Another city?

Lu Yuan took a few deep breaths, suppressing the confusion in his heart. He made a call and convened an emergency security meeting.

Soon, numerous experts, scholars, military personnel, and government officials arrived in the meeting room.

"Comrades, our reconnaissance team has discovered a Snake People Palace, which might be the culprit behind the Ghost Wall."

"The opportunity for us to escape this strange situation might be here. Please take a look at the photos and videos."

Everyone's faces were serious as they scrutinized each frame, trying to analyze more information.

After a while, someone said, "This palace looks very ancient, yet it can still fly in the sky... How powerful is its energy system?"

The speaker was Shamo from the engineering department. "I think these Snake People might be alive. Perhaps they are simply sunbathing?"

"Without artificial maintenance, even the most powerful power system will be defeated by time."

He added, "Even the Quantum Civilization had to arrange a Great Spirit Essence User in their Flying Saucer. This palace can't possibly be more powerful than the Quantum Civilization, can it?"

"Maybe..." Lu Yuan said with a wry smile, "The so-called Idealistic system cannot be judged by its surface strength."

Immediately after, another expert in botany, Ms. Lu Yue, pointed at the photo and said, "This type of red flower is something we've never seen before. It's called the Mandala Flower, a name with Mythical connotations."

"The strange petals our reconnaissance team found on the grassland a few days ago should be from this flower."

That mysterious palace floated in the sky, drifting with the wind.

The flowers in the entire City naturally underwent metabolism. After the petals withered, they fell onto the grass, and were subsequently picked up by the Humans.

However, Humans had never figured out which tree these flowers fell from. Now, they finally understood their origin – it was in the sky.

After the Mandala Flower withered, it was about the size of a palm, dry and brownish, the color of dried blood.

The Appraisal results were even more shocking.

[Mandala Flower, a mysterious plant, origin unknown. In some Mythical legends, the Mandala Flower is also known as the flower that guides souls to the Netherworld.]

[Its fruit possesses unique extraordinary characteristics. After consumption, it significantly accelerates the life cycle of intelligent beings and greatly enhances the consumer's soul strength and mental resistance. (Inferior Grade · Natural Oddity)]

"Inferior Grade... This is only Inferior Grade?!" Sweat beaded on Lu Yuan's forehead.

Increasing soul strength is equivalent to increasing the Spirit Attribute. This thing is actually only Inferior Grade?

"Yes, it is indeed Inferior Grade, because its side effects are too great."

Lu Yue explained, "Significantly accelerating the life cycle means... lifespan will decrease at an unimaginable speed."

"To give a simple example, if a Human infant consumes the fruit of the Mandala Flower for a long time, they will go through youth, middle age, and old age in just a few years. During this entire process, the Spirit Attribute will indeed rise rapidly, but the lifespan will be condensed into just a few years. It's equivalent to exchanging lifespan for the Spirit Attribute."

"Under normal circumstances, the natural increase in the Spirit Attribute through cultivation will lead to an increase in lifespan. However, the increase after consuming the Mandala fruit leads to a significant decrease in lifespan."

"This is a unique mechanism issue, so there's no way to reduce the side effects... Therefore, the item's evaluation is only Inferior Grade."

"Then couldn't it be used to Raise mutated animals or extraordinary animals? For example, laying hens?" An animal expert suddenly had a wild idea.

The reproductive capacity of extraordinary animals is not high, and the probability of inheritance is also very low. How to Raise them on a large scale has always been a headache. With this thing, maybe it could produce miraculous effects?

"No, no, no!" Lu Yue said, "Accelerating the life cycle does not mean that the growth and development cycle will also accelerate. If Humans consume it for a long time, most people will die within 5 years, and a few experts will die within 20 years. At that time, they will still be children of a few years old, equivalent to a one-meter-tall, rapidly aging little old man."

"Using it to raise animals also presents this major problem. They die too quickly, before they even produce meat."

"Looking at it this way... the value of this Mandala Flower is greatly reduced." Lu Yuan shook his head, then his heart gave a heavy leap.

