Building a sect from scratch.

Nearly half an hour later, the three people who were rappelling down finally saw the ground—if it could be called the ground.

Looking up, only a narrow slit of sky remained above the rift valley's entrance. The already dark rift made it impossible to observe the surroundings with the naked eye. Out of caution, no one carried a light source, relying instead on the game's built-in "night vision filter" to move through the darkness.

While this filter effect allows people to see things clearly in the dark, it cannot penetrate fog, dust, or other suspended particles in the air, so the field of vision is still somewhat blurry.

However, although the fog at the bottom of the valley was thick, the visibility was not too low. The only thing that made the three of them look at each other and confirm was the vast expanse of people.

Countless "people" were scattered throughout the valley floor, each surrounded by a thick, dark red mist. Whether it was an illusion or not, the three players felt that the rocks at the bottom of the valley were darker and more so than the walls above the rift, and they could even smell the foul stench of blood.

The three of them were suspended in mid-air, looking at the chilling scene at the bottom of the valley. They didn't dare to continue descending. They took screenshots and recorded videos to send to a third-party chat group, while also reporting the situation in the team channel.

"Report: The identification results indicate that they are unknown, but definitely not human! They are just unknown creatures with human-like shapes!"

"It might not even be a living organism."

Lu Ying, who took time out of her busy schedule to participate in this exploration activity and act as a temporary consultant, said, "Try to see if the light can penetrate through."

Following Lu Ying's instructions, one of the players decisively pulled out a "flashlight" from a Qiankun bag at his waist. This "flashlight" was recently developed by several research institutes under the responsibility of the China National Nuclear Corporation project team. Its principle was completely different from the flashlights that were everywhere on Earth. Instead, it used spirit stones as kinetic energy, which was converted into light through array inscription. Not only was the cost high, but it could not be mass-produced. Therefore, it was only issued to members when the project team decided to go on a mission, in case of emergency.

In the blink of an eye, an extremely intense beam of light appeared at the bottom of the valley. Like an invader, it forcefully pierced through the thick fog at the bottom of the valley and stabbed straight at the figures on the ground.

Strangely, any figure that was illuminated by the flashlight beam vanished instantly.

This scene puzzled all three of them. The person holding the flashlight thought for a moment, then swept the ground back and forth with the flashlight. Soon, the strange figures that had been illuminated disappeared, and a large open space was cleared out on the ground beneath their feet.

The three men exchanged glances, nodded one after another, and slowly landed on the ground. They quickly took out several stones, arranged them in a large circle, and surrounded everyone before starting a fire and setting up camp.

During this brief lull, the entire process of shining a flashlight on the strange figure was recorded and sent to the group chat. Within minutes, many people jogged to a small conference room to repeatedly slow down the recording and observe every detail.

The meeting room door opened and closed repeatedly, and in no time, more than a dozen people gathered in the small meeting room. Everyone was talking quietly, but they couldn't come up with any reliable guesses.

The reason this matter is so important is not only due to humanistic spirit and the desire to explore the secrets of another world, but more importantly, even Fang Xianyu's side replied that they had never seen such a "thing".

The figures were magnified many times, the pixels becoming somewhat blurry, but it was still clear that their "faces" lacked facial features, their hands and feet lacked fingers and toes, and even the shapes of their bones and muscles in some areas were extremely distorted, unlike anything a human could grow. The group repeatedly slowed down the moment the figures disappeared, finally confirming that their disappearance was not without clues—they all vanished into the ground in an instant.

"Should we have them dig into the ground and see?"

"Let's consider getting a closer look at those things before making a decision!"

"The main thing is that they all seem completely still! They only burrow into the ground when exposed to sunlight!"

A biologist coughed lightly, drawing the attention of others, and began to speak his mind: "Well, they have a strong tendency to avoid light... Also, I don't know if you've noticed, but when they burrow into the ground, they're in a melting state, abandoning the shape of a 'human' and pursuing speed. So, could we consider that they have a mimicry habit?"

A newcomer rushed into the meeting room, still unwilling to give up, and asked, "Are you sure this isn't some kind of spirit or soul?"

"No, Alpha has given a clear answer. Based on our experts' summary and comparison of the form and characteristics of souls in the Void Realm, there are indeed significant differences in the form of souls. Moreover, we have also confirmed that none of the rabbits on our mission have any debuffs related to Yin Qi or Evil Qi in their status bars..."

The director who initiated the meeting patiently summarized and quickly reviewed all the contents before explaining to everyone: "Of course, Alpha also mentioned that this kind of thing might be another unknown form of the soul, although she has never seen it either. So we cannot completely rule out this possibility; we can only say that, based on the current intelligence and details, it is probably not."

"Also, this thing doesn't seem to be aggressive at all, nor does it seem to be the cause of the disappearance of the souls of creatures in the Void Realm. We can only wait for the three rabbits to build the ground camp and then continue to explore to see if we can find anything else."

While the meeting room was buzzing with discussion, three players from the "I Love Farming" community had quickly built a makeshift camp and set up a simple teleportation array they had bought from the sect merchant.

"Report! The teleportation array has been successfully activated and should be usable!"

"Report! We've decided that one person will stay at camp while the other two continue exploring the bottom of the rift!"

A serious atmosphere filled the team channel. These five people were the best of the best among the rabbits who had gone through layers of assessment and selection to obtain the game qualification. They were able to stand out from so many rabbits and win the quota for this mission. Therefore, before the mission began, the China project team had already decided that the five of them would arrange the details and grasp the situation themselves. The "reports" during this period were just progress reports and did not require a response.

Therefore, after the group finished reporting in the team channel, they continued to work.

The three first distributed some supplies among themselves, then split into two groups: one stayed behind while the other continued onward. Interestingly, they decided who would stay behind by playing rock-paper-scissors, which eased the tense atmosphere of the team considerably. (End of Chapter)