A basin of water splashed through the wooden cage onto Liens, pulling him out of the simulated instance.
"Instance" was what he called his ability to simulate past real-life experiences. After all, this ability really made him feel like he was playing a game, even though the game was too realistic.
Furthermore, the reason he chose the name "instance" was to remind himself not to forget that he was in a simulation, and that everything in the simulation was fake except for the information.
Therefore, he named this ability "Reality Instance."
Reality was the foundation of everything; the instance should not be a haven for him to escape reality, but rather a sharp blade for him to cut off the shackles on his body.
But I'm getting sidetracked.
Liens opened his still hazy eyes and looked up at the burly man standing in front of his cage. The man had a fierce expression, whether it was natural or cultivated from long-term scowling.
"What are you looking at!"
Seemingly displeased with Liens' slow reaction, the burly man directly swung the whip in his hand and lashed out at Liens.
"Crack!"
"Hiss!"
The whip tore through Liens' already thin, tattered clothes, leaving a bloody welp on his shoulder, causing him to wince and gasp in pain.
"Well, a Slave is a Slave. Even so-called high-value goods don't have much in the way of human rights."
Liens thought with a bitter smile.
He then forced himself to gather a bit of strength to change from lying down to sitting up. If the height of the cage hadn't prevented it, he might have stood up to show his submission to the burly man.
Perhaps out of consideration for Liens' value, the burly man only lashed him once before stopping, then sternly told Liens to pick up the wooden bowl in the cage and wait.
After speaking, he turned and left.
Hearing the burly man's request, Liens realized it was time to eat, and his dispirited expression instantly brightened.
After a brief search in the small cage, Liens quickly found the wooden bowl. The bowl was not very big, less than the size of his two palms.
If it were a normal adult's hand, it might only be one palm.
From the size of the wooden bowl, it was clear that the Slave Exchange probably didn't intend for the Slaves to eat their fill; it was good enough if they could maintain basic Life activities.
Before long, the distributed food confirmed this guess.
Looking at the not-very-viscous black paste in the wooden bowl, Liens sighed, then slowly swallowed the bowl of "black bread paste" bit by bit.
It tasted awful, that was an undeniable assessment.
Although his weak body craved the energy provided by this paste, and his taste buds had long grown accustomed to this food, his soul from another world resisted it.
So-called black bread was made from a little wheat flour mixed with a large amount of bran and baked. Its characteristics were that it was unpalatable and hard.
And black bread paste was black bread boiled in water until soft, with a little salt added.
Liens was no stranger to this food; in the past, it was often his daily meal.
Although it was unpalatable and not very nutritious, its greatest advantage was that it was cheap.
A small copper coin could buy a coarse black bread, and one black bread boiled in water into a paste could fill his stomach for a day.
It could be said that this paste sustained his body after he was kicked out of the orphanage, allowing him to survive for a year on his own in this not-so-beautiful world.
Of course, no matter how much his body adapted to "black bread paste" now, a single bowl still wouldn't be enough to revitalize his body.
Therefore, after carefully finishing the food in the wooden bowl, Liens lay down in the cage again, intending to continue sleeping to reduce his body's energy consumption.
After a simple attempt, Liens confirmed that as long as he cleared his mind, he would enter the white space, and then he could activate the "Reality Instance" ability there.
Speaking of which, when he was pulled out of the instance earlier, he felt that his physical condition seemed to be better than before he went to sleep.
He didn't know if it was the effect of the ability or because his body had rested. The previous ability information didn't mention this, only stating that the simulation time flowed synchronously with real-world time.
That is to say, whatever amount of time he experienced in the instance, the same amount of time would pass in reality.
Regarding this, Liens even wanted to complain. Not only were there no rewards for the simulation, but he didn't expect it couldn't even achieve "time stop" or "multiple time acceleration." This cheat was too weak.
Moreover, the ability description wasn't complete. If it weren't for that basin of water, Liens wouldn't have known that it was so easy to interrupt his simulation from the outside.
However, this should be considered an advantage, right?
After all, once he entered the instance, his perception of his body in reality was practically nonexistent.
If it didn't have this easily interruptible characteristic, then he might not even know if his body in reality was cut down while he was simulating.
Thoughts flew by, Liens gradually cleared the distractions from his mind, emptying his spirit, and once again entered the white space.
Next, he planned to try to find loopholes in the Slave Exchange to escape from there.
...
Time slowly passed. Although the prison couldn't see the sun or moon, and the only light was dim candlelight, Liens still calculated how much time had passed in reality based on the "Reality Instance."
Thirteen days had passed since he opened his eyes and realized he had transmigrated as a Slave.
Due to the passage of time, Liens also discovered that his ability could indeed simulate any point in time within the past day.
His guess for why he couldn't choose an earlier time when he first entered the instance was because his experience began from that garbage heap.
He probably arrived in this world around that time, so the time before that didn't belong to him, but to the "other him."
And in these thirteen days, he had also tried to "break out of prison" many times in the instance, but all ended in failure.
Firstly, the defenses at the Slave Exchange were very strict, with one to two thugs guarding each "shelf," making it difficult for him to find an opportunity.
Secondly, the strength gap between him and the Slave Exchange's thugs was too great. Their bodies were two or three times his size, and their arms were almost thicker than his thighs.
The disparity was almost to the point where if they punched him, he might have to kneel and beg them not to die.
Of course, given the thugs' tempers, it was impossible for them to kneel and beg these Slaves; it was more likely that after beating them, they would just throw them back into the cage and let the Slaves fend for themselves.
During this time, although he spent most of his time sleeping, he had also witnessed those thugs beating Slaves half to death.
As for why he witnessed it, it was because he was also one of those who were beaten at the time, only the thug who beat him didn't hit as hard.
Even so, he still suffered a beating that broke his skin.
To be honest, he was somewhat relieved at the time.
He was glad he still had some value, otherwise he might have been the one beaten half to death, as his body really couldn't withstand much abuse.
As for the reason those thugs acted, Liens asked in the instance and was told that it was simply because those thugs were itching for a fight and wanted to relieve boredom that day.
It was that simple, that tragic.
This was a Slave.