I'm doing engineering in the instance.

He didn't disappear instantly.

The exit from the realm was not a black curtain falling, nor a scene switching; it was in a way he had not expected—the outline of the factory began to become unstable at the edge of his vision, like a blueprint that had been exposed to a damp environment for a long time, starting to curl up from the four corners. The lines at the edges blurred first, and then a larger area dissolved, but the middle part was still clear. The fluorescent lights that were still on, the floor of the corridor, and the concrete under his feet were still there.

He didn't struggle, didn't try to grab anything, he just stood there, watching the factory disappear into the interior from the outside.

The last thing to disappear was the light.

It doesn't all go out at once; it dims down one by one, starting with the few lights furthest away, one by one, until the nearest one, the orange emergency light, disappears last, and then it's completely dark.

Then there's the wrist.

On the inside of my left wrist, at location C-0047, I felt a warm sensation. It wasn't pain, but rather the kind of warmth that comes from something beneath the skin being activated. Then there was light, not from the outside, but emanating from within the skin—blue, even, like the faint glow of some liquid being heated and emanating through the walls of a container.

He glanced down at it, waited about three seconds, and let his eyes adjust.

word.

It wasn't the kind of pop-up window with numbers he'd seen before; it was text, as if written into his skin—thin, even, and neatly arranged. It was the format he'd seen in the output reports of some engineering software—data-driven, each line a conclusion, without context or commentary.

Overall Rating: SS Settlement Coins: 210 Items Acquired: 3 Exploration Progress: +50% Speedrun Bonus: Triggered

He doesn't like the format.

It's not that the content is problematic, it's the format—that's the logic of "data output," not "project report." He wouldn't accept this kind of report on the construction site.

He rearranged the numbers in his memo, using his preferred format:

Project Settlement Report

Project ID: #001 Project Name: On-site "Wasteland" Adventure Type: Beginner Level - Solo

Time taken to clear the checkpoint: 18 minutes and 47 seconds (Reference time: 45-55 minutes)

"Overall Assessment: Excellent (SS-level)"—He added a parenthesis after "SS-level": "(Rating criteria: 0 incidents / 4 rule discoveries / 4 / Complete reconnaissance / Complete equipment carried)"

Settlement Funds: 210 units Currency: Source Currency Exchange Rate: To be verified

"Props: Iron testing hammer (already in stock) / Engineering memo (activated) / Plant structure analysis report (archived)"

He first stopped at the line "Iron testing hammer (already in stock)".

The hammer was found in the factory workers' rest area—at the bottom of an abandoned locker, pressed in a dusty toolbox. The rubber handle was worn, indicating it had been used for many years. He carried it with him, tapping on three load-bearing walls, a pillar that appeared to have a crack, and two spots on the ground. It gave him every judgment he needed.

"In stock"—he touched his side; the hammer was still there, and its weight was real. But the handle was different: near the hammerhead, there was a fine groove about two centimeters long on the rubber surface. It wasn't wear and tear, but a marking, a functional one, he instinctively judged, though he didn't yet know what its function was.

The answer came from the palm of my hand—a slight warmth, and words appeared on my wrist, an extension of the checkout screen:

"Item: Iron Testing Hammer, Tier 1, Physical Equipment. Functions: ① Structural Diagnosis – When striking materials, sense the internal structural strength, crack direction, and location of voids; accuracy is positively correlated with the wielder's experience; ② Stress Linkage – When resonating with the talent 'Stress Concentration Sense,' the weak point identification radius is tripled, and the perception delay is reduced to zero."

He gripped the hammer; the hammerhead was slightly heavy, and the handle was warm, feeling exactly the same as when he used it in the Realm of Triumph.

On the construction site, he used a testing hammer to determine whether the concrete was hollow, whether the reinforcing bars had shifted, and whether the cracks had penetrated—he wore out four hammers in twelve years. Now this one has been activated; its function remains the same, but what he used to calculate based on experience has become a result that he can directly perceive.

In his memo, he wrote: "Iron testing hammer: Physical equipment, Tier 1. Its function highly overlaps with real-world tools, the difference being that its precision is quantified by the system. Talent synergy: Stress concentration sense (effect to be verified in the next field test)."

