Chapter 301: Dailisi Had a Brilliant Idea

While the small circle in Hidden Village was frantically pursuing scientific research, Dailisi gathered considerable intelligence from the players’ 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. Although the Exile World was 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 for it to generate NPCs with this level of autonomy…”

Dailisi pulled up a spreadsheet and listed all the anomalies in this world. Generally speaking, 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 who wielded Eastern cultivation abilities.

In other words, there was still a chance he was a legitimately imprisoned 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 a 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 there are two most likely scenarios: 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 who never entered.”

“I’m just a recent graduate! Why did I have to encounter a bug this rare—once in a few hundred years?!”

Dailisi felt certain she had somehow offended some higher deity in charge 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 imprisoning a high-level Dark Lord was enormous, that was the Transport Department’s fault—they’d captured the wrong one, causing a shortfall. If she and that unlucky soul who “accidentally” entered this world coordinated their stories… ah, damn it!—if they communicated properly, not only would the Transport Department handle the mess, but she might even extract a hush money payment from them later.

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—and her meager savings were clearly insufficient.

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

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

Thinking 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, Dailisi cast 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 glanced at the spell ritual exported by Mary and shook his head. Mary said nothing, maintaining her divine descent state and continuing her incantation.

In contrast, Melo and Bigelei had already settled into rhythm, continuously outputting various spells. Vast amounts of spell data were consolidated by the little bell, then filtered to identify similar formations, categorized, analyzed for function, and finally fine-tuned by Mo Ying’s possession to find the frequency most compatible with this world’s spell rules.

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

“Why did she just show up here?”

Feng Xue spun his head sharply toward Bigelei, who had only just returned from bat form. Bigelei felt the gaze and flinched violently, then stiffened her neck.

“W-what?”

“Did you bring the Saintly One here?”

“How could I?” Bigelei shrieked at the accusation. “I used a divine 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 have found this place?”

“But she’s already at the perimeter—she’s breaking through the ghost maze.” Feng Xue sighed. Bigelei’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 stay hidden—disguise yourselves, mask your auras. I’ll go out and check. If fighting breaks out, head straight to the coast and finish building my ship as fast as possible!”

“When are you still 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 couldn’t fly into space!” Bigelei tried to dissuade Feng Xue. Mary, however, spoke calmly.

“Do you need a large ship as a ritual vessel?”

“Yes.” Feng Xue nodded.

“Understood. I’ll build the ship as soon as possible.”

“Thank you.” Feng Xue casually stuffed the little bell’s core and several high-computation devices into his Pot Heaven pouch, turned Liu Yunxi into a ring and wore it on his finger, confirmed his appearance still radiated immortal grace, then stepped out of the hidden lab.

…

“If I’d known this would happen, I should’ve majored in Eastern studies!”

Dailisi muttered to herself as she searched for the entrance to this necromancy spell. Though she said so, if given the choice again, she’d still pick Western studies—there was no helping it; the Eastern civil service exams were two tiers harder.

“Hey, it’s open! Turns out the equipment really works!”

As she chanted, her field gear emitted a click like a latch releasing. Suddenly, an empty landscape gave way to a village.

“Ding!”

“Ding!”

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

“Sss—Isn’t the sentencing a bit excessive for the crime of illegal cross-world transit?”

(End of Chapter)