I created the myth of the Great Old Ones.

"The difference is quite significant..."

The most basic "Mortal" difficulty only rewards 1000 Silent Points, and according to the description, the exploration progress cannot be very high, with the upper limit fixed.

The most difficult [Erosion] difficulty offers a base reward of 4500 points, which increases with exploration progress, making it quite generous.

As a cautious and meticulous ordinary person who plans carefully before acting, Lu Ban did not hesitate after reading the three options.

I directly selected [Erosion].

Chapter 040 Not Suitable for Travel

With a base of 4,500 silence points, and a slightly higher completion rate, it's normal to have over 5,000. Adding the rewards from subsequent career development tasks, Lu Ban's savings will soon exceed 10,000, enough to refine his [Last Words].

As for why I chose to use the [Last Words] essence instead of buying more crowbars to protect myself, it's because [Last Words] is an [Inherent] level item.

What is the other [inherent] level? It is the [all-or-nothing] dice, a wondrous item that can work even when Lu Ban faces a great being, allowing him to survive.

Although the "Last Words" is currently just a broken record, Lu Ban believes that if it can be refined, its future is promising.

Moreover, young people nowadays are always thinking about consumption, but they don't understand the value of saving money and thrift. They have lost the traditional spirit, which Lu Ban finds very distressing, and he decides to set an example for them.

The main reason is that Lu Ban can't afford those useful items.

After he selected the [Erosion] difficulty, the small hole expanded and became a cat's eye doorway.

Lu Ban glanced inside; it was pitch black.

Suddenly, in the darkness, an eye opened.

Those were not human eyes, but the vertical pupils of some kind of animal, dark yellow in color, filthy, turbid and dim.

A ring of words appeared around the eyes.

[Enter the Silent Land?]

【whether】

Lu Ban chose no.

He saw that the countdown outside was still going on.

"It turns out that these two days were a combination of selection and preparation."

Lu Ban understood.

However, he didn't have much to prepare.

With such good public security in the country, it's too late to go abroad now. Lu Ban can't get any guns or ammunition. He's not good at using these firearms, and they're not as good as what he can get from [Silent Department Store].

As for those weapons like knives, spears, axes, halberds, hooks, char siu pancakes, fried dough sticks, and twisted dough sticks, Lu Ban found them inconvenient to use.

He went downstairs to the supermarket and bought some pork ribs, a portable frying pan, a portable camping lamp that can be used as a fire source, as well as corresponding tools, side dishes, water, etc., and put them in his bag.

They also grabbed a flashlight, a power bank, and compressed dry food.

After cleaning up, it was already evening.

Lu Ban sent a WeChat message to Qin Tiantian, saying that he was going out to gather information for a few days. After thinking about it, he also sent a message to his old squad leader, Feng Yu.

In this world, Lu Ban really doesn't have any close friends or family.

He put on his coat, slung his backpack over his shoulder, and held a crowbar in his hand, as words appeared in his field of vision.

[Enter the Silent Land?]

【whether】

Lu Ban chose "Yes".

A burst of vibrant colors, colors that didn't belong to this world, surrounded him.

Lu Ban felt the weight of his body shift to his head, and then quickly to his stomach.

He saw that the unnamed colors formed several paragraphs of text.

The flow of time in the Silent Land is different from that in the outside world.

The time ratio for this trip is 3:1.

[Heading to the ruined capital]

Just as Lu Ban was feeling a little dizzy from the words, he felt something hard.

The first thing you notice is the dry air that makes your throat hoarse.

Then came the massive steel behemoth beneath him, swaying and bouncing.

Lu Ban realized that he was sitting in the last row of a bus.

The bus wasn't big, with fewer than twenty seats, and he was the only person in the last row.

The car was dimly lit, as if it might go out at any moment.

The seats are made of hard wood that has been there for some years.

The guardrail is made of rusted steel.

The windows were made of glass riddled with cracks.

Outside the window, there was an endless expanse of ruins under the cover of night.

Lu Ban saw that the broken walls and ruins of those ancient ruins, whose age was unknown, intertwined to form a text.

[Ruined Capital]

[Travel is not advisable in 20 (Gregorian calendar)]

The Prohibition eradicated crime but instead empowered gangs. In the ruined city, gangs ruled the underworld; killing, bloodshed, and death transformed what was once a city of hope into a city of sin.

Yet some still yearn for the ruined capital, flocking there from all over the world, hoping to discover their own fortune.

Everyone wants to be the character in the story, don't they?

[Mission Requirements: Complete the Journey to the Ruins]

[Difficulty: Erosion]

"Prohibition..."

Lu Ban's historical knowledge was not extensive. He only knew that in his original world, around the 1920s or 1930s, a country had issued a prohibition order on the grounds that alcohol would cause crimes against women.

However, even after the regulations were promulgated, many people still brewed alcohol under the guise of medicine, and all of this alcohol flowed into the black market, controlled by gangs, which indirectly boosted the power of the gangs.

In retrospect, the chaos in the ruined city, the prevalence of gangs, and the prohibition of alcohol were all closely related.

Turning his gaze away from the window, Lu Ban looked inside the car.

The driver was a middle-aged bald man in his forties with a large belly.

Besides Lu Ban, there were three other passengers in the car.

On the left front, in the second to last row, was a thin young man wearing a beret, huddled in his seat, shivering.

To the right front, in the third row from the bottom, was a middle-aged woman who kept glancing at the others, her hands tucked into her pockets, appearing extremely cautious.

Behind the driver was a burly man, about 1.9 meters tall, wearing short clothes, with a scar on his head that stretched from the top of his head to his shoulder blade, a shocking sight.

So these are the people who accompanied me on this trip?

Seeing that everyone else remained silent, Lu Ban could only move his position to behind the trembling young man.

"Hey."

He spoke.

"Waaah!"

The young man screamed and almost jumped out of the window.

His reaction drew the attention of others, but that was all.

"What...what are you going to do?"

The young man spoke the same language as Lu Ban, but his accent had a rural feel to it and wasn't very standard.

Do you know how much longer it will take?

Seeing that there were no problems with communication, Lu Ban asked directly.

"Tomorrow...at least until dawn, then...then we won't be able to see the houses in the ruined capital..."

He was timid and didn't seem very bright.

"At least eight hours."

The muscular man sitting next to the driver chimed in.

"Oh."

Lu Ban nodded.

At a time flow rate of 3:1, if he stays here for eight hours, only two hours will have passed in reality. If he's lucky, he might even be able to go back and have a late-night snack.

He didn't continue speaking, but instead carefully observed his surroundings.

The ruins outside look like they've been abandoned for years, long since covered by rain and vegetation, making it impossible to discern the original architectural style.

Even this road, when Lu Ban looked back, seemed to have been carved out of rubble.

There was no starlight, no moonlight, the whole world was dark, only the front and rear lights of the bus provided a little illumination for the road.

Lu Ban was about to look away when suddenly he saw something dart past the back of the bus and disappear into the darkness of the ruins.

With just a glance, Lu Ban couldn't make out its exact appearance, but he could vaguely make out that the thing had limbs, a body, and a head, and its body was white.

It looks like a...person?

Chapter 041 All Roads Lead to the Ruined Capital

If that was a person, then Lu Ban felt that something was wrong with this world.

Because it was not the appearance of a normal modern human, and it was somewhat different from an ape. It looked more like some kind of four-legged crawling thing forcibly standing up and running, with a bizarre posture that gave people an indescribable feeling of disgust.

It was just a fleeting glimpse, and the thing disappeared into the distance as the bus drove away, so Lu Ban didn't pay it any mind and turned his head back.