Town

On one of the many pages in the ability section of the book, Pro examined the intricate 2D spell pattern of the corrosion spell model.

With a thought, the 2D spell pattern was projected off the page and was displayed as a 3D model to Pro. Clearly, a 2D spell model wasn't the epitome of spellcasting.

Watching the spell model sink back onto the page, Pro looked towards the top of the page for a quick glimpse of what the spell does.

[Spell Model: Corrosion]

A basic spell model that can harness the host's negative energy to generate a corrosive mist that can consume external negative energy. A higher supply of negative energy to the model will increase the corrosive property of the mist. Target must not have spiritual consciousness and should not be protected by special means. Negative energy can be consumed to decipher the next phase of this spell.

Ignoring most of the details, what truly caught Pro's attention was the line line of words.

"It seems my golden finger can research the next level of a spell simply by consuming negative energy! Isn't this just like one of the functions on a certain AI chip from a certain magus novel?! This- isn't this one of the strongest golden fingers when it comes to using the power of magus?"

With a thought, Pro felt a stream of negative energy flow from his soul and into the current page of his book.

Nothing seemed to have changed at first, but as Pro directed more energy into the page, Pro eventually was able to notice a small corner of the page that was tinted with a hint of gold.

"It seemed that I will have to provide enough negative energy to turn the whole page golden before I get any results, probably an upgrade in the spell model!"

An hint of excitement and anticipation filled Pro's mind. With this new function alone, he knew he can grow stronger than ever in the future, as long as he wasn't stumped mid-way. Well, since he is technically immortal in the Negative Zone, it means his path was unimpeded!

Of course, Pro knew he still can't be arrogant.

After all, most of the souls who come here are geniuses or powerful existences with lots of hole cards. It would still take a long time for Pro to catch up even with his golden finger. This is also under the condition that other souls don't have golden fingers.

"I wonder if this research function is only for spells? It doesn't seem to appear for my passive abilities ... well, I'll figure it out in the future after I have collected more spell models. Unfortunately, I am forced to walk on the god sequence. Although I heard gods can use spells, but their spells are rather different from magus spells."

According to what Pro learned, those who walk the magus sequences can engrave almost all spells for instant cast. Not only that, the spells they cast also has a buff in strength compared to others. It was just a benefit of the magus seed.

Fortunately, a magus's initial negative energy capacity was still lower than a god's, and magus don't grow as fast. Instead, they mainly focused on research and the integration of their own spell models with negative energy to form new negative energy spells.

"Still, I wonder what divine spells are like? I heard about it, but it seems that I can only purchase them with merits now as it wasn't a free course. If what I learnt was true, gods can instantly cast divine spells and even bestow them on others as long as it has to do with their core principle ..."

Pro bowed his head as he tried to speculate his future path by combining what he learnt here with his knowledge from reading light novels.

Unfortunately, there was still too little info for him to work with. At most, Pro guessed that gods should have a law they controlled and divine spells based on these laws.

"Hey, I wonder what types of negative gods there are. Hopefully there is still a path that I can walk ... I don't want to end up being a subordinate god of others."

Walking out of the school, Pro finally looked up and stared at the cloudy, red sky formed by dark, reddish mist. It was like the smog in a city of factories, but Pro knew that mist was formed by a high concentration of negative energy.

ZOO had built many shelters like this one, and they were all built underground. The safe zone was an like an enormous dome carved deep in the ground. The external walls were said to be made of special materials to keep negative energy out.

Even so, negative energy had still infiltrated within and by the looks of it, it was a lot.

Well, this wasn't something Pro had to worry about now.

Strolling forward, Pro stepped into the city once more.

Don't think that the underground shelter is small. The city that was built inside actually spanned a large distance. Pro estimated that it was probably the size of a medium-sized modern city in his first life!

The structures of the city varied greatly from time to time, but it was still clear that the city was split into different zones. Different zones had a different theme consistent with certain world origins.

There were groups of immortal palaces, lots of mechanical structures, runic towers spiraling into the red mist in the air, and heavenly gates hovering in the airspace which probably led to an abode hidden in a different space!

