Chương 12: Toxins, Recovery, and the Dark Web Letter

The rain was coming down harder now. Acid rain hammered against the tin roofs, producing an aggravating, relentless clatter. Rowan dragged his nearly numb right leg, stumbling forward through the gloomy alleys on the fringes of Scrap Iron Street. The distance from the back alley to the black market felt as long as a century. The toxin had already breached the defensive line of the torn cloth tourniquet he had tied above his knee, advancing relentlessly up his femoral artery toward his heart.

With every step, what radiated from his calf wasn't pain, but a bone-deep, biting chill—as if his marrow were being soaked in ice water. Rowan gritted his teeth so hard they nearly cracked, the neon signs before him blurring into double vision. He crashed through the broken door of an underground underground cyberdoc clinic clinic—a place with no signboard, sporting only a flickering green holographic cross. The clinic was thick with the suffocating stench of formaldehyde and cheap medical alcohol.

Sitting by the operating table was a bald old man reeking of machine oil, wearing a mechanical monocle and casually spinning a bloodstained scalpel in his fingers. This was "Old Gold," the most skilled unlicensed underground cyberdoc clinic on Scrap Iron Street, widely known by his moniker, "The Vivisector."

As for why Rowan sought out a black-market doctor instead of a government hospital—the moment he thought of their black-hearted, exorbitant consultation and treatment fees, he completely eliminated them from consideration.

"Well, well, if it isn't our top scholar." Old Gold's mechanical eye scanned up and down, immediately locking onto Rowan's right leg, which was dripping pitch-black blood.

"Tsk, tsk, a D-Rank mutated beast. Judging by the wound, a Shadow Cat. The toxin is already migrating upwards. If we don't amputate within two minutes, even the gods won't be able to save you. Flat rate: amputation surgery plus a second-hand civilian-grade cybernetic leg, three thousand Terra Credits."

"Cut the crap." Rowan slumped against the operating table, completely drained of strength. Trembling, he reached into his jacket and pulled out the [Low-Grade Polluted Mana Crystal] he had dug out of the Shadow Cat's heart. Radiating a murky, dark purple halo, he slammed it onto a stained stainless-steel tray.

"A D1-grade mutated entity's polluted mana crystal. Although mages can't use it, those black-market apothecaries love using this stuff to refine poisons. Take it, and give me a shot of the 'Scavenger' potent detox serum, plus a large-capacity can of industrial beast repellent." Old Gold's mechanical eye stared at the mana crystal, emitting a rapid series of whirring focus clicks.

"This level of pollution purity... it is a good material," Old Gold sneered.

"However, this thing is worth five hundred credits at most. A single shot of 'Scavenger' is seven hundred and fifty, and the beast repellent is two hundred. You're still short four hundred and fifty, kid."

"Put it on my tab. In three days, I'll pay you back 700 in three days, with interest."

"I don't have a 'treat first, pay later' policy here," Old Gold shook his head, picking the mana crystal off the tray and pushing it back.

"I'll pay you back 700 in three days. I've already queued an anonymous tip to the Public Security Bureau—timed delivery. If I die here, an officer will be knocking on your door to investigate illegal organ smuggling in exactly two hours." Rowan's hands were trembling, but his eyes were as ferocious as a starving wolf's. Old Gold's expression darkened instantly, staring dead into Rowan's fearless eyes.

In the underhive, the most terrifying people weren't the rich; they were the lunatics willing to throw their own lives on the betting table as bargaining chips. It wasn't worth clashing with him over a single dose of medicine, especially since there was still profit to be made. Risking a lunatic's dead-man switch over a price difference of a few hundred credits was a bad deal no matter how you calculated it.

"You're ruthless." Old Gold snatched the mana crystal back. Reaching into a nearby cryogenic freezer, he pulled out a thick syringe filled with a murky, pale-green liquid and viciously tossed it onto the table in front of Rowan, along with a spray canister. Without a shred of hesitation, Rowan grabbed the syringe, aimed it directly at the blackened vein in his thigh, and slammed it down, plunging the entire vial of serum into his body.

"Urgh—Aaagh!" The "Scavenger" serum was savage. It didn't feel like it was detoxifying him; it felt more like a microscopic extermination army deploying into his blood vessels, engaging in a brutal, bloody war of attrition against the Shadow Cat's mutated toxin. Rowan arched like he had been electrocuted, bounding off the operating table and crashing heavily onto the floor. He curled into a ball, his fingers clawing so hard against the concrete floor that his nails scraped out streaks of blood.

The agonizing pain felt like countless knives violently scraping against his bones. This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Several minutes later, the serum finally suppressed the toxin. Rowan gasped heavily, cold sweat streaming down his forehead. He looked down; the terrifying black-purple discoloration of his right leg was gradually fading, and the blood seeping out had finally returned to a normal, bright crimson.

Stimulated by the serum, the granulated flesh of the wound began to slowly writhe and scab over. His life was saved. Rowan struggled to his feet. Without sparing Old Gold a second glance, he grabbed the canister of industrial beast repellent and limped back out into the rainy night. Returning to his rented room, Rowan didn't turn on the lights immediately. He popped the cap off the beast repellent and sprayed the pungent, synthesized chemical scent across every corner, door seam, and windowsill of the room.

He didn't stop until he could no longer smell even a trace of that nauseatingly sweet [Beast Inducer].