Xie Chengzhou paused on the words "Engineering Memorandum (Activated)".

He brought this memo book with him from the very first day he entered the site—not the one he found in the instance, but his own, the one he'd been using since that construction site in Africa, its cover worn, its spine cracked, containing all the records he'd written since day one. When he cleared Instance #001, it was recognized as an item by the system, entered into the results list, and its status was marked: "Activated."

He didn't explain what "activated" meant—because he didn't know.

The answer came a second later, in a way he had never expected:

A region in my brain appeared out of thin air.

It wasn't pain, it wasn't a flash of light, it wasn't any sensation he could categorize—it was just that a space had suddenly appeared in his consciousness, like a window had opened in his skull. Behind the window was darkness, but he knew there was something there, and that thing there was his.

He didn't move his hand or speak aloud, but he "thought" in his mind: open it.

The window is open.

He remained standing in the same spot, but a second image superimposed into his consciousness—not a hallucination, not a coma, but like two transparent sheets of paper stacked together: one was the real view of his current location, and the other was a space devoid of light, not large, with shelves and categories, and an entrance to "Create New Record" suspended in the center. On the shelves were all the records he had written since day one, every single one, every single page, without any missing entries.

He mentally wanted to write a line—he didn't actually do it, he just "wanted to write":

"Activation node: History #001 settlement. Status: Normal."

The words appeared. His own handwriting, his usual recording format, every stroke correct, but without any ink texture, just light, floating there.

Then a smaller line of gray text appeared in that space, the font slightly thinner than his, like a side note:

"Related Record: C-0047 First Consciousness Activation, Time Node: Realm #001 Settlement Period. Exclusive Equipment Binding Completed, Function Tree Now Open."

He read through the line of gray text. It contained everything that was already in his mind, only organized into a form he could read—the font was different from his own handwriting, and he couldn't quite pinpoint the boundaries.

He decided not to delve into this issue for the time being.

He mentally recorded each of the functional attributes:

"Exclusive Equipment Engineering Memorandum Function List: ① Consciousness Invocation - Can be triggered in any state, not limited by physical conditions, thought is enough; ② Consciousness Input - Think and record, automatically synchronized to physical pages, no need to write; ③ Deduction Assistance - Automatically generates related path notes during structural deduction (gray font, source boundary: fuzzy, to be verified); ④ Vulnerability Marking - Receives vulnerability intuitive marks, converting fuzzy perceptions into text anchors; ⑤ Memory Index - Historical records are permanently stored, support consciousness retrieval, not lost, and not readable externally."

Then he added a line:

"Note: ③ The gray text in the deduction aid section, is it my idea or something added to the memo? The boundaries are unclear. To be verified."

He closed the window of his consciousness. The second image disappeared, leaving only the field of vision of his current location.

He glanced down at the physical memo book beside him—the cover was worn, and the spine was cracked. He turned to the last page with writing on it; what he had just written with his mind was now on the paper. The ink was his own handwriting, indistinguishable from handwriting, even though his hand hadn't moved.

He pressed his thumb against the paper; the paper was real, and the handwriting was real.

This matter was more difficult to evaluate than he had anticipated. After thinking for a while, he decided to temporarily put its "philosophical significance" at the bottom of his priority list—there were still constitutive information fragments to analyze later.

Then he flipped back to the line "Factory Area Structure Analysis Report (Archived)".

"Archived"—these three words are different from "stored" and "activated." There's no heat, no physical presence, and no physical feedback whatsoever. He waited three seconds, but nothing appeared in his palm.

He tried to open the memo's data area in his mind—where there used to be only his own records, but now there was a new tab: "Archived Files #001".

He opened it.

It was a report—his data, but not written in this format. It integrated all his structural judgments, patrol route markings, hidden rule trigger locations, and material test results throughout the #001 scenario into a complete factory site survey file: floor plan, elevation markings, threat path diagrams, and weak point markings, formatted exactly like the "Building Status Survey Report" in formal as-built documentation.

He saw a line of fine print annotations at the bottom of the report:

"Access Permission: Holder Only. Trigger Condition: Automatic prompt when entering similar scenes (industrial buildings/abandoned factories/areas containing chemical storage); available all time when manually searching. Synergistic Talent: Deciphering Ruins - Similar scene structure recognition speed +15%."

