Chapter 343: Reality Visitor, Fate Investigator

Earth, Trade City.

As night fell, this supercity spanning a Pacific artificial island chain lit up with lights.

From high above, the entire city resembled a vast net woven from light.

The city's multicolored glows outlined the contours of its seven districts.

The white light of the Human District, the blue-green bioluminescence of the Aquatic District, the red light of the Re-Adapted District… each hue represented one of Earth's Alliance races.

And this city was jointly built by these seven races.

The Arrival War once caused Earth to endure a series of climate disasters, energy crises, and automation-driven unemployment waves in rapid succession.

Especially the automation-driven unemployment wave, which plunged many races into turmoil.

The Eclipse Race's advanced technology replacing human labor meant ordinary people could no longer create value.

95% of traditional laborers could no longer generate income for themselves.

Factories no longer needed workers, logistics no longer needed drivers, and even basic medical diagnosis began shifting to Eclipse Intelligence.

The creed "labor creates value" collapsed under the efficiency of Eclipse machinery.

Unemployment swept the globe, and society plunged into chaos.

To solve this, the Human Federation and other races tried directly distributing basic income, using wealth generated by machines to support the unemployed.

But this seemingly perfect solution soon revealed fatal flaws.

When people lost the meaning of work, society began to fracture.

Idle crowds wandered the streets, and crime rates soared.

Especially the latent crisis long suppressed in the hearts of all races: the arrival of the next external force.

Depression swept the globe; suicide rates hit historic highs.

Humans, stripped of purpose, splintered into extremist factions; social order teetered on collapse.

It was precisely within this cybernetic environment that the virtual economy emerged.

After connecting to the Star Net, the Eclipse Race's Star Net network was initially designed only for more efficient communication between races.

But after the Eclipse Race opened virtual games, the world experienced an economic revival.

Everyone could use virtual devices to connect to the Star Net, then freely enter the virtual world and experience alternate sensations through their senses.

Thus, many chose to escape the monotony of the real world and immerse themselves in the virtual world.

By this stage, the Eclipse Race already possessed game pod technology.

But what they distributed to other races were still holographic neural interface helmets.

From a modern perspective, the virtual devices of that era were like ancient people using smartphones to view feature phones.

The virtual economy's greatest contribution to this era was giving people a sense of being "needed."

This feeling maintained social stability far better than money ever could.

Trade City, this artificial marvel built upon the Pacific, was precisely the convergence point between the virtual economy and the real world at that time.

Here, virtual assets could be exchanged for physical goods, and creativity could be turned into real gold and silver.

Virtual currencies from different games and virtual social platforms also experienced a revival during this period.

It was also the joint future-development pilot city established by the seven races.

But in today's era, Trade City resembles Earth's ancient United Nations.

Once conceived with brilliant vision, it now remains only an empty shell.

Today, it is merely a footnote in history books.

This supercity spanning the Pacific has suffered the fate of obsolescence and has since transformed into an ordinary multi-racial residential city.

The city's first residents were mostly engineers, architects, environmental control experts, and others who participated in its construction.

Today's residents are all descendants of those who originally built the city.

At 3 a. m., lights in parts of Trade City gradually dimmed.

At that moment, a spatial distortion suddenly appeared above the city.

Like air ripples in summer heat, nearly imperceptible beneath the night sky.

Then the ripple tore open rapidly, space splitting like a curtain ripped apart by an invisible hand.

The edges of the rift shimmered with unstable silver light, and a tall, slender figure wrapped in black storm-winds slowly descended from the spatial tear.

Instantly, the space behind it sealed shut, as if it had never existed.

Overlooking the city's night view, the arriving figure slowly raised the bone staff in its hand; a mask formed of silver mist on its face rapidly shifted expressions.

It finally settled into a contemplative expression, as if weighing something.

Moments later, the mask's expression changed to a smile.

The figure flickered, transforming into a streak of black storm-wind that vanished into the night, diving toward Trade City below.

It ultimately slipped into a renovated old apartment building.

On the balcony, an orange cat lazily licked its paw; inside the room, the game pod glowed with an indicator light, housing a player immersed in the game.

The storm-wind's original target had been the figure inside the game pod.

But upon seeing the figure's physique and face, the storm-wind suddenly froze, as if hesitating.

In the end, it chose the orange cat lounging on the balcony.

The storm-wind slipped soundlessly into the cat's ear; the cat's movements abruptly stiffened, its pupils contracting into thin slits.

"Meow! Meow! Meow!"

"Meow~"

The orange cat first emitted abnormal, violent cries, then returned to normal.

It was as if adapting to the body—the initial chaos caused by incompatible control.

Borrowing the cat's body, this uninvited guest began its investigation.

It nimbly leapt down from the balcony, entered the room, and curiously surveyed the surroundings.

After wandering around the room for a while, the orange cat nimbly leapt back onto the balcony and began to weave through the city's intricate network of pipelines.

……

One day later.

Brother Ming Hou lay in the orange cat's body atop a tall building, eyes narrowed, overlooking the cityscape bathed in blazing sunlight.

This world… was nothing like what it had imagined.

Before arriving, it had envisioned a world where the strong stood like trees in a forest.

Even the lowest of beings could tear the heavens apart with bare hands, while the great powers could casually move mountains and fill seas.

The air should have been thick with surging spiritual energy.

But this feeble world before its eyes had spiritual energy so thin it was practically negligible, like water diluted ten million times over.

Its whiskers twitched slightly; Brother Ming Hou still couldn't figure this out.

"This world… shouldn't be like this."

