Known to the Whole World in a Single Day!

Lin Ye got straight into Zhao Jianyu's car.

Zhao Jianyu didn't waste any time either. She stepped on the gas and had driven away before the people downstairs from Lin Ye's apartment noticed.

Then Zhao Jianyu held out a pair of sunglasses to Lin Ye.

"Mr. Lin, please put these on. They should help conceal your identity a little."

Lin Ye didn't really care about such things, but he didn't want to invite trouble either.

The most important thing for him now was to design dungeons and keep himself safe.

For convenience's sake, he put on the sunglasses.

"Mr. Lin, you're really bold. A lot of people have their eyes on you right now," Zhao Jianyu said with a smile.

"I didn't think that much about it," Lin Ye said flatly.

"I called your phone just now, but you didn't answer. Otherwise, I would have told you not to go out and to wait for me to come find you."

Zhao Jianyu spoke as she deftly turned the steering wheel.

"I don't usually take my phone with me when I go out for a run."

Zhao Jianyu glanced at Lin Ye's sweaty polo shirt, then continued:

"Your dungeon has caused a huge stir on Azure Star. Every network is reporting on your Raging Waves right now..."

As she spoke, Zhao Jianyu held her phone out to Lin Ye.

Lin Ye glanced at it. Sure enough, news about Raging Waves was everywhere, covering the sky and blotting out the earth.

[Raging Waves may become the hardest dungeon in Azure Star's history!]

[6,500 people wiped out! Raging Waves lives up to its name as a dungeon meat grinder!!!]

[Genius Itō Hidetaka returns with clipped wings; no one survives Raging Waves.]

[Just how difficult is a Purgatory-level dungeon?!]

[Lin Ye, a Great Xia genius whose extraordinary talent appears only once in a century!]

People were saying all sorts of things online, but the gist was that they were all shocked by the difficulty of the Raging Waves dungeon.

Lin Ye felt nothing in particular about this excessive praise.

This was only the beginning.

Some people who had experienced Raging Waves had already tried posting guides to it online.

The guides amounted to just one thing: choose to submit to Eagle Sauce at the very start, and only 20 points would be deducted.

Seeing this, Lin Ye didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

The completion rate for the Raging Waves dungeon was currently only 1%, so these so-called guides were utterly meaningless.

Besides, even if everyone chose to submit and surrender right at the start, he, the dungeon designer, would still profit the most.

After scrolling through a few pages, Lin Ye lost interest and handed the phone back to Zhao Jianyu.

"With your current fame, a lot of people will come looking for you, asking you to live in their settlements."

"Others will do everything they can to curry favor with you, hoping to obtain the technology in your dungeon. That's just how this world works. Even a tiny bit of guidance on your dungeon could save the lives of many ordinary people."

Zhao Jianyu sighed as she spoke.

Lin Ye understood what Zhao Jianyu meant.

With the Firmament in this world, society was bound to take this form.

One could say that all outstanding dungeon designers were this world's biggest stars, destined to be sought after.

"Mr. Lin, actually, I came this time..."

"I know you're here to invite me to join your institute, and my answer is the same as before." Lin Ye cut her off before she could finish.

"I don't have any such plans right now."

"If a day comes when I feel I can join your institute, I'll contact you myself."

Rejected by Lin Ye once again, Zhao Jianyu looked a little embarrassed.

But then he remembered Ding Chang's instructions.

Whether she could persuade Lin Ye to join this time was not the most important thing. What mattered most was making sure he wouldn't go to another settlement.

"Mr. Lin Ye, I respect your wishes. This is entirely your choice to make."

"I only hope... that you won't leave the Great Xia's Dragon Soaring Settlement." Zhao Jianyu herself felt the request was a little excessive, so she was quite apprehensive as she made it.

In this world, everyone was free to live in whichever settlement they chose, because Azure Star was a planet without national borders.

If another settlement were willing to offer Lin Ye a large number of points, there would be nothing wrong with him choosing to move there. After all, in this world, points meant wealth, status, and, above all, life.

By contrast, the First Research Institute's own research funds were already tight. It simply couldn't offer Lin Ye enough points to win him over.

"Leave?" Lin Ye didn't give it a second thought and shook his head.

"Why would I leave? Wouldn't that be a lot of trouble?"

"Besides, in this world, shouldn't it be the same wherever you live? The Firmament is always overhead, after all, so there can't be any true freedom."

Zhao Jianyu hadn't expected Lin Ye to agree so readily, and for a moment she didn't know how to react.

Especially that last sentence of Lin Ye's: with the Firmament overhead, there could be no true freedom.

She couldn't make sense of it no matter how hard she thought.

"You... Mr. Lin, you agree?!" Zhao Jianyu let out a long breath.

"Mm." Lin Ye yawned impatiently.

"Miss Zhao, since you came to see me this time, you might as well do me a favor."

"I need a private place to live, preferably somewhere no one will disturb me. I believe you should know a place like that."

Zhao Jianyu nodded. For someone from the institute like her, a request like that was easy enough to handle.

Every settlement on Azure Star had a wealthy district.

The best way for Lin Ye to have privacy was to choose a villa in the mountains.

Such villas were usually secluded from the world, and the mountains were closely guarded to keep outsiders from entering as they pleased.

Before long, Zhao Jianyu brought Lin Ye to a two-story villa deep in the mountains.

The villa was distinctive. It looked as though it had grown out of a crack in the rocks, hidden among the sheer cliffs.

Without someone to guide them, an ordinary person would never have imagined that a villa stood on the cliff face.

Lin Ye was very satisfied with his new home. It perfectly suited his various needs at the moment.

He promptly bought it for 2,000 points and also had Zhao Jianyu get him a car to drive around in.

Two thousand points was an astronomical price in this world, but Lin Ye didn't care in the slightest.

Once the Raging Waves dungeon opened again tomorrow, he would have plenty more points to harvest anyway.

A quiet and comfortable environment, on the other hand, was what he needed most urgently right now.

Raging Waves was only the beginning. Lin Ye had many important things to do next.

"Miss Zhao, thank you for your help."

"But I hope no third person will know where this villa is, apart from you and me," Lin Ye said politely.

Zhao Jianyu nodded repeatedly.

"Of course."

"Keeping your whereabouts concealed is actually one of the tasks the institute gave me."

"This place isn't very far from the city, but it has the advantage of being secluded. As long as you're a little careful, people probably won't notice you when you go into the city to buy things occasionally."

"Of course, if you need me to shop for you, I'm at your service anytime."

With that, Zhao Jianyu didn't linger. She got into her car and prepared to leave Lin Ye's villa.

She had completed her task for the day. What she needed to do next was leave as quickly as possible, lest people with ulterior motives noticed her.

Watching Zhao Jianyu's car recede into the distance, Lin Ye smiled faintly and suddenly called out:

"Miss Zhao, the key to building an aircraft carrier actually lies in the choice of deck materials and the design of carrier-based aircraft. Your institute could look deeper into those areas."

Zhao Jianyu's eyes widened, and for a moment she couldn't react.

By the time she came to her senses, Lin Ye had long since entered the villa.

Lin Ye had pointed the institute's aircraft carrier research in a direction, giving them a hint. As for whether the institute could develop an aircraft carrier of its own, that would depend on their own fortune.

The process might take decades, or even a hundred years.

But no matter what, Lin Ye would never tell anyone the technological principles behind his dungeon.

That would only cause this world to collapse rapidly, and it would do him no good at all.