Chapter 215: The Temporary Administrator's Perspective

Lone Peak stared at Wu Chang's name and didn't react at first; he had stayed on the second layer of the Abyss too long and wasn't sensitive enough to what was happening in the Wasteland Realm.

Just as he was about to ask what position Wu Chang held in the Splendid Commerce Guild, he suddenly felt the line of advertisement looked familiar, as if he had heard it somewhere.

It seemed he had seen it at a recent high-level meeting of the Management Bureau.

His deputy following behind him reminded him: "Boss, the mysterious newcomer."

Lone Peak's eyes went wide, and a look of realization crossed his face.

He remembered now — it had been mentioned at the high-level meeting: that mysterious newcomer who had cleared a B-rank rampage instance in a trial dungeon, and had changed his nickname to this just to earn money.

In any other setting, Lone Peak would surely have been thrilled to run into the mysterious newcomer. Setting aside the Management Bureau's hefty information bounty, simply making contact with a genius like that — with a chance to pull him into the Bureau — was a rare opportunity.

After all, for a genius of the mysterious newcomer's caliber, it was no longer a faction choosing him, but him choosing the faction.

But discovering at this moment that the fellow across from him was the mysterious newcomer, Lone Peak couldn't smile at all.

Because Wu Chang's deliberately revealing his identity now wasn't because he wanted to join the Management Bureau — it was to use their name to intimidate.

Just as Lone Peak had thought, once Wu Chang saw that Lone Peak understood what the nickname meant, he said slowly:

"Patroller Lone Peak, from now on, I, Heping, will bring peace to Underground Shelter No. 88. I will serve as its guardian. My current impression of the Management Bureau isn't bad; I hope we can keep up this relatively harmonious relationship."

"I know the Management Bureau, or the Western Union, has been running this place for a long time, and may have left some contingencies. But believe me — if you try any tricks here, you will absolutely regret it."

Lone Peak looked at Wu Chang before him and fell into a long silence.

Negotiate? The other side wasn't giving him the chance.

Take it by force?

The Mother Goddess of Desire, who had descended through the God-Descent Ritual, hadn't been able to take it. The helmeted man, whose strength was no less than his own, hadn't been able to take it. What made him think he could?

Moreover, he could feel that the longer he stayed in front of Wu Chang, the less clear his thinking became, and the weaker his body grew.

He didn't know whether this state came from Wu Chang or from the Pillar of the Present World, but he knew the level of this power was very high, and he couldn't resist it.

Veteran players all knew: never try to fight against a power of a higher tier than yours, especially when you can't even comprehend the existence of that power.

Lone Peak, while his mind was still relatively clear, said to Wu Chang:

"Mr. Heping, we respect your choice and Young Lady He Yun's. Too much has happened today; we're all in a state of confusion, and this isn't the right time to talk business."

"We'll leave today, but I hope, outside of here, once both sides have calmed down, we can sit down and have a proper talk about cooperation."

Wu Chang made a see-the-guests-out gesture and said, "If there's a chance."

The situation was stronger than they were; Lone Peak and the others didn't linger, gathered the other players the Management Bureau had stationed there, and left the Pillar of the Present World.

With the successive withdrawal of the Management Bureau and the Bliss Sect, the underground shelter fell quiet again.

Led by He Yun, Wu Chang toured this "past" version of the underground shelter.

At He Yun's command, before long, an empty vehicle driven by AI 88 was seen descending from the sky and landing before them.

Riding in the empty vehicle, looking down at the bustling energy mine below, the scenery he saw with his own eyes was far richer than what he had seen through Zhuo Jie's lingering grudge.

The underground shelter, transformed by He Yun's Ascension Plan, had the entire city connected into a vast energy network — a fusion of occult and technological rules.

In Wu Chang's eyes, the energy network was precise and complex, using technology to construct a massive "techno-occult ritual."

Divine power from the Desire Stele was transmitted to the energy mine and broken down into a special form of energy.

This energy permeated the underground shelter, allowing all electronic devices to draw power directly from the air — take it as needed — achieving an almost fully wireless functionality.

At the same time, Wu Chang could see that the techno-occult ritual was also absorbing the unutilized energy back into the ritual, where, through the processing of the Desire Stele and the energy mine, it was transformed once more into energy and released.

He didn't really understand science, but he understood inspiration.

His inspiration told him that this underground shelter's potential was far greater than what it currently showed.

Perhaps, once the Ascension was complete and without restraints, under He Yun's leadership, it could even undergo a second Ascension and enter the third layer of the Abyss.

Just as Wu Chang was thinking, He Yun's voice came from beside him, tinged with pride.

"How's our city?"

Wu Chang said sincerely, "Very beautiful, and very sci-fi. Of all the planes I've been to, this is the place that amazes me the most."

Having her own hard work recognized made He Yun's smile even more radiant.

"As long as you like it."

