Chapter 1

Where... where is this...?

With a somewhat bewildered expression, Zheng Chen stood stiffly, gazing into the distance. He had just closed his eyes for a moment to rest, and now the scene had suddenly changed. Strange birds were circling overhead.

Lifting his head to notice the giant bird, Zheng Chen slightly crouched down, becoming a bit more cautious. There was nowhere good to hide around him, and the bird probably wouldn't suddenly swoop down, right?

The strange bird seemed to be just curious. After circling for a while, it chose a direction and flew away.

Relaxing his defensive stance, Zheng Chen continued to observe his surroundings. Clearly, this was not a place he was familiar with. Looking at his hands, the calluses that had formed were gone.

The scars on his body had also disappeared, and the clothes he was wearing, which he was familiar with, seemed... particularly fake.

"Is this a dream?" Zheng Chen murmured, then shook his head. If it were a dream, it wouldn't feel so real. After examining the marks on the ground, he followed two faint tracks.

The tracks were likely left by some kind of vehicle. The fact that they were still visible meant that someone had passed through here not long ago. This was enough; he didn't need to choose a specific direction. Whether he followed the direction they were heading or the direction they came from, he could find people... right?

As he moved forward, Zheng Chen continued to assess his current state. Apart from his appearance, all the extra marks on his body had disappeared, as if he had been reborn.

This was not a normal situation. The sudden and inexplicable changes made him quite uneasy. Apart from these changes, he didn't feel anything else was wrong.

So, why did he suddenly appear here?

Suddenly, Zheng Chen flipped to the side behind a makeshift cover made of a few large rocks, watching the distance with caution. There didn't seem to be anything unusual at the horizon...

However, Zheng Chen still didn't act rashly, remaining hidden and staring intently at the distant black line. Soon, a large shadow appeared from the black line.

A group of wolves, each over two meters tall, came into view. After a quick calculation, Zheng Chen shook his head slightly. These wolves were not like the ones he had encountered before. Without the advantage of terrain, he could only handle three or four in this wilderness.

The wolves were approaching in a group, clearly not concerned with any sense of fairness. If they sent three or four to challenge him individually... facing these enhanced wolves in a group, he wouldn't even have much of a chance to fight for his life.

Feeling his waist, Zheng Chen sighed. Even dealing with one or two would be stressful. All his equipment and weapons were gone, which significantly reduced his combat capabilities.

Even a small knife would be better than being unarmed.

Rocks?

Glancing at the pebbles at his feet, Zheng Chen's lips twitched slightly. They were all quite smooth, and finding a sharp one would be difficult. As long as he didn't reveal his presence, there was little chance of anything going wrong.

He sniffed his sleeve lightly; he didn't have any distinctive smell, and the wolves weren't targeting his location.

Sometimes, bad things happen in difficult situations. The wolf pack suddenly changed direction and moved directly toward Zheng Chen.

"..." Zheng Chen's face stiffened again, pressing himself against the large rock. His breathing rate quickly slowed down.

Choosing to run at this moment would be the most irrational decision. As soon as he showed himself, the wolves would notice him. Running on two legs against four would be futile.

If he had a vehicle, Zheng Chen wouldn't mind trying it in a crisis.

As the wolf pack approached, Zheng Chen's heart raced, but he quickly suppressed it. He focused on his surroundings, moving his eyes slightly. There was no wind, which was a neutral factor, neither helping him nor the wolves.

After changing direction, the wolf pack suddenly changed course again, this time not moving slowly.

They must have found something.

Watching the wolves disappear into the distance, Zheng Chen waited a bit longer before emerging from his cover. At the place where the wolves turned, the wheel tracks on the ground were covered by a large number of paw prints, but the tracks still showed a change in direction.

"Unfortunate."

Shaking his head, Zheng Chen put aside his sympathy and turned around without hesitation. He confirmed that this direction was the one the unknown people had taken.

Even if it led to a dead end, it wouldn't matter. He was alone and couldn't do much against a large group of aggressive wolves, especially since he still had many things to figure out.

For example, how did he end up here...?

The wilderness here was vastly different from what he knew. The sky was clear, the air fresh, and it was far better than what he was used to. It felt like a story from a book, which is why he had the feeling that everything was a bit fake.

How to describe it? It felt like a dream.

As he walked, he recalled the past. In his memory, Zheng Chen's world was terrible. According to the stories told by the elders in the settlements, the world was not always like this.

Back then, the world was prosperous and peaceful, with a large population and diverse technological developments, the most outstanding being the 'internet.' The elders also mentioned that young people like Zheng Chen were particularly fond of games, novels, and anime...

Most of this knowledge came from the elders. In his world, most people were busy surviving, including Zheng Chen himself. The elders also needed to survive, so listening to their stories required payment.

The price was not low, as there were few people interested in such knowledge, and those who were willing to pay a bit more for it.

Why his world became this way, Zheng Chen didn't know. The world had always been like this as far as he could remember, and it hadn't changed much as he grew up.

The elderly didn't know either; they only knew what their elders had told them.

Zheng Chen was quite interested in the history of the prosperous era. When he had free time, he would pay extra attention to it. He wasn't wealthy, so he couldn't always go to the elders to listen to stories.

He mostly had to discover things on his own. Thanks to some predecessors who wanted to preserve culture, he found many things during his explorations.

He also learned a good term that accurately described his world: wasteland.

His energy was limited, and Zheng Chen couldn't be knowledgeable in every aspect. Due to time, the things preserved in various places were either already discovered or eroded by time, so there wasn't much to learn.

Besides the stories told by the elders, there was a more expensive form of entertainment called 'movies'... He had endured watching a few, one of which was only about twenty minutes long and was just a fragment of a story.

The people in the movies were too special... Do women have such big eyes? Apart from that, the incredible powers displayed were quite shocking, but it was just a strange movie.

The rest was normal; the people were still people, without any special powers. They were just generally good at fighting and seemed overly righteous. After all, it was just a movie, so there was no need to take it too seriously.

Then there were games. In the documents he found, most games were played on computers.

It wouldn't be like this now; entertainment games were just card games or simple children's games.

The prosperity of the past had long been replaced by the wasteland. Zheng Chen didn't know when humans would return to the prosperous era described in the documents, and he didn't think he would see it in his lifetime.

For a while, he had considered learning from the elders and surviving by telling stories... Yes, this was much better than struggling in the wasteland. Apart from the safety of the settlements, other places were not safe.

However, he thought it was a bit unfair to compete with the elders. He would consider it when he was their age. After that... he inexplicably appeared here from a temporary resting place, and all the equipment he carried had mysteriously disappeared.

"Strange place." Seeing no signs of the wasteland, Zheng Chen continued to follow the tracks on the ground. In his world, there were few safe places, especially outside the settlements. Falling asleep carelessly could be fatal.

This was why he could instantly open his eyes when he sensed something was wrong. His things were gone, taken by someone? His body felt like it had been reborn, but who did this? He had many questions.

He didn't find the starting point of the wheel tracks, but he saw a group of people dressed strangely, like the armor he had seen in movies. The documents he found also mentioned this, suggesting they were from an ancient era before the prosperous times.

They also noticed Zheng Chen and approached him. He narrowed his eyes slightly; he didn't sense any malice from them, but his reaction was instinctive. In the wasteland, there were no such 'friendly' people.

Approaching so directly... Well, generally, they were just reckless and looking for trouble?

"Huh? This guy has no attributes? Oh? Not a player?" The group of strangely dressed people gathered around Zheng Chen, who looked somewhat bewildered.

Player?

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