Ye Bai checked the other panel information and quickly confird that, apart from the rapid depletion of stamina, the 'unknown aura' buff currently had no other effects.
Turning back, she saw that the spatial rift they had co through had indeed disappeared.
That rift was a one-way passage—a result of the devil's unique nature and the soul-binding effect of its true na, allowing Alicio to traverse effortlessly. For Ye Bai to leave, she would need to find another spatial rift here, and even then, there was no guarantee it would take her back to the original layer of the Inferno.
Frowning at the situation, Ye Bai opened her backpack. Seeing that the Tracewater Droplet inside was still usable, she felt slightly reassured.
As a last resort, she could use the Tracewater Droplet to leave the Divine Realm directly—as long as she wasn’t in combat, it could always be activated.
Of course, using the Tracewater Droplet was a final asure, as returning to her territory afterward would an waiting for the Well of Trace to recharge before she could co back.
"See? I told you it was safe here," Alicio said at that mont, subtly observing Ye Bai's expression.
Ye Bai ignored it outright, instead sweeping her gaze across the surroundings to examine the environnt more carefully.
Before her lay a desolate island. The ground beneath her feet, unlike the black earth of the Inferno, was a pale, ashen gray with a fossil-like texture. Further out stretched endless deep-blue waters, while the sky above was shrouded in a gloomy, oppressive haze.
Just like the surface skies of the Divine Realm she had seen before, this space subrged beneath the ocean was eerily silent, a stark contrast to the vibrant vitality of the myriad realms.
The island appeared sizable, at least too large to see the other end at a glance. Ye Bai currently stood near the edge, close to the water.
With a thought, Alicio vanished.
She then turned to the Paperman and Autofis beside her and asked,
"Do either of you sense anything unusual?"
"Unusual?" The Paperman seed puzzled, showing no signs of sensing anything amiss.
Autofis, however, nodded in response before opening its mouth and making a gesture toward Ye Bai.
It was the sa motion it used when begging for bread.
The Paperman suddenly realized sothing through the 'information' it perceived from Ye Bai and Autofis. "A mysterious force has tainted you both. It seems to only affect beings with physical forms, which is why neither I nor that devil are affected..."
Ye Bai instinctively took out a piece of bread from her backpack and handed it to Autofis.
But unlike usual, Autofis didn’t happily gobble it down. Instead, it shook its head and took a step back.
Still confused, Ye Bai heard the Paperman deduce from Autofis's reaction: "Ah, I see now. This force... it's hunger!"
"Hunger?" Ye Bai was taken aback, but connecting the buff's effect—her rapidly depleting stamina—she quickly understood.
As a player, Ye Bai naturally wouldn’t feel physiological hunger in the ga, just as she wouldn’t in the Star Network. Even if the Star Network could simulate the taste and experience of food, it was purely for ntal satisfaction, never triggering real hunger signals.
Here, however, the effect bypassed the sensation and manifested directly in her stats—her stamina drained rapidly, warning her to replenish it with food. Hence, 'hunger.'
There were only three ways to restore stamina: sleeping, leveling up, or eating.
Sleeping here was impractical—resting in the 'wild' provided minimal recovery, far too slow to match the stamina drain. Leveling up wasn’t feasible either; even with the experience gained from defeating the golem and exploring the Divine Realm, Ye Bai only had enough to reach Level 43, which wouldn’t help much.
The only viable solution was eating.
Ye Bai checked her backpack. She currently had four and a half stacks of buttered bread.
As a refined mid-tier food, two buttered breads would normally suffice to replenish her daily stamina needs. She had brought so much mostly as snacks for Autofis, thinking it would be more than enough. Now, it seed insufficient.
She then tested walking forward and confird her suspicion—moving accelerated her stamina drain, which slowed again when she stopped.
This 'hunger' effect seed to amplify the stamina cost of all actions by a multiplier.
If that was the case, the most urgent task was finding a food supply to sustain normal activity here.
After all, Autofis was affected too. Though it was a peculiar donkey that only seed to eat bread (never the grass or fodder typical of its kind), Ye Bai couldn’t let it go hungry—the mysterious force here didn’t discriminate.
After so thought, Ye Bai decided to explore the island first, hoping to uncover useful information.
"Alicio Bal Croni..."
She summoned the devil again. With a look that said 'I knew it,' Alicio floated ahead to scout while Ye Bai and Autofis followed behind.