The three of them returned to the energy mine; with the alert lifted, people had already resumed work.

They hadn't retained memories from the time-loop period; that long stretch of time was like a dream to them.

Some people vaguely recalled a few fragments, but they would soon forget them completely.

At the energy mine, Wu Chang saw quite a few familiar faces.

He saw the two drunks who had been practicing diving off a lamppost, now riding an inspection vehicle to maintain the energy mine's operations.

The burly man and Fatty, who had pulled out knuckle dusters and hammered each other over a single honk of a horn, were now wearing engineering mechs, expanding the fruit and vegetable cultivation center.

What surprised him most was that in He Yun's central research lab, he actually saw the boxer Viper — who had provided him with his starting power value — now wearing a white lab coat, transmitting the latest research data to He Yun.

In this world that kept moving forward, it seemed everyone had a future of their own.

Of course, not every local of the underground shelter was saved.

For instance, under an advertisement sign at a nearby livestock farm, a fatty who looked a lot like Pete, a bottle in hand, was pouring alcohol into his mouth while repeatedly smooching the buxom model in a cow cosplay outfit on the sign.

Wu Chang followed He Yun into her office. As He Yun worked the central server, Wu Chang saw the core of the entire techno-occult ritual change from two — He Yun and He Yi — to three.

He was the third core of the underground shelter.

"Player has gained the recognition of the Wasteland — Plane 9876's Controller. Wasteland — Plane 9876 has become the player's personal plane. The player holds administrative permissions within the plane; targets not permitted by the player cannot enter the plane."

"As the Controller, the player is anchored to Wasteland — Plane 9876, opening a fixed passage into the plane."

"The player may open a plane entrance that only they may enter at any location. Entering the personal plane costs no Rusted Silver Coins."

"Because Wasteland — Plane 9876 is in the middle layer, regardless of whether the player is present in the plane, the time flow between the plane and reality is fixed at 1:1."

"The player may enjoy the item output of the personal plane. Every 15 days, the player may bring out one plane-produced/modified item from the personal plane. Brought-out items are treated as normal gains and may be used in other instance planes."

"Player has gained partial temporary administrative permissions for the Wasteland Realm. The player may observe certain areas of the Wasteland Realm from the perspective of a temporary administrator of the Wasteland Realm."

Boom!

As the final prompt appeared, a tremendous roar rang in Wu Chang's ears. His viewpoint shot upward at tremendous speed, everything around him shrinking rapidly in his eyes.

His consciousness rose, his gaze shifting from looking down on the central laboratory, to looking down on the energy mine, then to looking down on the entirety of Shelter 88. The entire underground shelter became a map in his eyes, but this was far from over — the underground shelter grew smaller and smaller in his eyes, his consciousness continuing to rise, passing through over a thousand meters of underground, arriving directly at the surface.

He saw the severely polluted, desolate surface, and on that death-grey ground, many slightly deformed surface-dwellers wandering through the abandoned city.

Then the surface kept shrinking, from a vast plane, to a curved surface, and finally in his eyes, became a pale white planet.

Then a burst of brilliant light flared in the pitch-black cosmos, his gaze arriving at a vast, pale-red planar space.

He looked upward and saw not the Wasteland — the planet where Plane 9876 resided — but a massive barrier.

The aura of this barrier was very familiar to him; it was the plane barrier belonging to the Wasteland Realm.

Looking downward, there was likewise a barrier, and this barrier was even more solid — his consciousness could not pass through it to see the scenery on the other side.

He had come into contact with this barrier's aura before as well; it was the barrier of the second layer of the Abyss, belonging to the Reason Realm.

Seeing the two barriers, he understood that the pale-red planar space he was currently looking at was precisely the middle layer sandwiched between the two layers of the Abyss.

Upon realizing all this, he saw a layer of Jin Guang surrounding him, like a pillar wedged between the two barriers.

The Jin Guang around him — or rather, he himself at this moment — was the Pillar of the Present World represented by the underground shelter.

!

This layer of Jin Guang could appear or vanish according to his will; this was his authority as plane administrator, representing his ability to choose to hide the existence of the underground shelter and prevent others who possessed temporary administrative authority from discovering it.

He hid himself, but that did not prevent him from observing the other Pillars of the Present World.

He extended his consciousness into the distance, and soon in the middle layer region, he saw another twenty Pillars of the Present World.

This number made him frown involuntarily.

From the original guardian of the underground shelter, Lone Peak, it was not hard to see that the so-called guardianship was merely possessing a small portion of authority, and could not, like him, take the entire plane as its own private plane.

Judging by Lone Peak's situation, the other Pillars of the Present World should not be able to conceal their own existence.

But of the original thirty-six Pillars of the Present World, even counting the underground shelter, there were only twenty-one left.

It had not been long since the territory spaces of the four great organizations were attacked, yet already fifteen Pillars of the Present World had been destroyed. One must know that destroying a Pillar of the Present World required not only finding a method to destroy one, possessing the power to overcome the locals, but also dealing with the guardians of the four great factions.

