Another City, Again?

Lu Yuan took several deep breaths, suppressed the doubts in his heart, made a call, and convened an emergency security meeting.

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

"Comrades, our reconnaissance team has discovered a Snake People Palace. It may be the chief culprit behind the Ghost Wall."

"Our opportunity to escape this strange situation may lie there. Please look at the photographs and footage."

Everyone looked grave as they scrutinized the material frame by frame, trying to extract more information.

Before long, someone said, "This palace looks extremely ancient, yet it can still fly through the sky... How powerful must its energy system be?"

The speaker was Shamo from the engineering department. "I think those snake people may be alive. Perhaps they're simply sunbathing?"

"Without manual maintenance, even the most powerful propulsion system would eventually lose to time."

He added, "Even the Quantum Civilization has to station a Great Spirit Essence User inside its Flying Saucer. This palace can't possibly be stronger than the Quantum Civilization, can it?"

"Maybe it can..." Lu Yuan said with a bitter smile. "The so-called idealist system cannot be judged by surface appearances."

Next, a botany expert, Ms. Lu Yueyue, pointed at the photographs and said, "These red flowers are an entirely unprecedented species. They are called Mandala Flowers, a name steeped in myth."

"The strange petals our scouts found on the grasslands a few days ago should have come from these flowers."

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

Naturally, the flowers throughout the city also went through cycles of growth and decay. Once the petals withered, they fell onto the grass and were picked up by humans.

Humans had never figured out which tree those flowers had fallen from. Now, they finally understood their origin—they came from the sky.

Once Mandala Flowers withered, they became palm-sized, yellowed and brownish, like the color of dried blood.

The appraisal results were even more shocking.

Mandala Flower: A mysterious plant of unknown origin. In certain myths and legends, the Mandala Flower is also known as the flower that guides souls into the Netherworld.

Its fruit possesses unique supernatural properties. After consumption, it greatly accelerates the life cycle of intelligent lifeforms while substantially increasing 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.

An increase in soul strength was equivalent to an increase in the Spirit Attribute. How could this thing be merely Inferior Grade?

"Yes, it truly is Inferior Grade, because its side effects are far too severe."

Lu Yueyue explained, "Greatly accelerating the life cycle... means one's lifespan will decrease at an unimaginable rate."

"To give a simple example, if a human infant consumed Mandala Fruit over a prolonged period, they would pass through youth, middle age, and old age in just a few years. Throughout that process, their Spirit Attribute would indeed rise rapidly, but their lifespan would be compressed into only a few years. It is essentially trading lifespan for the Spirit Attribute."

"Normally, natural increases in the Spirit Attribute through cultivation also increase one's lifespan. But the increase gained from consuming Mandala Fruit instead causes one's lifespan to plummet."

"This is a matter of its unique mechanism, so there is no way to reduce the side effects... Hence, the item is rated only as Inferior Grade."

"Then couldn't it be used to raise mutated animals or supernatural animals? Egg-laying chickens, for example?" an animal expert suddenly suggested.

Supernatural animals had low fertility and an even lower chance of passing down their traits. How to breed them on a large scale had always been a thorny issue. Perhaps this thing could produce miraculous results?

"No, no, no!" Lu Yueyue said. "A faster life cycle does not mean their growth and development cycle also speeds up. Humans who consume it long-term will mostly die within five years. A small number of powerful individuals may die within twenty years, but by then they would still be children only a few years old—like one-meter-tall little old men on the verge of dying from old age."

"The same major problem applies to breeding animals. They die too quickly. They may not even have time to produce meat."

"Looking at it that way... the value of these Mandala Flowers has dropped dramatically." Lu Yuan shook his head, then his heart gave a heavy thump.

"No, it isn't worthless!" Old Cat said coldly. "You could even say its value exceeds imagination!"

The meeting room immediately fell silent.

Old Cat's implication was simple—husbandry!

Humans were viviparous, matured late, and had low reproduction rates, making them unsuitable for husbandry with Mandala Flowers. But what about oviparous intelligent species, which matured early and reproduced rapidly? They would only need one or two years to mature, lay eggs, and produce the next generation.

Under normal circumstances, raising the Spirit Attribute above 5 required education, experience, and social cultivation. But now, none of that was necessary... They only needed to eat the fruit. It was a kind of accelerated training.

Once they thought of it that way, everyone broke out in a cold sweat as they looked at the snake people. This use was far too dark, even bringing an inexplicable sense of despair.

After a long while, everyone sighed deeply. The way they looked at those photographs also became profoundly different...

After some time, Old Cat said again, "Is there another possibility? What if this ancient city is not the chief culprit trapping us here?"

"They may simply have been trapped here like us, trapped for an entire era, before being completely wiped out by the Era Disaster."

"As for these Mandala Flowers and the snake people species, I needn't spell it out... Gui possess shallow intelligence. Raising intelligent life is hardly surprising for them."

That possibility was even darker, and the temperature in the meeting room seemed to drop several degrees.

Would humanity become like this?

If Gui had the patience to persist for an entire era, that would be far too tragic.

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

"Indeed, we cannot rule out that possibility."

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

No, it was not hopeless!

He thought that if they truly encountered such a situation, they could only place their hopes on the spatial inscriptions of the Immortal Palace...

His research progress alone was slow, but if he brought it out for all humanity to study together, the pace would increase dramatically—of course, doing so would merely mean jumping from one fire pit into another.

"Even if we use the Immortal Palace inscriptions, and even if the risks are enormous, we must escape!"

At that moment, the reconnaissance department sent another urgent report.

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

"What?"

