Chapter 109.2: Kingdom of Lilith
Of course, she knew Safe Cities weren’t completely impervious to danger. Coriander, for instance, had nearly had its walls breached by zombies. But clearly, the “unsafe” situation Duxi was talking about wasn’t that.
[Duxi Safe City: I haven’t told anyone else about this. Mainly because even if the City Lords I know were aware of it, none of them could suddenly strike it rich and advance all the way to Tier 6. Knowing about it would only give them needless anxiety. I think you have the potential to advance to Tier 6 quickly, which is why I’m telling you. I hope it won’t cause you any trouble.]
Having heard him put it that way, Cheng Qisheng was naturally all ears.
[Duxi Safe City: City Lords below Tier 5 all share a common understanding: the worlds where Safe Cities descend will eventually move toward destruction. Before that happens, City Lords can control their Safe Cities and evacuate from those worlds. But according to the rumors, some worlds will suddenly be destroyed, and the small universes they exist in will be destroyed along with them. Some City Lords call this phenomenon the Great Annihilation.]
[Duxi Safe City: Blue Sea, you may never have seen a black hole before. It’s said that when the Great Annihilation arrives, those worlds are swallowed up as if by black holes. But they’re not actually black holes, because a real black hole wouldn’t consume celestial bodies that quickly. It’s even fast enough that a Safe City won’t have time to evacuate that universe. Only a Tier-6 Safe City can survive by rushing into the greater universe and escaping the catastrophe.]
Cheng Qisheng: …Haha. If I told you, you’d probably be scared to death. Not only have I actually seen a black hole, but my Dark Star was swallowed by one.
Although this “black hole” wasn’t actually a black hole, she still felt like smashing a wall.
Why?!
Dark Star was already gone, and Old Eighth had gone from the wild man of his dreams to a genuine wild man. Yet that damn “black hole” was still relentlessly chasing after them!
This was actually rather frightening.
The greatest safeguard Safe Cities had in all those apocalyptic worlds was the ability to withdraw from a world at any time.
When things were going well, they could do their best to search for resources.
When things started going badly, they could simply turn around and run.
And now she was suddenly being told that if they happened to encounter a “black hole,” they wouldn’t even have the chance to run. They would simply be destroyed along with the entire world.
It was like telling someone who was already sitting on an airplane and was terrified of dying that only one flight out of every several million ended in a fatal crash.
But once such a crash occurred, no one would survive.
In other words, everyone was essentially gambling that they wouldn’t be the one who happened to encounter that one-in-several-million chance of a fatal crash.
Cheng Qisheng didn’t like gambling.
She hadn’t become the City Lord of a Safe City just to gamble with its survival!
Her goal had always been to do everything possible to ensure that Blue Sea Safe City could survive peacefully and steadily.
After learning about this, she felt restless all over.
Fortunately, fortunately, she’d found out about it in advance.
Any problem that had a solution wasn’t really a problem.
She quickly expressed her gratitude to Duxi.
[Thank you, Duxi. You actually gave me such important information for free. If this rumor is true, then I really owe you one.]
When Duxi saw Blue Sea’s reaction, he breathed a sigh of relief.
He had genuinely been afraid that instead of receiving thanks, he’d be treated like the bearer of bad news.
If he hadn’t suspected that Blue Sea’s sudden question about crystals meant she was preparing to make a major move—and that the amount involved was clearly far greater than the crystals she’d obtained from Tian’ou Safe City—Duxi absolutely wouldn’t have told her about this.
No one liked being the bearer of bad news, especially when there was no way to escape the disaster in question.
After all, when Duxi was still a Tier 2 City Lord, he’d been cursed out for exactly that reason.
Blue Sea’s calm reaction meant one of two things.
Either she was simply the type who could remain composed no matter what happened.
Or she had the means to escape.
Either way, in Duxi’s list of more than a hundred City Lords he was trying to befriend, Blue Sea’s ranking would shoot straight into the top tier.