The island was eerily quiet. Aside from the sound of waves, Ye Bai heard nothing else. There were no plants, only the sa pale-gray rocky terrain as the ground.
She followed a classic spiral path, starting from the edge and gradually winding inward.
After nearly completing a loop, she estimated the island was roughly a kiloter in diater, shaped like a near-perfect circle. The terrain rose toward the center, culminating in a small peak.
Along the way, she encountered no other creatures—only fragnts of seashells and mollusks washed ashore by the waves.
This place showed no signs of land-dwelling creatures, making it unlikely to be the source of the seafood found in the Inferno Lord’s fortress.
Finding nothing of value on the outskirts, Ye Bai changed course and headed toward the central peak.
Halfway there, she suddenly halted.
Ahead stood a cracked stone tablet, inscribed with peculiar characters—their strokes dotted with nurous circles.
Ye Bai imdiately recognized it as Deepsea Script, one of the many languages the Paperman had transford into before.
Without a doubt, the presence of Deepsea Script ant this place bore traces of the Deepsea Clan, one of the Six Great Races.
Similar to the diverse and intricate categories of infernal creatures, the Deep Sea Clan boasts a wide variety of species. Well-known examples include rfolk, frogn, and various colossal sea monsters—any sentient beings of the deep ocean belong to this clan. They, too, have their own civilization and mastery of marine magic.
Typically, only the most powerful mbers of the Deep Sea Clan are capable of using and leaving behind the Deep Sea Language.
Ye Bai’s favorite pasti was discovering ruins—these were ready-made sources of experience points!
As she stepped forward to examine the site, a system notification imdiately appeared:
[You have discovered ‘Traces of the Deep Sea Clan.’ 20 History EXP, 200,000 EXP.]
[You have gained 2 proficiency in ‘Deep Sea Language.’]
Like the ancient dragonkin, structures inscribed with magical script were never ordinary among the Deep Sea Clan.
Ye Bai recalled the architectural blueprints of the Deep Sea Clan—their buildings lacked walls, often consisting of stone fraworks erected on the seabed, sowhat resembling open-air Roman structures. The type of stone monunt before her was never standalone; instead, they were arranged in circles to form functional complexes.
Continuing her exploration around the hillside of the island, Ye Bai soon found another stone monunt.
[You have gained 4 proficiency in ‘Deep Sea Language.’]
[You have discovered ‘Traces of the Deep Sea Clan.’ 20 History EXP, 200,000 EXP.]
After two consecutive discoveries, Ye Bai suddenly halted. Comparing this to her previous experience uncovering a dragon’s tomb, she sensed sothing unusual.
She realized that, thanks to her secondary profession’s effects, the EXP and language proficiency she gained from these ruins had doubled from their original values.
The revelation struck her like lightning. She opened her personal status panel and noticed her Stamina, which had been 135 when she ascended the hill, had now dropped to 83.
After accounting for the Stamina consud during the climb, Ye Bai calculated that the Stamina cost of her archaeological ability had also doubled.
But in exchange, the rewards from her excavations had doubled as well!
Ye Bai’s eyes lit up. What she initially assud was a negative effect of the unknown aura turned out to have an unexpected upside.
This was excellent news for her. While doubling the EXP required double the Stamina, the ruins’ stone monunts were finite. The doubled efficiency ant Ye Bai could extract greater gains from limited resources.
Archaeology in the Divine Realm was already her primary source of EXP, so this effect was undoubtedly more beneficial than detrintal.
Without delay, Ye Bai resud her exploration. Though it couldn’t compare to the dragon’s tomb, she still managed to uncover a total of twelve stone monunt fragnts within a 200-ter radius—so intact, others shattered or incomplete.
Finally, after exhausting her Stamina once and leveling up to 41, Ye Bai had ‘scanned’ every monunt in the vicinity. Combined with the 10 points of Deep Sea Language proficiency she’d gained earlier from paper figurines, her proficiency bar reached 100%.
[You have learned ‘Deep Sea Language.’]
[You have obtained the achievent ‘Friend of the Deep Sea.’]
The previously indecipherable inscriptions on the monunts now automatically translated before her eyes. She murmured the words engraved on the nearest stone:
"Great Ruler of the Ocean… Kraken…"
Simultaneously, another system notification arrived:
[You have discovered the ‘Ruins of the Sea God’s Altar.’ 200 History EXP, 2,000,000 EXP.]
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