Chapter 361: I Build a Nightmare Industry Chain in Another World

Meng Yuan Chu Altar.

Wei Shan's series of actions in the small world were monitored by Qi Sheng throughout.

If successful, it would undoubtedly add a brand new school to the player camp's system: the Summoning School.

Watching the entire process, the progress was extremely smooth.

But the tax collection process could not be waived.

Just as the "Headmaster" of the Kindergarten cultivated the Dark Blood Legion, he would also siphon off 30% of the faith power gained during the process.

It was the same on Wei Shan's side.

Even though Wei Shan's plan was still in its early stages of development.

However, through the Nightmare Trial scenes and the shock value obtained from other channels subsequently, he would also siphon off 30% of the profits into the Shou Shou Jili pool.

After glancing at Wei Shan's latest profits, Qi Sheng's gaze jumped back to the Meteor Fall World.

After 15 days of effort.

Under Wei Shan's witness, the city of New Cassini completely restored order.

The residents inside the city could finally lower their guard and move freely within the city.

The territorial boundaries once divided by gang rule disappeared; there was no need to pay tolls to gang thugs who suddenly darted out.

When crossing the wreckage zone of flying vehicles in the South District, there was no need to worry about stepping into persecution traps set by any gang.

Children dared to chase and play on the cleaned-up open grounds, and many residents could finally boldly walk out of the ruins to sunbathe on the open grounds, chatting about which family had exchanged for more food at the Nightmare Trial Grounds.

The gunshots of gang wars had become memories not too distant.

A portion of the gang members who were incorporated were dismissed; those with ability took the tools issued to them and gathered to clear the building debris in the city.

Broken steel bars were cut into regular scrap, and shattered glass and concrete blocks were sorted and transported to the landfill outside the city.

The pipes and circuits still usable within the city were repaired by engineering personnel maintained by the various gangs.

The abandoned flying vehicles that once blocked the streets were also gradually dismantled; the metal skeletons were sent to the furnace and would become new water purification pipe parts in a few days.

The city gradually began to have the smell of smoke and fire.

Residents began to set up simple stoves on the cleared open grounds, cooking porridge with food exchanged from the Nightmare Trial Grounds.

Some also went in pairs to challenge the Nightmare Trial, obtaining rations for these two days by proving their courage.

At this moment, Wei Shan stood on a flying skateboard, gazing at the flowing crowd below Nightmare Trial Ground No. 3.

The faces of the queuing crowd still bore fear of the trial grounds, yet also held a few traces of a calm expression.

This calmness came from an order based on rules.

One would not become a target of persecution by gang thugs for inexplicable reasons.

When walking freely no longer required a price, and the hope of survival was no longer monopolized by the gang gun barrels, this city, once sunk in chaos, finally revealed a glimmer of rebirth.

During this period, Wei Shan also carried out rectifications on the eight major gangs.

The seven leaders who only knew how to solve problems with violence were all demoted to the lowest level to do hard labor; personnel helpful to the city restoration project were promoted.

The price of disobedience was death.

Obviously, compared to death, they were more willing to scrape by and survive.

Now the operation of the city has entered the right track.

But Wei Shan knew he was about to face a new challenge.

This world did not only have cities completely destroyed; there were also many cities that could maintain order and civilization.

The entire world was in a restoration period.

The armies of other cities would connect with New Cassini in the near future.

This might be the fuse for his confrontation with the world.

But these were problems that would only appear in the future; he did not need to worry for now and decided to start the next round of tests: the Agent Mode.

Without notifying the leaders of the eight major gangs, he left alone that night.

Standing on a flying skateboard, he headed east according to the markings on the world map.

The deep blue afterglow of the flying skateboard cut through the night sky, leaving a fleeting light trail among the clouds.

When the horizon turned fish-belly white, Wei Shan arrived at his destination: Neon Port.

This was a coastal city adjacent to the sea; during the Mo Fa Clan invasion event, the warships had not yet advanced to this city before being crushed by the Virtual Rune Legion.

This city was thus preserved.

Viewed from high altitude, it was different from the ruin scene of New Cassini.

The buildings of Neon Port were all very intact; the glass curtain walls of the skyscrapers reflected the rising morning sun, and maglev trains flew on the aerial tracks.

Pedestrians on the streets wore neat clothing, and even the patrol robots maintained a shiny metallic luster.

The order here had never collapsed, retaining the completeness before the apocalypse.

But when conducting an in-depth investigation of this city, Wei Shan discovered that decadence filled the city beneath its glamour.

