Chapter 1

"Ha ha, finally there's hope!"

Looking at the crystal cube of a milky white jade color in front of him, Xu Tianming let out a surprised exclamation.

To be precise, since the beginning of the year when the company went on a group trip and found this treasure in a patch of weeds, Tianming had felt that this object was extraordinary.

Why did he think so?

Firstly, from its appearance, the cube was spotless, covered with various mysterious runes, which were profound and unfathomable.

The cube was perfectly cubic, with each side measuring 12.6 cm. It weighed about 0.5 kg, very light, making Tianming think it might be some kind of plastic, but the special texture of its surface made him abandon this idea. Moreover, Tianming came to an important conclusion: the cube was definitely hollow, as when he tapped its shell, he could faintly hear some echoes inside.

In addition, the cube was sealed, with no seams on its surface.

Thus, Tianming, who deeply felt that this small cube was a treasure, initially only did some surface-level work, observing its chemical composition and some physical properties, but ultimately came to the conclusion that there was "no way to proceed."

Three days after bringing the cube back to his rented apartment, Tianming bought sulfuric acid, caustic soda, wrenches, pliers, and other dangerous items and various tools, preparing to finally uncover its secrets.

It couldn't be cut by a knife, dissolved by acid or alkali, or damaged by stepping on it!

This was the conclusion Tianming reached after several days of research.

It seemed that Tianming had no way to deal with this small cube.

This only deepened Tianming's belief that the small cube was a treasure.

An extraordinary object must have its extraordinary aspects. I will definitely discover the secret of this cube! Tianming secretly resolved.

After a few days of life influenced by the mysterious cube, it returned to normal. Tianming, who had temporarily given up, decided to study this treasure slowly in the future, as he had plenty of time.

Thus, every day after work, Tianming returned to his rented apartment as quickly as possible, held the treasure in his hands, and collected various information online to study its origin.

Half a month later, on a certain forum, everyone unanimously concluded that it was a glass object, a mysterious puzzle, or some kind of craft, which disappointed Tianming. However, a netizen's comment, "It is a mysterious multidimensional space crystal," made Tianming's eyes light up.

Time is the greatest enemy of interest. Despite his painstaking research and the collection of various information, Tianming still couldn't uncover the secrets of the mysterious cube and returned to his previous life as a shut-in, playing games, reading novels, and watching anime.

The only new habit he added was to play with the mysterious cube before going to bed and place it beside his pillow, which significantly improved his sleep quality.

Who would have thought that on a certain night three months later, Tianming, in his sleep, faintly heard some strange sounds.

They sounded like wind, flowing water, and echoes from a vast, empty valley.

Clear, tranquil, vast, and soothing to the heart.

Tianming woke up, and as soon as he opened his eyes, he saw the mysterious cube beside him, which was emitting a faint glow in the dark night, illuminating his face.

Holding the treasure to his ear, he listened for a long time but couldn't hear the sounds he had heard in his dream.

"Ah," he sighed.

Unable to sleep, Tianming played with the mysterious cube in his hands, getting closer to observe the mysterious runes on its surface. The runes were as small as ants, densely packed, with very little space between them, making it hard to discern their meaning and differences without getting close.

Although he couldn't understand the meaning of the runes, it didn't dampen Tianming's enthusiasm. Thus, every day around 3 a.m., Tianming, who had developed the habit of being woken by strange sounds, would get up on time, sit by the bed, and study the mysterious runes from 3 a.m. to 5 a.m., for two hours every day.

After a long time, several months later, Tianming made some initial discoveries.

Although the number of runes exceeded ten thousand, under his careful observation, he found that all the runes were actually composed of 18 different basic runes. All ten thousand runes were combinations of these 18 basic runes.

"Originally, the runes on the cube weren't as complex as I thought!"

Thinking about this, Tianming was extremely excited.

When Tianming began to ponder the specific meanings of these 18 runes, one night, he made a shocking discovery.

He could actually manipulate the runes, which were originally impossible to change, to move.

It was a mystical and dreamlike feeling. A rune similar to the character "之" (zhi) moved slightly under Tianming's mental control.

For a moment, Tianming even faintly saw a thread of consciousness extending, binding the rune and moving it to where he wanted it to go.

Six months after obtaining the mysterious cube, it underwent a fundamental change! Tianming rearranged the 18 basic runes on the cube in various ways. When he moved a large number of runes similar to the character "大" (da) to one of the six faces of the cube, the cube was no longer a cube. The face with the "大" runes increased in area.

When the opposite two faces had "大" runes on one and none on the other, the cube began to resemble a pyramid, which was very magical.

At first, Tianming could only move 10 runes per day, but after half a month, he could move 100. Now, Tianming clearly felt his consciousness growing stronger, and after short breaks, he could move any rune without limit.