Setting aside the environmental issues, the materials used in this world were also extremely shoddy.

Take that towering giant spire in the distance, for example — it was built entirely from a pile of fragile materials.

In the Monster World, any random monster could easily tear it apart.

Brother Ming Hou gently patted the edge of the rooftop with its cat paw, lost in thought, yet couldn't figure out where the problem lay no matter how hard it tried.

This arrival stemmed from a failed gambit in the Monster World.

At the time, its opponent in the gambit should have been a member of the Reverse Tide Legion's training camp.

It had originally chosen to abandon this failed gambit, after all — the force behind the opponent wielded a rule-level power stronger than the "Rule of Fate."

Since the opponent was a member of the Reverse Tide Legion, it chose to withdraw and did not lay a hand on those Reverse Tide newcomers.

But the result was a continuous backlash from Fate.

The logic held, the rule took effect, yet the outcome went wrong.

If this continued, even its life tier would decline as a result.

To curb the backlash of the Painful Painful Minghun rule, it could only choose to act as a debt collector and launch an investigation, hoping to recoup the losses from the Fate gambit.

But the Reverse Tide Legion was vast in scale, and finding the clan behind the gambit participant from that time was no easy task.

It sought help from the clan leader for this, obtaining coordinates through a Fate gambit.

In the end, it obtained detailed spatial coordinates.

But what puzzled Brother Ming Hou was that these spatial coordinates were not in the Monster World — they pointed to the void beyond the Monster World.

The Rule of Fate clearly would not err.

To get to the bottom of things, it decided to personally launch a cross-spatial investigation, though it had mentally prepared for failure.

The opponent wielded a rule-level power stronger than "Fate," so the world they inhabited must surely be rich in spiritual energy, with the strong roaming freely.

This solo journey carried extreme risk; it might even perish on the way.

But as one of the Twelve Fate Masters of the Fate Clan, carrying out the trajectory set by Fate was its duty.

This was also the root from which Fate bestowed its power.

With an uneasy heart, it set out.

Yet the situation was nothing like what it had imagined.

It even suspected something had gone wrong during the spatial jump.

Passing through the spatial rift, it found itself in a world with virtually no spiritual energy.

It couldn't even be compared to the Monster World.

Such a world, by all reason, could never nurture the strong, nor give birth to rules.

A faction that mastered rules would not choose to exist in such a world.

So it suspected it had come to the wrong place.

But the Rule of Fate's judgment had never erred.

The previous setback had nothing to do with the judgment — it was purely that the opponent's rule was too strong, preventing the Rule of Fate from extracting the gambit's gains.

But since it had come, it still decided to investigate.

It had originally intended to possess an intelligent being of this world and access its memories, which would allow it to quickly understand the situation here.

But upon seeing the being lying in the coffin lid, it abandoned the idea.

Judging solely by appearance, the feeble being lying inside was not much different from the one that had gambled with it back then.

This discovery made it realize that this was indeed the world where that powerful clan resided.

Though it still couldn't understand why this world's environment was so harsh and its beings so weak.

Since the target was confirmed, it planned to lie low in this world and conduct an in-depth investigation.

This was also why it chose not to lay a hand on the feeble being.

If gods wielding powerful rules truly existed behind the beings of this world, it hoped to resolve the matter through negotiation.

Slaughtering indiscriminately upon arrival would only be interpreted as provocation by the other side.

Yet this day's investigation left it increasingly perplexed.

Its tail swept gently as it kept analyzing the absurdities of this world.

First, the combat system: technology.

In its eyes, these things called technology were like toys.

Iron boxes floating by magnetic force moved so slowly they couldn't even catch up with a hatchling crawler beast from the Monster World.

The so-called "energy weapons," when fired at ordinary wild beasts in Monster World, probably couldn't even damage their fur.

As for the materials used, they were even more unsightly.

The buildings of the entire city were constructed entirely of fragile spiritless mineral alloys and concrete; any random monster could smash straight through them.

The vehicles on the streets had shells as thin as paper, and the creatures' bodies were even more pitifully frail.

Without the tempering of spiritual energy, their muscles were flabby and their bones fragile.

Creatures like these, placed in Monster World, would probably be rammed to death by a passing "Glow Worm" — which lives at the bottom of the food chain gathering nectar.

As for the growth system, according to the information it had gathered—

This world had yet to birth a cultivation system.

In an environment like this, even if a cultivation growth system existed, the thin spiritual energy in the air could not be utilized.

Wandering through the city, it did overhear four characters that came up with extremely high frequency: "Virtual World."

It seemed to be a kind of spiritually fabricated scene similar to an Illusion.

In Brother Ming Hou's view, this was nothing more than a group of ants incapable of cultivation using clumsy electronic signals to simulate a spiritual world — an act of self-deception.

Its ears twitching slightly, it continued to catch the conversations on the street.

Two creatures passing below were chatting again about the contents of the Virtual World.

A flicker of derision passed through Brother Ming Hou's cat-like pupils.

These creatures, clearly living in the real world, were addicted to false Illusions.

In Monster World, the weaker races would at least still struggle to survive, striving to grow stronger.

Yet the creatures of this world were actually willing to live in a cage woven of Illusions, without even the desire to struggle — how utterly tragic.

But thinking it over carefully, it felt it couldn't blame these creatures of the small world entirely.

After all, with such a great environment, no matter how hard an individual struggled, they could not break free of the world's shackles.

Thinking of this, the question returned to its starting point.

In a world like this, how could it possibly give birth to a powerhouse capable of resisting the rules of fate?