Chapter 450: Chapter 448: Boundary Prairie and the Connective Mountain Range

[Reading Restrictions]

The “Plague Book,” a special type of book unique to the Source Epidemic Area and associated with the orgin of illnesses, may be formally granted to an individual, but there are still reading level restrictions involved.

These restrictions are directly related to the individual’s purity level of the disease.

Initially, individuals who received the Plague Book could only read the prologue. To access the official chapters, they need to increase their purity in relation to the plague*

*Purity refers to the concentration of the illness associated with the Source Epidemic Area within the individual,

such as the total number of a cancer patient’s tumors or the purity of pus,

the concentration of the Death Plague in real dead or the complexity of the bacterial bodies,

the number of iron chains on the monk, as well as hardness and the depth of pain, etc.

Purity can be enhanced by exploring, learning, and practicing along the path of illness, thereby gradually unlocking the subsequent content of the Plague Book to prevent skimming and to avoid exposing individuals to later content that they may not withstand.

However,

among all Source Epidemic Areas, the Mysterious Skin Factory is an exception.

Due to its special Old World industrial style, the Skin Factory imposes rather strict purity control over its Skin Slaves.

To increase purity, an individual must not only develop and study on their own and cultivate through their illness but must also rely on the high-grade skin provided by the Skin Factory to truly enhance their purity.

Therefore,

a Skin Slave, in addition to demonstrating their potential, must express absolute loyalty to the Skin Factory and make real contributions to be granted high-grade skin and to read the entire content of the “Skin Sack Bible.”

This approach by the Skin Factory undoubtedly strengthens the control over Patients, which is why those under the dominion of the Skin Factory are called ‘slaves’–comparing to individuals from other Source Epidemic Areas, it seems as if they bear an extra set of chains, limiting their freedom.

Ordinary Skin Slaves trying to read the “Skin Sack Bible” will find that the text of the official edition cannot be fixed; it continually twists and recombines, appearing in a state of living garbled code.

Only with the help of high-grade skin, connecting strands of garment thread to the back of the pages, can the maggot-like living text be stabilized and rearranged to yield correct and effective content.

Forcing oneself to read may result in side effects. A mild case leads to decay into a puddle of Skin muck; in severe cases, the individual is split into Skin fibers and becomes part of the book, touched and read by others for eternity.

Upon the swiftly racing Ascaris Car.

William was buried in the blackened Bible,

perhaps due to absorbing Skin Bag Guests and obtaining a small amount of high-grade skin,

the overall quality of his gentleman’s clothes had improved, allowing him to read the first chapter of the “Skin Sack Bible” official content. Although some texts were still blurry and twisted, there was no sense of obstruction, thanks to the reading ability bestowed by Madness Brain.

The content expounded above was an eye-opener for William, including the ‘regional skin transplants’ he had encountered in nightmares.

However, just as he was engrossed in reading and even wanted to try controlling the skin sack,

the Yellow Skin, who had been silent the whole journey, suddenly sent a message and even blocked his retina with a large number of yellow threads, preventing William from continuing his reading.

Since some of the texts and phrases in the “Skin Sack Bible” have not yet been fully stabilized, don’t force yourself to read. Even if your body is special and strong, it will still be affected invisibly.

Take a look at your current state for yourself.

On Yellow Skin’s warning, William immediately disengaged from reading and was startled on the spot–several parts of his body showed ‘wrinkled skin’ with some areas being extremely severe.

Although not as exaggerated as President Tailor. Spacy, it still looked obviously abnormal,

with an abundance of wrinkled skin hanging from the elbow, and over ten layers of wrinkled skin stacked at the lower end of the cheeks, making the person look as though they had aged several decades.

“Damn, can this yellow skin even be restored?”

Lowly, so lowly indeed. William… I didn’t expect you to actually care about something as useless as appearance.

But rest assured, since we are now in a symbiotic relationship, I will give you a bit of help… This level of deterioration won’t affect your soul. Just wait a moment, and I’ll restore you straight away.

I felt a yellow rag worm its way into my body, and as the rag passed over the wrinkled areas of the skin, the skin quality was immediately tightened and drawn in, even becoming finer than before, swiftly reverting back to that of a young twenty-year-old.

“For us humans, appearance is quite important, so thanks, yellow skin.”

We’ll now be officially getting in touch with the Skin Factory, pushing forward with the terms we agreed upon in our contract. Unless there’s a special circumstance, I won’t reveal myself, only providing basic support within the body.

After all, I’ve already been exposed at the Skin Factory once, with the Origin from the Dominion Factory having generated ‘memory cells’ that target me. If discovered, both of us would surely die.

“Hmm, just hide well, that’s fine.”

After continuing to sleep for an entire day, when waking up again, the parasitized waiter had returned to the carriage, signaling that the journey had reached its final stage.

“Respected Mr. William, we have now entered the peripheral region governed by the Skin Factory. Due to the ground being covered with skin sacks and grease, the car’s speed has been forced to adjust to 30%, and we will arrive at the final station–[Connective Mountain Foot]–in approximately two hours.

If this is your first trip to the Skin Factory, I suggest you open the window now to see the unique scenery outside.”

I stretched out my hand and pushed my fingers into the worm’s wall, then gently pulled it open, revealing a full panoramic window protected only by a thin, transparent worm membrane.

Before me was a plain paved with skin, known as [Boundary Prairie].

The skin area where the train was currently traveling appeared slightly old and wrinkled, corresponding to the condition of human skin in their fifties or sixties. And since this is a skin prairie, the ground naturally also has an abundance of hair follicle structures.

These hair follicles had diameters ranging from 0.5 to 3 meters, out of which grew robust “sweat hair trees,” a type of tree that is between black and white in color, with a spiky appearance. The tips would periodically secrete sweat to fill up the follicles and even spread over the surrounding skin, forming a lubricating protective layer.

The deeper I looked inward, the younger and more tender the skin appeared, and the smoother it was,

so much so that even the Ascaris Car frequently slipped and had to increase friction and reduce speed.

A “subterranean sun” produced by Light City wandered through the Boundary Prairie. Stimulated by the sunlight, the secretion speed of the sweat hair increased twofold, and the whole prairie was in a state of damp heat.

Yi Chen slowly moved his gaze toward the edge of the prairie, where towering mountains made of disordered connective tissues arose, known as the [Irregular Connective Tissue Mountain Range].

Nestled among the mountain range lay ample reserves of elastic fibers, collagen fiber mines, and rare hardened keratin ores, all indispensable raw materials for the Skin Factory.

The final destination of this journey, the Mysterious Skin Factory, was established amidst these mountains.

Strangely,

Whether on the Boundary Prairie or among the Connective Tissue Mountains, Yi Chen did not see any Skin Slaves or even other life forms… Due to the Duke’s instruction, Yi Chen also refrained from inquiring about any information regarding the Skin Factory from the Black Ascaris Company.

As the Ascaris Car stopped at the Connective Mountain Foot and the waiter cut open the door with a little knife,

a strong stench of blood instantly pervaded the nostrils of everyone, so much so that even the attendant was choked out of the worm’s body and hurried to cover their mouth and nose. William put the iron-chain mask back on again, using pinpricks to seal off his sense of smell and absorb the bloodiness with iron chains.

SSWilliam, something’s not right, be careful.SS

Even the usually composed yellow skin was starting to be vigilant.