Facing so many difficulties and still achieving such efficiency, it was obvious that the faction plotting to destroy the Pillars of the Present World had long since locked onto these Pillars of the Present World.

But why were they doing this?

Wu Chang continued to extend his consciousness and saw, at the edge of the middle layer, four or five planes breaking through the plane barrier of the Wasteland Realm. A portion of their regions had already entered the middle layer, moving toward the Reason Realm.

These planes were attempting to ascend.

His consciousness swept past these planes, and when passing over one of them, he paused.

The aura of this plane currently ascending felt very familiar to him. When he gazed at that plane, the plane sensed his gaze and sent him an invitation in return.

Following the invitation, he could precisely lock onto that plane's location. If he wished, by borrowing a designated instance's prop, he could descend directly to that plane through the middle layer.

While he was communicating with the plane, the class-change power within him was unusually active.

If he was not mistaken, that plane currently ascending was precisely the first plane he had entered the Abyss Game, and also the plane where he had obtained his class-change prop — Moonlight Sanatorium.

He had already broken through Moonlight Sanatorium, yet the plane where the instance resided could still ascend. Could the Tranquil Church of the instance plane have caused even bigger trouble elsewhere?

This guess suddenly made him look forward to it; he wondered if, going over this time, he could pick up other parts of Lehmann besides the left eye.

While his consciousness was still focused on the Moonlight Sanatorium plane, a "pop" suddenly sounded in his ear, as if a bubble had been punctured.

Following the sound, he saw an instance that had ascended halfway — the instance's barrier suddenly burst open.

Without the protection of the instance plane's barrier, a massive amount of middle layer energy poured into the instance plane, and the instance plane dissipated as easily as a broken soap bubble.

One must understand, that was not a soap bubble, but an instance plane with tens of thousands of locals.

That was a real world.

Wu Chang watched the plane dissipate like a soap bubble, and an inexplicable shudder rose in his heart.

If one were to bring him into that dissipating plane — the previous moment, his world was thriving, the world advancing at great speed, invention after invention of magic or technology leading the entire world toward a higher civilization.

The next moment, the entire world completely collapsed. People did not even know what had happened before they were washed into nothingness by the middle layer's energy.

Although he had long known that the Abyss was no kind place, seeing with his own eyes how the Abyss could effortlessly erase an entire plane still brought him tremendous shock.

At this moment, he could not help but wonder — among those players in the four great organizations who possessed temporary administrative authority over the Wasteland Realm, was this the kind of scene they saw every day?

The level at which one perceived things determined one's cognition of the world, which in turn determined one's way of thinking.

If those top-tier players with special authority observed the Abyss and the world from this kind of perspective, then were the decisions they made also things ordinary players could neither imagine nor understand?

His inspiration became active, and in the midst of it all, he felt an inexplicable unease.

The world seemed to be progressing in an unfavorable direction.

Just as he was preparing to end this observation and return his consciousness to the underground shelter, he sensed a massive energy cluster in the central region of the middle layer.

The energy contained within this massive energy cluster was greater than the combined energy of those four or five ascending planes, and this cluster was still continuously growing, filling the entire middle layer.

The instant he observed that energy cluster, his temporary administrative authority informed him that the energy taking shape was called a World Instance.

Wu Chang swallowed. The troubles waiting in the future seemed to be many more than he had anticipated.

At the same time, in a certain conference room, a group of players in varied attire were holding a meeting.

Clad in a bright red kasaya, lean and wiry, Huanxi sat at the innermost seat of the conference table, his eyes tightly shut, rolling the prayer beads in his hand.

Two seats away from Huanxi, dressed in a full Western suit like some kind of insurance salesman, Mercury was reporting on something.

Halfway through, Mercury's expression suddenly changed drastically. He cut off his report and stared down at the tabletop with a dark expression.

Mercury's standing in the meeting was not low. Although the others were curious about what had happened, since Mercury did not speak, they did not dare ask, and could only look together toward Huanxi seated at the head.

Huanxi slowly opened his eyes and asked: "What happened."

Mercury said tensely: "A Pillar of the Present World I previously created has run into some problems."

A look of doubt appeared on Huanxi's face. Mercury's power was the most suited for creating Pillars of the Present World, and the ones he created had always been the most stable and most useful — how could there be a problem?

"Is the problem serious?"

Mercury shook his head and said, "Just a small slip-up. I'm trying to fix it."

The moment Mercury finished speaking, everyone saw his nose cave in, the tall bridge of his nose crushed by some unseen force, and the next instant blood spurted from his nostrils, splattering all over a desk.

Expressions of disbelief appeared on every face in the room.

Mercury had actually been injured through the air by a player who could still enter the Pillar of the Present World, struck down by following his aura!

(End of chapter)