I can see experience bars after being transported to another world.

It was past midnight.

Lu Yuan leaned against the base of the ruins behind the position, his eyes closed.

The revolver rested on his knees, and the hammer was cocked.

The area around the collapsed cave entrance was quiet; for the fourth consecutive night, no ghouls emerged.

But tonight there were sounds that hadn't been heard before.

It didn't come from the cave entrance.

It's the direction of the shaft.

I first noticed it around 2 a.m.

An intermittent scraping sound came from beneath the cast iron cover of the shaft.

It's very light.

It wasn't the sharp, claw-like scratching of metal; it was more like something soft slowly wriggling against the inside of the cover.

The sound lasted for a few seconds, then stopped.

It rang again after a while.

There is no pattern.

[Defense I: +0.3…4.9/10]

"Let's observe for now..."

Lu Yuan moved his right hand; the laceration on the web of his hand had scabbed over, but he still felt a pulling sensation when he clenched his fist.

Moreover, I have important business to attend to today.

Dissect those two ghouls.

Lu Yuan went to the back of the alchemy workshop to check on the condition of the two large ghouls.

The copper powder ring is intact.

The smaller one was quieter than yesterday.

The bleeding from the severed limbs had stopped, but the grayish-red fibers were still wriggling extremely slowly, as if the body was still trying to heal.

Its degenerated eyes were half-closed, and its body was curled up in a ball.

The larger one was still writhing silently. Its shattered jaw opened and closed, emitting a muffled hissing sound.

The grayish-red fibers at the severed limb were more active than those of the smaller limb, extending out one by one from the cross-section, slowly exploring in the air, and continuously healing.

Lu Yuan returned to the alchemy workshop to retrieve dissection tools.

When I opened the door, Buren was already waiting on the first floor.

The old man stood at the doorway, leaning on his cane, with his toolbox at his feet.

Kai'er was carrying another box on her back, looking somewhat nervous.

Before Lu Yuan could speak, Boren spoke first.

"I've been thinking about something all night."

Lu Yuan looked at him.

"Why would those two giant ghouls in the pipe network do something like that?"

Beren's voice wasn't loud, but he spoke faster than usual.

"Those that rush up from the ground, no matter how big they are, are just weird. They don't take detours, they don't cooperate, they howl when they get hit, and then they keep charging after they finish howling."

"But the two in the pipeline are different; one is catalyzing humans, and the other is directing the face dogs."

"This is unreasonable."

The old man looked at Lu Yuan.

"During the ghoul transformation process, the brain tissue will degenerate and shrink on a large scale. According to the basic common sense of inscription and the study of the supernatural, the brain volume of a second-level or higher ghoul is less than one-third of its original size."

"His brain is rotten. How could he possibly become smarter?"

Lu Yuan did not respond.

Because he also wanted to know the answer.

"There's one more thing," Burren said, pointing to his toolbox. "I want to see if those two things have any clues related to the backflow in the pipes."

"I've spent my whole life repairing inscriptions, and I'm more sensitive to the corrosion and contamination of copper than any of you. If there are traces of pipe network contamination in the ghoul's body..."

He paused.

"I can tell the moment I touch it."

Lu Yuan glanced at him.

The old man's eyes were shining again.

It looked exactly like the bronze pillar I saw at the edge of the abyss.

"Aren't you afraid?"

"I'm afraid," Buren answered without hesitation. "But I'm even more curious."

Lu Yuan remained silent for two seconds.

"They told me beforehand that some tissues might have residual contaminants."

"I know my limits."

The three walked to the back of the alchemy workshop.

Bor and a night watchman stood guard on the perimeter.

Start with the smaller one.

Larger specimens were kept alive for subsequent comparison.

Lu Yuan spread out the set of professional equipment left by Laurinna on the open ground next to him.

Knife, bone saw, tweezers, glassware.

He pulled a pair of thick leather gloves from the bottom of his toolbox and put them on.

Kai'er helped by handing over tools.

Beren crouched in the direction of the ghoul's head, his toolbox open, a blue-white glint flashing in his eyes, ready to act at any moment.

Lu Yuan picked up the scalpel.

The laceration on the web of my right hand has not fully healed, and my fingers feel stiff when I hold the knife.

The first cut into the stratum corneum was slightly off-center.

He switched to using his left hand as the primary grip, while using his right hand only for auxiliary support.

The stratum corneum was harder to cut than expected.

It's not because they're thicker; quite the opposite, the keratin of the pipe ghouls is thinner than that of those on the ground.

But the density is much higher.

It was very difficult for the blade to cut in; it felt like cutting a piece of compressed, hard leather.

Beren leaned closer and placed his hand on the cut surface of the stratum corneum, where a faint blue-white light flashed for a moment.

"Abnormal density." The old man gently scraped off a layer of shavings with his carving knife and rubbed them between his fingertips.

"The arrangement is extremely dense. It's as if it's been compressed by some external force; this isn't a naturally grown structure."

