Chapter 18: The Ghost School in the High Mountains

Rustle, rustle—

The sound of students moving through the hallways drifted in, yet there was no conversation to be heard; almost everyone was clutching a book, studying intently.

Occasionally, an unlucky soul would trip because they hadn't seen the path clearly, but the people around them wouldn't pay any attention to the fellow; even the victim would only immediately scramble up to search for the book they had dropped.

It was currently lunchtime.

A dense crowd of students packed the corridors, hallways, and the plaza leading to the cafeteria.

The atmosphere remained so oppressive it felt suffocating.

"Are we really not going to get depression in five days? I'm already feeling a bit irritable," Tu Xingsun whispered to Baili Dao beside him.

They didn't dare speak too loudly.

Although the surrounding students completely ignored everyone else, having the precedent of Qing Hekan, they could no longer view these seemingly harmless schoolboys as normal people.

There was something anomalous mixed in here—a certain urban legend!

The students brushing past them could erupt at any moment and devour them.

Most crucially, they didn't even know what the trigger for the anomaly was.

"Do you think the rich rewards of a targeted dungeon fall from the sky like free buns? The difficulty naturally rises accordingly," Baili Dao sighed.

The base reward was a piece of common equipment.

The rarity of equipment was inherently superior to ordinary items, and most importantly, rewards could be stacked without an upper limit.

In other words, theoretically, they had a chance to obtain Epic or even Legendary grade equipment!

One must realize that in the outside world, even the most garbage common-grade equipment would auction for at least a hundred thousand, and anything with slightly better quality could reach millions.

For an ordinary player, obtaining a single piece of common-grade equipment meant being well-fed and sheltered for a long time.

As the saying goes—the Spirit Calamity Game is very fair.

Dungeon difficulty and the richness of rewards are absolutely proportional.

"Is everything okay on Shi Gandang's end? Will it really not violate school rules for him to stay in the infirmary to take care of Qing Hekan?" Baili Dao was more worried about his teammate on the other side.

After buying their food, they sat down at a dining table.

Looking up, they could see clocks hanging all around the cafeteria; the noisy ticking could be heard every second.

They had made no progress yet.

Tu Xingsun shoveled food into his mouth and answered indistinctly, "What else can he do? You going to go drag him away? Forget it, that young couple is busy being all lovey-dovey; our best bet is to find clues quickly."

It had to be said, the food in this ghost school was quite good.

Considering that suicidal method of studying, if nutrition didn't keep up, many students would likely die suddenly from anemia caused by staying up late and long-term mental tension.

This wasn't out of mercy from the ghost school.

It simply believed that if learning was affected by nutritional issues, it would be a net loss.

"The problem is, we can't go to the small dark room for now, we can't find where the Art Building is, and as for the homeroom teacher's secrets..."

At this point, Baili Dao's expression turned strange.

He thought of some unpleasant things.

He then sighed and said, "Didn't Shi Gandang say the Principal only trusts the homeroom teachers of Class 7 and Class 1? He can't leave the infirmary right now, so as a member of Class 1, I can only try to approach the homeroom teacher, Yao Qing."

"But as soon as he returned, he was like he'd swallowed gunpowder. Before I could say anything, he pointed at me—all messy from Li Yang's explosion—and berated me, telling me I could only enter the classroom after washing myself spotless in the restroom."

"Brother, it's like I've been cursed. I haven't even done anything, yet every NPC is targeting me."

Baili Dao stretched, feeling utterly helpless.

God knows what kind of medicine Teacher Yao had taken; his temper had become so violent after just one trip out.

Li Yang was the same, exploding on the spot without a word, forcing him to spend half the time washing in the restroom.

*Thud—*

As the two were chatting, they didn't notice a student carrying an empty tray walking past them; Baili Dao's stretching motion happened to collide with him.

The tray immediately fell to the floor.

"Oh, sorry, let me help you clean that up."

Baili Dao offered a casual apology and leaned down, intending to help pick up the tray and utensils.

However, the moment he bent over.

A chill raced up his spine and straight to his brain.

As a veteran who had cleared several dungeons and reached Lv6, Baili Dao knew exactly what this intuition meant. He instinctively dodged to the side.

*Slash—*

His reaction was fast enough.

Even Sun Xingzhe, sitting directly opposite him, hadn't clearly seen what happened before Baili Dao had already dodged three meters away.

Yet, he still clutched his lower back, his face turning extremely pale and his lips turning white.

A large hole had been torn in his school uniform, and blood flowed continuously from the wound on his lower back; the bright red droplets were particularly jarring against the pristine white floor.

Just a bit closer...

He was almost cut in half!

"What the hell is that? Is that the 'anomaly' Qing Hekan was talking about?" Tu Xingsun quickly approached to provide cover.

The student who had bumped the tray had, in the blink of an eye, seen his skin tear open to reveal several blue tentacles; even more terrifying, a ghostly hand clutching a utility knife protruded from his chest—a living, breathing horror.

It was that utility knife that had easily pierced Baili Dao's lower back.

The strangest part was that none of the surrounding students eating their meals looked up to glance at this terrifying specter.

They continued to chew their food, eyes fixed intently on the various exercise books in their hands.

"Color... you have his color... where did you put him..."

The specter mumbled something indistinctly.

Before the two could figure out what it meant, the entity suddenly roared, waving its tentacles as it charged toward them.

Baili Dao gritted his teeth, pulled a band-aid from his pocket, and slapped it over the gruesome wound on his lower back.

The wound, nearly three fingers wide, actually began to heal at a visible speed under that tiny band-aid!

Clearly, this was an item.

"Run! To the teaching building, run toward the homeroom teacher's office!" Baili Dao decided instantly.

A frontal confrontation was clearly foolish.

Everyone had seen Qing Hekan's fate.

The best way was definitely to find the homeroom teacher; the teacher certainly wouldn't allow this anomaly to kill them indiscriminately.

After all, their current identity was that of students.

And they were students who had not violated school rules and had decent grades.

In a sense, the ghost school was quite biased toward high-achieving students.

Baili Dao had realized this from Teacher Yao's attitude toward the Widow; even if the teacher's words were threatening and seemed to show disdain.

In reality, he allowed the Widow to go to the restroom and even gave her plenty of time to wander and explore.

The reason was simple—he was ranked first in the class.

"Crash! Clatter!"

Various dining tables and chairs were knocked over by the tentacled specter chasing them, and soups and liquids spilled all over the floor. Several innocent students were even struck in the neck by the ghostly hand wielding the utility knife.

"Fuck! This thing is contagious!" Tu Xingsun looked back while fleeing, unable to stop himself from cursing.

Because he noticed that the students who had been caught in the crossfire—whose necks had been severed and who should have died—were standing back up.

Their skin also began to tear.

Then, multicolored tentacles began to drill out of their bodies—red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue, and purple.

The atmosphere, which had previously been merely oppressively calm, vanished completely, replaced by a horrific, dancing hellscape of demons.

"This really is a high-altitude ghost school now..."

(End of Chapter)