Chapter 52: Teacher and Student

Luge's eyes widened, somewhat incredulous, and he immediately applied Spiritual Boiling to himself, concentrating his spirit to attempt opening the Spatial Door again.

You have to understand, this is something he practices every day; not to mention how much progress or change, at the very least it counts as proficient.

But this time only a dark red small cave appeared.

He looked at it; it was probably only a bit bigger than a fist, and this was already the result of his utmost effort.

Thump thump thump!

"Young Master, I'm coming in! Please forgive my rudeness."

The voice outside the door spoke courteously; to Luge's ears, it sounded as if it were reciting an incantation that urged death.

In his panic, he took out that half-face and shook it back and forth in his hand.

However, whether it was his verbal communication or his desperate shaking, the Half-Man's half-face showed no reaction whatsoever, and in the end he could only dejectedly put it back.

Creak—

The door was slowly pushed open, stirring up a faint breeze that blew half the aged quilt on the bed into pieces.

"Young Master."

An old man dressed in a black formal suit appeared at the doorway.

Luge stared motionlessly at the figure by the door, watching for any move he might make, and a thousand ways for the Kobold to die flashed through his mind.

"Young Master, how can you be dressed in such a state."

The old man spoke and clapped his hands; the wardrobe in the corner of the room seemed to be manipulated by an invisible pair of hands, the cabinet doors opening one by one, but only one was normal — the rest of the cabinet doors toppled crookedly onto the floor after opening, yet fortunately they revealed the row of clothes inside, which could be considered to have completed their mission.

The clothes floated over; Luge dared not move a muscle, only watching as the garments were put on him piece by piece, but unfortunately they crumbled as they were put on, and in the end only a few tattered cloth scraps hung on his body.

"Young Master, please come with me."

The old man bowed gently in salute, rose with a graceful guiding gesture of his arms, then turned and walked out first, his movements standard and crisp yet without the slightest hint of haste.

Luge glanced at the window behind him, rationally weighed it for a moment, then turned and followed.

The corridor outside was not pitch black; every few steps on both walls there were alternating embedded crystal stones emitting a milky white glow. He looked left and right curiously; these unknown crystal stones, like those things in the room, also had quite a few that were already broken.

The old man walked upright in the very center of the corridor ahead, every step that standard, his waist straight and stride even.

After looking at the crystal stones on both sides, Luge also observed the walls and the road under his feet, even quickly bending down to touch them — regular stone blocks, uniform in size, their edges all worn extremely smooth by the passage of years.

Seeing the small to know the large; judging by the size of this corridor, one could already imagine the enormity of this architecture.

The guiding old man, his figure thin, yet his movements were crisp and forceful; his descending footsteps on the corridor emitted a regular, clear sound.

All the way they walked, there were only the two of them; the rooms they passed, the forks in the road they crossed — not a single human figure was seen again.

"Arrived, Young Master."

The old man led him to a corner and pushed open a door.

"Please pay attention."

The old man spoke this sentence softly and slowly, then turned sideways and withdrew half a step to yield his position.

Luge looked at the spacious room behind the door, then at the old man beside him; this was also the first time at such a close distance, looking at this old man who had made him feel terror all along the way.

The old man sensed his gaze and lowered his head slightly, his neck presenting an angle that conveyed humility without ugliness.

Luge kept soothing his hair-standing little heart.

But upon seeing the old man's eyes without whites, his little heart still twitched once or twice slightly, to express its refusal to be soothed.

Luge stepped into the room, feeling the room door slowly close behind him.

This room was three times the size of the previous bedroom, with three sets of empty tables and chairs, and a solitary figure standing waiting.

He hesitated, listening to the old man's receding footsteps outside the door, and reached behind his back to grab the door handle.

He pushed twice, then pulled twice, but ultimately failed to open it.

He forced himself to calm for a moment, then carefully stepped forward.

This room was carpeted, and the carpet was surprisingly well preserved, not crumbling at random.

As he stepped, his eyes glanced toward the distance at that figure with its back to him; the room was not very bright, but there were also miraculous crystal stones providing illumination, only in warm tones, similarly some good some bad.

These scenes that should not appear in the Abyss, while terrifying, also made him incomparably curious.

At a distance of a few steps, he stopped; the not-quite-adequate warm-toned light cast the waiting figure in a waxy yellow.

He was apprehensive; already this close, yet that person still had no reaction for a long time.

Even more heart-wrenching than the domineering guiding old man.

Hesitating whether to say a couple of clumsy lines of Abyssal Language.

He waited a moment, then steeled his courage and continued forward — first two steps, then another two steps.

Suddenly, he noticed something and sidestepped a large step, viewing the waiting person's frail form from another angle — it was actually a standing dried corpse, its withered frame no longer discernible as male or female, clothes already stuck to its body and become one with it.

Abruptly, the dried corpse twitched, but it seemed extremely strenuous.

"You're late, my dear student."

The dried corpse was overly agitated; its jaw and cheeks tore open a crack, but the actual words were broadcast out through Spiritual Power.

"Late by a full three hundred years—"

The dried corpse teacher seemed filled with resentment and grievance and endless humiliation; his Spiritual Power trembled as it emitted complex fluctuations, all mixed together and fermenting into a sense of indignation.

Luge was even more aggrieved as he kept retreating, hiding behind a table.

There were no windows here, and even less any decent cover.

He fundamentally couldn't get a word in, and didn't know what to do, only able to timely apply a Magic Skin Technique to prevent his exposure.

If he could still return alive, perhaps he should ask the Half-Man for more compensation, he thought.

At the same time he tried again to open the Spatial Door, but it still could not form.

The old corpse's chaotic Spiritual Power fluctuations continued for a while, then gradually quieted down.

Quiet for a good while, no other movement was seen.

Luge tried to poke his head out.

Who knew that shriveled old teacher had already turned around long ago, silently staring straight at the spot where he was hiding.

An inexplicably prolonged silent stare-down.

Although the other party's eyeballs were already shriveled and eye sockets sunken, Luge knew the other party was looking at him, and was carefully observing.

"You're intelligent, right? Hurry up and tell me, tell me you're a smart guy." The old corpse was urging, yet no longer had the manic frenzy from before; the voice after calming down seemed like a clear, cold female voice.

"I think my brain still works." Luge replied in Abyssal Language.

The other party seemed to breathe a sigh of relief, mental fluctuations even rippling with a trace of joy.

"I've finally waited for you!"

The already-calm old corpse suddenly burst into wild laughter for a while, before calming down once more.

"Sorry, but you should understand, that old geezer went mad, he's trapped me here for three hundred years, a full three hundred years, just to wait for a non-existent student. I haven't left this room for three hundred years, normally I can only rely on special methods to make myself fall into slumber, using Soul Silence to reduce consumption, simultaneously also to prevent myself from going thoroughly mad!"

As the old corpse spoke, it raised its arm, but only a bit of debris fell off.

"You... also wandered in here by mistake?" Luge said.

"Strange-looking smart little demon, you'll help me, right?" The old corpse said, "Let's cooperate and leave together."

(Chapter End)