Chapter 18.1: World Mission
“Buzz—— rumble rumble—— da da da——”
Even with earplugs in, Zhang Xiongyuan and a group of students still felt their teeth go numb from the noise inside the helicopter.
But none of them seemed to notice anymore. They were all pressed against the windows, staring forward with stunned expressions.
What an astonishingly grand city it was.
What shocked them was not only its immense scale, but also the various types of flying vehicles coming and going from every direction.
Helicopters, fighter jets, transport aircraft, and even reconnaissance balloons hovering at multiple positions.
The plump, giant reconnaissance balloons floated high above the city, and from a distance they looked like schools of large fish drifting in the sky, calmly observing everything below.
Smaller drones were everywhere by comparison, buzzing as they patrolled the skies over the city or flew farther out to scout.
As the helicopter slowly descended, they could also clearly see a wide open area within the city where various machines and people were working intensely.
Excavators clearing rubble, loaders carrying building materials, towering cranes, and pile drivers pounding the ground with loud thuds.
Rows of circular buildings stood in another area, while high-rise buildings nearing completion stretched up into the clouds. From high above, the crowds of people looked like tiny ants, all busy at work.
The same scenes could be seen outside the city as well.
There were stationed military forces, erected protective nets, gradually constructed houses, and vast stretches of newly reclaimed farmland.
“Oh my god…”
Could this really be something built within just half a year?
Compared to the shocked survivors, the pilot was already used to the scene below. After detecting an AI signal, he connected to the command center:
“Command Center, this is War God 7. Team 19 rendezvous unit. Operation code name: Rescue the Farmer.”
“I have 88 people on board: 78 civilians, including the mission target Zhang Xiongyuan. Mission completed, requesting permission to land.”
Soon, the voice in the headset came from the command center:
“Received. Team 19 escort unit, please report today’s password.”
“Go big!”
“Please report the response code.”
“All done!”
Command Center: “Password correct. Landing permitted. Enter airspace sector 2, maintain altitude…”
Under instructions, the helicopter slowly descended, kicking up a violent gust of wind.
Both side cargo doors opened at the same time. Only then did Zhang Xiongyuan and the students realize this was not the ground—it was an aerial landing platform.
Though called a landing platform, it was astonishingly vast, making anyone feel insignificantly small.
When they saw the Blue Sea staff on the platform—each of them tall, with heights starting at around 1.8 to 1.9 meters—the students felt even smaller by comparison.
They instinctively gathered closer around Zhang Xiongyuan again.
“Teacher… I’m a bit… a bit scared…”
Zhang Xiongyuan took the hands of two nearby students.
“Don’t be afraid. We’ve survived the past half year already—what is there to fear now? We’re alive. No matter where we are, or who we work for, it’s better than being surrounded by zombies.”
He led the group of young students down the ramp at the rear of the helicopter.
“Remember this: as long as you’re alive, you’re lucky.”
—
[Help help help help! I’m going to die I’m going to die I’m going to die!!]
In the City Lord chat group, messages from the Safe City were flooding the screen in panic.
[We ran into a boss, holy crap holy crap holy crap!]
[Pooling crystal cores to buy weapons. Big shots, please check if you want anything—everything is being sold off cheap, really really cheap, please buy something and save us!! [List of supplies]]
While Cheng Qisheng was watching Ma Yuetian and the others farming, her attention was drawn to the group chat, and she immediately focused on it.
The Safe City “WTF’s going on?” chat kept flooding the screen, but because they were clearly in a life-or-death situation, the other city lords didn’t really object.
Even so, among the mass of spam messages, a few other city lords still managed to speak up.
[Meow Meow Safe City: A boss spawned? That was fast, meow!]
[Cilantro Safe City: I’m short on funds. I still need crystal cores to repair the city wall, so I can only chip in a little by buying some toilet paper. Good luck staying safe.]
[Gu Gaga Safe City: We can provide loan services, but you’ll need to sign a formal loan agreement and go through proper procedures.]
[Blue Leaf Safe City: Instead of selling resources, you should sell information about the boss. Everyone would definitely want that. It would help you raise crystal cores faster.]
[Withered Star Safe City: Agreed with Blue Leaf. As long as the price isn’t too outrageous, I’ll buy it too—but remember to restrict it to “information rights only,” otherwise someone might resell it.]
The WTF’s going on? Safe City didn’t respond to any of them, continuing to spam only the list of supplies.
Three messages per minute—most likely the AI had taken over.
Cheng Qisheng was scrolling through the chat when Cilantro quickly sent her a private message.
[Ahhh Boss, this is the boss I told you about before. “Boss” generally refers to monsters that exceed the average combat power of this world. It’s finally—finally appeared!]
“WTF” was shorthand for “What the f*ck is going on.”
Because the name was awkward to type, everyone had tacitly shortened it to “WTF.”
Cheng Qisheng thought silently.
Earlier, when Cilantro had explained beginner guidelines, he had mentioned that in most apocalyptic worlds, even more terrifying monsters would appear as time passed.
These monsters, like superhumans, had tiered classifications and could even evolve on their own.
The higher the level, the stronger their combat ability. If a monster exceeded a Safe City’s level, it could even break through the city’s protective shield.
It certainly sounded dangerous—but then why were they called Safe Cities in the first place?
The reason is that if a city is deemed unsafe, the city lord can take the Safe City and flee to another world.
But in most cases, city lords won’t leave unless it’s truly a matter of life and death.
As Cilantro put it: [These extraordinary monsters are indeed hard to deal with, but if you manage to defeat one, you can at least obtain a Tier-2 crystal core!]
What did a Tier-2 crystal core mean?
