Chapter 224

"Cowards, enter with caution!"

Liu Mu, who had already stepped one foot into the crystal stone wall, suddenly turned her head; the ghostly blue light cast a pallor over her malicious face as she bared a wide grin at Zheng Tian.

"Ah, Boss, you..." Zheng Tian, whose stride had already followed her out, flashed back three steps away in a blink, his entire body chilled from the top of his head down to his heels.

"Boss, are you really my Boss?"

But Liu Mu had already completely entered the stone wall; that resolute back made him inevitably recall various supernatural stories he had heard in his youth—about being possessed by spirits, being lured into jumping into a river... and the like.

A grown man, his voice trembled and was almost on the verge of tears; his body seemed to have frozen, and he was actually shivering.

Meanwhile, inside the stone wall, Liu Mu, having succeeded in her prank, only felt it was magical.

Before entering here, she had only been curious about why these blue-haired people could walk inside solid matter, and she couldn't help but want to try it herself.

Thus, she stepped in, only feeling a chill scrape across the surface of her body; when she looked again, it was as if she were placed in a fantasy world.

—Light came from all directions, becoming incomparably brilliant after passing through the interior of the crystal, with light spots filling every corner like fine, fragmented feathers.

Liu Mu was enveloped within it, her whole body draped in seven-colored radiance, and for a moment, she had the illusion that she was about to transcend and become an immortal.

It was just that this feeling did not last long, because every inch of her body surface was in direct contact with the crystal; that sense of oppression from the solid matter felt like being buried alive, several times heavier than deep-sea diving.

Moreover, there was no air around to satisfy human respiration; to describe it simply, it was nearly a rigid vacuum.

"Hey, this won't do, I'm going to suffocate!"

The discomfort brought by the pressure quickly evolved into a lethal danger; Liu Mu could hold on for a while thanks to her Recovery Space, but if it were any other team member, they would likely be suffocated to death even if they weren't crushed to death.

Suffocated inside a stone—she could even imagine how many incredible guesses those who discovered their corpses in the future would make.

However, not one of them would be able to guess that they had "walked" into the interior of the crystal themselves.

Just as she was thinking about whether to retreat by force, the pressure around her suddenly vanished; the feeling was like leaving bone-chilling deep water, and both physically and mentally, she felt an exaggerated sense of comfort.

"Apologies, the environments we live in are different," a voice came from overhead. Liu Mu looked up and immediately felt a new kind of discomfort.

Because she was actually positioned inside the body of a blue-haired person, in the largest main trunk below the head, or perhaps it could be called a torso?

Just as Liu Mu wanted to protest, she discovered that the surrounding crystal began to move rapidly; the speed was on par with her running on flat ground on a clear, breezy day.

Perhaps sensing her rejection, the blue-haired person spoke again, "Because we needed to adapt to the environment of this planet, we had to fuse the 'Seed' with the biological genes of the planet at that time. After constant attempts, we ultimately preserved humans..."

So they really are the ancestors!

Liu Mu listened, dumbfounded, but what surprised her even more was that the database of Heitao A actually contained this record.

The data above showed that humans were indeed the product of gene fusion with aliens, and by relying on powerful cognitive abilities, they gradually stood at the position of the apex predator in the planet's food chain.

【Does this alien have any connection to the 'Outsiders'?】

While listening to Blue-haired Person No. 1 chatter, Liu Mu browsed the data found by Heitao A, not forgetting to raise a question.

【How should I put it,】 there was actually a situation Heitao A couldn't describe clearly, 【Logically speaking, there should be a connection, but in our database, it shows that the Outsiders should have entered the Yinhe Xi two hundred years ago, and only reached the Taiyang Xi and arrived at Earth in the last hundred years, attempting to make contact with humans.】

Liu Mu asked directly, "Are you from the Thirteen Ring Cities? When did you arrive on Earth?"

"Thirteen Ring Cities?" Blue-haired Person No. 1 seemed to be recalling, then said, "Apologies, child, I do not know what the Thirteen Ring Cities are. Time has no meaning for us. If one must express it using planetary time, perhaps in the previous second we finished creating humans, and in the next second, we arrived at the present."

【What the hell, another one detached from the concept of time?】 Liu Mu was numb; jumping through space was one thing, but even being unconstrained by time—did that mean the civilization of the blue-haired people itself exceeded the concepts of human cognition? "If it's not that too much time has passed, then why is your energy source drying up?"

Liu Mu even had an incredible thought, 【Their energy is running out, won't they stop? Also, if they can control time at will, then returning to when the energy was abundant would mean they would never run out, right?】

【Host, that's not how the math works. In advanced civilizations, energy consumption is not affected by time and space, but rather the civilization itself requires energy. For example, I need energy to convert into power to maintain operation, but this depletion has nothing to do with time and space; as long as I exist, I need it.】

【If there were truly no energy at all, then I would cease to exist. Before level three, I maintained a low-energy state, basically equivalent to a human's vegetative state; I was merely alive and couldn't do anything.】

Blue-haired Person No. 1 gave a summary but identical answer, "Existence requires energy; we can exist at any time and space."