Of the 18 runes, 16 could change the cube's size, color, transparency, and other properties. Each rune had a corresponding opposite rune, such as "小" (small) for "大" (large), "反光" (reflective) for "透明" (transparent), "黑色" (black) for "白色" (white), "消失" (disappear) for "固化" (solidify), etc.

The only ones left were a pair of runes that looked like the Chinese characters "元" (yuan) and "口" (kou).

These two runes appeared only twice among the ten thousand runes, unlike the others, which were numerous and repetitive. Tianming spent a long time identifying these two runes from the many others.

He could identify them because these two runes were a different color from the others.

One pair of "元" and "口" was light green.

The other pair was dark gray.

Very special and rare!

"Could these runes be the key to entering the mysterious cube?" Tianming's mind suddenly became clear, and he realized.

After arranging the "元" and "口" runes in various ways, Tianming didn't observe any special changes.

Until one day, after hundreds of failures, Tianming conducted a clearly different experiment.

The "元" rune was slightly smaller than the "口" rune. Could he drag the "元" rune into the "口" rune to form a new rune? Tianming thought.

Although there had never been an overlap of runes before, Tianming still made a new attempt.

Slowly, the "元" rune approached the "口" rune, touched, began to merge, partially penetrate, overlap, and succeeded!

A new "园" rune was successfully formed.

"Yeah! I knew it would be like this." Tianming excitedly waved his fist.

Suddenly, a mysterious suction force came from the newly formed rune.

The cube trembled slightly, and a mysterious beam of light shot towards Tianming's forehead! It didn't give him time to react.

The light instantly entered Tianming's forehead!

"Bang!"

The cube fell to the ground, making a "sizzling" sound.

At this moment, Tianming was completely unaware.

A beam of light called "the Light of Law" entered Tianming's brain, and in an instant, Tianming entered a mysterious and ethereal space, seeing countless rune spirits dancing before him, displaying their charm. Gravity, time, space, mass, repulsion, attraction... the principles of various laws were presented before him, teaching him the knowledge of various laws.

He suddenly understood.

However, this phenomenon lasted for less than half an hour, and Tianming, overwhelmed by the massive influx of information, his consciousness exited the space of laws and fainted on the floor.

An hour later, Tianming slowly got up from the floor, shook his head, and dispelled the discomfort in his mind.

"Click," Tianming snapped his fingers.

A miraculous scene appeared; a strange crack appeared in front of Tianming, and a 10 cm gap was quickly filled with endless darkness, and the crack disappeared.

"Too bad, so many laws, but I only understood the 'space' law," Tianming said regretfully.

"But with this less than 1 cubic meter of law space, I can do a lot of things."

"From now on, this will be my trump card!"

"Hey, where's my treasure cube?"

Tianming quickly picked up the cube that had fallen into the corner by the wall. The sizzling sound continued, and he clearly felt that the cube was drawing air from the environment.

It was clearly a significant atmospheric pressure suction effect. Tianming wondered what kind of world existed inside the mysterious cube.

Tianming didn't rush to open the passage inside the cube, even though he had already understood the method to enter after comprehending the space law.

He separated the "园" rune, closing the rune passage, and the airflow sound immediately disappeared.

By now, Tianming had at least understood three points from the space law.

1. The small cube contains a small space, possibly another world.

2. Before going to another world, some preliminary preparations should be made before starting the exploration.

3. This small space can only belong to me, and no one else should know about it.

On November 6, 2015, in a regular 5-story single-person rental in the 6th street of Tianling District, Suzhou City, an unknown event occurred. Xu Tianming, a citizen of H country, possessed a mysterious cube and obtained a supernatural ability from it. This would have been a shocking piece of news, but out of the principle of being low-key in life and high-profile in work, Tianming privately decided not to make it public, and he hoped the media would understand...

In the manager's office of Dingxing Software Technology Co., Ltd.

"Xu Tianming, can you explain why you want to resign?" Manager Li asked regretfully.

As the company's most outstanding UI designer, Tianming had been with the IT company for 6 years, from his university internship, and had outstanding technical skills, bringing in millions of dollars in revenue for the company. To be honest, Manager Li really didn't want Tianming to leave.

"There's no particular reason, just that I'm a bit tired recently and want to take a break. I hope Manager Li understands."

"I can give you a month of paid leave, and when you return, I'll give you a 20% raise."

"Thank you, Manager Li, for your consideration, but this time I need to take a six-month leave to travel around the country, and I don't plan to work during this period," Tianming said firmly.

"Is that so? Alright then. Tianming, if you find it uncomfortable in another company, the position of Technical Director at Dingxing is still yours."

Manager Li still thought Tianming was going to switch to another company.

"Thank you, Manager Li, I will."

Walking out of the company building, Tianming shook his head, looked back at the place he had developed some feelings for, and said, "Xu Tianming, I am finally free!"

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