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

When Lu Yuan realized this, his heart sank.

But now is not the time to think about these things, because leaving now is impossible.

Since this thing doesn't affect me, I should take the time to figure out what exactly happened at the Tower of Knowledge.

Lu Yuan pushed that oppressive feeling aside from his mind.

His attention returned to the twenty-three fixed frames in the inner circle.

Of the twenty-three students, perhaps only these twenty-three students are qualified.

Their brains are still active, but their bodies have been hollowed out, replaced by insects, and transformed into containers.

These were all authorized by the Empire.

Looking at the fixed frames, Lu Yuan felt a surge of inexplicable emotion.

It was at this moment that the symbiotic connection began to pulsate violently.

The worm of knowledge has fully awakened from its slumber, and it has clearly sensed the worms that generate knowledge.

But the only reaction from the Worm of Knowledge was disgust. Clearly, Lu Yuan had not noticed a detail before.

That is, his own knowledge insect seemed to be completely different from the insects that Laurena and her group of students were studying.

His insects were caught by fishing from the sea of ​​knowledge, while Laurinna and the others were created through the transformation of knowledge.

Thinking of this, Lu Yuan calmed down the Knowledge Worm a little.

The little creature clearly didn't want to look anymore, curling up deep inside its left eye, shrinking itself into a tiny dot.

Lu Yuan withdrew his attention from the symbiotic connection.

At this moment, the inner barrier became blurred again, indicating that the internal debugging was over.

He looked back.

The person closest to him was a square-faced night watchman, not very old, in his early thirties. The square-faced night watchman noticed something, opened his mouth, as if to ask something.

Lu Yuan shook his head.

The square-faced night watchman shut his mouth.

Calvin's voice came from the inner circle.

It wasn't large, but it was very clear in the round hall; the echo from the stone wall carried every word back.

"Ready to start."

As Calvin finished speaking.

Lu Yuan signaled the Night Watchman to activate his sanity ring.

As all the Night's Watchmen channeled their sanity into the sanity rings on their wrists,

The gray-silver metal ring was slightly warm, and the fine texture on its surface shone with a faint light.

The sanity ring on my right wrist is fully activated.

A strange feeling welled up inside me.

Lu Yuan could sense the rational state of the other ten people.

The Night Watchmen present varied in their levels of rationality.

The sanity of the ten second-tier Night Watchers ranged from over thirty to over fifty.

Some are thick, some are shallow, some are stable, and some are slightly undulating.

He himself is 63.

Nevertheless, Lu Yuan was still the tallest among the eleven people. He was even taller than everyone else present.

After a simple estimate, the eleven people together would have about four or five hundred points of sanity, which is already quite large.

Lu Yuan kept this number in mind.

Then he nodded to the Night's Watchmen on either side.

No need to open your mouth.

Ten people simultaneously placed their hands on the palm print grooves.

The moment the palm touched the bronze surface, the inscription array lit up from beneath the feet.

Pale blue light.

It spread rapidly along the ground pattern, and the lines connecting the eleven markers lit up one by one, forming a complete ring.

The light flowed beneath my feet.

Lu Yuan felt his reason being pulled by some force, not being pulled away, but rather being "stretched".

A layer of consciousness was peeled away from the body.

The next moment, the view changed.

He "saw" a surge of colors.

Dark purple. Pale gold. Grayish green.

It flows slowly at the edge of consciousness.

A branch of the ocean of knowledge.

Right in front of him.

Colors surged, and countless fragments of text appeared and disappeared on the water's surface, some in the Imperial language, some he didn't recognize, and some that didn't even seem to be any language at all.

Lu Yuan did not move.

Calvin's words still echoed in my ears.

Under no circumstances should you go inside.

Eleven streams of reason converged within the formation's loop, continuously solidifying.

A barrier appeared simultaneously in both the space of consciousness and the space of reality.

A semi-transparent barrier that shimmers with a pale blue glow.

With the continued injection of reason, the barrier stabilized.

It lies between the branches of the ocean of knowledge and reality.

Lu Yuan's rationality also diminished slightly.

[Rationality: -3...60/140]

The pressure is immense in the instant the barrier is first formed.

The aura of the branches of the sea of ​​knowledge surged in like a tide, wave after wave, with countless words, images, and sounds all rushing over.

The sanity pool began to deplete at a visible rate.

However, at that moment, a warm feeling suddenly came from the outside.

It is a blessing from the church.

The dozen or so church members in white and gold robes on the outer circle simultaneously activated the blessing inscription.

Pale golden holy light rose from the outer ring, enveloping the Night's Watchmen in the inner circle in layers.

Lu Yuan sensed that power in his consciousness space; it was gentle and warm, and in the next moment, it weakened the scouring of the Sea of ​​Knowledge by more than half.

Grayish-white text appeared.

[You have been blessed by the angels... Your sanity maintenance costs have been greatly reduced.]

As the sea of ​​knowledge surged and receded, Lu Yuan's consciousness returned to reality. Just then, a tremor came from beneath his feet.

Countless rays of light poured down from the dome overhead.

