Chapter 1.2: Safe City Binding
——Presidential Palace——
The President wiped the blood from her face, her expression filled with joy.
“My God… so You have indeed responded to the prayers of the people of Blue Sea?”
She stood up, her expression returning to the same solemnity as always.
“Open the global announcement system. Issue a Level-One evacuation order directing all citizens to the temple.”
“Contact the Marshal. I require full military cooperation for the evacuation.”
“Contact the Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Internal Affairs, Emergency Management Department, and Ministry of Transportation. Hold an online emergency meeting immediately. Open all routes at any cost. Transport the people of Blue Sea to the temple as quickly as possible!”
A message from the Marshal had already come in.
“The military will fully cooperate with the evacuation. All units will obey the President’s command!”
Another message, from the Pope, arrived as well.
“All gates of the temple are fully open. However, Your Excellency, there is something you must know—the temple can only accommodate a maximum of one hundred million people, and even that will be extremely cramped.”
The Dark Star was not large, and the population of Blue Sea civilization was not enormous—but even so, it totaled around eight billion people.
The President clenched her fist slightly, but her expression remained calm.
“One hundred million… that should be enough for now. Just from the sudden disasters this morning, at least one-third of Blue Sea has already perished. And there will always be those who cannot make it in time…”
She forced herself to calmly accept the reality that only about one billion people might survive, and quickly began considering expansion plans.
“I will send personnel to the temple to urgently construct high-rise structures, to accommodate as many people and resources as possible.”
The temple could not be demolished, but building within it was possible. At this point, all they could do was maximize vertical space and expand survivable capacity as much as possible.
“Do not think about the future yet. First, save as many people as possible.”
The Pope replied: “Yes, Your Excellency the President.”
Under the command of the highest levels of Blue Sea civilization, the entire society began to move into action.
All transportation routes were opened. The roads leading to the temple were guarded by the military. Every vehicle had to pass at maximum speed—if a vehicle broke down and blocked the road, soldiers would immediately move it aside.
The temple’s gates stood wide open. Construction workers labored desperately, and many civilians also joined in, helping with auxiliary tasks.
High-rise structures were built at a visible speed, stacked as high as possible. At this point, there was no concern for water, electricity, or amenities—only the ability to safely stack people and supplies upward.
Various resources were transported into the temple by helicopters and freight trucks. Emergency response plans were activated one after another, and warehouses were opened wide.
From a high altitude, one could see the entire planet’s population converging rapidly toward a single point.
—For Blue Sea civilization, it was a frantic, sleepless mass relocation lasting nine days and nine nights, involving over a billion people working without rest.
—For Cheng Qisheng, it felt like she had only waited a moment, and the move was already complete.
A virtual interface popped up again.
[Beep—Warning—Warning—The planet where Safe City is located is about to be destroyed. Initiating automatic detachment procedure.]
[Safe City – Tier 1]
[Actual area: 800 square kilometers]
[Deployment area: 5 square kilometers]
[Capacity: 360 million residents]
[Status: Auto-detaching—]
There was no loud explosion, no dazzling spectacle. On the holographic display, the Safe City glowed—and in the next instant, it appeared on an unfamiliar stretch of grassland.
The most astonishing part was that such a massive city, when viewed from the outside, truly only occupied 5 square kilometers.
In other words, the Safe City physically occupied only 5 square kilometers of this world, but internally it contained an area of 800 square kilometers.
It really was… astonishing.
Cheng Qisheng discovered that she could view the Safe City from a top-down perspective through the virtual interface.
Even more surprisingly, the flow of time inside the Safe City had become synchronized with hers.
Inside the Safe City, the Blue Sea civilization carefully observed the outside world—but without permission from their god, no one dared to step out.
Cheng Qisheng looked at the densely packed masses of Blue Sea citizens, and her emotions became extremely complicated.
She had painstakingly tended Dark Star for three years. So many times, it had nearly been destroyed by various disasters, and she had done everything she could to save it.
Hundreds of billions of years—she had protected Dark Star for hundreds of billions of years.
And now she was being told that the ruined city from the very beginning was actually something far more advanced.
It simply required the destruction of the planet to activate.
For a moment, Cheng Qisheng didn’t even know what she was supposed to feel.
The virtual interface didn’t give her much time to think. Next to the overhead view of the Safe City, a new panel suddenly appeared—something like a group chat channel.
