Chapter 52: The Key Point
The few people who had been thrown out were all Ability-users. Usually, they operated as a small team to build rapport and coordination. When they received the order yesterday to intercept a girl trying to break into the Nanshan Villa, they were actually surprised—was all this really necessary?
Now, lying on the ground in a mess and seeing clearly what had attacked them, they all obediently lay flat, not daring to make a sound.
Are you kidding? A giant python larger than all of them combined, plus a mutant wolf that clearly wasn’t something to mess with. These guys normally needed teamwork and firearms just to take down a single mutant dog—how were they supposed to stop these two?
They were Ability-users, not superheroes!
Better to lie still. These two mutant animals didn’t seem to have any intention of killing them anyway.
But who was this girl?
Was her ability controlling mutant animals?
How nice…
Yes, these people didn’t even realize the presence of the saker falcon.
“We-we’ve already notified the administrator.”
One of them stammered from the ground.
Xu Zhi nodded approvingly. “Alright, let’s wait here for ten minutes then.”
Giving Zhong Lingfan ten extra minutes to adapt and respond.
When the ten minutes were up, Xu Zhi lightly tapped her wold’s neck, and the wolf started walking toward the villa garden.
On the way, she encountered three waves of attacks, but none even reached her before being effortlessly neutralized. She even had the leisure to check whether her wolf was shedding fur.
“Not bad. No shedding.”
After checking, she bent down and gave the wolf’s head a few pats in praise.
When she looked up again, she was already at the gate of the garden.
The main gate was a pair of antique-style double doors, currently tightly shut. Xu Zhi couldn’t tell if there was a trap behind them—but it didn’t matter.
With a wave of her hand, Yi slammed the doors open, completely destroying them.
Right after, something hit Yi, but it had no real effect. Then came a few gunshots and an ability-user that struck Yi—unfortunately, the level was too low to do anything. The bullets couldn’t even penetrate its defenses.
From the emotional feedback Yi sent her, the ability-user’s attack seemed aimed at restricting movement—a binding skill of some kind.
But it was so weak it could be entirely ignored.
The gunfire only lasted a few seconds before it stopped. The shooters had already been taken down by Zhen. If Xu Zhi hadn’t instructed her to hold back, they might not have even fired those few shots.
Silence returned to the villa. It seemed that even the inability of firearms to deal damage had left the people inside at a loss.
Xu Zhi could understand. Most ability-users these days didn’t have particularly powerful abilities—they usually relied on passive effects and modern firearms to hunt their prey.
Now, faced with an enemy immune to bullets, they simply didn’t know what to do.
Xu Zhi kindly waited at the door for a bit to give them some reaction time before riding her wolf into the villa.
She didn’t dismount for one reason: Yi and Zhen were more than enough to handle everyone here—there was no need for her to get involved.
As she entered the corridor, a gust of wind came from behind. Without even turning her head, Xu Zhi heard the sound of someone hitting the ground. Presumably, someone had tried to ambush her from behind and been pulled down by Zhen.
Through her connection with Gouzi, Xu Zhi sensed that someone had been lying in ambush up ahead, but for some reason, they didn’t move at all when she passed by.
“Guess they lost their nerve.”
She didn’t think much of it. Protected by her beasts, she walked unimpeded all the way to the main hall she had visited the day before.
“Good morning,” she greeted Zhong Lingfan in a cheerful tone when she saw her looking resigned.
“Is your ability to control mutant animals?”
Though Zhong Lingfan asked the question, she had already concluded in her mind that this must be the case.
Xu Zhi nodded. “That’s right. But even without the animals, not a single person in your group could beat me.”
“Almost forty people, twenty-seven of them ability-users—what a high ratio.”
Zhong Lingfan already knew from yesterday that Xu Zhi could see people’s abilities with her gray eyes, so she wasn’t too surprised.
“True. Ability-users used to be one in a million, and now they’re more common than ordinary people. I wonder… is it the same outside Cloud City?”
Xu Zhi’s gaze flickered. Of course not. Outside, Ability-users were still rare.
And that, most likely, was why people from outside were so desperate to enter Cloud City.
In Cloud City, for some reason, Ability-users were emerging in large numbers. The people outside knew what the key cause was.
Thinking it through, what was the one thing Cloud City and the outside world shared—something that could make them realize the difference?
Xu Zhi looked at the black mist that constantly swirled around her.
It was probably this, wasn’t it?
Everything had changed since this black mist appeared. Though ordinary people who inhaled too much of it tended to go mad, the high proportion of ability-users in Cloud City suggested that if someone could endure it, they had a very high chance of awakening powers.
Otherwise, what else could explain the abnormal number of ability-users in the city?
And the fact that the mutant beasts continued growing stronger just by surviving, plus what Shen Jinwen said about being able to sense ever-increasing energy in the air—those all pointed to the possibility that the black mist contained some sort of energy.
Thinking of this made Xu Zhi a bit bitter—because she couldn’t feel any of it.
She couldn’t absorb even a trace of energy from the mist!
But all of this was just her bold speculation. The truth remained uncertain.
She didn’t continue the topic but changed the subject instead. “Time to pack up and come with me now, right?”
“Yes.” At this point, Zhong Lingfan didn’t stall. Xu Zhi had shown overwhelming power—she understood that she had no choice but to obey.
“Give me two hours. Let them pack up, then we’ll go. Is that alright?”
She used a negotiating tone.
Xu Zhi nodded. “Of course.”
There was no need to worry about anyone refusing now—Xu Zhi had made it very clear there was no room for refusal.
Given the current state of the world and the leadership of Zhong Lingfan, this team didn’t have any particularly foolish members. In two hours, they had finished packing, assigned vehicles, and were ready to go.
After all, none of them were originally from the garden villa, and they had only lived there for less than two months—there wasn’t much they had to bring.
Xu Zhi had Yi lead the convoy at the front, while she and Zhong Lingfan sat in one of the vehicles with her wolf.
The main purpose, of course, was to discuss rent payments and the future management of the old residential area, which Zhong Lingfan would take over.
Xu Zhi thought to herself: once this is all sorted, I need to head out to the outside world soon to exchange for the cores I need—and trade for some information.
In the meantime, she’d also have to advance her level—and if possible, figure out what that mysterious threat from her dream actually was.