…
“Is this what it feels like to be rich?”
Cheng Qisheng lay sprawled across the table, holding a wooden mallet in one hand and slowly tapping a wooden fish.
A few taps, followed by a sigh.
A few more taps, followed by another sigh.
Aether sat beside the wooden fish, helping the City Lord keep count.
“City Lord, please don’t be saddened by this bad news. City Lord Duxi said himself that he’d only heard a rumor. He can’t guarantee that the information is accurate.”
“No, Aether. This isn’t bad news.”
Cheng Qisheng stopped tapping the wooden fish and switched to “tapping” Aether instead.
The wooden mallet descended gently onto Aether’s head again and again, lifting just before it made contact.
The motion was actually rather demanding on her wrist, especially since she was moving so slowly.
But that was no problem for her, with her impressive strength. She repeated the motion over and over with seemingly no effort at all.
“This is good news.”
“We know about the Great Annihilation now. That’s much better than finding out it exists only when we’re already facing it.”
It came back to the same point.
This so-called Great Annihilation was only a rumor. At present, no one could prove that it was real.
But no one could prove that it was fake, either.
It must occur extremely rarely, but no one could guarantee that it would never descend upon the world where Blue Sea Safe City happened to be.
So regardless of what Duxi had been thinking, if this was true, the fact that he’d told her about it was a huge favor to Cheng Qisheng.
“At least now we know that once we reach Tier 6, we won’t have to fear it anymore. And we have enough crystals to do that. So this is good news.”
Aether didn’t quite understand.
“If it’s good news, why is the City Lord sighing?”
It had been watching too much television lately. The way the City Lord was acting right now was obviously the behavior of someone who was very troubled.
Cheng Qisheng said, “Because we don’t have enough crystals.”
“Right now, we’re seemingly rich, yet somehow still poor.”
There were plenty of wealthy business owners on Blue Star who held company shares valued at hundreds of millions, along with valuable factory buildings, equipment, and land, as well as all kinds of expensive goods.
But they might only have a limited amount of cash on hand. If they suddenly needed a huge sum of money, they might genuinely be unable to come up with enough in the short term.
Cheng Qisheng was now experiencing exactly what those wealthy business owners felt like.
At present, she was indeed very rich. But if she wanted to use those crystals to do the things she had in mind, her finances suddenly became rather tight.
First, advancing from Tier 4 to Tier 5 cost one million crystals. She didn’t know how much it would cost to advance from Tier 5 to Tier 6. After asking Duxi, she’d learned that it supposedly required five million crystals.
That would eat up six million crystals right there.
Then, before advancing to Tier 5, Cheng Qisheng would ideally purchase a permanent Safe City Floating Device.
Because once she reached Tier 6, the price of this thing in the marketplace would increase.
A single permanent Safe City Floating Device cost five million crystals.
That brought the total to eleven million.
And then, she still needed to keep some crystals in reserve, didn’t she?
Relocating a Safe City also required crystals.
Some of the large-scale facilities within a Safe City also required crystals to operate.
Moreover, the reason Cheng Qisheng wanted to advance to Tier 6 was to guard against the possibility of encountering the Great Annihilation. If they actually encountered it, they would definitely need to flee into the greater universe for safety.
She couldn’t just rush blindly into the greater universe under emergency conditions. At the very least, she needed to spend some time there beforehand and see what the greater universe was actually like.
According to Duxi, a Tier-6 Safe City flying through the greater universe consumed roughly 1,000 crystals per day.
That meant 30,000 crystals for a month, 60,000 for two months, and 90,000 for three months.
Blue Sea Safe City might not necessarily have to travel through the greater universe for that long, but to be on the safe side, the more crystals they had in reserve, the better.
It felt like the difference between someone who didn’t buy a house or a car and could live quite comfortably on their salary, and someone who took out loans to buy a house and a car. Even if the latter earned more, they would inevitably feel more pressure.
What a rich person’s problem.
Cheng Qisheng slowly lifted her head from the table.
