Hell's Handbook

The Heart of a Traveler was a black gemstone that was only about the size of a pigeon’s egg. If you looked carefully at it, you would realize that the black color wasn’t the actual color of the gem but a wisp of black mist that kept swirling about on the inside of the gem, which made it look very mysterious indeed.

“What is the Heart of a Traveler?” asked Situ Jin curiously.

Wu Chen licked his lips and kept his eyes on the gem, as though he were afraid that it might grow legs and escape. He took a moment to sort his thoughts out, then said, “Over the past few years, in order to find out more about the various treasures required to revive the dead, I put a lot of time and effort into finding out more. As a result, besides finding out a lot about the items I was particularly interested in, I also understood more about other types of treasures.

“According to the way the Handbook classifies weapons and equipment, the Heart of a Traveler isn’t even as good as the lowest class of items. But… this item is able to fully metamorphosize during a special Challenge, and this is a Challenge that any owner would be able to use points to exchange for access to this Challenge.”

“What? You can exchange points for a Challenge?” Su Jin was surprised and Situ Jin looked equally stunned. Kano Mai, on the other hand, fell into deep thought.

Wu Chen nodded and said, “It’s called a Challenge, but it looks a lot more like a newbie tutorial. The owner will not be able to move at all throughout the Challenge and will only be allowed to move during the final minute before the Challenge ends. This is where the Heart of a Traveler comes into the picture.”

“You still haven’t told us exactly what sort of item this Heart of a Traveler is,” said Su Jin with a pained smile.

Wu Chen slapped his forehead. He was simply too excited. He said to Su Jin, “The Heart of a Traveler has a very simple use. It’s basically a single person inter-universe teleportation device.”

“What?” Su Jin was stunned as his eyes flew open and he grabbed hold of Wu Chen’s arm.

Wu Chen couldn’t endure the pain at all. His face paled and he yelled at Su Jin, “Ow ow ow! My arm’s going to break! My arm’s going to break!”

“Oh! I’m so sorry!” Su Jin apologized profusely to Wu Chen after quickly letting go of him.

Wu Chen smiled sadly, then said with a frown, “I heard that the leader of that organization of owner robbers has an item that can allow owners to travel from one universe to another. That’s how they managed to rise so quickly within our community, and that’s the main reason why they’ve been able to get so many owners to join them. The Heart of a Traveler is nothing compared to that item, since it only allows one person to travel. But that’s already very valuable in itself.”

Su Jin rubbed his palms and nodded gravely before turning his attention back to the Heart of a Traveler. For an item that couldn’t even make it into the lowest classification of items, this black gemstone was actually very expensive, since it cost 1,000 points. But if it was able to fully metamorphosize, then its value would be worth a hundred times more.

“It looks like an ordinary gemstone. Is it really that incredible?” Situ Jin was still doubtful.

Wu Chen explained, “To be honest, everything I said earlier is according to the information I gathered before. Whether it can really become such an item or whether it can still become such an item… is anybody’s guess.”

“Where did you get this information from?” asked Su Jin.

“I got it from a much more senior owner. He was once one of the best and most famous owners, but he eventually became tired of this life, so he exchanged his points for freedom from the Handbook. I met him half a month before he left the Handbook’s universe and got this information directly from him,” said Wu Chen in a serious tone.

The other three immediately had a look of admiration in their eyes when they heard it was a senior who had freed himself from the Handbook. It might not be difficult for some to survive one Challenge and there were also many who made it past the ten Challenge mark. But to survive enough Challenges to get out of this cycle was almost unimaginable.

It was very hard to save up points, after all. As owners went through more and more Challenges, owners would need more and more power along the way. Points were the currency for getting more power, which was why owners had to constantly use their points on large amounts of equipment, skills, tools, and more, even if they hoped to leave this place.

To accumulate 100,000 points meant that an owner had to collect several times more points in order to have this much leftover. In short, an owner probably had to earn a few million points in order to have an unused balance that was sufficient for leaving this place.

Besides needing points, the owners needed to want to leave too. Many of them didn’t want to leave anymore after experiencing the powers that the Handbook could give them.

“That’s really amazing. He actually managed to get out of this place. What happened to him in the end?” asked Su Jin after giving some compliments.

Wu Chen snorted. “What else could possibly happen to him? After he lost the support of the Handbook, he became much weaker than before. He was hacked to pieces by his enemies three months later.”

Everyone’s eyes widened. They didn’t expect such an ending for that senior.

Su Jin laughed and shook his head after thinking about it for a moment. “That sounds about right, though. Which famous owner in the Handbook’s universe wouldn’t end up with a pile of enemies? Without the aid of the Handbook, one would be greatly weakened. Getting killed by your past enemies shouldn’t come as a surprise.”