Lu Yuan didn't stop, and continued cutting downwards.

The muscle layer is exposed.

Between the grayish-red muscle fibers, a large number of filamentous substances are densely intertwined.

Grayish-green.

The color is exactly the same as the stuff that flows back into the copper pipes of the pipeline.

Like hyphae, they permeate between muscle fibers, winding, intertwining, and almost growing together with the muscle tissue.

Lu Yuan used tweezers to hold one section.

Carefully peel it from the muscle fibers.

It is about two centimeters long, a little thicker than a hair, and has extremely fine textures on its surface.

He held the tweezers up to his eyes.

The filamentous thing moved.

It's not a rebound caused by straightening. It's a spontaneous creeping motion.

The small, grayish-green piece on the tip of the tweezers began to slowly curl and then stretch after detaching from the ghoul's muscle tissue.

Both ends were blindly groping in the air.

Like a severed worm.

Lu Yuan paused for a moment.

Buren's face came closer.

Upon seeing that wriggling thing, his pupils suddenly contracted.

"It's alive?"

He ignored Burren.

Lu Yuan placed the filamentous material into a glass container.

It landed at the bottom of the glass, paused for less than a second, and then began to slowly crawl along the inner wall of the vessel.

A very thin, grayish-green wet trail was left where it had climbed.

Then it touched a small piece of ghoul muscle fragment that remained at the bottom of the vessel.

They crawled inside.

The speed is so fast that it is almost impossible for the naked eye to keep up.

Just two seconds.

The fragment changed color from grayish-red to grayish-green, and its surface revealed the same filamentous patterns as those inside the ghoul's body.

[Detection Target: Unknown mycelium (unknown subspecies)]

[Characteristics: Suspected to be a variant of a known saprophytic fungus species, with an unknown evolutionary path. Morphologically similar to saprophytic fungi, but with significant differences in color, activity, and growth pattern.]

[Note: An unclear symbiotic relationship exists between this mycelium and the individual ghoul... Analysis interrupted due to insufficient knowledge.]

Weakness: Unknown.

[Taboo Studies - Seeker of Knowledge: +0.3…13.8/100]

Lu Yuan stared at the glassware.

This is not the ghoul's own organization.

This is an independent living thing.

A type of mycelium that parasitizes living organisms.

It can invade the host's body, penetrate and spread along muscle fibers, and transform the host's tissues into its own.

Beren also stared at the vessel for a long time.

"The contamination in the pipe network..." The old man's voice was a little hoarse. "Is it the same thing as this?"

"I'm not sure, but I suspect it's related." Lu Yuan frowned, picked up the scalpel, and turned it towards the ghoul's forelimbs.

After cutting through the skin, Lu Yuan discovered a structure that the ground ghouls did not have.

A fleshy sac.

It is about the size of the tip of an adult's thumb and is embedded deep in the muscles of the palm.

Its interior was filled with a grayish-red mucus, exactly the same as the secretions used by the two giant ghouls to catalyze the alienation of humans.

[Detection target: Subcutaneous parasitic cysts (dormant)]

[Inclusions: Composition unknown, highly similar to the secretions of a certain high-level ghoul... Insufficient knowledge.]

[The inner wall root structure appears to be homologous to the blue mycelium... Analysis interrupted.]

Lu Yuan completely cut open the fleshy sac.

The inner wall was covered with gray-green filamentous roots.

It's not a simple attachment.

The roots have grown into the walls of the fleshy sac.

The filamentous material wrapped around the sac wall like vines, and the roots penetrated the sac wall, growing together with the part of the ghoul's own body that could originally secrete mucus.

"This fleshy sac didn't grow on its own," Lu Yuan said, looking at the still-pulsating mass of flesh in front of him. "It's a new organ constructed by filamentous material within the ghoul's body."

Beren remained silent; clearly, he had also noticed. The structure of a ghoul was described in the most basic books. Anyone with even a modicum of knowledge about the supernatural knew that this thing shouldn't exist inside a ghoul.

He pulled something out of his toolbox.

A small fragment of copper pipe, a sample taken yesterday from the break in the conductive vein, has a dark brown corrosion layer on its inner wall.

He placed the copper tube fragments next to the cut-open flesh sac.

One hand held the copper tube down, while the other hand rested against the fleshy sac.

Close your eyes.

A faint blue and white light emanated from both hands simultaneously.

It's very quiet.

Kai'er stood to the side, not daring to breathe.

A dozen seconds passed.

Buren opened his eyes.

His expression changed.

"This thing actually pulsates?... And the pulsation rhythm is even regular??"

Beren showed a look of astonishment.

"The pulsation intervals inside this thing perfectly match the rhythm of the backflow in the pipe network?"

homology.

Waves of grayish-green substance flowed back into the pipe network. Deep corrosion on the inner walls of the conductive veins. Living filaments inside the ghoul's body. Dark green vines with eyeballs in the collection chamber.

It's highly likely that they are the same thing.

[Current Status of Bronze City: +1, 6/50]