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

The emotions transmitted through the symbiotic connection were extremely clear: a desire to go in. A desire to go back.

The worm of knowledge wriggled eagerly in his left eye socket, its entire body glowing, alternating between dark purple and silver-white, the colors shifting faster than Lu Yuan had ever seen before.

Lu Yuan hesitated.

Allowing the worm of knowledge into a branch of the sea of ​​knowledge is risky; if the symbiotic bond breaks in the river, he may lose the worm forever.

But this is also the only chance.

From the outside, all you can see about the barrier are colors and points of light. To know what's really happening inside, the students' state of mind, and the true structure of the sea of ​​knowledge, you have to let a being capable of perceiving the essence of knowledge go inside and see for themselves.

Lu Yuan made a decision.

The symbiotic connection conveys a brief instruction: Go, but don't stray too far. Stay connected at all times.

With Lu Yuan's confirmation, it shot out from its left eye socket at incredible speed, like a dark purple streak of light, piercing the gap in the barrier, passing through the stream of fragments, and disappearing into the depths of the river.

The symbiotic connection showed slight fluctuations, but remained stable overall.

The next moment, Lu Yuan's vision split.

One eye remained in the consciousness space, gazing at the pale void and the waterfall-like river.

Another perspective comes from the insect of knowledge.

It is speeding through the river, chasing after the student group.

The insects of knowledge have caught up with the student body.

It approached from the side without alerting anyone.

Lu Yuan saw the world through the students' eyes via its perspective.

Twenty-three people were walking on a boundless "sea".

The water beneath my feet was like liquid glass; every step I took created ripples. These ripples weren't transparent; countless colors intertwined and swirled within them, like a shattered kaleidoscope.

The sea was extremely calm, without waves, but there was an extremely slow undulation, as if the entire sea was breathing.

There was no sky above.

Instead, there is an endless dome of color, with dark purple and deep blue flowing at the highest point, gradually fading towards the edges to become gray-green and pale gold. The entire dome is like a living oil painting, with colors surging silently.

Aurora, that's the word that came to Lu Yuan's mind.

On the sea surface, a huge pillar rises from underwater.

Some tower into the colors of the dome, their tops disappearing into the distance.

Some of them only show half of their bodies, leaning out of the water like the masts of a sunken ship.

The surface of the pillar was covered with luminous patterns, similar to inscriptions, but not any inscription system that Lu Yuan recognized. The patterns flowed slowly on the surface of the pillar, as if they were alive.

Some of the pillars are connected by extremely thin rays of light, like silk threads, trembling in the air.

The entire space, thanks to these pillars and the light, evokes a cathedral feel—grand, solemn, and instinctively inviting quiet.

The students were clearly stunned.

The group was much quieter than when they first entered; no one spoke. Footsteps were softer, as if afraid to disturb the space.

Sister Lin walked at the front, and a slowly rotating mark was lit on the back of her hand, pointing in a distant direction like a compass.

She didn't turn around, only saying, "Stay close."

Someone whispered, "This is... the sea of ​​knowledge?"

No one answered.

"Even more..." another voice said, stopping halfway through. It's hard to describe.

The petite girl walked at the back of the line. She looked down at the ripples she had created with her feet. The ripples under her feet were golden, brighter than those of the others.

She whispered, "So beautiful."

No one responded.

The instinctive reaction when faced with something vast is to remain silent.

Someone in the distance noticed something: a small, colorful orb of light was floating to the side of the group.

"What is that?"

"have no idea."

"...It doesn't seem like something dangerous."

The petite girl glanced at it, tilted her head, and then nodded slightly at it, as if to say hello.

The group continued on their way.

The worm of knowledge sees the exact opposite of what the student sees.

The moment Lu Yuan entered the field of vision through the perception of the Insect of Knowledge, he knew something was wrong.

Beneath their feet, the students walked on the warm, rippling water.

is blood.

Thick, dark red and deep purple blood filled the entire field of vision, seemingly endless, with a very thin film on the surface, like a scab that had formed on the surface of blood that had been left out for a long time.

The students stepped on the scabs, breaking off small pieces with each step to reveal the sticky, dark red substance underneath.

The blood was rising and falling slowly, like breathing.

Those pillars rising from the "sea".

They are individual bones.

Huge, grayish-white in color, covered with a thin layer of dried, rotten flesh that had shrunk on the surface of the bones like old leather. The rotten flesh was covered with dead blood vessels and was grayish-purple in color.

Bones rose from the sea of ​​blood, varying in height and shape; some stood straight up, some tilted, and some were broken, leaving only half of their original shape.

It resembled an unimaginably enormous corpse, with only the tops of its ribs visible.

What the students see as the "Aurora Dome" is pollution from the perspective of the "insect of knowledge".

The fine, wriggling mist seeped out from the gaps in the bones and blood. The color flowed because the mist was wriggling, like countless tiny insects weaving together to form a barrier in the air.

The "glowing patterns" that the students saw were blood vessels remaining on the surface of the bones, but because they had been immersed in the sea of ​​knowledge for too long, they had begun to exude an eerie aura.

Lu Yuan understood through the perception of the Insect of Knowledge.

This is not an ocean of knowledge.

This is not a branch; it is inside the body of some indescribable thing that has sunk into the sea of ​​knowledge.

