Starting My Cultivation With Time Management - Chapter 941 - 81: Changgeng, what do you think?

Rakna was not normal. No, unmistakably not.

Whether it was his appearance, his personality, his abilities, his identity, nothing about him had ever been banal. Was it his choice?

No. He was merely but a tormented soul doing its utmost to live the life it had learned to never enjoy.

Would being picked by a glorified universal abductor calling itself a system bring something out of him?

Would he finally learn to breathe in the pool of blood that suffocated him? The Harvester does not sow, he only collects.

All he has ever known to feel was loss and the only thing he can do is take.

He will devour their hearts and drink their blood if it is what it takes.

In the swamp, mosquitoes danced, and a five-meter long bay crocodile was firmly bound at the snout, its vertical pupils gleaming with ferocity. At that moment, a young man cover in mud was straddling it, and he was very modest in the face of audience’s praise.“I’m Bi Fang, a professional explorer. I have trekked atop the roof of the world and traversed through the Valley of Death, and I’ve even challenged the mysterious Amazon. Even the National Geographic has named me the world’s premier survival expert, the king of the wild at the top of the food chain, but trust me, that’s all an overstatement…”Under the crimson clouds, Bi Fang silently tightened the rope in his hand and, seeing that the bay crocodile beneath him had finally stopped struggling, he pulled out the Hunting Knife and killed it with a single strike to the underside of its jaw.“Today is the second day of survival. I thought I would have to endure another hungry night, but now it seems, dinner has taken care of itself.”

Deep below the earth's surface, a mystifying subterranean seascape lurks, an archipelago bathed in inky blackness where suspense and horror hold court. Here lie strange islands and even stranger monsters, far beyond the realms of human imagination. In this domain, mankind is far from dominant; instead, madness and death rule supreme.

Pleading for mercy from the unknown creatures of the deep only leads to a slow, tortured existence. The trapped survivors gradually distort, losing what made them human, both physically and mentally, to the gloom as they remain trapped in this eternal obscurity. Their only hope? A perilous expedition into uncharted sea territories.

Fueled by determination, Charles embark on this daunting voyage aboard his steamship, aiming to reclaim humanity's past glory. Together with his crew, they sought a way out of this hidden sea world, a path back to the sunlit world above, where humans once stood tall.

=========================================

I read a few comments from Chinese readers that compared this novel with Lord of Mysteries because of similar elements: Lovecraftian, western fantasy, first industrial revolution, and steampunk. However, I have yet to finish reading Lord of Mysteries to do any actual comparison, but I do think those who have enjoyed that novel would enjoy this as well. Also, the author of LotM, Cuttlefish That Loves Diving, also did a shout-out for this novel, so I guess he approves of it too?

……………………………………………………………

Dear readers! Without any ads, maybe you will prefer .

Ye Yang, a straight man from Northeast China, transmigrated into a novel about court fights, became a concubine, and was bound to a system, which could put on view the favorability score of the main characters.

On condition that the emperor’s favorability score was too high, he’d fall in love with Ye Yang. However, if his favorability score was too low, he’d be mercilessly killed. In order to protect his life and chastity, Ye Yang forced himself to create his own persona, repeatedly switching between the personality of an unrefined man from Northeast China and the first beauty of the harem.

Yet, things were getting worse and worse. At first, he let the favorability score of the dog emperor drop. Later, the score began increasing rapidly. Watching how the favorability score was about to skyrocket, Ye Yang panicked.

He wore a gold chain and raised a mink, silencing all of the imperial concubines of the harem. Feng Luan’s favorability score had been increased by +1.

He had a snowball fight with the dog emperor and pushed him into a snowdrift. Both of them caught a cold. Feng Luan’s favorability score had been increased by +10.

The mink he raised thought out a plan for Feng Luan to renovate the imperial study room worth of more than 10.000 taels of silver. The imperial study was so horrible that one could hardly bear to look at it.

Feng Luan’s favorability score had been increased by +100.

What’s going on! Are you still a straight man!

……

The longer Ye Yang lived in degradation, the more he felt that the dog emperor was different from what he initially thought.

At his feet the ground was covered in blood and bones, but behind him was the delightful scenery of the prosperous world, and the coming of all nations.

A few years later, he helped Ye Yang up the stairs and gazed into the distance. He saw a myriad of twinkling lights, bustling, bright and beautiful.

And Feng Luan whispered in his ear.

“My dear Imperial Concubine, look.”

“This is our country.”

- Description from Novelupdates