"Like humans needing oxygen? If you're not dead, you need it; when you don't need it, you don't exist." Liu Mu half-understood, always feeling she couldn't fully grasp it, "But doesn't existence itself lie within time and space?"

"For humans, that is so," Blue-haired Person No. 1 did not lose patience, as if possessing infinite tolerance, "If this is the universal cognition of humans, then you should still be in a low-level civilization. When you eventually detach from the concepts of time and space, you will be able to enter a higher civilization."

"... You might as well just say we're noobs," Liu Mu was too lazy to explain the meaning of 'noob' to these blue-haired people, "Forget it, it's impossible to talk to you aliens."

"No, child, from the time and space concepts you insist upon, we are more like residents of Earth," Blue-haired Person No. 1 corrected Liu Mu's expression, "But I am now very curious, is the Thirteen Ring Cities you mentioned also a civilization from another star system? If you have already established contact with other civilizations, then you should be able to break through the existing civilization limitations."

No, there isn't, I can't break through, it's too hard... I'm just an illiterate.

Liu Mu didn't want to argue anymore; when a scholar meets a soldier, or a scientist meets an illiterate, it's impossible to explain, truly impossible. And she happened to be the latter!

"Then how did you know I have the energy you need?"

"I discovered a Super Energy Source in your consciousness; the energy reaction of the source is not something a biological body like a human can bear. Therefore, you might be the reason we drifted here."

"Ah?" Liu Mu was stunned, thinking to herself, "No, am I a magnet? Can I even attract a cluster of icebergs?"

No, in her previous life, she didn't attract anything either!?

Her thought received an explanation from Heitao A, 【In the universe as we currently know it, energy is mutually influential, either attracting or repelling. It may be because humans are the result of the fusion of the blue-haired people's genes with Earth's biological genes, so the energy fluctuations generated when you use the system are attractive to them.】

【By the same logic,】 Liu Mu asked with lightning-fast reaction, 【Then why can't you attract more Giant Sun Fragments and more Anti-matter Engines?】

Heitao A was uncertain, 【Could it be that our upgrading is too slow and the energy reaction isn't strong enough?】

Liu Mu snorted in her mind, 【You're pointing at me, you're pointing at me again, Xiao A, remember, it's not that I'm not proactive in upgrading, it's that I have my own long-term plans!】

Heitao A: 【Oh.】

Liu Mu was instantly displeased, 【Oh what oh, what do you mean, Heitao A, are you questioning me?!!】

"We have arrived, child, welcome to your 'hometown'."

Blue-haired Person No. 1 indirectly stopped the daily quarrel between someone and the system.

Within her field of vision, a blue flame of light attracted the entrant's attention—pure, cold, desolate, and lonely.

The distance to the flame was not close; Liu Mu shifted her gaze and realized she was no longer inside the crystal, nor was she inside the body of Blue-haired Person No. 1.

The surroundings were actually empty, and a cold wind blew, stirring up swirling snowflakes.

The snowflakes drifted and piled up, forming a snowfield that stretched beyond the horizon; beneath the snowfield were countless blue crystals.

And right on top of the crystals, besides the accumulated snow, there were actually some plants growing.

Even though the temperature was below zero, these plants were lush and green, showing no signs of withering at all, and they didn't even look like they had undergone Mutation.

As for how Liu Mu could distinguish whether there was Mutation or not?

It's very simple; just look at whether they have parts that affect one's perception.

Plants after Mutation either move rapidly without external force, or they are clearly alive yet rotting.

The former is like the Great Master Flower, the latter is like the Fire-Burning Bird.

As for being bizarrely shaped, forget it; the shapes of plants in nature are already beyond human imagination.

"Um," Liu Mu's emotions were a bit off; she was very calm, yet she clearly felt that she was very agitated, as if her reason had unlocked and transcended the constraints of her body, opening a third-person perspective.

【No need to worry, I will control it for you. The New Human Complete Form will not be damaged because the emotions of returning to one's roots are too intense.】 Heitao A, having just finished arguing, appeared in a snide tone.

What surprised Liu Mu was that the system, which could once be blocked by just a Heaven Viper, was not affected in the slightest here.

【Ah, yes, yes, yes, I am just a tiny bit more civilized than your ancestors; you don't need to be too moved, crying is going too far!】

Finally, Liu Mu: 【Fuck you, get lost!】

【I don't have a mother, only a designer; sigh, you should regulate yourself, after all, it counts as returning to your roots...】

Fine, fine, fine, now Heitao A has finally reached Evolution to the point of actively bickering with its host.

How joyous and congratulatory!