A City from Which Escape Was Absolutely Impossible

A City from Which Escape Was Absolutely Impossible

With so many cores, she would definitely rather give them to the Spirit Vessel.

After all, that "more distant" place mentioned in the description had nearly made Xu Zhi leap to her feet in excitement.

Though it had not been stated outright, Xu Zhi already understood. Where else could this more distant place be?

It could only be outside, right?

As for recording locations it had randomly reached, Xu Zhi opened the Spirit Vessel interface to check. There was indeed an additional records page, but it was blank.

That was only natural.

Meanwhile, among the icons in the lower-right corner of the game interface, a hammer-shaped icon had appeared. Xu Zhi tapped into it and found only a button for placing items inside, seemingly with no limit on how many could be placed, followed by a button to begin forging. There were only those two options.

It was remarkably simple and crude, even carrying a hint of shoddiness.

This gave Xu Zhi a strange feeling. She did not know how to put it, but some parts of this game seemed incredibly high-end, while others reeked of slapdash patchwork, as though it had casually ripped bits and pieces from other games.

Take this forging, for example. Shouldn't it have a more impressive-sounding name to better suit the game's style?

"Whatever. As long as it works."

The name did not matter. After all, she herself was a terrible namer.

After digesting all this information, Xu Zhi prepared to begin the thrilling card draw.

She had just been wondering what [Evolution] did. Now that she knew, she naturally wanted it badly.

Xu Zhi opened the trait draw page and directly selected two draws.

[Drawing]

[Congratulations, you drew: Sharpness Lv5, Evolution Lv1]

"Eek!"

She really liked Evolution. Sharpness was decent enough, but getting no duplicates at all, plus one trait she wanted, was already pretty good.

Before Xu Zhi could celebrate for long, a line of narration popped up.

[Due to the differences between you and your familiars, your traits will also undergo slight changes.]

[Sharpness Lv5: The sharpness and toughness of any bladed tool used by you will be greatly enhanced.]

[Evolution Lv1: When Evolution reaches its maximum level of 10, you will complete a transformation and break through your limits. Please note: this trait is unaffected by familiar growth bonuses and can only be raised by yourself.]

"As expected, Sharpness should be the same as Shen Jinwen's."

As for Evolution's level only being raised by herself, Xu Zhi found it unexpected, yet perfectly reasonable.

"Then if Little One dies, will my Evolution disappear too?"

Wouldn't all those accumulated levels be wasted?

[No. Evolution is special.]

"Then that's fine."

Though it sounded somewhat cold-blooded, that really was the first thing Xu Zhi had considered.

She did not want to work for nothing. Her familiar could die, but the progress of her [Evolution] could not be lost.

Still, if possible, she did not want her first familiar—and currently her strongest one—to die.

After sorting through the changes brought about by Little One reaching level 20, Xu Zhi made a simple plan for what to do next.

First, Little One was fairly strong now. At the very least, compared with the mutated animals in the city and those fanatics, Little One clearly stood head and shoulders above them. There could not be ruled out stronger beings elsewhere, and Xu Zhi still did not dare touch the secrets of the city center, but it should be enough to probe the city's boundary now.

She wanted to see how the lockdown was enforced. If it was merely a man-made blockade—

But that possibility was actually unlikely. The familiars had gone out every day since she had been in the city, yet she had never seen any exploration teams or rescue teams from outside.

It was as if Cloud City had been completely isolated and helpless. The people inside could not get out, and those outside could not get in.

But no matter what, she had to go take a look.

Second, she needed to stockpile more cores.

Cloud City had been locked down for around a month. She did not know what changes had occurred outside. If they truly could not get out, the Spirit Vessel could still randomly reach somewhere beyond the city.

The mist had appeared a month ago. There should have been some new discoveries outside by now, right?

Xu Zhi could not rely solely on the information provided by the game. The Federation possessed so much talent and so many resources; it was impossible that they had discovered nothing.

Third, she needed to cultivate new familiars, improve her strength, and seek out other Transcendents to exchange information with. For instance, Xu Zhi was very curious about the Transcendent in the Nanshan Villa District who could tell whether the people around her were safe.

Lastly, when the time felt right, she would try to make contact with Midnight and the secrets of the city center.

Some of these things could be done simultaneously, while others could only wait for an opportunity. Right now, Xu Zhi directly ordered Little One to head for the highway on the edge of the city and see whether it could leave Cloud City by following it.

After all, aside from changing its size, Little One's level 3 Transformation had gained another ability.

[Transformation Lv3: Your familiar may freely alter its body size, up to a maximum of three times its original size. In addition, its scales will gain an optical camouflage effect, permanently increasing concealment. Once every 2 hours, it may actively use this effect to become invisible for 3 seconds, though its physical body will still remain.]

In other words, those three seconds of invisibility merely deceived the other party's vision. Little One still existed and could still be touched and harmed. Even so, Xu Zhi thought it was quite good.

She sent Doggie out to hunt while she followed Little One's perspective on the screen toward the edge of Cloud City.

The closer it got to the outskirts, the denser the mist became. Judging by the road signs, Xu Zhi realized that Little One was nearly at the boundary, but the fog here had grown so thick that even Little One could barely see the road ahead.

Xu Zhi formed a guess. They probably could not get out, and it was likely the sort of situation where outsiders could not enter and those inside could not leave.

Sure enough, before Little One reached the very edge of the city, its vision had already turned pitch-black, unable to make out anything.

Even after it continued straight ahead for quite a while, it did not touch any obstacle or boundary, as though it had fallen into a mass of mist it could never escape.

Xu Zhi frowned, sensing that something was wrong, and hurriedly told Little One to turn back.

It only took a few minutes after turning around for Little One's vision to clear again. It had returned to the road sign it had seen earlier, the one indicating that the highway was close.

".Why does this feel a bit like a ghost wall from a novel?"

But this also proved that the blockade was indeed not caused by people outside. This city had been completely isolated.

Xu Zhi sighed. "What terrible news."

It meant she had no choice but to face those aberrations in the city center. There was nowhere for her to flee.

Perhaps she could tell more Transcendents about the aberrations instead of agonizing over them by herself.

After all, Xu Zhi had no notions of personal heroism. The more people she could drag in to share the burden and worry about it, the better.

Having finished her attempt to leave the city, Xu Zhi discarded the thought of if all else failed, she could just run away, then opened the familiar interface to choose her third familiar.

"Let's see what this time has in store?"