Chapter 9

Taking out the thick dictionary, Zhao Mai didn’t care about the grammar, and simply used the words strung together to finally be able to communicate with the ranger Karl.

"From another world, right? How dare you come out without even knowing the common language." Karl kept talking incessantly, and Zhao Mai tried hard to listen, even if he couldn’t understand much, he still wanted to get familiar with the pronunciation and tone of this language. Although the dictionary had phonetic annotations, and even used pinyin in a considerate way, every language has its unique aspects, which can only be discovered by listening and speaking more.

Even though he couldn’t understand anything, it didn’t stop Zhao Mai from parroting. At first, he could only grasp one or two key pronunciations, but soon he could follow half a sentence intermittently, and after a while, he could achieve about seventy percent similarity. Such a learning speed had never been seen before, possibly due to the穿越 (穿越 means "穿越" in Chinese, which can be translated as "穿越" or "穿越" in English, but in this context, it means "穿越" or "穿越" which refers to the act of traveling to another world or dimension), or perhaps because he felt the pressure of survival, or more likely because he finally encountered something he was interested in.

Take English, for example, memorizing words is always boring, but playing games is different. The words learned through various RPG games account for more than half of his vocabulary. If he viewed the穿越 (穿越) as a game, he could relax, focus, and thus unleash an astonishing enthusiasm for learning.

Humans are a highly adaptable species, and in the fantasy world, they are "versatile." In game terms, humans can have one more specialty and one more skill than other races from the start. This is a general representation, and when applied to each individual, there will be differences. For example, "Chinese people are good at math" doesn’t mean everyone can score high in math.

This isn’t a soul transfer to a game world where you can just open the skill interface, put points into the "linguistics" skill, and instantly learn a language. There is no main god here, and no system to "enlighten" people. Zhao Mai knew that success might require the right opportunity, but there was definitely no shortcut. Therefore, after meeting Karl, he learned like a sponge absorbing water, to quickly adapt to this world.

Karl is a forest ranger who has spent most of his life in the forest, occasionally returning to the village where he was born. His duty is to protect the "Healthy Forest" behind him, preventing fierce monsters from the distant wilderness from settling there and attacking the nearby peaceful villages.

At the southern end of the Healthy Forest is a town called "Nibo," primarily an agricultural town where humans make up the majority, followed by dwarves. Karl’s mother is from Nibo, and his father is a half-elf, the previous generation of forest rangers. Nibo is very open and prefers a tolerant attitude towards others, so there are no taboos against interracial marriages. If not for this, Karl’s parents would have had no chance to be together. This attitude also influenced Karl. When he saw the iron lump fall from the sky and kill the chimera, and then a black-haired, black-eyed strange human walked out, his tolerant attitude prevented him from immediately aiming and shooting.

However, he remained vigilant, keeping his ears perked to listen to Zhao Mai’s movements, and his hand never more than a foot away from his weapon. From the current observation, the "heavenly visitor" was very honest, focusing on learning to speak and showing no signs of malice.

He thought for a moment and decided to test him. He waved his hand to call Zhao Mai over and casually threw him a dagger. Zhao Mai was startled, fumbling to avoid the dagger, and then picked it up from the ground. Reaching out to grab a flying knife in the air usually ends in injury or even disability. Without martial skills, one should never show off, and Zhao Mai was more careful than anyone.

This wasn’t a life lesson, but a habit formed from playing games. Many games have a "survival" mode, which, though vastly different from real survival, still has the core essence of "dying easily if you’re not careful."

In college, a classmate once joked that if he were to travel to the Tang or Song dynasty, he could do this and that with his skills. Zhao Mai laughed at him, "Don’t think about doing this and that. In an era without penicillin for tetanus and without vaccines for rabies, first consider how to survive childhood."

Now it was his turn to travel, and he was naturally cautious. This had nothing to do with a lack of adventurous spirit, but was a necessary prudence. Knowing what he could do and doing his best was the most important rule for survival. On this basis, he would learn, understand what he should do, and how to do it most reasonably.

Karl gestured for him to cut up the chimera, preferably skinning the entire hide. Zhao Mai tried, and found that the knife in his hand could cut through the subcutaneous fat of the chimera, but was useless against the tough skin covered in scales. After a while, he gave up on using the dagger and returned to digging out the chimera’s claws.

Karl didn’t come to help, dragging the wild boar to the lake and cleaning it with lake water. Zhao Mai’s instant reaction was genuine; he had no martial skills, and his threat was negligible. So Karl confidently took out flint and iron, ignited the prepared dry grass, and added branches to slowly build a fire. The skinned pork was skewered on a thick stick and roasted over the fire. He was sure Zhao Mai had no ability to steal the roasted pork.

Before long, the smell of roasted wild boar wafted into Zhao Mai’s nose, causing his stomach to rumble. Apart from a few cookies he ate at midnight, Zhao Mai hadn’t eaten anything since he set out in the car and traveled through. He was now extremely hungry. He looked at Karl, who had no intention of offering him food, just focusing on roasting the fresh pork.

He was even hungrier and decided to eat a chocolate bar. This might be valuable in another world, but conserving energy for work was more important. So Zhao Mai stopped working, got into the car, and rummaged through his luggage, his eyes naturally falling on the car’s electronic clock.

The current time displayed was 8:13 AM, which was completely different from the midday sun outside. Time zones are normal, but the second hand on the car’s electronic clock was clearly off.

Zhao Mai trusted his biological clock; he knew exactly how long a second was. In his mind, thirty seconds had passed, but the car’s clock had only moved one second, a difference of thirty times. The car’s clock was accurate in his hometown, and its internal mechanisms were not affected by the outside world, so the time flow rates on both sides must be different?

If he spent a month here (assuming a month here is also thirty days), then only one day would have passed at home? Zhao Mai originally planned to bring some rare things back—chimera skin would be a good choice—but knowing that time was more abundant, he could do more things?

With time, plus his head full of creative ideas, and not lacking in diligence and resilience, how could he not become a towering figure? If he still couldn’t succeed, he should be ashamed and suffocate himself with exhaust fumes.

Another world, I’m here to plunder you!

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