Plague Doctor

Chapter 190: Possibility of Saving Oneself

Stuck inside the dark barrel, Gu Jun wanted to sigh as he scrolled through the mission reward. Things would be a lot easier if the system gave him a reward like some firearms but things were never that easy, were there? In any case, Gu Jun turned to the host tab and realized that all the data indicators of his body had turned into ?. ‘So that is what the system meant by abnormal palsy status.’

He looked at the rewards one by one. 1 Carlot Surgical Scalpel, clearly this was not something that he could obtain now. A sharp object inside a cramped space while he was incapacitated, Gu Jun could not see how that would end well. This reward though reminded him of his three other medical instruments. Their location was also unknown, whether they were still on him, taken by the Zoogs or confiscated by the black merchant, he could not tell.

‘This is a surgical scalpel, not a post-mortem scalpel like the one I’ve been using.’ Gu Jun noticed. ‘This will probably trigger some kind of illusion related to treatment than dissection.’ But to trigger an illusion now would probably vanquish the little mental power that he still had left.

’10 pages of incomplete spell book,’ he carefully checked out the floating object in his mind. Placing the 10 pages beside the previous single page that he obtained, Gu Jun confirmed that they were different pages of the same book. He pulled the pages closer and saw that they too were filled with notes, and they were of Landon’s handwriting. ‘Completing an abyssal mission only gave me 1 page of the spell book but this time I got 10 pages.’ This proved indirectly how difficult it was to take down the house of nightmare. Reading the spell book would be mentally exhausting so Gu Jun did not give it a detailed read, he merely skimmed through it to get a gist of their content. The 10 pages described more basics about spells and the focus of the pages was on ‘rituals and ceremonies.’

There were 2 main types of spells, the first was the kind being casted and the second were the rituals. Compared to casting of spells, rituals often had stronger effects and certain effects could only be brought on through rituals. Rituals had their requirement and condition, they differed depending on the rituals. The conditions included the weather, the time, the location, the number of participants, the procedure, the items, the spells and the sacrifice...

‘Rituals also need sacrifice and the sacrifice is much larger than that when casting spells...’ Gu Jun read silently. He was reminded of the tomb with the flexed burial, the Innuits at the snow-capped summit, the sacrifice of the Afterlife Cult to the Banyan tree and the intricately-designed trap at the altar... Those were all rituals which gave Gu Jun the impression that rituals were all evil and fanatical, but according to the 10 pages, there were both dark ritual and light ritual.

Without realizing it, the content had drawn Gu Jun in. He even read some of Landon’s scrawled notes and he only stopped when his brain pounded with pain. The 10 pages helped immensely in his understanding of spells and rituals. If he could bring these knowledge back, it would be of great help to Phecda as well, but unfortunately, they seemed to be of no use in his current situation.

Gu Jun took notice of the watcher’s diary in his mind. After he consumed that house of nightmare, he had no idea what had happened inside that young watcher’s dream. The system said that the town had been saved so Gu Jun decided to take a closer look. A few new entries were added at the end of the book. Basically it described how the Carlot Doctors saved the villagers and ended the epidemic, Warsong returned to its peace and quiet. Suddenly a new notification appeared from the system. “Your mind has been cleansed, corruption rate decreases by 0.1 percent, current corruption rate 48.9 percent.”

‘Huh?’ Gu Jun did feel that sense of rejuvenation. This was a surprise reward despite how little it was. The degree of recovery somewhat exemplified how seriously corrupted he was, but the fact that the corruption could be reversed was a welcome news. He still had hope for recovery!

Gu Jun was instantly inspirited. He felt some shimmering of light. Closing the diary, he turned to the 5 old photographs. For now, he did not pull them closer for a look. They looked like scenic pictures, the picturesque nature was not dwindled by the age of the photograph. He clicked on the left most one to take a closer look and his mental power was instantly rejuvenated... The polaroid picture was that of a beautiful mountain with a waterfall, there was nothing too abnormal about it. There was no printing date and it was unclear who was the photographer.

“Your mind has been cleansed, corruption rate decreases by 0.01 percent, current corruption rate 48.89 percent.”

