Chapter 111.1: She had really struck gold
“Woohoo!!!”
“So strong!!!”
“That’s amazing!!”
The Blue Sea residents surrounding them already knew what was about to happen when they were asked to clear out an open space.
They just hadn’t expected it to be this cool!
A wave of wild cheers immediately erupted around them. Some people clapped, others shouted in celebration, and once again, the scene became almost like a concert.
This time, it was Mo Yuxuan who froze in surprise.
The greatest impact the apocalypse had on people was that, regardless of whether they lived in a Safe City, regardless of whether that Safe City had order or was a sl*ve society, everyone knew that order no longer existed.
When everyone had to leave their Safe City in every world and venture into completely unfamiliar disaster zones, who could possibly maintain order under such circumstances?
Force had become the standard by which a resident’s status in a Safe City was judged.
Even if some Safe City lords did not deliberately elevate the status of ability users, ordinary residents still found it difficult not to bow and scrape before them, trembling with fear and caution.
Everyone had to leave the city and venture into various disaster worlds to survive. Once outside, an ability user could kill an ordinary person as easily as crushing an ant.
When killing someone carried little to no consequences, even a single look could potentially bring an ordinary resident deadly trouble.
Under such circumstances, in many Safe Cities, there was a clear divide between ability users and ordinary people.
Ordinary residents would never think of gathering around ability users to watch the excitement. Even if they accidentally made eye contact with one, they would immediately panic and lower their heads, let alone actually interact with them.
This was the first time Mo Yuxuan had encountered anything like this.
There was no fear, nervousness, or carefully concealed wariness in the gazes directed at her.
There were only smiling eyes and relaxed cheers.
Mo Yuxuan didn’t understand what she was seeing. She was bewildered.
And because things weren’t unfolding according to the “expected course,” she instinctively felt tense.
In the apocalypse, anything abnormal often meant danger.
For example, she might have entered an illusion. Or perhaps all of this was actually a dream.
The real her might currently be unconscious, dangling helplessly beside the mouth of a sea monster, just waiting to contribute her share to the monster’s healthy diet.
Mo Yuxuan abruptly raised her right hand and, without hesitation, struck her left hand.
The lightning crackling with electric arcs instantly transformed into a blade of electricity, viciously slicing open the palm of her left hand.
A sharp stab of pain jolted through her brain, and Mo Yuxuan breathed a sigh of relief.
It wasn’t an illusion, nor was it a dream.
But she had no idea why the people around her froze for a moment before erupting into cheers even louder than before.
“Whoa.”
The Blue Sea police officer beside her spoke in a curious tone.
“Is this a unique way of celebrating in your civilization? That’s certainly… unusual.”
Blue Sea had had a similar way of celebrating in ancient times.
Only back then, they generally cut off the heads of their prey.
This was the first time the police officer had seen someone celebrate by cutting their own hand. He didn’t understand it, but he respected it.
Mo Yuxuan: “……”
The good news was that the other party didn’t seem offended by what she had done.
The bad news was that she either had to admit that this was a custom of her civilization, or she was very likely to be considered insane.
Mo Yuxuan: “……Yes. I like doing this.”
“What are they doing?” she heard herself ask in a voice that sounded like a wandering ghost.
No! How could she speak in such a feeble voice?
She should have spoken in a steady, powerful voice, with every word conveying the relaxed confidence of, A mere 161 pillars of lightning isn’t even my true strength.
Fortunately, the Blue Sea police officer didn’t seem particularly concerned about her tone. He answered quite naturally.
“You’re amazing. They’re celebrating for you.”
“Celebrating… for me?”
A group of strangers, a group of ordinary people—after witnessing the formidable power of an ability user, their first reaction wasn’t fear or terror, but to celebrate for her?
In Mo Yuxuan’s mind, there were more than a dozen categories of Safe Cities.
She could usually assess a Safe City quite quickly from its residents: what kind of policies it probably implemented, what the atmosphere between its social classes was like, and how much pressure its residents were under.
Yet as she looked at the sea of people before her, the dozen or so types of Safe Cities in her mind kept jumping back and forth, but not a single one matched the state these residents were in.
Were they perhaps a little too lively?
But she had to admit, this feeling… was really nice. It made her think back to life before the apocalypse, something she hadn’t experienced in a long time.
To be able to raise its residents into people like this, the atmosphere in this Safe City really was excellent.
“Can I join your Safe City?”
Feeling the relaxed, cheerful atmosphere around her, Mo Yuxuan’s mouth moved faster than her brain. Before she could even react, the words had already slipped out.
Oh, no!
The next second, Mo Yuxuan immediately regretted it. She shouldn’t have been so hasty. They hadn’t even discussed the terms yet.
She should have demonstrated her strength first, then waited for them to recruit her. She would show some interest, carefully inquire about the various benefits and regulations, negotiate back and forth to secure some advantages for herself, and only then say, “I’d be very willing to join.”
Now she had become the one actively asking to join. The other side might not offer her any benefits at all. They might even pile additional obligations onto her.
That was practically an unspoken rule of Safe Cities.
But the words had already been spoken, so Mo Yuxuan could only put on an expression that said, I really want to join.
Maintaining an image of being “actively loyal” wasn’t necessarily bad either. That way, whenever there were benefits to be had, the people in charge would be more likely to remember her.
After all, this was the loyalty of a Tier-3 ability user.
But none of what Mo Yuxuan had anticipated happened.
The Blue Sea police officer merely smiled cheerfully and nodded.
“Of course. Welcome aboard.”