Lu Yuan's scalp went numb. It would have been one thing if they had found nothing, but why had a whole string of them appeared all at once?

What the hell was this place?

The other experts' expressions also changed slightly as they thought of even worse possibilities.

Senior Colonel Lu Ying from the reconnaissance department hurriedly said, "No, no, no. This time, it should be a normal civilization..."

"They have also disguised themselves as a cloud and are located seven thousand kilometers away."

"It seems they have been trapped here for quite a long time. Their entire city requires maintenance, so they have landed on the ground."

"The city covers roughly 150 square kilometers and has five levels in total, more layers than our Green Field City. Its population is unknown, and its civilization level is unknown. The species is... similar to bird people. They have feathered wings and can glide briefly through the air."

"The cityscape is primarily Materialist Philosophy-oriented. There are relatively few inscriptions, but some do exist. We strongly suspect that their technology was already quite advanced before they arrived on the Pangu Continent..."

Photographs of this Alien Civilization city were soon displayed on the meeting room's large screen.

Good heavens, it really was... futuristic sci-fi in style!

Countless small cars packed the streets like ants. Skyscrapers stood in dense rows, while Solar Panels reflected brilliant sunlight. Solar Panels were a typically energy-intensive industry. Only the large-scale construction of photovoltaic power stations could recoup those costs.

Human 18 Civilization had a small population, and its Solar Panels were developed using inscriptions. The Solar Panels in that city, however, were purely materialist.

There were also Bird Nest-shaped buildings that appeared to be stadiums. A group of bird people were playing inside one of them.

Clearly, all these buildings had been constructed before they arrived on the Pangu Continent. After arriving here, survival had become so precarious—where would they find the time to build massive stadiums?

Even Human 18 Civilization, which needed to raise large numbers of children, could not bear to construct super-large stadiums. Standard fields were good enough!

Based on his experience, Lu Yuan could tell at a glance that this was indeed a perfectly normal civilization.

After all, the details of daily life were difficult to fake—this cyberpunk-like Floating City matched the species' way of life and conformed to ordinary logic.

Compared with the eerie Snake People Palace that made one's heart turn cold with a single glance, this bird people civilization was like a harmless baby.

The inhabitants of this civilization truly were bird people. They had eagle-like heads, sharp eyes, and Bird Beaks, though their feathers were blue.

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

It seemed to be after work now. Many bird people leaped directly down from the tops of skyscrapers—they appeared very accustomed to flying away from great heights as a means of transportation, which was why the city's buildings were generally so tall.

The bird people living closer to the bottom seemed poorer. Their species could only glide rather than fly, so they apparently could not take off directly from flat ground.

Thus, the distribution of wealth was simple. Wealthier individuals lived on higher levels, while poorer individuals lived at the bottom.

"Is this civilization, like us, another unlucky group trapped here..."

Lu Yuan pondered inwardly, I wonder how many years they have been trapped here, and how much they know about that Snake People Palace...

The others in the meeting room also began analyzing the videos and photographs.

For some unknown psychological reason, the tension of being raised as livestock abruptly eased when they discovered another unlucky group suffering alongside them.

Even Lu Yuan could not understand how that mentality had arisen.

"What is this? Being locked in a pigsty, seeing another fat pig watching you, and then feeling schadenfreude?"

Many hands made light work. Before long, everyone found more clues.

"This is indeed a civilization with a wide wealth gap. Do you see it? There are actually beggars here, as well as poor people sleeping in parks and beneath bridges."

"Their population density is very high. Conservative estimates put their population at eight to ten million. Most of them have very little living space and reside in the city's lower levels."

"However, this civilization should possess some technological strength. There appears to be social welfare here, which shows they still retain a certain degree of social consensus and fault tolerance."

"They should also have some understanding of the Pangu Continent... Otherwise, they would not possess a Floating City."

In some of the photographs, people spotted several suspicious missile silos, along with soldiers standing guard.

"A civilization with relatively advanced Materialist Philosophy, a large wealth gap, yet still retaining a certain degree of social consensus..." Lu Yuan formed a rough image of the city in his mind. "I wonder what their political system is..."

Social consensus and fault tolerance were extremely important to a civilization.

Civilization competition might be the theme of the era, but individual lives were what truly mattered.

Fault tolerance provided a minimum safety net for life. It was a real form of civilizational progress—after all, feudal and slave societies had no such mechanism.

"So this civilization may look somewhat loose, but it should still possess a certain degree of combat power..."

Everyone was somewhat excited. It was their first time encountering a civilization that had been relatively advanced from the start. They wondered whether Green Field City or the other side was stronger. Especially in the idealist field, humanity was a genuine Level Three Civilization.

Everyone had a competitive spirit, though none of them showed it on their faces.

"Grand Commander, should we challenge them to a contest?" Senior Colonel Jin Dongliang asked, rubbing his hands eagerly.

Lu Yuan hesitated slightly. "Given the current situation, I don't think that would be appropriate... Peaceful exchange is best."

The purpose of a contest was to prevent war from breaking out between two sides. Now that both sides were trapped on this vast grassland, the likelihood of war had already fallen dramatically.

Even if they fought to the death and defeated the other side, what then? There was still no way to escape this predicament!

Moreover, this place might be Gui's territory. If both sides were badly weakened in battle and Gui struck while they were vulnerable, the trouble would be enormous—then both sides would become pigs in the sty, raised together as livestock.

Professor Lu Tiantian raised her hand and said, "My thought is... this civilization appears to be a technological civilization with a fairly solid foundation. Their materialist technology may be superior to ours."

"But in the idealist field, there is no need for us to undervalue ourselves."

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

"How do we probe them?"