Forget it. Just calculating everything had given her a headache. Her head hadn’t even hurt when she’d used her mental power to scan hundreds of millions of people, yet now it was starting to ache.
She’d just throw all the calculations to Old Eighth.
The Creator God only needed to look at the final result.
Cheng Qisheng tossed the figures over to Blue Sea, then glanced at the huge pile of crystals that had just been delivered to the temple. She couldn’t help but rub her face.
“We’re still very lucky. At least we really do have enough crystals to advance.”
At worst, they could put off buying the permanent floating device for now. Securing the absolute safety of Blue Sea civilization came first.
Having dumped all the tedious work on someone else, the great Creator God quickly recovered her spirits.
She scooped up Aether.
“Besides, once we reach Tier 6, we’ll be able to travel through the greater universe. I wonder what the greater universe looks like? I’m actually pretty curious.”
Aether obediently remained in the City Lord’s arms. Previously, it had only been a Tier-5 supercomputer at most, so it genuinely had no idea what the greater universe was like.
In theory, it should now search for every available discussion related to the greater universe, organize the information, and report it to the City Lord—even if none of those discussions actually had anything to do with the real greater universe.
But at this moment, Aether looked up at the City Lord’s slightly expectant expression, and its jellyfish-like body gradually turned pink.
“Aether is curious too.”
Cheng Qisheng said, “Just wait. Once we reach Tier 6, we’ll go take a look at the greater universe.”
“Okay, City Lord.”
Their anticipation of the greater universe led the woman and the AI to spend some time searching for beautiful sights from various small universes. The more they looked, the more excited they became.
Gazing at the beautiful images of nebulae, the great Creator God of Blue Sea couldn’t help but ask sincerely,
“Is Kansidang the only large-scale pirate group on Green Billow Star?”
Aether answered seriously,
“Kansidang is the largest pirate group on Green Billow Star.”
“But over the past six months, to avoid alerting the enemy and affecting the opening of the Pirate Conference, the Blue Sea residents refrained from launching further attacks on the scattered pirates. Instead, they avoided conflict as much as possible through evasion and disguises. As a result, there are still many scattered pirates roaming around Green Billow Star.”
“Now that the Blue Sea Conference has ended, City Lord, you can order the residents to eliminate the remaining pirates.”
Cheng Qisheng patted Aether’s jellyfish head.
“There’s no need for me to give that order.”
The Blue Sea residents had been counting down the days for this moment long ago.
…
Saina had never considered herself particularly unlucky.
That changed this morning, when she hauled up a cursed stone statue.
The statue was engraved with some strange writing. At first, Saina had no idea what it meant. But the moment she realized that the thing definitely had some kind of effect, she quickly threw it away.
Unfortunately, throwing it away was useless.
Before long, she was eating dried fish when a fish bone pricked her mouth. When she went to water the plants, a gust of sea wind happened to blow the instant she poured the water, sending the precious fresh water scattering across the deck and completely wasting it.
And that wasn’t all.
She kept tripping over absolutely nothing while walking. When she picked the fruit she’d grown herself, it looked perfectly ripe, yet tasted incredibly sour and astringent. Even drinking a mouthful of water resulted in her choking on it.
Saina finally understood.
That stone statue was the legendary Cursed Stone Statue, and she’d been afflicted with a streak of bad luck.
The bad luck might last a day before disappearing, or it might persist for a week—or even a month.
Saina quickly accepted her fate. She was even remarkably calm as she was teleported along with her ship to another sea.
Well, what else could she do if she didn’t stay calm?
She couldn’t dispel the bad luck herself.
She didn’t even know which bizarre world the blasted cursed stone statue she’d thrown away had come from.
—Saina wasn’t surprised in the slightest when she spotted a pirate ship in the distance, speeding straight toward her.
She picked up her musket and prepared to face the enemy.
The pirate ship drew closer.
Closer still.
