Starting with the frog, he has ruled for eternity.

Chapter 53 Croak? How did it escape?

[Unknown Martial Arts Skill (Fragment)] [Beginner] (Can be upgraded to the first level of Kindergarten)

What is this?!

Fang Yuan looked at the system in surprise. He didn't recall seeing any unknown techniques being used at all!

He remembered that he met with King Liang, and then...

Then……?

?

I fuck your mother, Liang Wang!

Fang Yuan was immediately terrified and broke out in a cold sweat!

What did he do?!

What did he do in front of Prince Liang?

Damn it...

He couldn't help but curse Liang Wang in his heart before looking at his mod with lingering fear.

Damn it, thankfully he didn't let it slip thanks to his strong will and conviction!

If I hadn't been a little more confident, I probably would have blurted out the cheat code and the whole time-travel thing...

Fang Yuan shuddered.

The other party didn't do anything, but my thoughts, my attitude, and my perception were all changed just like that!

How did you do that?

Fang Yuan recalled Chen Tieshan and couldn't help but glance at the guy a couple of times.

When that guy led a group of disciples to Zuixianlou, was his perception also altered?

Fang Yuan didn't rush to add points; instead, he looked around the entire prison.

……

The prison was open to the elements, and the sky was gray and gloomy, with no sun or moon, as if countless dark clouds were blocking the way.

However, Fang Yuan did not feel that the surroundings were gloomy.

I don't know where this light came from.

Upon closer inspection of the surrounding environment, it resembled chicken coops in a chicken farm, with countless cages stacked together, separated by wooden boards at the bottom. Each cage contained one chicken, which was about 1.5 meters high, so people couldn't stand up and could only sit or squat.

Fortunately, Fang Yuan couldn't stand up, and his current size wasn't so large that he would be 1.5 meters tall when squatting.

Fang Yuan looked around the prison. There weren't many living people locked in cages, but there were still quite a few. At a glance, there were about thirty or fifty people.

Chen Tieshan was locked in the next room, just like Fang Yuan, at the very bottom of the social hierarchy.

All around, you could see many gaunt figures, three or four meters tall, just like the gaunt figure at Zuixianlou, patrolling around the cage.

……

The current situation seems quite dire.

I was captured and brought to this inexplicable place.

It seems that the only way to escape from here is to rely on my own system.

Fang Yuan looked at the "Points Available" notification on the system panel, a glimmer of hope flashing in his eyes.

What he most desired about this new technique was a method to change the other party's perception.

If the system can record this capability, it means that this is not entirely unsolvable.

If I can elevate this martial art to a sufficiently high level, I might be able to turn the tables and counter the King Liang's altered perceptions.

At least... I can stay conscious.

Fang Yuan took a deep breath, temporarily suppressing the urge to add more points.

Now is not the time.

He needs to figure out the situation here first before deciding how to allocate skill points. After all, some unusual phenomena might inevitably occur when allocating skill points.

Fang Yuan turned his head to look at the cage next door.

Chen Tieshan was huddled in a corner, his hands covering his head, muttering something under his breath.

"I'm guilty...I'm guilty...It's all my fault..."

"I shouldn't have taken them to Zuixianlou... I shouldn't have..."

"I am guilty... I shouldn't have offended the guards... I am guilty... I shouldn't have defied Prince Liang."

His voice was numb and calm, his eyes were unfocused, and he seemed to be still immersed in a mistaken belief...

Fang Yuan's heart sank as he watched this scene.

Chen Tieshan... hasn't woken up yet.

He was still under the influence of King Liang.

"Croak! Chen Tieshan!"

Fang Yuan let out a low growl.

Chen Tieshan didn't react, still muttering to himself, "It's all my fault... I'm guilty..."

"Croak! Wake up!"

Fang Yuan increased the volume, but Chen Tieshan remained immersed in his own world.

Damn it...

Fang Yuan gritted his teeth.

"Chen Tieshan?"

Fang Yuan lowered his voice again and tentatively called out twice more.

This time the voice was a little louder, but Chen Tieshan next door was still like a madman, hiding in the shadows with his head in his hands, ignoring the calls from the outside world, and just repeating those crazy words of apology over and over again.

"Stop calling, you can't wake him up."

Just as Fang Yuan frowned and was about to pick up a pebble and throw it, a childish but lifeless voice suddenly came from the cage next to him.

Fang Yuan's heart skipped a beat, and he instantly turned his eyes alertly toward the source of the sound.

The speaker was a child who looked quite young, about seven or eight years old. He was filthy, and his hair was a mess of tangled weeds on his head. He was gripping the wooden railing with both hands, squeezing his face between two wooden bars, and looking at Fang Yuan with some curiosity.

The child glanced at Chen Tieshan, who was still muttering, and said in a tone that was not like a child's: "People who are brought here are all like this at first. After a while, they will realize that something is wrong."

Realizing something was wrong?

Fang Yuan keenly grasped the subtext in those words.

This means that Liang Wang's cognitive modification is not permanent, or that in this environment, such modification will develop loopholes over time.

This reminded Fang Yuan of when he first entered the Drunken Immortal Pavilion, when Chen Tieshan seemed to have suddenly woken up from somewhere.

It seems that the last time he was controlled and entered the Drunken Immortal Pavilion was also due to a change in his cognition, or some unknown illusion.

He looked away and examined the child again.

In this desperate situation filled with eerie, mummified corpses patrolling and where perceptions are arbitrarily altered, this child's composure is remarkably calm.

"Do you know what's going on?" Fang Yuan asked tentatively, lowering his voice.

Upon hearing this, the child's excessively dark eyes swept over Fang Yuan twice, sizing him up before he slowly said, "I know a little, but not much."

Before Fang Yuan could ask further, the child preemptively tilted his head and asked, "Are you also a strange being?"

Fang Yuan was taken aback, subconsciously glanced at his current paws and belly, and shook his head: "No."

"no?"

A flicker of indifference finally appeared in the child's eyes. He stared at Fang Yuan with a mixture of confusion and suspicion: "If it's not weird... then why are you a toad?"

"..."

Fang Yuan choked for a moment.

This is a difficult problem to explain. You can't just say you're a person, but you turned into this by using cheats.

To be honest, Fang Yuan would rather not be a frog, and he would rather time travel than have a cheat code.

"It doesn't matter if you practice your skills incorrectly, go astray, or develop abnormal powers."

Fang Yuan gave a vague and perfunctory answer, not caring how lame the reason was, and immediately changed the subject. His bulging, toad-like eyes stared intently at the child, and he asked the most crucial question:

"Kid, forget who I am. Since you know a thing or two about this place, do you even know where you are? And..."

Fang Yuan's voice was lowered to a whisper, tinged with urgency:

"How can we escape from this awful place?"