"That was definitely the newest model of inducer. I've never smelled that specific formulation before." Only then did he finally collapse onto his bed like a puddle of mud. His body was extraordinarily exhausted, but his mind was exceptionally clear. His right leg needed temporary rest; it would take at least two days to recover normal combat mobility. But he wasn't panicking, because his materials were fully prepared. If he didn't etch now, when would he?

Before undertaking that life-or-death threshold crossing, Rowan used his last bit of energy to connect to his Dark Web terminal. He needed to confirm the decryption results of the otherworldly language. The Akashic Dark Web, Encrypted Forum. Rowan's backend dashboard flashed red—an urgent private message from the ancient rune decryption expert known only as [@plus_Hermit]. The letter was long, with tension seeping through every line:"Friend, that 'blind box rubbing' you sent me... is one hell of a hot potato.

It's a good thing you sent this through the Dark Web. If you dared to search for these root words on the surface net, the Network Oversight Bureau's data-cleansing squads would have already flagged you.

"I ran those fragmented runes through deep-web processing and found practically nothing. Finally, I found a faint match within our private archive of fragmented ancient scrolls. The sentence you gave me roughly translates to an ancient prayer heavily laced with religious worship: '... Praise be to the [Supreme Radiance], Great Lord of Law and Dawn, Your light is inextinguishable order, granting sanctuary to the lost lambs...'

"You should know that on Terra, anything possessing religious connotations is strictly regulated taboo data on the surface. Only those lunatic cultists labeled as 'heretics' frantically chase after this kind of knowledge in the shadows.

"In Terra's history of magic, all text originates from Source Runes and magic. However, the underlying logic of the syntax in your rubbing suggests otherwise—the people using this text have a few characters that aren't simplified derivations of Source Runes or magic. It feels as if they were rubbed directly from [Divine Marks].

"If this isn't some bait tossed out by a cult, then it might be a lost system of [Divine Spells] from before 'The Great Cataclysm'! Just which unexplored ruin did you dig this out of?!" Reading this, Rowan's expression grew solemn. He pulled up his memory playback once more, observing it in painstaking detail. The Hermit's analysis perfectly corroborated the phenomena he had witnessed with his own eyes in the primeval forest!

That white-robed cleric's spell with 100% conversion efficiency likely didn't stem from Source Runes he had etched himself. It was an entirely different magical system. It was highly likely this banned "Divine Spell" system the Hermit mentioned, and utilizing it clearly came with some form of severe cost. This perfectly explained why the cleric could cast an impregnable shield with zero mana dissipation, yet when facing the mother rhino's second beam, he was rendered as helpless as a mortal.

Rowan stared dead at the screen, his fingers tapping lightly against the edge of the bed. He hadn't just discovered an alternate world; he had touched upon a system of [Divine Spells]—fundamentally distinct from Terra's mainstream, current magical system—that was deliberately covered up by the upper echelons. At the end of the letter, "The Hermit" offered a tempting proposal:"Friend, I know the rules of your line of work: don't ask about the source. I won't pry for the coordinates of the ruin.

However, this scarce religious rune system is highly attractive to us. As long as you possess more rubbings or physical artifacts bearing complete grammatical structures, I am willing to bear the risk and decrypt them for you at the absolute lowest price, or even for free. To express my sincerity, I have waived your consultation fee for this inquiry." Beep— A notification popped up on his AR retina: [Bounty Refunded. Order Closed.] Rowan rejoiced internally.

He was nearly bankrupt; after buying all his supplies earlier, he only had a little over a hundred credits left.

"Knowledge truly is wealth... Mr. Miller wasn't lying to me after all." A smile curled the corner of Rowan's mouth. This free consultation was like receiving a delivery of charcoal in a snowstorm. After all, it had been a long time since he had rented out his brainstem processing power to earn extra income. The money he saved was just enough to cover his nutrient paste and network fees for the next few days.

More importantly, he realized that he didn't just possess a treasure trove of resources in the alternate world; he possessed an inexhaustible "gold mine of intel." Just a single, torn page from that white-robed cleric's book was this valuable. It was unimaginable how much of this kind of literature he could acquire if he infiltrated the human society of the alternate world in the future. But right now wasn't the time to be complacent. No matter how valuable the intel was, he had to be alive to spend the money.

Julian's lethal traps were getting more vicious with each attempt. If he couldn't survive until the exams, everything was just empty talk. Rowan closed the comm network and severed all external connections to his rented room. He placed the high-frequency dagger with the sheared-off tip and his newly bought black-steel short-sword within arm's reach, ensuring he could draw his weapons instantly from any posture. Then, he took a deep breath.

As if performing some sacred ritual, he pulled two items from his inner pockets. In his left hand was an otherworldly [Mana Primordium], radiating a warm, pure, semi-white halo. In his right hand was a lead-sealed test tube containing the murky, dangerously dark-blue [Low-Grade Water Source Rune Etching Fluid]. He unbuttoned his shirt, exposing the left side of his chest, which was slightly sunken due to chronic malnutrition.

Focusing his mind to channel his mana, a semi-transparent, faint light flickered beneath his skin, right where his heart beat. That was his innate, yet perpetually empty [Source Crystal Core]. To span the chasm between mortal and supernatural—the life-or-death etching was about to begin.