On the construction site, for each completed project, a "Current Status Survey Report" is included in the as-built documentation—that's the last piece of evidence left behind for the project, proving that someone has been here, conducted an assessment, and documented it. This archived report follows the same logic, only its purpose has changed: it's not for archiving, but for the next site.

In his memo, he wrote: "Factory area structural analysis report: archived in the data area, formatted as a completion survey report, content is a system-integrated version of the full structural data of #001. Retrieval conditions: similar scenarios or manual retrieval."

Then he added half a sentence after that line: "A copy of this will be left at each site."

"Special Record: Constitutive Information Fragment ×1, Exploration Progress +50%"

He paused on the words "Stabilistic Information Fragments." Stereotype—he'd seen this term in the header of the first chapter's rule text, and also in the report title of the sixth chapter's filing cabinet, "Stabilistic Protocol," where he'd noted, "Meaning: The rule system behind the historical realm?" Now, the settlement interface was using it as a category term for reward items, meaning this term was indeed the official name of this system, not just his own guess. He updated the record in his memo: "Stabilistic: The rule system behind the historical realm, confirmed."

On the last line, he paused, then rewrote the original "Speedrun bonus: Triggered" as follows:

"Speedrun record: 18 minutes and 47 seconds - the shortest time to complete Adventure #001 in history"

He closed the memo and put it in his pocket.

The faint blue light on his wrist was still there. He waited a moment; it didn't disappear, it just remained, shining evenly, as if there was still something left to deal with.

Then he noticed something on the back of his hand.

It was blue, not the fluorescent blue, but a deeper, more transparent blue, as if the color of something had been condensed into points of light—not just one point, but many, about twenty or thirty, each about two or three millimeters in diameter, suspended about one centimeter above the back of my hand, drifting slowly and irregularly, like bubbles on the surface of some liquid, but they wouldn't burst, they just floated.

He turned his hand over and touched one of them with the tip of his index finger.

The light disappeared from his fingertips without any sound or resistance. Then he felt a brief warmth on the back of his hand, not hot, but warm, as if he had been lightly touched by something. A pale blue mark, about one centimeter long, appeared on his skin, glowing for about three seconds before disappearing.

He pulled his hand back and glanced at the back of it.

The mark is gone.

In his memo, he wrote: "Source Coin: Physical form is a blue light spot, which is absorbed upon touch, leaving a brief glowing mark on the back of the hand (approximately 3 seconds). Storage location: To be confirmed."

Then he touched all the remaining dots of light on the back of his hand, each time following the same process, leaving the same mark, and disappearing in the same way. After the last dot disappeared, there was nothing left on the back of his hand, and the blue glow on his wrist dimmed, and the number C-0047 returned to its quiet gray pattern.

He added a line to the memo: "210 Source Coins. Exchange rate to be verified."

Then he looked up.

─────────────────────────────

He stood in a place unfamiliar to him, not a factory, but a larger, noisier place where light and smells mingled. There were many people inside, moving around, sitting, or talking. He couldn't hear what they were saying, but he could tell one thing: there were many people here, and they, like him, had just come from somewhere.

He stood there for about thirty seconds, conducting the first round of visual assessment:

This is not a historical setting. There are no factory supervisors, no rule texts, and no threat identification markers he established in the historical setting. The lighting is natural, or near-natural, not the kind of lighting in the historical setting that serves some kind of rule logic. The density and flow direction of the crowd are random, not the purposeful spatial layout in the historical setting.

He wrote in his memo: "Scene #001 settlement complete. Current location: Unknown, tentatively named 'Transfer Layer'. Characteristics: Multiple people coexisting, not a scene, not reality, not a personal space. Judgment criteria: Random crowd movement, no threat markers, neutral lighting."

Then he closed the memo, put his hands in his pockets, stood there, and began to systematically observe the place.

This was the first time since he joined the system that he had stood in a space without rules or pressure, without factory supervisors, without countdowns, without ground that would trigger consequences, and without information that required him to make immediate decisions.

He wrote the last line in his memo: "Site completed."

He then closed the memo and began walking toward the center of this unfamiliar space.