It was equivalent to 10,000 ordinary crystal cores!
For city lords below Tier 5, that was already a very substantial amount.
Even though he considered himself pretty weak, Cilantro was extremely excited:
[Everyone’s already waiting now! Boss, let’s wait together!]
Cheng Qisheng: [Wait for what?]
Cilantro: [Wait for WTF to lose!]
Cilantro: [If he wins, then there’s nothing for us to do. But if he loses, then WTF will have spent crystal cores and lost civilians—he’ll definitely need to recover his losses.]
[As the first people in this world to face an extraordinary monster, as long as we record some video of the fight and add the monster’s information, everyone will be willing to pay crystal cores for it.]
Cheng Qisheng understood.
So in the eyes of the city lords, this extraordinary monster was basically a giant “experience pack.”
If they win, they make a huge profit.
If they lose, they can still make some money back by selling information about the monster.
And if things really go wrong, they can even pack up the city and flee.
[Blue Sea Safe City: Are there Safe Cities that can’t escape?]
[Cilantro Safe City: Yes, Boss. Quite a few. If there aren’t enough crystal cores, or not enough citizens, the city can’t leave this world—it can only stay and take the hit.]
[Cilantro Safe City: There’s also another situation I just learned from chatting with other big shots: the Safe City being breached.]
[For example, if the city walls are damaged to below 50%, and aren’t repaired in time, the city also can’t leave. So if you encounter a situation like that, Boss, you must make a decision before the damage reaches 50%.]
Cheng Qisheng noticed it—Cilantro was really good at making friends.
No, calling it “making friends” wasn’t quite accurate. It was more that he got along with everyone, and was especially skilled at aggregating information.
She even suspected at one point that he had a private chat channel with every city lord.
But thinking about it, it made sense. Cilantro was extremely good at extracting useful information, and he didn’t mind sharing what he learned for free.
If a certain city lord explicitly said that something couldn’t be disclosed, then Cilantro’s mouth would snap shut like a clam. Without permission, not a single word would leak.
Now he even had a new “business”—acting as a middleman between city lords, saving everyone a lot of trouble.
And the key point: he didn’t charge crystal cores. Pure voluntary labor.
With someone like that, how could his popularity be anything but good?
Cheng Qisheng could clearly sense that although Cilantro seemed equally friendly with everyone, he still had his own hierarchy of closeness.
First place in his mind was Cheng Qisheng herself—the big shot who had sold him grain at a critical moment.
Second was Blue Leaf, who had also helped him before.
Every time Cilantro negotiated hard with other city lords to get a low price on resources, he would afterward privately message the two of them and share the same low price so they could benefit together.
And he was very good at reading the room.
Before, Cilantro would try all kinds of cute behavior toward Cheng Qisheng. But once he realized she didn’t really respond to that and valued information more, he immediately switched into a serious mode.
From then on, the moment he opened his eyes every day, he would start “reporting.”
He didn’t care whether she replied or not—he would simply dump everything he knew and everything he later learned.
To Cheng Qisheng, it felt like she had raised a human-shaped newspaper.
—But it had to be said, this guy was genuinely useful.
Cheng Qisheng could sense it—Cilantro’s kindness toward her wasn’t purely gratitude.
It was probably a mix of gratitude, admiration, and the desire to cling to a powerful backer.
But so what?
In any case, she was genuinely benefiting from the convenience Cilantro brought her. And Cilantro was a smart person—dealing with smart people was far less troublesome.
After breaking out of the zombie siege, every time he learned about important resources, equipment locations, or large grain warehouses in the zombie world, he would send Cheng Qisheng not only the information, but also the exact map coordinates.
—He was almost as useful as “Old Eighth.”
While chatting with Cilantro about new information, Cheng Qisheng also scanned through her believers one by one to check whether they were safe.
In a disaster world, extraordinary monsters were never just a single threat.
Just like when you find a cockroach at home—there’s no need to doubt it, there must be an entire nest somewhere behind it.
At times like this, the usefulness of having believers became extremely clear.
She didn’t need to go anywhere herself. Her believers were her eyes.
First, the main base—the Safe City. Good. Everything was developing normally.
The local expert who had been rescued had just finished processing the fact that aliens saved him, and had reluctantly begun to adapt to his work.
Next, the “Cradle” outside the city—also fine. The extraterrestrial survivors there were working diligently as well. Good, very hardworking.
Her attention then shifted to the first stronghold, “Fence.” The soldiers there were advancing according to plan and had already reached the county level, continuously expanding the boundary of the “Fence.”
After scanning these large clusters of believers, Cheng Qisheng split her attention into finer threads and checked on the crystal core hunters scattered far from home.
Hmm? One of the hunting teams was actually operating together with a group of local survivors.
Oh! Another team had discovered a grain warehouse and was uploading information through their tactical wrist device.
Huh? That hunting team was in combat—it looked like they had been fighting for quite a while, and it seemed dangerous.
Cheng Qisheng paused her scan and “patted” that group of hunters on the head, granting them a divine blessing.
The last time she used this, it had felt surprisingly effective—the soldiers on the mission had all been as if injected with adrenaline.
Whether it was psychological or not didn’t matter. If it worked, she wasn’t going to be stingy with blessings.
Sure enough, that group of hunters immediately perked up.
“Praise our god’s blessing!”
“It’s the god’s blessing!!”
“Thank you, my god! I feel full of strength again!”
“Keep going!! Kill!!”
Cheng Qisheng: “……”
She slowly reached up and patted her own head.
No feeling at all.
Forget it. Whether it was psychological or not didn’t matter—as long as it worked on her believers.
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Thank you for the chapter!