Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
(Author’s note: Just to clarify, the story is set in a parallel world where Emperor Taizu and other historical figures from our world never existed.)
Gao Peng frowned. No matter how hard he tried to look at the picture of the Huan Shan Buddha statue, he still couldn’t bring up its stats sheet. There was a chance that the Buddha statue was, in all respects, still an ordinary stone statue.
The region’s geography had changed drastically when the Cataclysm struck. The Yangtze river had became even more turbulent, while the mountains were even steeper and less hospitable to other life forms.
Even the waters of the Min and Da Du rivers had grown more violent after the Cataclysm.
The calm waters of the three rivers depicted in the picture seemed almost unreal to Gao Peng.
He put away the picture and continued his research.
The Huan Shan Buddha statue’s awakening was a clear sign that a certain event had caused a ripple effect that had spread across the entire Huaxia region.
The occurrence had taken place in the Yuncheng base city in the Bing province. Yuncheng City was located to the north of the capital, Jingyang, and was one of the smaller base cities in the Huaxia region.
There was a rather popular spot called the Yungang Grottoes located a few miles west of Yuncheng City.
The Yungang Grottoes were renowned for their majestic Buddha statues.
There were 53 caves in total that housed at least 50,001 Buddha statues.
In just one night, all the Buddha statues had come to life.
A golden light shone out from the Grottoes for miles. Arcane chanting filled the caves when the statues came to life.
No one knew for sure what had happened there. However, this mysterious phenomenon had certainly shaken the entire Huaxia region.
According to the information that Gao Peng had received, the Allied Government’s Huaxia branch had already dispatched a team to investigate the new life-forms in the Yungang Grottoes.
As the other regions were also swamped with similar troubles, the Huaxia region had no choice but to deal with this alone.
Statues had reportedly come to life all over the world, specifically in places with long and rich histories, like Rome and Egypt.
The Allied Government is losing control of the situation, thought Gao Peng. Even though every nation in the world had decided to come together to form the New World Allied Government in order to prevent humanity from falling too far behind in the evolutionary race, the truth remained that the world was evolving way too quickly.
Humanity had long been booted from the top of the food chain. Its position grew more precarious by the day as the world continued to evolve around it.
Gao Peng shuddered at the thought of humanity faltering in the evolutionary race.
“This is madness… Why have the statues come to life?” muttered Gao Peng as he rubbed his temples.
There was no point complaining about it now. The only thing Gao Peng could do was accept it and focus his efforts on becoming even stronger.
As long as he kept himself ahead of the evolutionary race, he would always have the power to protect his loved ones.
“Bring it on. Let’s see if my familiars can evolve faster than you, world…” mumbled Gao Peng.
Gao Peng had never performed an experiment on a Lord-tier monster. A bronze statue of Guan Gong would be his first subject.
Despite its intimidating appearance, the Guan Gong bronze statue wasn’t terribly strong.
It wouldn’t attack any other life form unless provoked. Its Buddha-like stoicism was what had intrigued Gao Peng in the first place.
After doing his research, Gao Peng found out that it had killed someone in the commercial district near Jingang Bridge and later been found in a porcelain shop.
This was all that Gao Peng had gathered so far about the statue. Luo Qian had also warned him that it was extremely aggressive and a Lord-tier monster to boot. “If you can’t handle it at your place, you can always hand it over to the police,” suggested Luo Qian.
“Thanks, I’ll think about it,” said Gao Peng before hanging up the phone. Then he turned around and looked at the stone cottage that was designed to hold the Guan Gong bronze statue.
He didn’t need to assign a guard to it. He had Stripey stay with the statue every day. Every time the spider felt bored, Gao Peng would let it play with the statue.
Inside the building, the Guan Gong bronze statue stood rooted to the ground, as if it had accepted its fate as Gao Peng’s prisoner.
[Monster Name]: Animated Bronze Statue (Guan Gong)
[Monster Status]: Healthy (Calm)
[Likes]: 1. Standing motionless on the ground, pretending to be an ordinary statue 2. Decapitating evildoers.
Huh, an animated statue that likes standing still all day like an ordinary statue. Nothing wrong with that, thought Gao Peng.
Gao Peng entered the stone cottage and looked the Animated Bronze Statue up and down, from its feet to its head.
The Animated Statue didn’t seem to have heard him come in. It had an imperious expression on its face while holding its spear to its side. The horse it was riding was frozen in place with both its front hooves up in the air.
“Can you hear me?” asked Gao Peng.
“…”
Gao Peng shook his head. Even though it was just a statue that was made in Guan Gong’s likeness, he was quite impressed that it had the imperial air of one of the greatest figures in Chinese history down pat.
“I’ll just let you do your thing,” said Gao Peng before leaving the building.
The next day, Gao Peng sent someone to bring a couple of chickens into the stone cottage. He also had someone set up a watering trough and some chicken coops there.
The bronze statue remained standing there without showing any signs of life.
In less than a day, the ground was already littered with chicken droppings.
The stench of the droppings became unbearable after a few days. Some of the chickens had even taken dumps on the statue’s feet.
A week later, the ground was caked with a layer of droppings. The chickens had left poop tracks all over the statue’s feet. Gao Peng noticed that all the chickens were still alive.
The bronze statue had remained completely motionless for the whole week.
“There’s no way I can beat a statue in a patience contest,” muttered Gao Peng.
He ordered someone to bring out all the chickens and clean up the stone cottage.
Gao Peng then brought his laboratory equipment into the stone cottage. He had decided to stay alongside the statue for the next few days to continue his experiment.
Naturally, Stripey was ecstatic about this.
“So black dog blood can’t corrupt it…” Gao Peng frowned. He had gathered quite a lot of information about the statue during his experiment, including its hardness, defense, and elemental resistances.
He had also discovered that all awakened statues shared the same weakness: the propensity to be corrupted.
If he could figure out what the Animated Bronze Statue’s corrupting agent was, he would be able to break it.