For example, he saw a group of young people gathered on the lawn of the city's central park, puffing clouds and blowing smoke, with colorful smoke drifting from the metal smoking pipes in their hands.

The speakers beside them played grating music.

Several young girls in revealing clothes were twisting their bodies to the melody, their movements appearing abnormally excited.

Near the automatic vending machine at the street corner, someone smashed the machine's glass, but not to snatch the supplies inside; they were just venting emotions through action until they were electrocuted by a patrol robot and dragged away.

Similar situations played out in various areas of the city.

The city's infrastructure was still operating; energy, food, and medical care maintained basic supply, yet it seemed to have lost its vitality.

With curiosity, Wei Shan asked the guide what exactly had happened to this city.

Facing the inquiry, the Guide's explanation was:

Although the invasion by the End-Dharma Clan had ended, it did not restore the residents' drive; instead, it bred a collective nihilism.

They used indulgence and venting to prove they were still alive.

They lacked no survival resources; what they lacked was the meaning to keep living.

Rumors of the apocalypse flew everywhere; no one knew when the next end would arrive.

So they began to indulge and seek thrills within what they perceived as their limited lives.

They were like prisoners trapped by invisible spiritual shackles, slowly sinking within a cage that seemed free.

When discussing the city's situation, the Guide mentioned a piece of history from Earth's ancient past.

It stated that in the 20th century, the 60s and 70s before the New Era of Earth opened, similar social phenomena had occurred.

The youth launched a counter-culture movement known as the Hippie culture.

At that time, a powerful nation on Earth, after experiencing a golden age of rapid economic growth, enjoyed abundant material wealth and an expanding middle class.

Mainstream society championed consumerism, encouraging people to pursue material wealth and binding individual value to social status and material conditions.

The younger generation grew up in privileged environments yet felt suffocated by this "standardized" life, believing society suppressed individuality and lacked freedom.

The spark that ignited rebellious emotions was a war at that time.

Casualties, conscription, and the suppression of anti-war protests exacerbated social contradictions; young people expressed their resistance by evading military service and taking to the streets to protest.

Coupled with the influence of the human rights movement at the time, society became fractured.

And the Hippie culture was a comprehensive rebellion against traditional values.

They detested the cruelty of war and the hypocrisy of society, attempting to rebuild values through rebellion.

But this rebellion gradually took the path of spiritual hedonism and material supremacy; young people became addicted to drugs, spiritual exploration, psychedelic rock, and so on.

The city's current state shares many similarities with the Hippie wave on Earth back then.

Both were collective nihilism born out of confusion about the future.

Youth in ancient times were swept up by war and consumerism, while the residents here were trapped in the trauma of the End-Dharma Clan's invasion and the fear of when the next apocalypse would descend.

The former used rebellion to fight nihilism; the latter used indulgence and thrills to fight nihilism.

Essentially, both were choices made when no spiritual outlet could be found.

In such an environment, material abundance actually became a catalyst.

Thoughts about "why live" constantly surged forth.

So they began to numb their nerves with drugs, just as the Hippies of that year used drugs to seek thrills.

They vented their emotions wildly on the streets, just as the youth of that time used protest marches to break social shackles.

Although the shell of technological civilization was maintained on the surface, the interior had long been hollowed out by decadence.

The older generation clung to the old order with anxiety, while the young chose indulgence and living for the moment; the values of the two generations were like two parallel lines.

This social state was actually spiritual confusion after "certainty" vanished.

Although the End-Dharma Clan's invasion had ended, this calamity that swept the world was like a heavy hammer, shattering all assumptions of a "stable future."

The survival logic and value systems once deeply believed in all became shaky under the impact of the apocalypse.

All thoughts ultimately led to: since the next apocalypse could descend at any time, what meaning do the current order, efforts, or even civilization itself hold?

When tomorrow changed from controllable to unknown, the people in the city would fall into an extreme mental state.

Living for the moment was a way to dissolve anxiety; they believed that since the future was unknowable, they might as well seize the thrills of the present and use sensory revelry to fight the nihilism of existence.

This had an essential difference from the "New Cassini" city Wei Shan had previously laid out.

The residents of New Cassini lived in a city with scarce resources; how could they dare to hope for a distant future? Living in the moment was more important than anything.

But the harsh living environment forced them into a corner; resource scarcity was like a sword hanging over their heads, making everyone's attention firmly fixed on where the next meal would come from, whether they could find a safe shelter tonight, and other such problems.

They also had to constantly worry about the dangers brought by gang warfare.

