Chapter Five: Numbers Filled in with Feet

He still didn’t dare to gamble, didn’t dare to believe he was truly that fortunate.

Just like any human, after being locked in a dark cell until breaking down, one would feel an overwhelming terror at the thought of entering such a cell again—even if it was no longer a dark prison but merely a narrow, ordinary room cloaked in darkness.

Unless one day he fully mastered the method of creating a white portal from the MC world to return here,

he would never recklessly bet on being able to use coordinate teleportation to escape this sealed zone in this new world.

After careful consideration, Fang Zheng switched from spectator mode back to creative mode.

“Flying in spectator mode is way too slow, and the view is obstructed; I can’t see the limits or tell when I’ll leave this area. Looks like I have to try creative mode first and see if I can find a way out.”

Thus, amidst the towering crimson-gold crystal mountain forged by the forces of slaughter, suppression, and refinement, the sounds of the Vermilion Bird’s chant and White Tiger’s roar—emanating from the runic chains of the law—suddenly rang out loudly once more. The incomplete Four Symbols killing formation, its murderous power reactivated, locked onto the suddenly appearing figure and began to violently surge and entangle it.

Amidst this turmoil,

thud, thud, thud…

Fang Zheng, trapped between two blocks of the crimson-gold crystal and unable to move, relentlessly swung his blocky arms through the model, smashing one crystal after another. His body inched forward slowly at the rate of one block per second.

After some digging, Fang Zheng carefully examined the increasing brightness around him. The texture was becoming less transparent, seemingly transforming from some kind of gemstone into a crimson-gold metal. This only deepened his frustration.

What irritated him most was that the crystal substance enveloping him, infused with increasingly dense and abundant runic chains, could not resist the strikes even in creative mode.

However, whenever he struck to create a gap in the block, the surrounding crimson-gold crystal would pause momentarily, then gush out a thick, molten-lava-like stream of runic chains. In the next instant, the crimson-gold energy would condense into crystal and swiftly seal the breach.

This meant that even if Fang Zheng quickly smashed open a two-block gap and squeezed in, it was like being buried under sand in MC—he would be trapped again by the rapidly healing crystal blocking him.

He had to repeatedly break the two blocks trapping him and the two blocks ahead, painstakingly advancing one block at a time.

---

“Digging is useless. If this keeps up, I might as well switch back to spectator mode and fly slowly.”

Fang Zheng scrutinized the space around him once again, sighing inwardly.

“I seem to have seen something like a spatial rift before, didn’t I?”

“If I throw an Ender Pearl into it, where would I be teleported?”

Initially, he intended to take a risk, but after a long search, he could find no sign of the spatial rift he expected.

“There’s not a single gap around me. I can’t even teleport by throwing an Ender Pearl.”

Fang Zheng paused his strikes, took a deep breath, and quietly reminded himself, “Stay calm, Fang Zheng! You’ve finally arrived in this new world. Keep your composure.”

“At least for now, this array-like thing doesn’t harm you, and in spectator mode, you can move freely—it can’t trap you.”

“Don’t be impatient or panicked. Take it slow, think carefully. There must be a faster way to break this blockade.”

“Even if I can’t find it, the worst is just spending more time flying in spectator mode. Eventually, I’ll get out.”

After smashing another block, Fang Zheng watched intently as the crimson-gold crystal erupted with runic chains, filling the gap.

“This seal blocking me is probably a kind of immortal cultivation world array energy.”

He keenly observed that as time passed, the crimson-gold crystals darkened, their initial brightness rising to a peak before gradually dimming.

This likely meant that the sealing crystals were transitioning from a high-energy excited state to a more stable one, with energy becoming more restrained, density increasing, and strength augmenting.

Recalling the fantasy cultivation novels he had read, this often indicated that as the crystal’s energy density rose, its activity diminished, and the sealing power intensified—until the imprisoned became like insects trapped in amber.

It was probably like molten metal gradually solidifying and reaching peak strength.

---

Meanwhile, Fang Zheng noticed that as he struck to create gaps, the surrounding crystal dimmed and the thick runic chains flowed out more slowly, but their texture grew more metallic, seeming more powerful.

He silently took several deep breaths to calm himself completely and began to review all the scenes he had witnessed since emerging from the Hell Portal, hoping to glean more useful information and find a way to escape.

Fang Zheng recalled, “The White Tiger and Vermilion Bird that attacked from the city wall—seeing them appear above the wall and then come before me took about two seconds.”

“If the White Tiger and Vermilion Bird didn’t use any grand spells to grow larger during their approach, but simply appeared smaller with distance and gradually grew larger as they neared me…”

He estimated roughly, based on the size of the fur between the pads on the White Tiger’s paws—using his modest math knowledge.

“If this White Tiger and Vermilion Bird never changed size, then judging by the exaggerated size of the fur on the White Tiger’s pads—hundreds of times larger than Mount Everest, roughly estimating…”

“The White Tiger’s height would be about 500 million kilometers, roughly equal to 359 suns lined up end to end. Its length from head to tail would be three times its height, about 1.5 billion kilometers, requiring approximately 1,077 suns placed side by side to reach that length.”

“In comparison, the Vermilion Bird, though blazing bright with flames, is much smaller—only slightly larger than the moon, about 3,600 kilometers tall…”

“If I strictly apply this size ratio, combined with the apparent size proportions of the White Tiger and Vermilion Bird on the city wall and the two seconds it took them to reach me, and use the visual angle formula ‘θ = 2 * arctan((d/2)/D),’ I can calculate the answer.”

“That enormous, terrifying city wall is about 700 light-years away from where I am now…”

“And the White Tiger and Vermilion Bird covered 700 light-years in about two seconds. Their average speed is 350 light-years per second, approximately 11 billion times the speed of light…”

“Huh?”

“Hmm???”