Messages in unfamiliar languages kept refreshing, yet strangely, she could understand them.
[Blue Leaf Safe City: Oh? A Safe City without a name? Not even 24 hours old? A newcomer! Welcome, welcome!]
[Withered Star Safe City: You got thrown into this world at Tier 1 already? Is your AI system insane?]
[Coriander Safe City: It’s probably because the world collapsed too fast and the AI had no choice.]
[Born to Gamble Safe City: I bet 100 energy crystals this newbie dies within ten days.]
[Gu Gaga Safe City: Buying energy crystals in bulk. Can trade for various resources. High volume, high price. DM me if interested!]
Cheng Qisheng silently absorbed all the “information” revealed through these conversations between “people.”
[Cosmic Lord Safe City: Welcome, newcomer. A Tier 1 Safe City already thrown into such a dangerous world? Have you reached 100,000 residents yet? Do your citizens listen to you? How about this—you acknowledge me as your boss, I’ll protect you and send people to intimidate your residents. I just need 10% of the energy crystals you earn in this world.]
[Meow Meow Safe City: Meow, newbie don’t trust Cosmic Lord. He’s trying to trick you into giving your coordinates so he can kill you and steal your Safe City core, meow. I almost fell for it before! Don’t give your coordinates to anyone, meow!]
[Cosmic Lord Safe City: That damn cat again! Just wait! I’ll skin you sooner or later!]
[Meow Meow Safe City: Come on then, meow not afraid of you! My Safe City already has ten million residents! Do you even stand a chance, useless thing?]
[Cosmic Lord Safe City: Heh. Ten million? Who would believe that? Can you even control them?]
[Meow Meow Safe City: Unlike you, meow is the boss. Everyone listens to me. Not like you—I heard your city was overthrown again recently, meow. It’s unbelievable that someone so bad at being a city lord even exists. Don’t end up like the previous Withered Star Safe City lord, who got his position taken and died miserably, meow~]
[Withered Star Safe City: That guy deserved it.]
[Cosmic Lord Safe City: Damn cat! Just you wait! Just you wait! Once I have enough population I’m coming for you!]
[Gu Gaga Safe City: Buying energy crystals in bulk. Will exchange for population/resources @Cosmic Lord Safe City]
[Blue Leaf Safe City: Why isn’t the newcomer speaking? Are you not used to chatting yet? Just focus on the screen and you can send messages.]
[Gu Gaga Safe City: Buying energy crystals in bulk. Can exchange for various newbie-only information. Must-have for newcomers, cheap and discounted, hurry @“Unnamed Safe City”]
Cheng Qisheng silently watched the messages scroll past.
At this point, she could already determine that—counting herself—there were thirteen “people” in this group chat.
Or rather, thirteen Safe City lords.
It looked, at first glance, like an ordinary group chat. Except that two of the members seemed ready to arrange an offline fight, the rest wasn’t much different from the online chat groups Cheng Qisheng had joined in the past.
After noticing she wasn’t responding, the other city lords fell silent. Only Blue Leaf Safe City kept @-mentioning her, trying to draw her into the conversation.
Cheng Qisheng remained completely silent.
Haha. Her speech-related muscles had already lost motor function. She simply could not produce sound at all.
Still, she felt she was quite lucky.
At least she could still control her eyelids. She could still read messages.
Just as she was frantically collecting information with her mind, a mass of white light slowly gathered on the virtual screen. It looked like a jellyfish drifting slowly through the sea.
“Respected City Lord, greetings. I am the Safe City’s AI, serial number 008. I am your assistant. You may call me 008.”
The jellyfish-like AI had no mouth—but it was speaking. That alone made Cheng Qisheng feel a strange sense of envy.
Receiving no response, the AI calmly rotated its body, faint blue light shimmering across it.
“System scan in progress. Detected that the City Lord’s physical condition is poor. Suspected illness: Mortal Vessel Syndrome.”
“Cause: The patient’s mental power is too strong for the physical body to support. There is a mismatch between mind and body. Symptoms include progressive loss of bodily control over time, eventually resulting in complete confinement within the body.”
“Searching for solution…”
After a few rapid pulses of blue light, the AI quickly produced a recommendation:
“Recommendation: City Lord should disable the Safe City Newcomer 24-hour protection period and officially activate the Safe City system.”