The others fell silent. All of them had their own reasons for remaining as owners, but all of them did hope that they could get out of this cycle one day. They were dismayed to hear that one who actually made it out of this cycle ended up this way.

“Let’s not think about such things now, since they’re not useful to the current situation. What must we do in order for the Heart of a Traveler to metamorphosize?” Su Jin asked Wu Chen after he emptied his head of all these negative thoughts.

“It’s very simple. When the Challenge is about to come to an end and the owner is able to move freely, you just need to throw the Heart of a Traveler into a spring, then pull it out again,” explained Wu Chen.

“That’s it?” They were all a little surprised.

Wu Chen nodded. “It sounds simple, but if you didn’t know about this beforehand, you wouldn’t throw a seemingly useless gemstone into a spring and take it out again.”

They nodded in agreement, but they also started wondering why that senior had done such a thing back then. But it wasn’t the time to make wild guesses now. Su Jin spent 1,000 points on the Heart of a Traveler, and so did Wu Chen, Situ Jin ,and Kano Mai. An item that could teleport one from one universe to another was extremely rare after all. And if they got into trouble in their own universe, they could use this to escape to another one.

Besides that item, there was nothing else worth exchanging for in the catalog. Su Jin gave Inverted Scales, the Guiding Object for completing the Challenge perfectly, to Wu Chen. Wu Chen had learned some magic and the short Challenge wasn’t enough for him to learn everything there was. This Guiding Object was perfect for him to return to the world of dragons to learn more.

Wu Chen’s face lit up when he saw the Guiding Object. He hadn’t been able to learn much from the short time he had with Fabian, so it was good for him to return right now and continue learning.

The other three exchanged their points for personal training and went separate ways. Before this, they could help to train Situ Jin together, but now that Chu Yi was gone, this activity had become meaningless and nobody was interested anymore.

After leaving the training area, Su Jin got himself a hot towel and put it over his face before letting out a long sigh of relief. His time in the Handbook was a very short time in the real world, but it felt like a long journey to him.

Kano Mai returned to the real world at almost the same time as him. She had a special way of relieving stress, which was to cook all sorts of delicious food. While satisfying her own appetite, Su Jin benefited from living in the same house as her.

After they finished a sumptuous meal, they said goodnight to each other and went to bed. Time passed by just like that until seven days later. Kano Mai suddenly came to Su Jin with an upset look on her face.

“Mai, what’s wrong?” asked Su Jin concernedly. It was clear from her expression that something bad had happened.

Search tinyurl.com/2p9emv8w for the original.

She hesitated for a while, then said quietly to him, “Something… something’s happened back home, so I have to go back for a while.”

“Back home? You mean your home in Japan?” He was quite surprised to hear this. He had been living under the same roof as Kano Mai for about a year now, but he had never heard her mention anything about her home back in Japan.

Kano Mai nodded. Su Jin nodded and noticed that there was a suitcase next to her. She was already prepared to leave. But the more she behaved this way, the more Su Jin felt that it wasn’t right to let her go back all by herself.

“Mai, what happened? Can you tell me exactly what happened?” Su Jin tried his best to make his expression look gentler.

She hesitated for a while, but perhaps because she trusted Su Jin, she nodded slightly and said, “It’s like this. My family is a very influential family in Japan and we own a lot of assets. My grandfather just passed away and… and before passing away, he arranged for me to marry someone. I need to go back and settle this.”

“An arranged marriage?” Su Jin’s eyes widened. He didn’t expect such a thing to be still around in this day and age. Even the rural areas in this country had already stopped doing this. He was surprised that the modern city Kano Mai was from still practiced this.

He held his emotions back and asked, “What are your thoughts?”

“Me? I don’t know. But since it’s arranged by my grandfather, I have to handle it properly. After all… Grandpa was the one who saved my life back then,” said Kano Mai with a sad smile.

Su Jin was getting confused. Did this mean that she was actually thinking of returning and getting married? It would have been alright with him if that man was someone she was truly in love with. But this was an arranged marriage with someone she had never seen before and she was seriously just going with it? That wasn’t the Kano Mai he knew!

“Are you serious? You’re just going with it? Mai, that’s not the sort of person you are,” said Su Jin.

Her gaze dimmed and she said in a low voice, “What else am I supposed to do? I heard that this was the last instruction Grandpa gave before passing away. Unless… unless I can find a better boyfriend than the man he’s arranged for me to marry, I don’t have any good reason to turn down this arrangement.”

“Why do you need some other reason? You don’t like the man and that’s a good enough reason! I don’t think there’s anybody in the world who can force you to do something you don’t want to! They haven’t asked me either!” said Su Jin with his eyes bulging.

Kano Mai was stunned by his reaction before her face reddened in anger. “And why should they bother asking you? Who are you to me anyway?!”

“Take it that I’m your older brother! Will that do?!” Su Jin yelled back.