Transcendent Dawn

Chapter 397: Giant City (6600 added, request for monthly pass)

Lan Hao was a ‘player’.

Ever since he received that ‘invitation’, he found himself in this strange world in his dreams every night.

Everything here felt so realistic and was filled with a mysterious power, making it hard for him to leave.

Players could take on the roles of ‘warriors’, ‘mages’, and various other covert professions, an experience so enticing that any ordinary person would succumb to its charm.

‘This game must be created by gods or aliens!’

A consensus had formed among many players.

The only requirement for a player to progress in the game was to kill ‘monsters’ and ‘beasts’, and absorb their ‘energy cores’ for cultivation.

He had joined a small guild as a ‘ranger’, largely equivalent to an ancient spy, whose primary duty was to find wild monsters.

“Last time, there emerged a world-class BOSS, the ‘Destruction Dragon’, so mighty it was terrifying. It even escaped in the end, which was just unbelievable… If I find it, I’ll strike it rich.”

Lan Hao thought with glittering eyes.

The setting for the ‘wild monsters’ in this game was quite strange. They were exceedingly vicious, filled with destructive urges, especially when they saw players, they would fight to the death.

Surprisingly, the biggest BOSS actually fled the battlefield.

This indeed terrified many players at that time.

“Even if I can’t find the big BOSS, locating a group of wild monsters would also be great… The rewards provided by the guild are quite generous.”

In reality, Lan Hao was just an unsuccessful homebody, but he had an acute sense of the uniqueness of this game.

In the real world, there are tycoons who are willing to spend money to buy various materials from the game. As long as you’re a player, you can basically make a good living by selling materials in the game, providing information, and completing tasks.

‘The game world feels too real, yet its design is too crude… Could it really have been created by aliens?’

Lost in thought, Lan Hao suddenly noticed another person appearing in front of him.

The person had golden curly hair, black pupils, probably a mixed-race.

“Brother, which area are you from?”

He greeted as he approached.

The next moment, he noticed that the other party sprinted directly to his side.

That speed, even as a ‘ranger’, he couldn’t quite see.

‘Not good, it’s a red-name. I’m going to die this time.’

Lan Hao thought a little despairingly. Although players could be resurrected after death, it still felt uncomfortable, some even found themselves unable to log in to the game for a period of time.

Right as he was pondering, a powerful blow struck his neck, and he collapsed softly.

“What did you say… I can’t understand at all.”

With a wry smile, Su Lu lifted up Lan Hao: “Hmm… Finally, I can control my strength almost perfectly after turning into human form. At least, I didn’t extinguish his life with one squeeze.”

He took Lan Hao to a cave and started to apply his mental trick on him.

The original shadow clone could only inherit one side of the [Dimensional Walker]’s abilities.

However, once the shadow clone had reached its limit, this restriction was removed. By then, its strength could even reach seventy percent of the original body’s!

A few seconds later, Su Lu’s face changed: “No… I can’t find his Mental Secret Realm. What’s going on?”

Although all skills and passives had been weakened after entering the new world, this complete failure left him in utter shock.

“Unless… this is not a sentient being!”

“Or… is it related to the changed Spirit World?”

After thinking for a while, Su Lu decided to hide.

“Gonna die, gonna die, gonna die…”

Before long, Lan Hao woke up, but he wasn’t lying on his bed in the Material Realm: “Eh? That red-name didn’t kill me? I’m not dead?”

Getting up to check his body, he found that he was intact. He heaved a sigh of relief but was also very confused.

“Strange, could I have been hallucinating…”

After thinking for a while, he still didn’t feel quite safe.

Lan Hao disappeared and decided to log out immediately. He logged into a forum comprising players, joined a chat group and sent a message: “Guild master… I need sponsorship and protection!”

This game was rudimentary, it didn’t even have a chat box, and almost all communication was done by shouting.

As such, if Lan Hao wanted to contact the guild, he would have to rely on chat tools in the real world.

Thinking about it, he felt a surge of tearful emotion.

“Did he log out?”

Hiding on the side, Su Lu kept watching: “I wonder where he’ll reappear once he logs back in? No matter, I’ll wait for him here for three days!”

He didn’t have to wait long.

About ten or so minutes later, Lan Hao stealthily reappeared. After looking around a bit, he started running without looking back.

Su Lu followed him, watching him run frantically, eventually meeting up with a small squad wearing the same emblem.

Eventually, the group arrived in front of a city.

It was a massive city made entirely of rocks and emitting a brilliant array of colors.

The city’s four main doors were always open, and countless players were constantly coming and going, making the city very bustling.

“Just this city alone accommodates at least a million players, right?”

Su Lu’s eyes flickered, suddenly his inspiration touched something, and his face was filled with excitement: “At last… I’ve found it!”

In his inspiration, this massive city was constructed from a multitude of Mental Secret Realms!

Each secret realm had transformed into a square shape, forming the foundation of this massive city!

“I knew it… The trilayered structure of spiritual realms is an established truth validated by numerous worlds… Although there are changes here, they all stem from the same root…”

Su Lu looked at this ‘game world’. Its earth was undoubtedly the former Illusory Spirit Realm, where spiritual bodies could survive.

Its sky, on the other hand, was the erstwhile Dream Spirit World, home to altered monsters.

As for this main city, it was a part of the Mental Realm, constructed from countless Mental Secret Realms!

“The last piece of the puzzle, an information hub in the Dream Spirit World, and various mysterious symbols… they were hidden… Hence, divination and prophecy are impossible in this world!”

Su Lu emerged from his hidden state and nonchalantly made his way to the city wall.

Though the city gate was wide open, it was unguarded and devoid of any entrance fees.

Instead, there were countless players speaking in languages he didn’t understand, lined up in a long queue.

As early as when Su Lu split his shadow clone, he had deliberately learned the style of this world and dressed himself appropriately.

At this moment, he just pretended to be mute, subtly blending into the city, thankfully no players throwing Identification Skills at him.

The buildings inside the city had a strong medieval style. There were bustling shops and stalls on both sides, and the hiring and trading of goods were thriving.

‘If I stay here for a while, I’m sure I can learn their language…’

But Su Lu didn’t linger, he kept moving forward.

What he wanted to know the most, of course, was the source of the players’ extraordinary ability to ‘resurrect’.

Before, he had witnessed that when players died, they didn’t resurrect on the spot, but had to rush back from afar.

It seemed that they had set some resurrection point.

Based on Su Lu’s years of gaming experience, setting a resurrection point? It’s definitely located in the main city!