“The AI predicts the City Lord may wish to understand the function of the newcomer protection period in order to decide whether to disable it.”
[During the Safe City newcomer protection period, residents may freely enter and exit the city. Within 24 hours, dangers outside the Safe City cannot enter.]
“City Lord has been bound to the Safe City. After disabling the newcomer protection period and officially activating the Safe City, the City Lord will also ascend to the same Transcendent Tier 1 level as the Safe City. Transcendent Tier 1 can alleviate part of the Mortal Vessel Syndrome symptoms.”
“AI prediction: There is a 99.8% probability that after reaching Transcendent Tier 1, the City Lord will regain the ability for normal communication and extremely slow physical movement.”
“Due to the City Lord’s speech impairment, the AI has activated expression-observation mode. If the City Lord agrees to disable the protection period, please blink three times within one minute. If you disagree, please blink four times.”
Cheng Qisheng’s pupils trembled.
Three years.
She had been sick for three years.
In these three years, she had gone from seeking medical treatment in her own world, to placing her hopes in the Dark Star world.
In order to keep up with Dark Star’s development, she watched its extremely fast-moving scenes every day until her head ached. She was afraid of accidents, so even when sleeping she only dared to rest for one hour before waking up to check on the situation.
She only ate instant food because it was the fastest and most convenient. She tried to drink as little water as possible to reduce trips to the bathroom.
Three years—she had lived like this for three years. Even when interstellar civilization had already begun exploring the universe, they still could not cure ALS no matter what.
She had truly believed there was no hope left in this life.
Unable to control her body, her mind was perfectly clear, yet she could only watch herself gradually lose the ability to take care of herself.
She was still young, yet she had already glimpsed an utterly hopeless future.
She never expected that hope would not come from Dark Star itself—but from the ruined city within it.
Now, as long as she blinked three times…
This long-debilitated body of hers would recover enough to function normally.
Cheng Qisheng blinked rapidly.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Four times—
The jellyfish-like AI twitched slightly, as if expressing surprise.
“City Lord did not agree to activate the Safe City now? Please confirm again.”
Cheng Qisheng blinked four times again.
“Understood. The AI will comply with your command and will not independently disable the Safe City newcomer protection period.”
Cheng Qisheng closed her eyes.
Yes. She very much wanted to immediately regain control of her body—to speak, to walk on her own, to move freely again.
That kind of urgent desire for health was something only those who had been ill for a long time could truly understand.
Inside her, it felt as if something was desperately urging her:
Hurry! Try it now! Immediately!
But Cheng Qisheng held herself back.
From what she had seen in the Safe City group chat, those city lords all implied that this world was extremely dangerous.
The 24-hour newcomer protection period was her—and the Blue Sea civilization’s—greatest safeguard.
Within these 24 hours, Blue Sea civilization could safely explore without worrying about bringing danger back to their home base.
Then they could explore, integrate, advance forward, and evolve.
Now, there was far more information to process: Safe Cities, the destruction of Dark Star, new dangerous worlds, the city lord group chat, and the AI that referred to her illness as “Mortal Vessel Syndrome”… and the possibility that Safe Cities would continue traveling between worlds.
But none of that mattered.
As long as her illness could be cured, everything else was secondary.
Cheng Qisheng’s eyelashes didn’t even tremble. Her expression remained calm.
In her mind, she quietly issued an exploratory order to the President of Blue Sea civilization.
Before becoming ill, Cheng Qisheng had only been a university student about to graduate. In terms of management experience, any seasoned veteran from society could probably outperform her easily.
But it didn’t matter.
A Creator God didn’t need management experience.
She only needed to assign what she wanted done to the highest authority of the Blue Sea civilization.
The entire administrative system of Blue Sea civilization would naturally carry out her will.
And as for Cheng Qisheng herself, she only needed to lie in bed—just as she had done for the past three years—and quietly wait for the 24 hours to pass.
The power of Transcendent Tier 1 would allow her to slowly regain control over her body.
And after that—what about further ascension?
If Tier 2, Tier 3 could not do it, then what about Tier 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, or 9?
No need to rush. Be patient.
Cheng Qisheng slowly closed her eyes, letting her violently pounding heart gradually calm.
—Now, I have plenty of time to take things slowly.
