

Besides, he also wanted to taste what fish meat in the Don't Starve world was like!

"Huh? Why is there a cave here?" Feng Xue suddenly spotted an opening in the ground. For some reason, this entrance seemed to emit a special kind of attraction—something closely tied to his Gluttony Demon, though it didn't feel quite like ingredients, but rather like pure power...

Could it be a sinkhole? Feng Xue inspected the shattered rock fragments around the area. Clearly, someone had gone down ahead of him, but judging by the jagged shape of the broken stone, the strength of whoever descended probably wasn't very high.

Should he go down?

Feng Xue hesitated.

It wasn't that transmigrators loved to hesitate, but rather that transmigrators were inherently cautious.

Every child of the Tower of Babel era, upon receiving their foundational education, first learned to be cautious!

When facing the unknown, caution was especially crucial.

However, afterward, transmigrators would also receive an education known as "seeking wealth amidst peril." Thus, once they found a reason capable of convincing themselves, most transmigrators would always choose to take a risk, even if that reason was merely intuition!

This was yet another major trait of the transmigrators from the Tower of Babel era: trusting one's intuition.

In this era, the sequential application of concepts and Origins meant that intuition was no longer some mystical, arcane "superstition," but rather a genuine key that could guide transmigrators toward success. In this era, there were even transmigrators who specifically trained their intuition to acquire special traits such as precognition and mind's eyes.

Therefore, the stronger a transmigrator was, the more they trusted their own intuition. This was also the underlying cause that prompted Feng Xue to develop his intuition-deceiving skill—"Arrogance."

That being said, everyone could naturally guess Feng Xue's choice. He simply plucked a hair, rolled it between his fingers, and jumped straight into the cavern...

The cave was not nearly as high as Feng Xue had imagined. He hit the ground almost the moment he jumped in. A preliminary estimation put the drop at no more than three meters. Strangely enough, however, after Feng Xue stood up, he could no longer find the very opening through which he had entered.

"It vanished? Or could this be some kind of wormhole teleportation, or perhaps an illusion that makes the exit impossible to find?" Feng Xue scratched his head. Fortunately, Charlie (the monster that attacks people in the darkness of the Don't Starve world) didn't seem to exist in this cavern, as Feng Xue was not attacked by any nameless entities even though he hadn't lit a single campfire.

Taking a deep breath, Feng Xue took in the scenery within a radius of ten meters into his mind. The hyper-perception brought by his gourmet cells was truly useful; even without any light, relying solely on his hearing and hyper-perception, Feng Xue could grasp everything happening around him.

According to the feedback from his hyper-perception, this appeared to be an artificially excavated cavern. The stone walls on both sides bore clear marks of manual carving. The cave was crude and simple; while spacious enough to allow two trains to run side by side, it lacked any decoration whatsoever. There were no designated spots for torches or lanterns along the walls either. It seemed the excavators of this place had no need for light, or perhaps light simply could not exist in this place at all!

Yet this seemed to have nothing to do with Feng Xue. Guided by the imagery provided by his hyper-perception, he advanced slowly. Before long, he heard a faint sound—

"Rustle, rustle..." It sounded like the hem of a garment rubbing against the ground. Someone was ahead!

However, just as Feng Xue prepared to lighten his footsteps, a piercing scream suddenly erupted from the tunnel ahead!

"Get away, all of you, get away! These belong to me!" That booming voice clearly came from a human, though at this moment, the owner of the voice seemed to have lost their mind. This reminded Feng Xue that the darkness in the Don't Starve world had the effect of draining human sanity, though he had long since ignored this type of corrosion ever since acquiring his sanity halo.

"Judging by the voice, some kind of treasure must have appeared?" Feng Xue's eyes lit up, and he hurried toward the direction of the scream.

...

Turning the clock back to when Qiu Huarui entered the cavern—

Although there was not a sliver of light in the cave, this posed no difficulty for Qiu Huarui, who hailed from a family of master prospectors. Dark vision had long since become standard equipment for this family; without dark vision, one would be too embarrassed to tell others they belonged to the Qiu family!

Unlike Feng Xue, who could only clearly perceive things within a ten-meter radius, Qiu Huarui was able to take in everything within his field of vision.

Yet precisely because of this, he beheld something that filled him with extreme terror—

In this narrow cavern, countless nightmare creatures lay scattered in disarray: a thirteenth pair of eyes constantly blinking, Charlie's clawed hands reaching out aggressively, the tall and slender black watchmen, along with crawling nightmares and gaping-jawed nightmares. These creatures, which should only appear when human sanity dropped below a certain threshold, were sprawled everywhere lazily, as if they had returned home.

Fortunately, these nightmare creatures showed no intention of attacking whatsoever. Whether it was because Qiu Huarui's sanity remained above the critical threshold and rendered him invisible to them, or because they were merely illusions within this cavern...

Struggling hard to suppress the urge to scream, Qiu Huarui finally managed to endure this nightmarish journey with the help of his flower wreath. Right before his eyes, an altar-like structure appeared, and resting in the most prominent position upon this altar was a book bound in a greyish-black cover, completely devoid of any text...