Buildings spanning different ages from medieval to modern to steampunk formed some parts of the city. Regardless of the structures, each also had a clear representation of different cultures and perhaps the different powers or laws that its owner controls!

This was Zaun, a true city of traversers, with culture mixed from a vast ocean of worlds.

This city of traversers had crowds of people all walking on foot, enhancing the boisterous atmosphere of the city. Unlike a modern city, there were no land vehicles such as carriages or cars.

Instead, there were many people flying through the air on all sorts of flying equipment. There were brooms, carpets, swords, hover-boards, and occasionally strange artifacts that originates from unknown worlds!

After admiring the glamour of the city for a bit, Pro calmly strolled forward and joined into the bustling crowds that were roaming the street.

"Hey, although I still have no merits at the moment, I can still explore and see if I can pick up some leeks before my first dungeon experience."

What are dungeons? It wasn't too different from the light novels Pro had read.

Dungeons are separate spaces randomly formed from negative energy once the concentration of negative energy in an area exceeds a certain critical point.

These negative dungeons are the main source of merit income for all adventurers. The Negative Zone's consciousness will award souls who cleared the dungeons. Merits were a basic reward, along with magical skills, talents, cultivation routes, artifacts, and other treasures.

It all depends on what type of dungeon you clear and your performance in the dungeon. Pro wasn't too sure about how the judgement works here, but he'll discover eventually.

The group of newcomers were finally granted permission to leave the school because it was almost time for the school's first dungeon trial.

For newcomers like Pro, the school granted them a total of three dungeon entry chances within the safe zone. After using up these three chances, the only way to enter dungeons further would be to seek out dungeons outside of the shelter.

The dungeons in the safe zone were limited and left here on purpose to train newcomers. Like adventurer grades, the grade listed on the identity card that was determined mostly by the strength of the individual and the dungeons they were able to clear, dungeons were also graded from F- to Ex+.

However, the grade of the dungeon has no relation to the layer of the Negative Zone. Even the first layer can have Ex grade dungeons. It is completely random, and it may be hidden anywhere ranging from underground to the unknown void outside the layer.

The dungeons in the safe zone are mostly F- grades. These dungeons were considered to have much less risk than actual dungeons in the outside world. Not only that, these dungeons were usually repeatable.

There were many types of dungeons. Repeatable, as the name implies, are dungeons that could be constantly farmed for rewards, albeit diminishing after the first clearance. However, the rewards may not be as great as a normal dungeon that will disappear after being cleared once.

There were also special time-based dungeons that spawn during certain times at certain locations. They may disappear after being cleared, but will still come back in the future.

Then, there were solo dungeons, team dungeons, PvP dungeons, dungeons that had been located but still hasn't been cleared, unknown new dungeons being formed, dungeons that restrict entrants with certain conditions, dungeons spaces formed from the leftovers of predecessors who wanted to bestow an inheritance or for other nefarious purposes, and even dungeons that seemed to hold a different world within.

Still, none of these dungeons could escape the relationship with negative energy in one way or another.

"A desperate world of dungeons and adventurers ... just mixed with all sort of traversers from all sorts of worlds with different power systems. Oh yeah, everyone seems to be an immortal player as well. What a mess ... if this was a novel, the world view would probably suddenly collapse one day in the face of the barrages of readers ... hopefully not ..."

Pro couldn't help but mumble to himself as he continued his journey towards his destination. Of course, his destination was definitely not the Tower of Negativity.

Unlike many other newcomers who moved towards the trading area in order to prepare for the upcoming dungeon experience, Pro had no merits nor did he have any artifacts, skills, or other things to trade. He definitely won't go there to waste time on window shopping.

After half an hour of walking, Pro came to a stop before a slick, mechanical structure that towered into the sky. Looking up, Pro saw a mysterious, large phantom image of an open book.

"The Tower of Wisdom ... in the end, I still can't escape going to the library in a different world. Hopefully I can get some knowledge for free ..."

Stepping forward and up the stairs, the mechanical gate automatically slid open to welcome a new seeker of knowledge.