Rules-related weird stories: 4016.

Chapter 642 Grabbing Across Layers (Seeking monthly votes at the beginning of the month!)
"It was sealed away in a near-death state, and has survived in that state until now."

"The black liquid on the well wall is his blood."

Lin Yi thought of that viscous, oil-like black liquid: "That little girl... seems to have similar blood flowing through her body!"

Tian Bufan said, "They are all the same substance, with slight differences, but their essence is not far apart."

“I see…” Lin Yi suddenly realized. “Then… what about the ‘Divine Craftsman’? And what about Amon? Are they all ‘acquaintances’ of ours?”

Tian Bufan nodded slightly: "Yes."

"hiss--"

Lin Yi took another deep breath.

Tian Bufan said, "'Designer' Amon... 'Master Craftsman'... they're best friends. They often spend a long time working on some amazing inventions and creations just because of a spark of inspiration from one of them."

"The 'designer' has a vast treasure trove, and he cherishes every piece of his painstaking work. But for the 'master craftsman,' his little storeroom has never been locked."

"The 'Divine Craftsman'... once taught you some forging techniques. Your extraordinary craftsmanship, that subconscious ability to transform runes into weapons at will, was taught by him."

"Okay, I thought it was an innate ability of the Physical Education Department..." Lin Yi remembered that when Night Watchman-02 gave him the "Soldier" rune of the Physical Education Department, he told him that he could use the rune to evolve into all kinds of weapons. Later, although he gave the rune to Wei Sang, he was still able to evolve weapons at will, as if it had become a habit.

It turns out that he had already learned from the "Master Craftsman," and what happened before was merely the awakening of his muscle memory...

He then asked, "So how can we free Master Di from his time exile?"

Tian Bufan said, "We need to obtain 'The Sayings of the Law Makers' before returning to that bedroom."

"Don't worry, leave this step to Kuai Kuai."

Before Kuai Kuai came to the art building, she took the elevator to the library and finished reading "The Law Makers' Sayings".

"We need to teleport the key item to that level to Kuai Kuai before he takes action."

Lin Yi suddenly realized: "It's like when I transferred my laptop to the Russians?"

Tian Bufan said, "That's right. Just now, in the star path of 'Starry Night,' the interference caused by the layer fluctuations was too great to handle easily. Now that we're in the principal's office, you have the 'Ouroboros Ring,' so transferring the laptop over shouldn't be a problem."

Lin Yi then asked, "So what is that key prop?"

“This is it—” Tian Bufan reached out and touched the crystal ball quietly displayed on the desk, the misty air making it seem like a dream.

"Starry Dream Crystal?" Lin Yi was surprised.

Tian Bufan slowly said, "Just as you learned some skills from the 'Divine Craftsman,' Kuai Kuai also learned some skills from the 'First Apostle.'"

"Could it be...?"

“That’s right,” Tian Bufan affirmed. “Kuai Kuai studied astrology, esoteric arts, and so on with the 'astrologer'…”

"Even though he's not here, we can throw this crystal ball to him."

"Can I do it?" Lin Yi asked himself doubtfully.

Tian Bufan said, "It's certainly not enough now."

Lin Yi narrowed his eyes. He thought for a moment, then tentatively asked, "Do I need to use the 'Adaptation' trait to boost it again?"

“That’s right,” Tian Bufan said. “First, smuggle your notebook over here. With the ‘Ouroboros Ring’ on your side, that should be enough.”

Lin Yi asked, "But I still don't understand how the 'Ouroboros Ring' works. Every time I use it, it seems to jump out on its own."

Tian Bufan said, "The 'Ouroboros Ring' itself is more like a 'passive skill'; mastering it is more difficult than using it."

"It is extremely difficult to learn and use, and the conditions are very strict, but for those who are 'qualified to use it,' there is almost no barrier to entry."

"You now belong to the category of 'those qualified to use it,' so there's no need to waste your energy researching the 'Ouroboros Ring.'"