Hehe, recommending ability users to join earns points too. Who would’ve thought there’d be a perk like this while on the job?
He said enthusiastically,
“You’ll need to go upstairs and get your resident ID. Want me to take some time off and escort you up there?”
Mo Yuxuan: “……”
That’s it?
No obligations, no probing, no back-and-forth negotiations. She could just join directly?!
—Even after she had obtained her own Outer City Resident ID, Mo Yuxuan was still somewhat dazed.
The Blue Sea police officer, who had “attached” wings to himself, took her to that “Sky City”. They lined up at one of the seemingly endless rows of city gates and entered the city without a hitch. Following his directions, they went to the Civil Affairs and Household Registration Department. After she gave them her name, age, supernatural ability, and ability level, her ID was produced.
The entire process took only two hours!
And one hour and fifty-five minutes of that was spent waiting in line and traveling.
Oh, speaking of traveling, this Safe City was truly loaded. Every single road was a floating road!
The floating roads were stacked layer upon layer. As she sat on the bus, the vehicle spiraled upward, and the elevation increased with every level. It made Mo Yuxuan wonder whether Blue Sea intended to keep building the roads all the way into the sky.
And what shocked Mo Yuxuan most wasn’t just these suspended roads, but also the buses traveling along them, which were clearly all products of the same unified system.
As they passed a building, they were close enough that Mo Yuxuan could even see a person hurrying out of the [Cafeteria], a steamed bun clenched between his teeth, a document bag in one hand and a cup in the other.
A few minutes later, he arrived at the bus stop outside one of the buildings, just as a bus was pulling up, and waved at it.
The bus traveling along the elevated road stopped. The man chewed on his steamed bun as he clamped the document bag under his arm, then took out the resident card hanging around his neck.
He was clearly about to board the bus and clock in.
The sight gave Mo Yuxuan a feeling that was both familiar and distant.
When she had been only forty years old, before the apocalypse had struck her original world, every day of hers had gone exactly like that.
She would hurriedly get out of bed, wash up, go downstairs to buy breakfast, board a bus, finish eating her breakfast on the way, and arrive at the company before the clock-in deadline.
She never expected to see a scene like this inside a Safe City.
Even the Pras Safe City, which she had painstakingly evaluated and ultimately chosen to stay in, didn’t have anything like this.
Because the Pras Safe City didn’t have buses or other such means of transportation at all.
After all, vehicles were precious, and so was the energy needed to operate them. A single bus might not seem like much, but covering an entire city with bus routes would consume an enormous amount of energy every day.
Therefore, most Safe Cities only offered vehicle rental services.
Renting a vehicle was extremely expensive. After all, renting out a vehicle didn’t guarantee that it would be returned. As a result, the “deposit” for a rental was often a large quantity of supplies, or collateral in the form of a “stable residence” within the Safe City.
Some residents who were doing particularly well, or who happened to be particularly lucky, might own a vehicle of their own.
Mo Yuxuan had one herself.
That vehicle had accompanied her through four apocalypse worlds and three Safe Cities.
Its exterior was covered in rust. Exposed wires were bundled around the frame, its headlights had long since disappeared, and its four tires were all different sizes. Half of the windshield was actual glass, while the other half was made of thick transparent plastic sheeting. Whenever it drove, it constantly made a clanging, rattling noise, as though it might fall apart at any moment.
But it was still a car!
It could run. It could carry people. It could give her an extra layer of protection. It was a precious vehicle.
She couldn’t even remember how many times other residents had become trapped when faced with insect swarms, mutated beasts, or attacks from plants, while Mo Yuxuan had been able to escape danger safely simply because she had a car.
Before entering Blue Sea Safe City, she had even felt a little sad at the thought of losing this old companion.
But now, holding her freshly issued resident ID, Mo Yuxuan sat up straight like an elementary school student, listening along with the other new residents as a staff member with silver-white hair spoke loudly through a megaphone, explaining Blue Sea’s various policies and regulations.
She didn’t just speak. Behind her was also a huge screen, and as she explained each point, different photographs appeared on it.
At that moment, the screen displayed several vehicles. They looked brand-new and had clearly been extensively modified.
The massive vehicles, with their raised chassis, were fitted with external steel-grid armor. Guardrails had been added along the sides of the chassis, while large numbers of steel pipes had been welded around the roofs and bodies. There were also metal spikes designed to prevent mutated beasts from climbing onto them. Even the protective panels had a row of firing ports.
And according to the staff member’s explanation, these photographs showed nothing more than “ordinary vehicles.”
As she continued speaking, the more advanced vehicles appeared on the large screen, displaying their rugged forms.
Some vehicles were equipped with semi-automatic heavy-barreled shotguns, an assault rifle mounted on each side, and even a grenade launcher at the rear.
Others came with vehicle-mounted light machine guns, and some even had portable rocket launchers secured to the spare-tire racks at the back.
There were also single-shot grenade launchers, general-purpose heavy machine guns, semi-automatic rifles…
This wasn’t renting a car. This was basically renting a tank!
Most absurdly, by the time the presentation reached its conclusion, Mo Yuxuan actually saw a tank appear on the screen.
“At present, heavy armored combat vehicles of this type aren’t available for individual rental. They’re only available to guilds or five-star teams.”
The silver-haired Dazzling Star native clearly loved her job. She smiled as she explained,
“For ordinary residents like us, we can only rent the ordinary vehicles I introduced earlier.”
Mo Yuxuan: You call those weapon-covered vehicles ordinary vehicles?!
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