A piece of compressed biscuit or a bottle of purified water could soothe their temporary hunger.

Every resident had a clear goal: to strive to survive.

So they would not have any nihilistic thoughts.

But this city beneath their feet lacked no resources; instead, it was filled with spiritual hunger.

Physical needs were met, but the soul could find no soil to take root.

When survival no longer required struggle, the meaning of living lost its most direct anchor.

Except for indulgence, they could find no more powerful way to prove they were alive.

During this period, the prevalence of apocalypse rumors became an amplifier for this core.

Every rumor about the "return of the apocalypse" constantly reinforced the confusion about the future.

Thus, society fell into a vicious cycle.

The more confused, the more indulgent.

The more indulgent, the harder to find meaning.

The harder to find meaning, the more they relied on indulgence to numb themselves.

Comparing the two cities, the residents of New Cassini were like trekking through mud; every step was heavy and solid, and the desire to survive was their fuel for moving forward.

But the people here were like floating in weightless space; seemingly free yet with no support.

In the former environment, "surviving" was the answer itself.

In the latter world, "why survive" was the greatest problem.

In the Guide's explanation, Wei Shan gained a relatively detailed understanding of the city's situation and understood why the city looked so decadent.

Next, he decided to search for an agent within this city.

The rain in Neon Harbor always carries a rust smell—or rather, ever since the End-Law Clan launched their rampage, rain across the entire world has carried that rusty tang.

Lex wiped the condensation off the glass with his sleeve and watched pedestrians hurrying past outside under umbrellas, the holographic ads reflected on the umbrella surfaces shattering into scattered light in the rain curtain.

The virtual experience venue he ran, "Illusory Dream," sat in the city's new district.

Half a year ago this place had been the hottest landmark in the city; back then virtual network technology was highly developed, and people could put on a neural interface and experience all kinds of lifelike pleasures in the virtual world.

But the End-Law Clan's invasion severed the communication networks between cities completely.

Global servers crashed, and every large-scale networked virtual project collapsed.

That included one of the hottest games of the time, *Civilization War*.

Neon Harbor was lucky—it wasn't caught up in the invasion war—but its network mode had also shifted from global interconnection to a regional net.

That year's game, due to data loss and other issues, had long since become unusable.

Now the most popular things in Neon Harbor were short, fast virtual experiences, with scene realism hovering around 39%.

For instance, the instance he had built earlier, "Starry Night Talk," simulated an unpolluted night sky—lying on a virtual lawn and counting the stars overhead.

But with the change in the social climate, people nowadays preferred to experience more thrilling content.

The hottest were those doomsday revelry themes packed with violence and emotional venting.

To go with the times, he had built instance scenes that let players wantonly destroy in virtual settings—blowing up buildings, hijacking vehicles, going up against law enforcement squads, and the like.

These scenes were all more thrilling than "Starry Night Talk."

But today's game content still couldn't compare with the virtual games that had flourished back then.

Current virtual scene experiences could only be propped up by local servers, and the content was pitifully barren.

The young people of Neon Harbor now preferred to chase simple, brutal thrills.

Drugs, alcohol, underground fighting—almost no one was willing to spend money on outdated virtual scene experiences anymore.

This meant his venue saw fewer and fewer customers, while the monthly energy and equipment maintenance bills loomed like a mountain.

This morning he had already received a rent-due notice, and the red "Overdue" stamp left him feeling utterly helpless.

Lex slumped at the counter, swiped through his smart device's screen, and pulled up the backend data.

For the entire day today there had been only one customer, and the earnings weren't even a fraction of the electricity bill.

He looked up at the promotional poster still hanging on the wall, which bore a line of text: A virtual world to hold all that's beautiful.

But now, he could barely hold even himself together.

As much as he had looked forward to opening the place, that was exactly how disappointed he was now.

"If it really won't work… I'll put up the transfer sign tomorrow." He muttered to himself.

Though reluctant in his heart, he knew this might be the right choice.

If things kept going like this, the venue would drag him down sooner or later.

Ding-ling!

Just then, the experience hall's front door was suddenly pushed open.

Lex immediately looked up, sprang to his feet on reflex, and his professional habit forced a smile onto his face:

"What experience would you like? We have Doomsday Destruction and—…"

Before he could finish, Lex realized there was no one in front of him.

His smile froze on his face; the wind chime at the door was still swaying, and the crisp clink of metal on metal sounded especially jarring in the silent venue.

He frowned, leaned his head out the door to look—the sensor light outside was on, yet not a single soul was in sight.