"Oh..." Lin Yi immediately understood. Although he still had a few doubts, they were all "unnecessary," so he didn't ask any more questions. Instead, he asked, "And then?"

“Then, we can begin to summon the ‘Principal’,” Tian Bufan said.

“Okay—wait, what about the ‘side jobs’ you mentioned?” Lin Yi quickly asked, “Didn’t we say we’d do some side jobs first?”

Tian Bufan said, "You should get this done first. Maozi and I will do our side jobs first. If we haven't finished it by then, we'll call you to join us."

After saying that, Tian Bufan floated down to a spot near the ground like a ghost and came to Mao Feiyang's side: "Come on, let's take a look around first, and give Lao Lin some private space to operate."

"Huh? No, you're just leaving me like this?" Lin Yi's eyes widened.

Mao Feiyang chuckled slyly, "It's not about abandoning us, but about using our time more efficiently. Otherwise, are we just going to sit here waiting for you?"

Tian Bufan pointed to the chair behind the root-like desk, which was also formed from a vine-like substance, and smiled, "You can sit in the chair and get a feel for it first, and slowly 'exert your power'. There's no rush."

Lin Yi was already a little confused. Tian Bufan kept changing his mind, saying "hurry up" one minute and "no rush" the next. It seemed that the measure of time was a flexible bottom line in his mind, which could be adjusted at will when needed...

He then floated down onto the "principal's" chair, and although he was in a ghost-like state, he still sat down with his gaseous, tail-like legs on his back.

Sitting in the "principal's" seat, Lin Yi suddenly felt a sense of disorientation, like a tourist visiting an ancient mansion, looking at the master's seat, thinking about the biography recorded on the wall, and his thoughts would inadvertently travel back a thousand years, wondering what it was like for the people who lived here many years ago. In his daze, he couldn't help but sigh - is this kind of tree hole-like place the "principal" has lived in for countless years?

Although it doesn't seem depressing, it's not entirely without impact...

Tian Bufan told him to find his footing, so he wasn't in a hurry and was genuinely trying to find it—although he had no idea what that feeling should look like.

Judging from Tian Bufan's expression, he probably felt that everything was going naturally... The main point is that "adaptation" leads to a natural outcome.

If all else fails, he can ask Tian Bufan again if he can't sense him... He reached for the parchment scroll again, and then the ghostly hand disappeared like a wisp of smoke, only to reappear outside the parchment scroll.

"Can't touch it?" Lin Yi asked in surprise. He couldn't touch the parchment scroll, so how could he touch the "Star Dream Crystal"?
Does that mean we can only put it on and not pick it up?
He tried to grab it again and found that it was indeed so; he could touch it, but because this ghostly form had no physical form, it was not manipulable.

To operate it, you need to control its furry body.

“The law code is something that takes more than a short time to read. The purpose of getting you into the swing of things is to give you a slight buzz, not to make you completely drunk.” Tian Bufan’s somewhat speechless voice came from the inner wall of the “Principal’s Office”.

Tian Bufan had followed Mao Feiyang to the inner wall, where they were doing some private work.

Lin Yi had no choice but to abandon the idea of ​​flipping through the legal code and instead just browse around casually, continuing to try to get a feel for it.

Strangely enough, when he first became interested in the codex, he didn't notice anything special about it. But now that he had shifted his attention away from it, he suddenly noticed that the codex was fluctuating and distorting, like seaweed in water, and even had a fluorescent texture...

The fluorescent texture, along with the mist of the "Starry Dream Crystal" and the stardust falling from the bird's nest lights above, blended together to create an extremely hazy feeling.

Lin Yi felt dizzy, and he suddenly realized that this was probably the "feeling" that Tian Bufan was talking about—an indescribable state of being slightly tipsy.

"Notes..." This was the only thought in Lin Yi's mind.

He closed his eyes...

Then the fluorescence, fog, and stardust seemed to transform into wisps of silk, slowly floating to his side.

The mist within the "Starry Dream Crystal" resembles a layer of gauze, while stardust and fluorescence act like brushstrokes, outlining strange scenes around it.

