Chapter 276: Bi Gelei

While the small circle in Hidden Village was frantically pursuing scientific research, Delice gathered considerable intelligence from the players' chaotic chatter.

"The new Dark Lord is a dragon that stole Eastern fortune… There's no record of him in this world, and Hidden Village is also strange. Though the Exile World is built like a game, it's not truly a game—it merely generates a game template based on the imprisoned Dark Lord, allowing prospective heroes to adapt to the combat style of the Dark Lord's world. It's impossible to generate an NPC with this level of autonomy…"

Delice pulled up the spreadsheet and listed all anomalies in this world. Generally, it was safe to assume the extra Dark Lord was the culprit, but since this world had generated the "cultivator" profession—an Eastern-style class—it meant the dragon must indeed be a Dark Lord wielding Eastern cultivation abilities.

In other words, there was still a chance he was a properly detained Dark Lord, whose data simply failed to be recorded due to some anomaly.

By contrast, the NPC in Hidden Village was highly suspicious: first, he lacked the Dark Lord template; second, his origins were dubious. Considering the Exile Lands deliberately maintained an odd number of Dark Lords, yet only one dragon had arrived this time.

"So currently, two scenarios are most likely: one, this dragon is the culprit, and the world's anomalies exist to generate the cultivator profession; two, the dragon is the true Dark Lord, and the Hidden Village NPC displaced another Dark Lord's slot—meaning the world's anomalies stem from an A+ (at minimum) Dark Lord that never entered."

"I'm just a recent graduate! Why did I have to encounter a bug this rare—once in centuries?!"

Delice felt certain she had somehow offended some higher deity of misfortune; otherwise, how could such an absurd bug occur?

Of the two possibilities, she desperately hoped for the second. Though the impact of successfully detaining a high-level Dark Lord was enormous, that was the Transmission Department's fault—they'd captured the wrong one, causing a shortfall. If she and the poor soul who "accidentally" entered this world coordinated their stories… ah, damn it! —if they communicated properly, not only would the Transmission Department handle it, but she might even extract a hush money payout from them afterward.

But if it was the first scenario, she'd not only have to eliminate the Dark Lord, but also find a way to replenish the resources consumed to generate the cultivator profession—yet her meager savings were clearly insufficient to cover it.

"So it must be the second scenario. It has to be the second scenario! The dragon MUST be the true Dark Lord, and Hidden Village MUST be the genuine unlucky one!"

Delice made up her mind, and her thoughts instantly cleared. Regardless of which scenario held true, since the cultivator in Hidden Village hadn't generated a profession, his combat power must fall below Dark Lord evaluation standards—meaning she could directly use force to coerce him into collusion…

Thinking of this, she immediately broke away from the group of players and spoke in a formulaic tone:

"Thank you all for your assistance. I'm now going to track down the Dark Lord's whereabouts. May we meet again under better circumstances!"

Without waiting for the players to react, Delice activated a divine technique and vanished from the spot…

…

"This formation is too chaotic to untangle in a short time. Let's switch to something simpler." Feng Xue stared at the spell ritual exported by Mary and shook his head. Hearing this, Mary said nothing, merely maintaining her divine descent state and continuing her incantation.

In contrast, Mei Luo and Bi Gelei had already entered their rhythm, continuously outputting various spells. The Little Xiao Lingdang gathered massive amounts of spell data, filtered similar formations, summarized them, judged their functions, and finally, Seeing Mo Ying possessed the system to fine-tune the frequency, locating the one most compatible with this world's spell rules.

The entire process carried an odd sense of harmony—until…

"Why did she come here directly?"

Feng Xue spun his head sharply toward Bi Gelei, who had just returned from bat form. Bi Gelei felt the gaze and shuddered violently, then stiffened her neck and said:

"W-what?"

"Did you lead the Saintly One here?"

"How could I?" Bi Gelei shrieked at the accusation. "I used a clone spell with massive side effects, and most of my clones headed toward the Dark Lord's City. My true body hid in shadows, flew far away, then broke off to come here. Even if the Saintly One followed, she'd chase the clones to the Dark Lord's City! How could she possibly end up here?!"

"But she's already at the perimeter—she's breaking through the ghost maze." Feng Xue sighed. Bi Gelei's eyes darted.

"When I spotted her, she was with several heroes. Maybe the heroes sent her here."

"Oh?" Feng Xue's expression turned peculiar. He hesitated, then glanced upward, confirmed his lifespan was locked, and gritted his teeth:

"If it's the heroes… if they sent her here, it's probably not because your identities were exposed. All three of you hiding here—better disguise yourselves, mask your auras. I'll go out and check. If fighting breaks out, head straight for the sea and finish building my ship as fast as possible!"

"How can you still be thinking about a ship?! I've told you a hundred times—this world is a sandbox, the sea's end is void! Even if you got a rocket, you can't fly into space!" Bi Gelei tried to dissuade Feng Xue, but Mary calmly said:

"Do you need a large ship as a ritual's magical medium?"

"Yes." Feng Xue nodded.

"Understood. I'll build the ship as quickly as possible."

"Then I rely on you." Feng Xue casually stuffed the Little Xiao Lingdang's core and several high-calculation devices into his Potian Bag, turned Liu Yunxi into a ring and wore it on his finger, confirmed he still looked the part of an immortal sage, then stepped out of the hidden laboratory.

…

"If I'd known this would happen, I should've majored in Eastern studies!"

While searching for the entrance to this necromancy spell, Delice grumbled inwardly. Though she said that, if forced to choose, she'd still pick Western studies—there was no way around it: the Eastern civil service exam was two tiers harder than the Western one!

"Hey, it's open! Turns out the equipment really works!"

As she chanted, her field gear emitted a click as its latch released. Suddenly, an empty field transformed into a village.

"Ding!"

"Ding!"

Alarms blared in her ears. Delice snapped back to attention. As runes flashed across her vision, a figure was marked.

"Sss—Isn't the sentencing for illegal cross-world trespass a bit excessive?"

(End of Chapter)