"No, it's not without value!" Old Cat said coldly, "In fact, its value is beyond imagination!"

The Meeting Room fell silent.

Old Cat's subtext was simple – Raise!

Humans are viviparous, mature late, and have a low reproductive rate, making them unsuitable for raising with Mandala Flowers; but what about oviparous, early-maturing, high-reproductive intelligent species? They only need one or two years to mature, lay eggs, and reproduce the next generation.

Under normal circumstances, cultivating the Spirit Attribute to over 5 points requires education, experience, and social nurturing, but now it doesn't... it only requires eating the fruit, which is essentially a form of rapid advancement.

Thinking this way, everyone couldn't help but break out in a cold sweat when they looked at the Snake People. This use was too dark, even bringing a sense of inexplicable despair.

After a long time, everyone sighed deeply, and the look in their eyes when they looked at those photos became meaningful...

After a while, Old Cat said again, "Is there another possibility, that this ancient City is not the Culprit that trapped us here?"

"They were just like us, trapped here all along, trapped for an entire Era, and finally completely wiped out by the Era Disaster."

"As for these Mandala Flowers and Snake People species, I don't need to elaborate... Guai possess shallow intelligence, so raising intelligent life is not surprising."

The proposal of this idea was actually even darker, and the temperature in the Meeting Room dropped by several degrees.

Would Humans become like this?

If Guai's patience was good enough to last an Era, that would be too tragic.

People would have no way to find the enemy hidden in the Different Dimension, and could only be erased by the Era Disaster, their descendants raised and reduced to permanent captive animals.

"It's indeed impossible to rule out this factor."

Lu Yuan scratched the hair at his temples, his chest rising and falling.

No, there is a way!

He thought to himself, if they really encountered this situation, they could only place their hope on the Immortal Palace's space Glyphs...

He was researching alone now, and progress was slow, but as long as he brought it out, the entire Human race could research it together, and the research speed would greatly increase – of course, doing so would just be jumping from one fire pit into another.

"Even if we use the Immortal Palace Glyphs, the risk is extremely high, but we must escape!"

Just then, the reconnaissance department sent another urgent report.

"Report! We... seem to have discovered another Floating City!"

"What?"

Lu Yuan's scalp immediately went numb. It was fine when they didn't find any, but how did a series of them suddenly appear?

What the hell kind of place is this?

The other experts' expressions also changed slightly, thinking of an even worse possibility.

Lieutenant Colonel Lu Ying of the reconnaissance department quickly said, "No, no, no, this time it should be a normal Civilization..."

"The other party also disguised themselves as a cloud, located seven thousand kilometers away."

"It's just that they seem to have been trapped here for a bit too long. The entire City needs maintenance, which is why it landed on the ground."

"The City covers an area of about 150 square kilometers and is divided into 5 layers in total, which is more layered than our Green Field City. The population is unknown, the civilization level is unknown, and the species is... similar to Bird People, with feathers and wings on their bodies, capable of short glides in the air."

"The City landscape is mainly Materialistic, with fewer Glyphs, but there are some. We strongly suspect that their technology was relatively advanced before coming to the Pangu Continent..."

Photos of this Alien Civilization City were quickly sent to the large screen in the Meeting Room.

Good heavens, it really is... a future sci-fi style!

Various small cars, densely packed like ants, were enormous in number. High-rise buildings stood in rows, and the Solar Panels on their facades reflected bright sunlight. It's important to know that Solar Panels are a typical high-energy consumption industry; only with large-scale construction of photovoltaic power plants can this cost be recovered.

On the Human side, the population is small, and the Solar Panels they have are developed based on Glyphs, whereas the Solar Panels in this City are purely Materialistic.

There were also buildings shaped like Bird Nests, perhaps stadiums? A group of Bird People were playing in a stadium.

Clearly, these were buildings constructed before they came to the Pangu Continent. Because after arriving at the Pangu Continent, their living conditions were precarious; how could they have so much time to build large stadiums?

Even civilizations like Human 18 Civilization, which need to raise a large number of children, are reluctant to build super-large stadiums; having some standard fields is already good!

