My basement connects to another world.

Chapter 2 Time Travel?

Jiang Yuan snapped out of his daze and hurriedly looked around.

"I've time-traveled?!"

As far as the eye could see, there were dark blue stone walls, and in the air, one could smell the slightly fishy odor unique to damp caves.

The chilly air clung to his skin. Jiang Yuan couldn't help but shiver, then shook his head vigorously, trying to clear his mind.

"That's right, that finger bone!" He subconsciously raised both hands, his gaze involuntarily locking onto the little finger of his left hand.

His fingers were long and slender, and looked unchanged, but he had a vague feeling that something was different.

"Did it bring me here?" he asked tentatively. "System? Panel?"

As a skilled internet surfer, being knowledgeable and well-informed is an essential quality.

Immediately afterwards, a fluorescent blue panel suddenly appeared.

[Name: Gangwon]

Occupation: None

[Level: 0]

[Abilities: Gate to Another Realm, ???]

[Magic Energy: 0]

"There really is one? A gate to a realm! He's the one who let me cross over? This??? What kind of ability is this?!"

Jiang Yuan was startled, then he tried to concentrate his mind on the panel, "Add some points to my account!"

The panel remained completely still, showing no reaction whatsoever.

Besides showing personal attributes like in a game, does this panel serve no other purpose?

As the initial excitement of time travel faded, a sense of bewilderment and fear followed.

"Can I go back?" Jiang Yuan asked, somewhat panicked.

He could talk about traveling to another world all he wanted, but he never took it seriously.

He's just a college student who's never even slept with a prostitute. If you really threw him into a strange place, it would be a lie to say he wouldn't panic.

Moreover, looking at this cheat, it's just an ordinary attribute panel with no class level and zero... Jiang Yuan felt a chill in his heart at this moment.

Judging from the information on the panel, this is definitely a world with extraordinary power.

But in his current state, he is a complete blank slate, utterly powerless.

Suppressing the panic in his heart, he focused his gaze on the stone wall in front of him.

He then realized that the dim light illuminating the cave came from the small ferns on the stone walls.

A cold, eerie light emanated from the veins of its leaves, illuminating the grotto.

This grass can actually glow... Jiang Yuan moved closer to observe it carefully.

He had never heard of any grass that could emit its own light.

"Is this what makes plants from another world different?"

Jiang Yuan muttered to himself, a vague sense of familiarity suddenly flashing through his mind, but he couldn't quite place it.

He hesitated for two seconds, then reached out and plucked one, holding it tightly in his hand.

Just then, an increasingly noticeable noise rang out.

"despair."

It was the sound of hard objects stepping on the stone ground, coming from afar, with the unique echo of a cave.

Jiang Yuan was startled and turned around abruptly.

The sound came from the hole at the bend in the side.

The cave was deep and dark; under the blue light, only the outline of the jagged stone walls could be seen, and beyond that, there was only an impenetrable darkness.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

That thing had a very high frequency and was moving very fast, getting closer and closer.

Jiang Yuan could even feel the dull weight of each landing, which made the stone surface beneath his feet tremble slightly.

"This commotion... it must be quite large." Jiang Yuan swallowed.

Is he about to encounter the kind of monster that protagonists encounter after transmigrating, like in novels?

New player perks, like free experience points?

But his stats, apart from the ability to travel through time, seem to have no other use at the moment!

They had no skills, and they hadn't even seen a rusty iron sword.

What should I use to hit it? Should I smear this blade of grass on its face?

Jiang Yuan's mind raced, his heart screaming, "I want to go back, I want to go back..."

The next moment, a golden halo appeared out of thin air, like an upright oval portal.

Tiny particles of light flowed along the edge of the aperture, while the center was an unfathomable depth.

"We really can go back!" Jiang Yuan's eyes widened, filled with ecstatic joy.

He recognized it; it was when he was swallowed by a halo of light that he arrived at this place.

Without hesitation, he stepped into the circle of light.

The moment he stepped in, he couldn't help but look back.

When he saw it, he was almost scared out of his wits.

At the corner of the cave entrance, bathed in the cold light of the blue ferns, a massive shadow emerged from the darkness.

Immediately afterwards, a huge monster's head emerged from the shadows.

It has a long, narrow head covered with gray-black scales, two rows of sharp, white teeth that bite together, and sticky saliva hanging from the corners of its mouth.

A cloudy, dark yellow eyeball was embedded in the center of his forehead, but where the eye should have been, there were two sunken bone grooves, completely empty.

Its breathing was heavy and hot, each exhale releasing two plumes of hot, white mist.