Just as it was about to reach Saina, another ship suddenly came speeding over. When the pirate ship warily stopped to observe it, the newcomer headed straight toward the pirate ship.
Two hours later, the pirates aboard the pirate ship had been dealt with.
The people on the ship that had suddenly appeared came in all shapes and sizes. Some were tall and broad, some were about the same height as Saina, and some had silver-white hair.
They took over the pirate ship, waved at Saina, and sailed away, showing absolutely no intention of taking her ship along with it.
Saina was utterly amazed.
She continued sailing, but perhaps the cursed stone statue was still doing its work. Less than half an hour later, she encountered another pirate ship.
Saina sighed. Judging by the size of the pirate ship, she figured she might as well not even bother putting up a struggle.
She turned around and picked up her musket.
But the moment she turned back, she saw another ship—not the previous one—speeding straight toward the pirate ship.
Saina: “…This scene looks awfully familiar.”
The ship quickly closed in on the pirate vessel, and the people aboard eagerly rushed out.
Three hours later, the pirates were defeated, and the pirate ship fell into the hands of the newly arrived ship.
Once again, they didn’t attack Saina. The people aboard were busy with their own affairs, allowing Saina to leave untouched.
Another half hour passed—
Saina stared at the pirate ship in front of her.
Then she looked at another unfamiliar ship that had originally been sailing in the distance.
Once again, it came charging over bravely.
Once again, the pirates were defeated.
And once again, those people let Saina go.
Then came the fourth time, the fifth, the sixth…
Gradually, more and more ships began following behind Saina’s vessel.
The two sides didn’t exchange much in the way of words. They simply stayed close behind Saina, and whenever she was teleported to another sea, they were teleported there along with her.
Then, whenever Saina encountered pirates, the ships following behind her would swarm forward.
They repeated this process over and over again.
By midnight, moonlight bathed the surface of the sea. Saina took a sip of water and discovered that she didn’t choke this time. She took another two steps, and she didn’t trip over nothing, either.
The bad luck brought on by the cursed stone statue had finally been broken.
Saina could hardly believe it.
She had actually remained quite calm throughout the entire day.
But that calmness was mainly because she couldn’t think of any way to solve the problem. Other than waiting for fate to pass judgment, there was nothing Saina could do.
But now, with the curse gone and herself still alive and well, Saina could no longer remain calm.
Two hours passed, and no new pirates appeared!
She covered her face and knelt down on the deck, practically crying tears of joy.
“Hey!!”
A voice suddenly rang out.
Saina jumped and hurriedly looked up, only to see one of the ships that had been following her. At some point, it had drawn alongside her little boat.
A young woman aboard it called out,
“Are you upset because you can’t attract any more pirates anymore?”
Saina stared blankly at her, almost wondering if she’d inhaled some kind of poisonous mist from a sea monster.
But the woman simply reached out her hand.
“We made a pretty good team today. I’m from Blue Sea. My name is Tian Ruilin. Want to be friends?”
“Do you want to keep hunting pirates together tomorrow? We’ll split the rewards with you!”
As the young woman spoke, she flashed a broad, dazzlingly white smile.
Saina stared at her blankly, then suddenly remembered a rumor that had been circulating around Green Billow Star over the past few months.
It was said that some pirates had been disappearing for no apparent reason.
Now she knew where that rumor had come from.
These people were a very strange bunch.
They didn’t seem to be from Green Billow Star.
Yet throughout the entire day, they’d rescued Saina countless times.
Saina cautiously reached out and shook the woman’s hand.
“Okay. Okay.”
“Hello. I’m Saina, and I’m a Lilithian.”
—At the same time, Cheng Qisheng was reading through the statement provided by the [Thorn Pirate Group], and it felt like she’d just watched an entire television series.
“Lilith… is actually a country?”
And not just any country, either. It was a small otherworldly nation that had been affected by a spatial rift and dropped from a magical world into Green Billow Star.
The important thing was that these one hundred and one floating farms had come from the world of the Kingdom of Lilith.
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