Based on his experience, Lu Yuan understood at a glance that this was indeed a very normal civilization.

This is because some details of life are difficult to fake—this floating City, similar to cyberpunk, conforms to the living patterns of the species and also conforms to conventional logic.

Compared to the Snake People Palace, which was so eerie that just looking at it sent chills down one's spine, this Bird People civilization was like a harmless baby.

And the creatures of this civilization were indeed Bird People, with heads like eagles, sharp eyes, and a beak on their mouths, but their feathers were blue.

Their hands, feet, and broad wings allowed them to glide in the air.

It seemed to be off-work hours now, and many Bird People were jumping directly down from the top of the high-rise buildings—they seemed very accustomed to this mode of transportation by flying from high altitudes, which resulted in the buildings in this City being generally very tall.

The Bird People on the lower levels seemed to be poorer, as the wings of this species are only for gliding, not flying, and they apparently cannot take off directly from flat ground.

Therefore, the distribution of wealth disparity is also simple: the wealthier individuals live on higher floors; the poorer individuals live on the lower floors.

"Is this civilization, like us, a group of unlucky people trapped here..."

Lu Yuan pondered in his heart: I wonder how many years they've been trapped and how much they know about that Snake People Palace...

Meanwhile, the others in the Meeting Room were also analyzing these videos and photos.

Perhaps out of some psychological reason, having another unlucky person accompany them, the tension of being "Raised" dissipated quite a bit.

Lu Yuan himself couldn't understand how this mentality appeared.

"What is this? Being locked in a pigsty and finding another big fat pig looking at you, leading to schadenfreude?"

With everyone contributing, the fire burned high, and soon, everyone discovered more clues.

"This is indeed a civilization with a large wealth gap. Do you see? There are even beggars here, and some poor people sleeping in parks and under bridges."

"Their population density is very high, conservatively estimated at eight to ten million people. Most of the population has very little living space, residing on the lower levels of the City."

"However, this civilization should have some technological strength. There seems to be some social welfare here, indicating that they still have a certain degree of social consensus and tolerance mechanisms."

"They should also have some understanding of the Pangu Continent... otherwise, they wouldn't possess a Floating City."

In some of the photos, people saw some suspicious Missile silos, and some soldiers standing guard.

"A civilization with relatively developed materialism, a large gap between rich and poor, yet still retaining a certain degree of social consensus..." Lu Yuan sketched a rough image of the city in his mind. "I wonder what their political system is like..."

Social consensus and fault tolerance mechanisms are very important for a civilization.

While civilizational struggle is the theme of the era, individual life is what truly matters.

Fault tolerance mechanisms provide a minimum safety net for life, representing a factual level of civilizational progress. After all, feudal and slave eras didn't have such mechanisms.

"So this civilization might seem somewhat loose, but in reality, it should still have some fighting power..."

Everyone was a little excited. This was the first time they had encountered a civilization that was inherently more developed. They wondered how Green Field City compared to them, who was stronger and who was weaker? Especially in the idealistic domain, humanity was a genuine Level Three Civilization.

Everyone has a competitive spirit, but they just didn't show it on their faces.

"Grand Commander, do we need to gamble fight with them?" Senior Colonel Jin Dongliang asked, rubbing his hands together.

Lu Yuan hesitated slightly. "I don't think it's very appropriate in the current situation... Peaceful exchange is the best."

The purpose of a gamble fight is to prevent war between two sides. Now that they were trapped in this vast grassland, the probability of war had significantly decreased.

Even if they fought to the death and defeated the other side, what would they gain? There was no way to escape!

Moreover, this place might be the territory of the Guai. If they ended up mutually wounded, and the Guai seized the opportunity to attack, the trouble would be immense—at that point, both sides would become pigs in a pigsty, raised together.

Professor Lu Tiantian raised her hand to signal. "My idea is... this civilization seems to be a technological civilization with a decent inherent foundation. Their materialistic technology might be superior to ours."

"But in the idealistic domain, we don't need to underestimate ourselves."

"If we want to establish friendly relations, we can try to probe their strength and their understanding of the Pangu Continent."

"How do we probe?"