Eldritch Horror Theatre

The control variable method—basic and effective.

Fu Qian naturally had a purpose for venturing out after dark.

Calling the Academy a place of illustrious people and blessed land was no exaggeration. On the one hand, a crowd of people were constantly running wild with ideas and courting death every day. On the other, the previous incident with The Ark provided ironclad proof that its geographical location was anything but simple.

At the time, they had thoroughly debated why The Ark had appeared beneath the Benevolent Curse Institute and why Nepheli couldn’t be relocated elsewhere.

The final conclusion had naturally settled on certain conceptual factors.

For instance, a snow tree would lose its trait of turning white in the snow if removed from the Academy’s territory—and then there was Melia, whom the snow tree symbolized...

Master Yuhun had actually provided quite a bit of information regarding that mysterious Ancient Higher Being.

The most direct clue was the highly attractive, androgynous body he had once manifested, along with the snow tree leaf twirled between his fingers.

The latter was even suspected to be the reason why the final section of the Record of Recollection opened with a ”withered leaf.”

In short, putting all the clues together made it almost certain that Her Excellency Melia was the Snow Tree Goddess.Despite lacking any transcendent aura, the snow tree displayed obvious territorial restrictions. It was all too easy to link this miraculous behavior to its symbolic connection with Melia.

Ultimately, it came down to the conceptual entanglement between ”this place” and ”Melia.”

Even in a certain ”doomsday” he had once witnessed, this place seemed to be the first point where the barrier shattered.

In short, the Academy was a wonderful place.

So, drawing inferences from one instance, could there be other phenomena that possessed this same territorial nature?

Such as Professor Rob’s miraculous mushroom.

...

As everyone knew, the Laboratory and mass production were two entirely different matters.

Given the mushroom’s peculiar nature, Professor Rob had most likely never taken this research product outside the Academy’s boundaries.

So, when Fu Qian had specifically requested a stalk back there, one of his goals was to run a minor test: was it possible that this miraculous product couldn’t be replicated anywhere else?

The results proved that the territorial protection was extremely obvious.

He wasn’t even that far from the Academy, yet it was as if an invisible boundary existed. The moment he crossed it, the Mimic Mushroom’s load-bearing structure was deemed illogical, causing it to rapidly collapse.

As for his second goal—

Watching the rapidly withering fungus, Fu Qian made no attempt to step back inside the boundary, nor did he try to freeze it. He simply pinched it between his fingers and tossed it into his mouth.

He wasn’t just going to observe; he was going to use Insight as well. Perfectly reasonable, right?

When conducting academic research, one couldn’t blindly rely on hardware, but there was no reason to voluntarily surrender an equipment advantage, either.

...

It melted in his mouth.

Although it looked like a taboo object from every angle, it failed to stir up any ripples of concern in Fu Qian. For a moment, he carefully savored the sensation.

He had to admit, the texture of this mushroom sashimi was actually quite good. For a moment, its rich umami flavor seemed to literally come alive in his mouth.

To a certain extent, that last sentence wasn’t a metaphor—it was a statement of fact.

It lost its original structure almost instantly, completely disintegrating and flowing through the crevices of his mouth.

Moreover, this flow didn’t feel like oil or water. It possessed an extra vitality, resembling a torrent formed by countless flying insects—exactly like the ones in Professor Rob’s laboratory.

Oh?

Naturally, such a change was nothing to Fu Qian. What actually made him marvel at that moment was the result—not a single line of text information popped up.

Insight wasn’t omnipotent, of course. He had eaten quite a few things by now, experiencing both positive and negative effects, but this seemed to be the first time there was absolutely no effect.

It was completely digested in an instant, yet he didn’t gain a new ability like he had in the past—such as mimicking the shapes of other objects.

This was perfectly understandable. After all, it was a low-Rank laboratory product. If one could gain a skill just by casually eating it, exploration and discovery would be far too easy.

But at the same time, there didn’t seem to be any negative side effects either—no health drain, vulnerability, or curses like during the Witch incident... Wait a minute.

At that moment, Fu Qian raised his hand and sniffed. An intense mushroom scent clung to his fingers; a staggering amount of residue seemed to have been left behind from merely pinching it.

The only problem was that he had used his other hand to pinch it.

So there was a side effect after all? Was he following in Professor Rob’s footsteps?

With a sigh, Fu Qian casually crushed the mushroom’s container.

Sure enough, it wasn’t that simple. Despite the clearly transparent material, the fractured edges were stringy and thread-like, resembling a tangle of fungal hyphae.

This sight was incredibly similar to the scene he had witnessed back in the Sword Pavilion.

Because of his actions, had the Fungal Emperor descended upon the world once more?

Fu Qian remained rooted to the spot, simply raising his head to gaze at the sky.

The night was deep, dotted with countless stars.

Then, he reached out a hand, making a gesture as if to pluck a star from the heavens—brimming with the carefree grace of a refined scholar.

Shockingly, that speck of light actually flickered.

...

And he hadn’t even exerted any effort.

It was undeniably a miraculous sight; for a moment, even Fu Qian clicked his tongue in wonder.

Although the King of the Abandoned Prison didn’t have the best reputation, a star wouldn’t be frightened by such a simple gesture.

The greatest significance of this miraculous sight was that it instantly made the world feel less real.

Whoosh—

It could be even more unreal. Fu Qian turned to look at a cluster of starlight in another direction and gently blew a breath.

As if brushed by a wind from deep space, the scene that originally gave off a sense of eternal permanence was instantly stirred, the Stars swirling in motion.

Was it indeed similar to the time he had encountered the Male and Female Dual Sword Saints?

The entire world was no longer real, instead revealing the true laws hidden deep beneath the surface—a reality dictated by fungal hyphae.

Shaking his head inwardly, Fu Qian quickly came to a conclusion.

Of course, the situation looked even more severe this time, because he wasn’t spared either.

In short, the situation before him was like swallowing the red pill in The Matrix and seeing the reality of the world.

Although this reality was admittedly a bit abstract, it wasn’t entirely inexplicable. He had eaten a mushroom, after all. Hallucinating little men would be completely normal, let alone just seeing the stars flicker.

Especially since the mushroom he swallowed possessed divinity, and he had even eaten it as sashimi.

That’s right. His conclusion was that Insight wasn’t entirely fruitless; it had just yielded a purely negative effect—the kind that didn’t even provide a sliver of information.

If one constantly walked along the river while flouting food safety regulations, occasionally running into situations like this was hardly surprising.

There was a problem now, however. This thing likely wasn’t as simple as a pure hallucination; those Male and Female Dual Sword Saints from last time had hurt a lot when they slashed him.

Furthermore, he was no longer inside the box isolated from reality created by Master Yuhun.

Even if he took ten thousand steps back and assumed it was just a hallucination, it was still a hallucination belonging to the King of the Abandoned Prison.

Taking a stroll through the Academy in this state would trigger a scene that truly sparked the imagination. Ceasing his teasing of the stars, Fu Qian turned around and began walking back toward the Academy.