Second Life: Welcome to Gaia - Chapter 73: This isn't a safe place

Hearing the ghost’s story, Ye Yan started to pity him. Living at that time should have been really hard for common people and the pressure put on astronomers was very heavy.

There are no Chinese records of solar eclipses from 2159 to 776 BCE. Maybe no one wanted to be a royal astrologer anymore because they were afraid of being killed after failing to predict an eclipse.

Some believe that it happened because of the burning of books by the emperor who unified China, while others think it was not the case, but who knows the truth?

No matter what is the truth, it doesn’t change the fact that the astrologer Ho was decapitated and is now a ghost yearning for revenge.

The astrologer Ho failed just one time and got this kind of punishment [1]. Maybe ancient people had never heard of the phrase ‘to make mistakes is human’ and committed inhuman acts against people that make them.

But no matter what, Ye Yan doesn’t like this kind of tyrant that treats human lives as tools that he can dispose of as he wishes.

Ye Yan still has a hard time trying to understand how, at the beginning of the 21 century, many people went to protest against democracy and wants to make the president into the Emperor (or King) of a nation[2].

After listening to the astrologer Ho, Ye Yan decided to help him and accepted his quest.

Ye Yan needs to clear their way through the mausoleum until no magical power remains for the ghost to be able to materialize.

After accepting the quest from the ghost, Ye Yan left the chamber by the right passage, entering another corridor.

The initial chamber has four gates, one in each direction. The first, Ye yan used to enter the chamber and the other threes lead to unknown locations.

Ye Yan chose a random gate to enter, trying to find the monster which drops the witch’s powder.

The ghost couldn’t help Ye Yan saying which passage leads to the inner chamber where the emperor’s coffin is located because he doesn’t know. His soul has been locked in the entrance of the mausoleum by magic and he couldn’t walk freely and explore the place.

Now, Ho can only follow Ye Yan’s path after it is clear of any magic source. The ghost is feeling a little down because he is too useless.

He tried to kick a little stone on the ground but not even this he could achieve. The poor ghost got depressed and would have hung his head to the side if he did not think it would drop down as he does so.

He could only wait in the chamber, drawing imaginary circles on the ground with his fingers until he feels the passage is clear and he can walk inside.

Ye Yan walked in the passage, unaware of the ghost’s feelings.

He killed a few more rats on his way through the passage and stumbled into two traps that luckily didn’t kill him.

Maybe all the training has sharpened his senses, enabling him to use his sixth sense to perceive the danger or he was just lucky to notice something strange on the ground, but when he was going to take a step into the trap on the ground, the stepped back.

He looked at the ground more carefully and noted that the part of the ground in front of him is different from the rest.

Ye Yan crouched and passed his hand on the area in front of him. He felt that the floor in this area is smoother than the rest and was done with more care and attention.

Ye Yan can’t see well with the dim light of the firefly, so he is trying to use each of his senses to the max to increase his survivability. He is using his eyes to see the details of the area, his ear to hear any sound that can indicate an enemy or a moving trap, the touch to feel the ground and the walls for any indentation or different texture, and his nose to smell any different scent in the air.

In the case of the rats, he can feel their presence long before they appeared before him because their stench and rotten smell can be felt at a long distance.

Ye Yan didn’t mind the rats even with the stench. He could care less if snakes, scorpions, spiders, and beetles appear before him. However, he is hoping from the deepest of his soul that there is no cockroach in the mausoleum.

Ye Yan looked at the ground and decided to test it, thus he put some strength in his hand as he pressed the ground with it.

Soon, the ground began to fall apart as if it had been made of sugar and many wooden stakes could be seen in front of him from the left to the right wall, leaving no room for Ye Yan could walk over.

Luckily, the area is just about one meter long and Ye Yan can jump over it and continue on his way in the corridor. he just hopes that the trap ends there and when he touches the ground again, this is hard and normal ground and not another trap.

After jumping over and getting in the other side, Ye Yan breath a sigh of relief. However, it didn’t take too long for him have to jump again because he had touched a thin tripwire as soon as he put his other feet stepped on the ground.

The tripwire activated the crossbows hidden in the walls and it fires many bolts in Ye Yan’s direction.

Ye Yan jumped again and when he reached the ground, he readied himself to evade another trap but this time he was in a safe place.

After the second jump, Ye Yan had arrived at the entrance of another chamber.

He looked around in the dim light, trying to utilize every moment that the light was on to see as many details of the place as possible.

The light alternated between on and off every two to three seconds and Ye Yan has to take advantage of the few moments when the light is on.

When the place lighted after three seconds of total darkness, a big head appeared in front of him all of a sudden, like in horror movies scenes made to scare people.

However, Ye Yan was prepared because he had heard a very light sound of something approaching him.

It was another Agra Cadabra that was attracted by the light and maybe to the smell of fresh meat.

Ye Ya stepped to the side, evading the big head, and used his folding fan to slash against it. He stood under the monster’s neck to impossibilities the monster to attack using magic, and make it hard for the monster to reach him.

The battle was like the previous ones but this time he got to kill it faster than before. It happened not only because he stopped using the Agra Cadabra as a training partner but because he became proficient in this kind of battle and the way the monster attacks.

Ye Yan went around the chamber killing the beetles he found. Like in the previous chamber, there were only five Agra Cadabras in it.

When he killed the last one of the beetles, a golden light appeared in the middle of the room. After looking attentively at it, Ye Yan noticed that it wasn’t a treasure chest that pops out after he defeated the monsters as he hoped, but it was another type of monster that was sleeping in the middle of the room.

After Ye Yan killed the five Agra Cadabra, the sleeping monster woke up and his wings started to shine a golden light.

Ye Yan used the scroll to identify the monster and soon after dark line appeared on his face. He becomes speechless with the scientists’ creativity in naming animals’ specimens.

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[Colon Rectum] (Chieftan) [3]

Description: A poor, rounded fungus beetle with a golden color resembling a gold ore and that have done nothing to deserve such a name.

Level 10

HP: 2,000

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The golden beetle didn’t move. It just raised its wings and many balls of golden light appeared in front of them.

After only two seconds, the golden balls of light went in Ye Yan’s direction, trying to hit him.

Ye Yan dodged the golden balls but when he was thinking about closing the distance between him and the golden beetle, the boss was already casting another round of light balls.

…..

[1] Some critics believe that the astronomers Hsi and Ho did not simply fail to predict the eclipse but they were rebels and didn’t observe the sky in a kind of conspiracy against the Emperor.

[2] It is this author that has a hard time trying to understand what passed by some people’s minds when they had done that.

[3] This beetle with an unflattering name can be found worldwide and is one of the examples of how scientists can be a little too much creatives sometimes.