The sea of ​​knowledge began to flow at an accelerated pace.

At this moment, the river of light that stretched from the sky to the Tower of Learning began to surge.

The speed increased. The colors became brighter, and then...

Everything before Lu Yuan's eyes had changed.

The rotunda has disappeared.

The holy light of the church has disappeared.

The ground beneath their feet disappeared.

Besides the ten Night's Watch members who stood with him at the barrier—

The entire Bronze City has vanished.

Only two things remained in sight.

A pale, empty void.

And a huge river that hangs down from the sky like a waterfall.

It is a branch of the ocean of knowledge.

Close at hand.

It's even closer than before.

Colors surged in the river.

Lu Yuan stood at the position of the barrier, looking at the river, motionless.

Then he saw them.

More than twenty figures approached from a distance.

The figure was not that of a normal person.

Each one was shrouded in a different aura. Countless twisted insects gathered and wriggled around them. The shells composed of insect bodies moved slowly in the pale void.

The brains, encased in insect bodies, appeared and disappeared intermittently.

Like a firefly wrapped in a cocoon.

They walked toward the sea of ​​knowledge.

Passing through the barrier positions of Lu Yuan and the Night Watchmen.

One of them suddenly spoke up.

Is this our final destination?

The sound emanated from the insect's shell, carrying an unreal echo.

"I think so," another voice replied; it was a girl's voice.

"We've finally waited for this. It hurts so much...it's been so tough."

Lu Yuan stood at the position of the barrier.

He didn't speak.

"Could you please move aside a bit?"

Another girl's voice came from beside Lu Yuan.

He turned his head to look.

A figure made of insects is tilting its head, looking at itself.

From her appearance, it was a girl, with the insect body constantly wriggling on her body, forming the outline of her shoulders, arms, and waist. Her brain was vaguely visible within the mesh woven by the insect body.

She was looking at herself.

Lu Yuan remained silent.

He simply lowered his rational output, leaving a small gap in the rationality barrier around him.

"Thanks."

The girl's voice was soft.

Then she turned her head and looked at her companions behind her, who were no longer recognizable as human.

"Let's go together, everyone."

She was the first to go in.

The moment I stepped into a branch of the ocean of knowledge...

The insects disappeared.

The grayish-white insect body, like ashes scattered by the wind, peeled off her body layer by layer and merged into the river.

The body is rebuilding itself; bones, flesh, and skin are growing back layer by layer.

She returned to her original appearance.

A girl in her early twenties.

She was naked. Her body was enveloped in an aura of knowledge, flowing like a thin veil.

She turned around.

She smiled at Lu Yuan.

"From now on, it'll be tough on you guys guarding the goal."

Then he turned around and walked inside without looking back.

My footsteps tread on the river of surging colors.

The other students followed suit.

One by one.

Lu Yuan did not close the gap.

He stood there, watching them walk past him one by one.

Everyone reverts to human form the moment they step into a branch of the sea of ​​knowledge.

The worm peels away, the brain is no longer exposed, and the complete body reappears.

Some people kept muttering, "It hurts...it hurts so much..."

Some people had stiff expressions and didn't say a word.

But the moment they regained their human form, it was as if they remembered something.

I stared at my hands in a daze.

stunned.

Look around.

Finally, it was as if they had figured something out.

He walked towards the first girl without looking back.

"Sister Lin, wait for me!" Two or three voices rang out, and they quickly followed.

Lu Yuan's gaze fell on the last person to enter.

She is a girl who doesn't look very old.

She was shorter than the other students, and the insect body covered her less than others, as if she had been able to persist for a long time.

After entering the sea of ​​knowledge, the insect's body peels away.

Restore human form.

She noticed Lu Yuan looking at her and instinctively crossed her arms.

"Uncle, that's very rude of you!"

Lu Yuan's eye twitched.

no answer.

I only asked one question.

"Are you in a lot of pain?"

The girl seemed surprised that he would ask such a question.

I hesitated for a moment.

"Actually, it doesn't hurt. After a lot of bugs, you don't feel anything anymore."

She stretched out her arm and pinched herself.

"I can't sense any bugs anymore. That's great."

"I have to catch up quickly, I have to talk to you later."

The girl smiled and skipped off.

They had only taken a few steps.

For some reason, Lu Yuan spoke up.

Do you regret it?

The girl paused in her steps.

"No regrets."

She didn't turn around.

"I'm very happy to contribute to the Empire. My family is all settled. And if it weren't for the teachers at the Tower of Learning, I might not even know where I am now. Haha."

The girl spoke as she walked further and further away.

Their figures gradually blended into the colorful river.

Finally, it disappeared.

Lu Yuan stood there.

Before us stretched an endless waterfall that seemed to cascade down from the sky.

Twenty-three people went inside.

With insects, with pain, and with a smile.

Not a single person turned around.

Lu Yuan stood at the position of the barrier.

Before me surged colors, above me lay a desolate, empty void.

Behind him stood ten silent night watchmen.

I can't quite describe how I feel.

I just stood there, looking at the river.

It hasn't moved for a very long time.