The scene was extremely unreal, like a flower in a mirror or the moon's reflection in water. It was illusory yet surrounded him with an extremely real feeling, as if a real world was hidden in a funhouse mirror.

Lin Yi closed his eyes, yet he could still sense the hazy, dreamlike quality of the world, as well as a corner of the clear world.

He slowly opened his eyes. As his eyelids opened, all he saw was darkness, accompanied by flickering sparks, like someone setting off sparklers, or like a longing for welding.

He slowly reached out his hand and peered into the world reflected in the funhouse mirror.

His ghostly hand vanished completely the moment it entered the mist, as if it had merged into it.

But the "Starry Dream Crystal" rippled slightly, as if it had triggered some kind of mechanism.

The campus gradually appeared in the funhouse mirror. In the distorted image, his true form and Wei Shan's image seemed to appear, along with some indistinct lines, like some strange things.

But slightly tipsy, he was oblivious to everything else; his eyes were only on the notebook.

Then, wisps of mist seeped into his pocket and touched his notebook.

When his ghostly hand, which had dispersed into countless wisps of mist, enveloped the notebook, the distorted world in the funhouse mirror seemed to boil and tremble violently. Meanwhile, the flickering sparks in Lin Yi's eyes suddenly coalesced, condensing into a brilliant golden eye in his dark eye socket.

【Yes. 】

Lin Yi slowly opened his mouth, and a voice that seemed to belong to someone else was utterly absent from his lips.

The voice was a mix of eerie syllables, sounding deep and heavy, as if it were speaking in some extremely profound and solemn scripture.

He slowly withdrew his hand...

The forearm he pulled out of the funhouse mirror had completely decomposed into mist at the tip.

As he continued to pull it out, the illusory mist gradually transformed into strands of thin rope. Within these ropes, it seemed as if a venomous snake with gleaming scarlet eyes was constantly slithering, while at the end of the mist, the sound of crashing waves could be heard.

The sound of the waves was extremely rapid, but upon closer listening, it was discovered that it was not the sound of waves, but rather the sound of pages turning.

At the end of the extracted mist, countless sheets of paper were swept up like leaves in a whirlwind, swirling around like a school of fish in the sea, forming huge waves.

In the end, Lin Yi pulled them all out.

"Splash—splash—"

The fluttering papers, once freed from the funhouse mirror, suddenly settled down, automatically lining up like memory metal, one by one, until they finally became a notebook with slightly worn and yellowed pages.

The thin, thread-like mist continued to coalesce, eventually transforming into a ghostly, gaseous hand.

As for the venomous snake with scarlet eyes that roamed among the mist, it transformed into a ring on his gaseous palm.

"Ouroboros Ring".

In this incredible and miraculous way, he managed to bypass the layers of the campus and retrieve his notebook to the "Principal's Office".

Lin Yi's eyes gradually cleared, but he still couldn't understand his own actions at all.

It's purely a matter of feeling and then naturally executing the move. To put it bluntly, it's just that when the feeling comes, it triggers a kind of "muscle memory."

But whatever the outcome, the result was that his notebook, intact, came from his school uniform pocket in the school area and came to the "principal's office," where it lay quietly on the desk.

As he recovered, the stardust, fluorescence, and fog around him gradually faded away. It was as if these strange things had been marked when they were needed, and now that they were no longer needed, the markings disappeared, and they became completely inconspicuous.

“Young Master Tian, ​​I got the notebook…” He quickly looked at Tian Bufan, but before he could finish saying “I got the notebook,” he was interrupted by the strange scene before him.

No one knows what strange things Tian Bufan and Mao Feiyang did while he wasn't paying attention, but the "principal's office" has now expanded several times over in an unbelievable way.

It's like the "principal's office" used to be a tightly closed tree hole, but now, all the gnarled branches that formed the inner walls of the tree hole are slowly opening up.

The entire "principal's office" looked like a giant birdcage!

"This...this is what you guys are doing...'side jobs'?!"

(End of this chapter)