‘Only 0.01 percent?’ Gu Jun had mixed emotions. He moved to the two other pictures. They were both scenic pictures as he expected and they both helped lower another 0.01 percent of corruption each. After looking at 3 pictures, the corruption rate was now 48.87 percent. As slow as it was, he did feel something else change within him... it was as if the corrupted energy that was cleansed had turned into something else. He felt a categorical change to the nature of his mental power. ‘This cleansing of corruption is another form of energy transmutation? If that is the case...’ He pondered, ‘If I have cleansed all the corruption, what will become of me? Will the transmuted energy change what I am?’

Like many other mysteries, there was currently no answer. For now, Gu Jun realized he better focused on how to save himself. He clicked open the mission tab, if they were tasks to save people or dissect something, then he’d be screwed.

“Normal Mission: Roll your eyes 3000 times in a day, mission reward: 1 old photograph

“Difficult Mission: Roll your eyes 15000 times in 3 days, mission reward: 5 old photographs

“Abyssal Mission: Deplete the corruption rate by 10 percent in a week, mission reward: Unknown.”

Thankfully, Gu Jun’s earlier assessment of the mission system was correct, they were tailored specifically to his condition. Rolling his eyes was the only thing he could do now. The ‘old photographs’ should be similar to the one he had just obtained, they were some kind mental aid to help cleanse the corruption. The simple mission was no problem and so was the difficult mission. He did not need 3 days to roll his eyes 15000 times, if he hunkered down, he could complete that in a day. The system mission would refresh daily so if he managed to complete a difficult mission every day...

‘If each photograph represents a 0.01 cleanse, then I can accumulate a cleansing of 0.05 percent in a day.’ Gu Jun calculated in his mind. ‘I will need to decrease the corruption rate down to 8 percent to be my old self again. Based on the calculation, I need 20 days to cleanse 1 percent of the corruption and 800 days to cleanse 40 percent.’ 800 days, if only he could survive that long...

‘That will take too long.’ Gu Jun grumbled. The hope that was ignited fizzled out. The group of merchants was not going to keep him alive for 2 years for no reason. And that was not counting the difference in time flow. 2 years in the dream world equalled how long in the real world? Furthermore, the passage of time in different locations within the dream world appeared to be disparate as well. He noticed the way time flowed at the island and when he was inside the old manor was different so his two years here might be longer in the real world. Perhaps for the system, time was meaningless, 2 years passed in the blink of an eye of an emotionless machine but it was different for Gu Jun. Gu Jun turned disappointedly to the abyssal mission. This was truly a contradiction. He was basically a living vegetable due to the high corruption rate so how was he going to lower the rate by 10 percent in a week?

But based on his past experience, the system only gave him missions that he had a chance of completing...

‘5 sweet dreams.’ Gu Jun turned to the last unchecked reward. This was the first time he had encountered a reward like that, could this be his salvation?

Sweet dreams. He was reminded of how the captain wanted to drain 100 sweet dreams from him and Wu Siyu, were the two the same thing? The special reward only awarded him with 5, it proved how valuable these sweet dreams were. Looking back, knowing that the old captain wanted to take 100 sweet dreams from them... it was truly a scam. If not for the abnormal power within his body, who knew what would have happened.

‘What kind of purpose do these sweet dreams serve?’ He noticed there were 5 bubbles radiating with flowy light dancing in his mind. They were shimmering with alluring images. 5 sweet dreams. He thought back to Mr. Barzai’s explanation, “To dream is an ability, even more so when the dream is a sweet one... Nightmare has its own power, so does its opposite. But everyone has a limited amount of sweet dreams to dream and when all the sweet dreams are gone... one will lose the ability to dream. And those who lost that ability will be summoned by the dream...”

‘Are these 5 sweet dreams pulled from someone? Did they originate from the same person or from 5 different people? Are these sweet dreams one-time consumable or they can be used repeatedly? Will they help cleanse my corruption or do they have other functions?’ Many questions surfaced as Gu Jun studied the five bubbles. He had a feeling these sweet dreams would not directly lower his corruption rate but they could bring him a chance to accomplish that. He needed to explore further to find out more but there were only 5 sweet dreams and he couldn’t afford to waste any of them.

‘I would have to either digest the corruption for my own gain or let the corruption digest me.’ The choice was clear. Gu Jun decided to give it a try and would call it quit should anything weird happen. He gathered his mind and clicked on the bubble on the most left. The surface rippled instantly as the bubble slowly grew in size. There was a pull that seemed to call towards Gu Jun...

‘Hmm...’ Gu Jun did not feel any discomfort so he surrendered to the pull and slipped into the sweet dream.