The murky, single eye turned and instantly locked onto Jiang Yuan.

The monster suddenly accelerated, its four thick claws digging at the ground simultaneously, producing a dense "thump thump thump" sound, like a muffled drum being rapidly struck.

Its enormous body charged toward them with an agility completely disproportionate to its size, causing the ground to tremble.

Jiang Yuan's heart skipped a beat, and he hurriedly stepped his other foot into the portal.

The next instant, everything blurred before my eyes.

The familiar smell of dust, the familiar dim lighting.

He went back to the basement.

Standing in front of the dusty old table, he still tightly clutched the glowing fern he had plucked from another world.

A faint blue light shone on his face, flickering intermittently.

It was as if nothing had happened.

The only difference was that the golden halo portal in front of him was slowly shrinking and finally turning into a speck of light, dissipating into the air.

……

the other side.

The one-eyed giant charged forward, its four claws carving deep furrows in the stone ground, its massive body stopping just where Jiang Yuan had disappeared.

It poked out its scaly head, its nostrils twitching violently, sniffing around for a while, a hint of confusion flashing in its murky single eye.

Its claws scratched at the ground, stepping on the rapidly dissipating afterglow of the portal—but it clearly couldn't see the halo and didn't react at all.

The monster circled around twice, then lost interest, flicked its thick tail, and turned to walk deeper into the cave.

The heavy footsteps gradually faded into the distance.

Shortly after the monster left, at the crevice on the other side.

A petite figure slowly appeared and gradually solidified.

It appears to be a human.

She was not tall, and her sky-blue eyes were wide open as she looked around curiously and warily.

Her short, silvery-white hair fell over her shoulders.

He was wearing rough leather armor, with his shoulders and waist exposed, revealing a firm and smooth-looking abdomen and arms, exuding a wild and agile feel.

What's most eye-catching is the two cat ears on her head.

Its snow-white downy fur, with the tips of its ears slightly folded inward, trembled gently with the movement around it.

Hilu sniffed, a hint of confusion on her face: "It smells so strange."

It wasn't the smell of that big thing, but something she had never smelled before.

"Gurgle—"

Suddenly, my stomach let out a groan.

Hilu's puzzled face immediately fell.

She hasn't eaten anything for three days.

There's nothing edible in this wretched place.

Even the cat-eared demi-human race, known for their endurance, felt their limbs begin to ache, and their strength was slowly slipping away from their bodies.

"Oh no, I'm not going to be stuck here..." She sat down against the stone wall, her cat ears drooping, her heart filled with increasing fear, and her sky-blue eyes involuntarily welled up with tears.

"Father, I will never run away again..."

……

"It's huge! What kind of monster is that?!"

Jiang Yuan leaned against the old wooden table in the basement, his chest still heaving violently, and cold sweat soaked through his T-shirt.

The enormous head covered in gray-black scales and with a single eye embedded in its forehead kept flashing back in my mind.

He took a while to catch his breath before he could barely suppress the surging palpitations in his heart and looked down at his right hand, which he had been clenching tightly.

With my palm open, the peculiar, glowing fern lay quietly.

A soft, cool blue light emanated from the veins of the leaves.

"I really time-traveled..." Only now did Jiang Yuan finally feel the reality.

He stroked the fern leaves; they felt cool to the touch and seemed to carry the damp, slightly fishy scent of the otherworldly cave.

It's not a dream, it's not an illusion.

Jiang Yuan stared blankly at the faint light in his palm.

Twenty years of ordinary, almost bland life seemed to have a crack quietly appear at this moment.

Pulling himself back to his senses, he re-examined the fern he had picked from another world.

He picked up this thing purely on a whim.

Perhaps because he was short of money, he thought of a news story he had seen before.

—There are rare orchid varieties, and a single plant can sell for hundreds of thousands!

This is a plant from another world! It must be rarer than an orchid, right?

"But why does this thing feel so familiar to me?" Jiang Yuan frowned.

He was certain he had never seen a glowing fern before, yet that inexplicable sense of familiarity lingered.

However, this sense of familiarity was quickly overshadowed by more questions.

He raised his left hand and stared intently at his left little finger, which showed no signs of abnormality.

Where did this strange finger bone, fused into his left finger, come from? How could such a thing exist in the basement of the old house?

My maternal grandfather never mentioned it during his lifetime, and he never even saw it when he was a child!

And what about that portal to another world? Is it fixed in one place, or can it be opened at his will?

Jiang Yuan took a deep breath to calm himself, and silently repeated to himself, "I want to time travel, I want to time travel..."

The next moment, a fluorescent blue panel reappeared.