Darkness.
Then came the cold, hard sensation from below, accompanied by a thick, penetrating dampness that seeped through his thin clothes and stung his skin.
Hayato abruptly awoke from his daze, lurching up like a fish out of water. He was immediately seized by an intense, unprecedented headache and a churning stomach
"Ugh..." He gagged a few times but nothing came up. His entire skull felt like it had been put into a high-speed blender, with countless red-hot needles relentlessly piercing his brain amidst a sharp ringing in his ears.
This was far from a hangover; it was an almost physical agony, intent on shredding his consciousness completely.
Even more terrifying were the accompanying hallucinations and whispers.
Broken images—twisted tentacles, unnamable symbols, ancient blood-stained texts, and majestic palaces faintly visible in the gray mist—flashed uncontrollably before his eyes with suffocating speed.
Disordered screams and murmurs—in a language he couldn't understand yet could inexplicably grasp its horrific meaning—exploded deep within his soul, filled with insane temptations, malicious curses, and secret knowledge that made his sanity plummet.
"Aaaargh—!" He let out a painful, inhuman wail, clutching his seemingly-splitting head. His nails dug deep into his scalp from the force, causing a tiny sting that was completely swallowed by the greater pain.
A cold, damp touch came from his fingertips. He realized he was curled up in a narrow, darkalley.
On both sides were mottled brick walls, covered in dark moss and soot, towering and oppressive, leaving only a sliver of dimly-lit night sky above.
The air was thick with the heavy coal smoke typical of an industrial city, the sour stench of cheap alcohol, and a deeper, indescribable rotting smell, as if from a sewer or some decaying matter.
This was definitely not his warm, tidy university dorm!
"Where... where am I? What happened?" A great wave of panic temporarily overwhelmed the headache.
However, this instinctive thought of seeking answers acted like a key, violently unlocking an even more terrifying flood of memory.
A torrent of chaotic "knowledge" rushed in like a breaking dam, forcefully sweeping away his conscious mind.
This time, instead of vague illusions and whispers, it became fragments of information he could clearly "understand."
"The Twenty-Two Divine Pathways... Sequence Potion... The Acting Method... Be cautious! Be cautious! One wrong step leads to madness and destruction!"
"Do not look directly at a deity! Do not ask for a deity's name! Do not investigate secrets! Knowledge itself is a curse! It's poison!"
"Klein Moretti... Zhou Mingrui... Sephirot Castle... The Fool... The Trinity..."
"Tingen City... Blackthorn Security Company... Nighthawks... Old Neil... Dunn Smith..."
"Audience! Apprentice! Marauder! Seer! Gravedigger!..."
These names and concepts... they were from Lord of the Mysteries, the novel he had been staying up all night re-reading!
He was so familiar with them he could recite them from memory.
But now, this "knowledge" that he once found interesting and even fascinating had turned into the most malicious and terrifying curse in the world!
Each word he understood was accompanied by an even more surging spiritual pollution and an aura of madness, like countless invisible hands brutally twisting his perception and tearing at his soul, trying to drag him into an eternal, insane abyss!
He felt his brain boiling, his sanity screaming in protest as it was fried in hot oil, on the verge of completely snapping.
He was Hayato, a normal university student from Earth.
And now, he had not only transmigrated into the treacherous and maddening world of Lord of the Mysteries, but even more frighteningly, his biggest advantage—his "knowledge of the plot"—was rapidly pushing him toward loss of control and death!
"No... Stop! Get out! Get out of my head!" He desperately banged his head against the cold, damp wall behind him, making muffled "thudding" sounds.
He tried to use physical pain to cover up the erosion and pollution from his soul.
The shadow of death had never felt so real.
Just as he felt the last shred of clarity about to be swallowed by the endless madness and noise, as his consciousness was about to sink completely into darkness, a strange feeling quietly surfaced from the deepest part of his being.
It was an indescribable sense of "loftiness," a "status" intimately connected to his identity as a "transmigrator" that shouldn't have existed at this level.
It seemed to have been dormant there, and now, touched by this violent pollution and "malice" originating from the very rules of the world, it rippled slightly
It was as if a supreme being, asleep in the highest heavens, was disturbed by the death throes and noise of a mosquito at its feet, and subconsciously, indifferently cast down a single, insignificant "gaze."
A tremor beyond the scope of hearing, originating from the level of rules, echoed in the depths of Hayato's soul!
In an instant, the narrow alley, the pervading mist, the cold walls... everything in his surroundings quickly blurred and faded.
The insane knowledge and terrifying whispers in his mind were suddenly blocked by an invisible barrier.
While still present, they could no longer directly impact his precarious consciousness.
His "perception" was infinitely elevated and pulled away by an irresistible force, as if his soul had left his body and was floating in a vast web that no human language could describe.
Countless "roots" and "branches" made of pure light, flowing information, and materialized rule-runes extended, intertwined, and surged before his "eyes," forming a boundless network that covered all things and spanned all dimensions and planes.
It was the summation of rules, the ocean of information, the embodiment of the concept of "connection."
It was great, silent, and coldly unpredictable
He instantly "understood" what it was.
The Primordial Essence—The Root Web
This was not learned knowledge but a direct, conceptual, imprinted understanding.
His "transmigrator status"—this unique "anomalous coordinate" that was incompatible with the current world—had, in this world of dangerous knowledge and rule-based pollution, attracted a fleeting, almost instinctive "gaze" from this originally silent, great existence, like a supernova suddenly bursting in the night.
Following that, a stream of absolutely "clean," absolutely "orderly," and cold information, like the most precise machine code, was accurately injected into his soon-to-be-shattered core consciousness through that newly established, faint, yet critically important connection:
Then a ' "horse" ' voice sounded in his mind :
[Pathway Name: World Tree]
[Sequence Nine: Cartographer]
[Potion Recipe: 10 grams of Star Crystal Powder,.... 15 grams of powdered Hundred-Year Measuring Ruler Tree wood,.... 5 drops of Water Fern Grass juice,... mixed with 50 milliliters of water taken orally within a Spiritual Wall.....]
[Core Abilities: Precise Perception, Structural Vision, Rapid Mapping, Path Planning...]