Chapter 158: The Far Side of the Moon
To improve her strength, it wasn’t enough for her alone to grow stronger — her familiars’ advancement was equally important.
After obtaining the core the Federation had promised, Xu Zhi entered a “closed-door cultivation” state. Since the Central City incident, this was the first time she had truly calmed down to focus on increasing her extraordinary rank.
Xu Zhi took out her game console and looked at the mountain of attribute cores piled up in her inventory, feeling a headache coming on.
“Isn’t there any way to refine these attribute cores further?” she asked.
“If I just eat them like this… how long will it take?”
[There is.]
The narrator’s voice responded.
[You can refine them at the forge, though some of the core’s energy will be lost in the process.]
“That’s fine,” Xu Zhi said. “Saving time is more important right now.”
“But when was that feature added?”
[After you leveled up.]
“Why wasn’t there an announcement?”
[…]
[There was a small… minor malfunction at the time, so the announcement didn’t get released.]
[But all the current functions should be working… somewhat strangely.]
“Alright then,” she said.
A small malfunction? What exactly had happened to the console back then?
Xu Zhi noted that in the back of her mind, then opened the forging interface.
Sure enough, there was now a new “Refine” option, and she could even choose the refinement ratio.
[For yourself, I recommend a 1000-to-1 ratio. For your familiars, 100-to-1 is enough. As for the little aberration, it doesn’t need to eat these anymore — without a complete foundation, it can’t level up regardless of how much it consumes.]
[As for the Word of Curse, it can’t level up by eating cores. It’s parasitic on you and absorbs your energy instead. So, you’ll need to share some of your energy with it.]
[Just portion some out for it.]
“Got it,” she said.
Solid advice.
[Refinement loss: about three per hundred.]
Not a low rate, but Xu Zhi was practically swimming in cores now — she didn’t mind.
After refining, she picked up one of the refined Moth-type attribute cores and examined it. The difference was obvious at a glance.
It was slightly larger — about half the size of a thumb — diamond-shaped, and exquisitely beautiful. It emitted a faint gray glow, and upon closer inspection, those lights were actually countless fine cracks of gray energy within.
Compared to this, even diamonds looked cheap.
“It’s gorgeous.”
[Eat one at a time,] the narrator warned.
Otherwise, the impact might be too much for her body to handle.
“Alright.”
Xu Zhi followed the advice. She set the refined cores on the table for her familiars to take freely and instructed the narrator, half lazily, “You keep an eye on them.”
Then she downed the core in her hand in one go.
The next moment felt like slamming back a shot of strong liquor — her head went dizzy, her vision swirled, and hallucinations began to bloom before her eyes.
Once again, the gray moths she hadn’t seen in a long time fluttered around her. Only this time, the flickering candle flame that used to hang in the sky was gone. Instead, a dim, pale moon hung there quietly.
As she gazed at the moon, Xu Zhi suddenly had a strange intuition.
This was the far side of the moon.
She was standing on the far side of the moon.
What did that mean? What did it signify? Her mind felt foggy — she couldn’t think clearly.
Why the moon now, instead of the candle flame? Was it because she’d eaten that fragment?
For some reason, the thought came almost instinctively.
But why?
The moonlight seemed dimmer than it should be. The moths were no longer frantically flying toward the sky — instead, they circled gently around her.
While she was lost in this vision, she didn’t notice that the black mist shrouding Cloud City began to stir in response. The mist surrounding her body twisted like it had been caught in a storm, swirling tighter and tighter — and the unknowing girl absorbed it greedily.
The game console’s display grew distorted, glitching with static and mosaic patterns. After a few flickers, the swirling mist storm around Xu Zhi slowly subsided.
When she finally woke from the hallucination, she felt dizzy and bloated — like she’d eaten too much.
It was that full, overstuffed sensation — unmistakable.
With her current understanding of the extraordinary, Xu Zhi immediately knew what had happened. Simply put — she really had eaten too much.
She needed to digest this energy first. She couldn’t absorb any more until she advanced again.
Of course, she couldn’t yet raise her life level — that wasn’t possible. What she needed was to take the next small step within the second major tier of transcendence.
But promotion now wasn’t as simple as just having enough energy.
From what she’d learned, there were two ways:
One — taking a transcendent potion suited to her rank. But she didn’t have any, nor did she know the formula.
Two — performing a ritual array: sacrificing the bones of a higher-ranked transcendent creature, using a special ritual to commune with the lingering energy of the remains, and through that resonance, guide her own energy to advance.
In simple terms — it required a predecessor’s guidance.
The ritual array existed in her memory — but she’d need the corpse of a higher-ranked second-stage creature.
Where on earth was she supposed to find that?
Xu Zhi sighed in frustration, muttering under her breath. Then the game console flickered again, and a line of text appeared.
[I know where to find it.]
Xu Zhi’s eyes lit up. “Where?”
[Midnight.]
[In Midnight, transcendent corpses are everywhere — all of them second tier or higher.]
That sounded… exaggerated.
“What kind of place is that exactly?
And… won’t it be dangerous for me to go there?”
[Of course it will.]
[But you won’t find any suitable corpses in the outside world. Your only option is to enter Midnight.]
[Fortunately, you’re already second-tier. You now have some resistance to Midnight’s corruption. With your cloak and a higher-grade lantern, you can block most of the prying eyes.]
[Even so, Midnight remains extremely dangerous for you.]
[But the danger isn’t Midnight itself — it’s what hides within it.]
[You already know why.]
Xu Zhi nodded stiffly. “Yeah… I’ve offended them.”
[Exactly. Once you find a suitable corpse, leave immediately. Don’t linger.]
“Alright, I understand.”
[Midnight won’t manifest in the real world for now. You’ll need to enter from the rift in the city center — and once you’re inside, get as far away from there as you can!]
[Someone will definitely be lying in wait.]
Xu Zhi frowned, worried. “Will they spot me right away?”
[Possibly. So move fast. If you’re exposed — leave instantly!]
“When’s the best time to go?”
[At the darkest hour of the night.]
