Chapter 30: A City One Absolutely Cannot Escape From
With so many cores, she would definitely rather give them to the spirit vessel.
After all, the mention of that “more distant” place had almost made Xu Zhi jump to her feet in excitement.
Although it wasn’t explicitly stated, Xu Zhi instinctively understood—what else could that “more distant” place be?
It could only be outside.
As for the feature of recording randomly arrived locations, Xu Zhi opened the spirit vessel interface to take a look. Sure enough, a new records page had appeared—but it was empty.
Which made perfect sense.
And in the lower-right corner of the game interface, a new hammer-shaped icon had appeared. Xu Zhi clicked on it—it was just a button to insert an item, seemingly with no limits on what or how many, followed by a button to start forging. Only two options.
Simple and straightforward—almost crudely so.
This gave Xu Zhi a strange feeling. She didn’t know how to describe it, but it felt like some parts of this game had high production value, while others were rough and patched together, like they had been randomly pulled from other games.
For instance, this forging system—it definitely could’ve used a fancier name or UI to better match the overall tone of the game.
“Whatever. As long as it works.”
Names didn’t matter. After all, she was terrible at naming things anyway.
Having digested all this new information, Xu Zhi prepared for the exciting moment: drawing new traits.
She had been wondering earlier what exactly the trait [Evolution] did. Now that she knew, of course she was tempted.
Xu Zhi opened the trait draw screen and selected two draws.
[Drawing…]
[Congratulations! You’ve drawn: Sharpness Lv5, Evolution Lv1]
“Yesss!”
She liked Evolution. Sharpness was decent—nothing amazing—but drawing two completely new traits, one of which she really wanted, was already quite lucky.
Before she could celebrate for long, a new message appeared:
[Due to the difference between you and your Familiars, traits will manifest with slight differences.]
[Sharpness Lv5: Any bladed tool you use will have significantly enhanced sharpness and durability.]
[Evolution Lv1: When Evolution reaches its max level of 10, you will undergo a metamorphosis and break past your current limits. Note: This trait does not receive growth boosts from Familiars and must be improved independently.]
“As expected, Sharpness is the same as Shen Jinwen’s.”
As for Evolution needing to be upgraded manually, Xu Zhi found it unexpected—but also entirely reasonable.
“Wait, if Yi dies, will I lose my Evolution progress too?”
That would be a total waste, right?
[No. Evolution is a special trait.]
“Okay, that’s a relief.”
It might sound cold, but Xu Zhi’s first concern was exactly that.
She didn’t want to work in vain. Familiars could die—but her Evolution progress had to remain intact.
That said, she still didn’t want her first and currently most powerful Familiar to die.
Once she’d processed all the changes from Yi’s level 20 evolution, Xu Zhi laid out a rough plan for what to do next.
First, Yi was now strong—at least compared to the city’s mutated beasts and those fanatics. It was clearly a standout. While there could still be stronger threats out there—especially the ones hidden in the city center that she didn’t dare approach—it should be enough to start probing the edge of the city.
She wanted to see how the city was actually sealed off. If it was just a man-made blockade…
Though, honestly, that seemed unlikely. After being here for so long, with her Familiars roaming around daily, she had never seen any rescue or exploration teams from outside.
It was like Cloud City had been completely cut off—no one could enter, and no one could leave.
Still, it was worth seeing for herself.
Second, she needed to gather more cores.
It had been about a month since Cloud City was sealed. Who knew what had happened outside? If she really couldn’t escape, she could still use the spirit vessel to randomly transport herself out.
The fog had lasted for a month now—surely the outside world had discovered something new?
Xu Zhi couldn’t rely solely on the information the game provided. The Federation had so many experts and resources—it was impossible that they hadn’t uncovered anything.
Third, she needed to cultivate a new Familiar. That meant gaining more strength and finding other supernaturals to exchange information with—like that one in the Nanshan Villa area who could detect whether people around her were dangerous. Xu Zhi was very curious about her.
And finally, when the time felt right, she would try to approach the mysteries of midnight and the city center.
Some of these goals could be pursued simultaneously, while others had to wait for the right moment. For now, Xu Zhi gave Yi a direct command: head toward the highway at the edge of the city and see if it could leave via the expressway.
After all, aside from its ability to change size, Yi’s Transformation Lv3 now had additional abilities.
[Transformation Lv3: Your Familiar can freely change its body size (up to 3x the original). Additionally, its scales gain optical camouflage, permanently boosting concealment. It can actively trigger invisibility for 3 seconds every 2 hours. Note: The body still exists during this effect and can be touched or damaged.]
In other words, the 3-second invisibility only fooled vision—Yi was still physically present and vulnerable. Still, Xu Zhi thought it was pretty useful.
She sent Gouzi out hunting while she followed Yi’s perspective on the screen as it moved toward the edge of Cloud City.
The closer it got to the edge, the thicker the fog became. Based on road signs, Xu Zhi realized Yi was nearing the boundary—but the fog was so dense that even it was struggling to see.
Xu Zhi began to suspect the worst—most likely, there was no way out. It seemed like no one could get in, and no one could get out.
Sure enough, before Yi could reach the actual boundary, its vision went completely black.
Even after walking forward in a straight line for a long while, it didn’t bump into any obstacle or barrier—almost as if it had fallen into a fog it could never escape.
Xu Zhi frowned, feeling uneasy, and immediately ordered Yi to turn back.
Within minutes, Yi’s vision cleared again—it had returned to the area near the expressway sign it had seen earlier.
“…This is like one of those supernatural loops in a novel.”
But this confirmed one thing—the seal wasn’t man-made. The city had been completely isolated by something else.
Xu Zhi sighed. “That’s some bad news.”
It meant she had no choice but to confront the city center’s aberrants—there was nowhere to run.
Maybe… she could share what she knew about the aberrants with other supernaturals instead of worrying about it all alone.
Xu Zhi had no illusions of playing hero—best to rope a few others in to deal with it and share the stress.
With her test of the city’s edge complete, Xu Zhi gave up the idea of “just running away if things go south,” and instead opened the Familiar interface to choose her third Familiar.
“Let’s see what options I’ve got this time.”
