Chapter 58 The Book of Life

As willpower was activated and perception instantly soared to 24 points, the entire world before Bai Ming's eyes changed abruptly.

The colorful spiral patterns on the wanderers, which had previously seemed like mere bizarre decorations, now appeared to be infused with life and meaning, transforming into blurry yet decipherable lines of information in his eyes.

"■■ Library, 324 ■■■■ leaked disaster victim: Wang ■■."
"■■ Library, 324 ■■■■ leaked disaster victim: He ■■."
"■■ Library, 324 ■■■■ leaked disaster victim: Huang ■■."
"..."

So that was it.
This was how the instance was cleared.

Bai Ming had previously wondered how normal level 8 and 9 players were supposed to clear this instance without using the [Retrieval Monocle of the Midnight Library].

Now he understood. Relying on their own high willpower and equipment, those level 8 and 9 players would attain high perception, perhaps directly capturing some of the key information without needing to borrow the [Retrieval Monocle of the Midnight Library] at all.

Only when they truly could not acquire the necessary intelligence would they be forced to use the [Retrieval Monocle of the Midnight Library].

However, Bai Ming did not have this concern.

Having already used [Nothingness], he was completely immune to the information overload penalty incurred by using the [Retrieval Monocle of the Midnight Library].

Without further hesitation, he consumed willpower and fully activated the active effect of the monocle.

In an instant, his field of vision was reconstructed.

The colorful spiral patterns on the wanderers were no longer merely textual information, but evolved into streams of light that extended outward, as fine as spider silk.

These light streams intertwined with one another, ultimately converging toward various bookshelf locations deep within the library.

And on those bookshelves, naturally, were stored the "books of life" corresponding to these wanderers.

Bai Ming carefully selected and distinguished among these streams of light, and then locked his target onto a wanderer whose "book of life" happened to be located on the first floor.

"Follow me, I've found an interesting place."

The players acknowledged and followed closely behind Bai Ming. Along the way, they maintained their disguises, acting skillfully to evade or handle the increasingly frequent probings from the wanderers.

Finally, they arrived in front of a bookshelf where the light stream provided by the [Retrieval Monocle of the Midnight Library] flowed toward a book on the middle of the third tier.

Bai Ming looked over and saw that it was nothing more than a seemingly ordinary cookbook titled *The Lazy Person's Guide to Cooking*.

He never would have imagined that this represented a wanderer's life book.

After Bai Ming pointed out the location of the book,

[Sorrowful Rustling] took the initiative to step forward, took down the book, and opened it to flip through a few pages: "This really is a cookbook. The first dish is scrambled eggs with tomatoes, but it's heretical—they actually use sugar instead of soy sauce."

[Dog Who Can't Play Games] muttered with dissatisfaction: "Sugar makes it delicious. Putting soy sauce in it is the real heresy."

Su Yeye asked, "Is there a way to kill those 'Royal Court players'?"

Bai Ming carefully discerned the light streams once more: "It should be fine."

Su Yeye said, "Alright, let's go."

...

Returning once again to the atrium on the first floor of the library, [Sorrowful Rustling] held the copy of *The Lazy Person's Guide to Cooking* in her hands and walked straight toward the wanderer associated with this book.

That wanderer had not understood at first, but upon seeing [Sorrowful Rustling]'s actions, the colorful spiral patterns on its body distorted with bliss, and it began to test [Sorrowful Rustling] with even greater focus.

[Sorrowful Rustling] pretended not to see it and walked straight ahead without any hesitation.

However—

Thud—!

An object abruptly plummeted from above, landing heavily right between [Sorrowful Rustling] and that wanderer!

It was a wooden puppet wearing faded overalls, with two bizarre circles of blush painted on its cheeks and a pair of hollow glass eyeballs staring fixedly at [Sorrowful Rustling].

Locked onto head-on by this sudden, ominous-looking puppet, [Sorrowful Rustling] let out an uncontrollable scream, her eyes unconsciously betraying the most primal terror as she looked at the surrounding wanderers.

"Not good!"

[Dog Who Can't Play Games] gasped in a low voice.

The very instant [Sorrowful Rustling] revealed a flaw, all the wanderers around them seemed to receive a unified command. They instantly ceased their endless probing, turned in unison, and pounced toward her like a tidal wave!

Su Yeye reacted with extreme speed, her figure shooting directly forward as a longsword wreathed in dazzling lightning materialized in her hand.

She swept forward without hesitation, a thunderous arc of sword light tearing through the air!

Zhi-la—!

The lightning longsword possessed peerless might. Without exception, the wanderers struck by it were instantly severed and fragmented, collapsing to the ground and losing their ability to act.

They could only continuously writhe and squirm, beginning a slow process of "resurrection."

However, because Su Yeye had caused a greater commotion, more wanderers abandoned [Sorrowful Rustling] and immediately shifted their targets to her.

The colorful spiral patterns on their bodies twisted and extended, their entire forms stretching like elongated rubber as they lunged at Su Yeye from all directions like bizarre threads!

Bang—!

Bai Ming also struck fiercely, sending a pouncing wanderer flying hard with a single swing of his rod.

Clearly, that boy puppet was an item designed to lower willpower checks.

Having fallen for it, [Sorrowful Rustling] instantly lost control of her inner fear and exposed her dread of the wanderers, thereby provoking the encirclement.

If nothing could be done, Bai Ming would naturally abandon [Sorrowful Rustling] to avoid falling into a fatal predicament.

But at this moment, they were far from that desperate pass!

Abandoning a teammate was definitely not Bai Ming's choice.

His choice was to kill [Shadow Hunter] and [Crystal Rose].

Those two were the true culprits!

Did his attack fail to kill the wanderer?

Bai Ming glanced briefly at the wanderer he had sent flying, which was already wobbling back to its feet.

Estimating quickly, he knew that the defense of these wanderers was somewhat stronger than that of Teacher Wang and his ilk, and their offensive capability was also superior to Teacher Wang's—roughly equivalent to three Teacher Wangs in terms of strength.

They were weaker than [Ink-Stained Dust] by about one Teacher Wang.

It had to be said that as monsters of an E+ instance, they were naturally stronger than those in E- instances.

Coupled with the sheer quantity they possessed upon upgrading to a D-class instance, it was terrifying.

So what if they were?

He had already advanced to level 4, and after a month of training, as long as these wanderers couldn't hit him, they posed zero threat.

Was he afraid of being hit by them?

What a joke—he wasn't afraid at all!

As the second player to actively attack, Bai Ming naturally attracted aggro second only to Su Yeye, and a large number of wanderers surged toward him as a result.

Witnessing everything, [Dog Who Can't Play Games] rushed without hesitation toward [Sorrowful Rustling], who was still trapped in shock, panic, and confusion, fleeing blindly.

She had to seize this precious window of opportunity while the two S-class players attracted the vast majority of the firepower.

She needed to quickly use *The Lazy Person's Guide to Cooking* to deal with the corresponding wanderer and help the two S-class players level up.

As long as they could level up, the crisis would surely be resolved!