The entire space they were in was inside a corpse.

[Warning: You have ignored the protection of the ocean of knowledge.]

You are currently inside something that exists...? ?...

Only two lines, the gray and white text unusually brief.

The opening in the dome, the circular opening in the very center of the 30-meter-high dome above the rotunda, does not connect to the sky, but to the body of some kind of being.

No wonder, no wonder we were able to carry out this mission; the mission location had been determined beforehand.

All the questions that had puzzled Lu Yuan before were now explained; no wonder he was able to find the knowledge he sought in such a boundless ocean...

The group followed the direction of Sister Lin's marks. The deeper they went, the more intense the colors of the "sea" became. The water changed from cool to warm tones—golden and warm orange light rose from their feet.

"It gets warmer the further you go in," a boy said, sounding very relaxed.

"Yes, my advisor said that you get that feeling when you're near the center."

But in Lu Yuan's eyes, the warmer it was, the deeper the blood was. From the ankles to the calves, the "water" had already reached the knees of the students at the front, the temperature coming from the still-warm, putrid blood.

The deeper the location, the fresher the blood and the higher the temperature.

The students were completely unaware that they were stepping on blood, mistaking it for shimmering water.

"Sister Lin, does the mark point to the direction of the largest pillar?" someone asked. The largest pillar was hundreds of meters away, towering into the dome.

"Probably. Let's go." Sister Lin didn't even turn her head.

The largest "pillar" is a complete vertebra from the insect's perspective. It is so huge that you have to look up to see the top. The rotten flesh on the surface of the bone is thicker than in other places, and the blood vessels on the flesh are more dense.

It was obvious that this was the center of the corpse, and the students were walking towards the core of the body.

"I'm a little nervous..." a girl whispered.

The person next to her patted her on the shoulder: "It's okay."

The first few people to venture deeper into the area began to develop very faint dark red lines on the skin of their calves.

It's very faint; you can hardly see it unless you look closely.

But the worm of knowledge could see clearly that the shape of those patterns was exactly the same as the pattern of dead blood vessels on the surface of bones.

That's pollution; it's already happening, but nobody's not aware of it.

Some people began to approach the pillar out of curiosity. The "patterns" on the surface of the pillar looked like some kind of writing. Some people reached out to touch it and felt a warm sensation on their fingertips, as if they had touched a hot spring stone.

"There's knowledge here...I can feel it...so much..."

His expression became dazed.

The blood at the base of the bones is thicker and darker in color.

Near the base of the bone, the blood had almost turned into a black, gelatinous substance.

Deep within the gaps between some bones, at the joints between bones, there is complete darkness. The "flesh" there is abnormally thickened, accumulating into lumps like scar tissue, sealing the gaps between the bones completely.

The boy touched that flesh and blood, and his body began to be contaminated at a visible rate.

The petite girl walked at the back of the line. Blood, in her eyes, was a warm, golden liquid that just reached her ankles.

She glanced down.

"It's so warm."

She lifted her foot and flicked the "water droplets," sending a few golden specks flying out and landing on the water's surface, creating tiny ripples.

In Lu Yuan's eyes, what she shook off was a string of dark red blood droplets. When the blood droplets fell back into the sea of ​​blood, they splashed not ripples, but extremely fine blood streaks.

The first dark red line had appeared on her ankle.

Lu Yuan watched helplessly as his students walked deeper and deeper toward that spine, unable to do anything but feel anxious, for the insects of knowledge have no power to speak.

The only thing we can do is to use the insect of knowledge to lure students away from the most dangerous areas as much as possible.

Lu Yuan gave the Knowledge Worm instructions through the symbiotic connection: to bring back those students who had strayed too far and were close to the Dark Bone Rift area.

The Insect of Knowledge received the command and flew to the vicinity of the students near the dark area, releasing a faint wisp of knowledge above their heads.

The effect is immediate.

The guiding marks on the back of the student's hand have a natural response to the aura of knowledge. The aura released by the insect of knowledge interfered with the positioning of the marks, causing the marks to deviate a few degrees.

The mark suddenly turned.

"Huh? The mark has changed?"

"This way?"

"It's probably just a normal adjustment; it changes occasionally as you go further in. Sister Lin also mentioned that the route isn't straight."

The students had no doubts; they trusted the mark as they would a compass, and naturally changed direction, veering away from the edge of the dark bone crevice.

The little girl noticed the movement of the colored orb; it always flew to the heads of students who were about to stray, paused for a moment, and then flew away. Then the marks on those students would change.

"That little ball of light seems to be leading the way," she said, frowning slightly.

The person in front of her didn't even turn their head: "Don't overthink it. Follow the mark."

The short girl didn't say anything more, but she glanced at the ball of light again.

Most people were successfully guided to a safer area. The team's route was slightly deviated, but it avoided the areas with the thickest blood and the densest bone sutures.

However, two or three students went too deep. They were in the middle of the group and were the first to enter the deep water area. The dark red lines on their legs had spread from their ankles to above their knees.

The worms of knowledge released their breath above their heads.

The mark did not react.

The pollution is too deep; the mark itself has been disturbed and no longer responds to the aura of external knowledge. They are already close to the edge of the dark bone crevice.

Lu Yuan had no choice.