novelraw Chapter 406, First Minute
Chapter 406, First Minute
The afternoon sun slanted in through the carved wooden windows, casting dappled shadows on the floor of the scripture copying hall.
But instead of bringing any warmth, the light and shadow made the bloodstained spikes even more glaring.
A short-haired woman stared intently at the awl on the table, her lips trembling, as if she were looking at a torture device.
"I...I'm afraid of blood!" Her voice trembled. "My mother has always been with me when I had blood drawn since I was a child. This...this is making me prick myself?!"
Some people have already started looking around, seemingly trying to find a way out.
"Stop looking," a middle-aged man sneered. "The Guide is right there. Do you think you can escape?"
Some people had already started muttering curses:
"What kind of bullshit cultivation is this? This is clearly torture!"
"I get it now, this dungeon is just a series of ways to kill us!"
"If you want to drink our blood, just say so! Why all this beating around the bush!"
Amidst the cacophony of complaints, someone suddenly slammed their hand on the table.
"What's all the noise about!"
The crowd looked in the direction of the voice and saw a burly man in his early thirties with broad shoulders, a thick back, and a face full of menacing features.
"What kind of spectacle is this, all crying and screaming like that!" the burly man said gruffly. "It's just drawing some blood, isn't it?"
"When I was carrying bricks on the construction site, the cuts on my hands were longer than this awl, and I never even frowned!"
As he spoke, he grabbed the awl from the table and plunged it into his left index finger without hesitation.
"hiss--"
Everyone gasped in shock.
A bright red bead of blood immediately appeared from the fingertip.
The burly man remained unfazed, even sporting a smug smile that seemed to say, "See? I'm not afraid."
He quickly picked up the wolf-hair brush, dipped the tip into the drop of blood on his fingertip, and began to write on the paper.
"See? It's that simple!" he yelled without looking up. "If you keep dawdling, it'll be dark!"
His words caused a subtle shift in everyone's mindset. They all grabbed the dried, blood-stained awls on the table and gritted their teeth, stabbing their fingertips into them.
Bright red blood beads immediately appeared. They hurriedly dipped their brushes in the wolf-hair brush and quickly began to write on the plain paper.
Because the copy has already eliminated language barriers, and because countries are popularizing the reading and writing of Chinese characters, even if the scriptures are in Chinese characters, it is not unfair to the chosen ones present, as everyone can recognize and write them.
A young white man with a mohawk was writing rapidly, his pen moving swiftly and gracefully, but his handwriting was so illegible that it was almost impossible to decipher.
He had only written three lines when a strange dark light suddenly appeared on the paper. The writing seemed to be sucked in by something, quickly fading and disappearing, turning into a blank page in the blink of an eye.
"Shit!" the mohawk-haired man cursed. "That's it?!"
His companion peeked over and said gloatingly:
"Who told you to write so sloppily? Didn't you hear the Guide say to write neatly?"
The mohawk-haired man glared at him irritably, gritted his teeth, squeezed out a few drops of blood, and slowed down to start copying again.
Lin Feng didn't move, his gaze shifting to Park Ji-won on his left.
He had already pierced his fingertips with the awl.
The moment the blood beads seeped out, Lin Feng's pupils contracted slightly—the color was wrong!
It wasn't bright red, nor dark red, but a pale pink, like paint diluted with water.
However, Park Ji-won himself seemed completely unaware of anything unusual.
He dipped his brush into the pale pink blood, the tip of the brush touching the paper, and began to copy the scriptures stroke by stroke.
His movements were slow and deliberate, each stroke written with great force, as if he were completing an extremely important task.
The problem is—it's too slow.
A minute passed, and Park Ji-won had only written eight characters.
The full text of the scripture consists of 268 characters, and at this speed, it would take nearly 35 minutes to copy it once.
Moreover, this is only the ideal situation—if a word is misspelled, the writing will be swallowed up, and it will have to be rewritten, which will take even longer.
Park Ji-won was clearly aware of the speed issue; he frowned and his men increased their speed slightly.
However, as soon as he moved quickly, the character became deformed. The character "如" under his pen faded, shrank, and disappeared rapidly, turning into a clean blank space in the blink of an eye.
Park Ji-won stared at the blank space for two seconds, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down. Then he took a deep breath, dipped his fingertip in the blood again, slowed down, and carefully filled in the character "如" stroke by stroke.
Lin Feng's gaze continued to move, landing on Amirka, a monk from the Kingdom of Nibo.
This middle-aged monk stood out from the moment he entered the scripture copying hall—
Unlike the others, he did not panic or complain. Instead, he knelt quietly on the prayer mat, clasped his hands together, and recited a passage of scripture in a low voice before picking up the awl.
His blood-drawing movements were extremely slow, with an almost ritualistic solemnity.
The awl pierced his fingertip, and he frowned slightly, but then relaxed, as if he were treating that pain as part of his spiritual practice, silently enduring and transforming it.
He dipped his brush in blood and began to write, each character with utmost care and slowness, as if he were sculpting a Buddha statue.
However, this extreme seriousness brings another problem—the writing is too slow.
It took nearly thirty seconds just to write the character "色" (color).
Lin Feng saw this and shook his head slightly.
Vassim, standing beside him, remained motionless, his eyes slightly narrowed as his gaze swept back and forth among the crowd, occasionally exchanging a glance with Lin Feng.
Evelyn's slender fingers gently stroked the wooden handle of the awl on the table. Instead of drawing blood, she turned her gaze to several low tables not far from them.
The silence of the three stood out starkly against the noisy chaos.
Some people noticed their odd behavior and cast questioning glances, but they were quickly pulled back by their own predicaments.
The air inside the scripture copying hall grew increasingly heavy, and the stench of blood grew stronger.
Time passed by, second by second.
The first ten minutes have passed.
"Time's up."
Seeing the hourglass run out of sand, Xia Ning spoke up to remind her.
The moment the words fell, all the plain paper in the copying hall simultaneously emitted a layer of grayish-white light.
Then, all the writing was "digested" by the paper itself, leaving not a trace.
The scripture copying hall was initially deathly silent.
Then, like a flood bursting its banks, a torrent of complaints erupted.
Some people began to look in Xia Ning's direction, hesitant to speak, wanting to plead for her but not daring to.
Xia Ning remained seated at the small pearwood table, a cup of tea beside her, her expression calm and serene.
There was no sympathy, no impatience; he simply watched quietly the myriad expressions of the people in the hall, as if he were watching a play that had nothing to do with him.
Lin Feng, Vassim, and Evelyn remained seated on their prayer cushions, their expressions serene.
The defeat in the first ten minutes was entirely within their expectations.
What they need is more observation data and clues, and there are still nearly three hours until sunset, which is still plenty of time and far from the time to rush to write.