...
...
Pingwu Refuge City, outside the city gate.
As time passes.
During the conversation between Yu Jin and Yang Chu.
More and more subordinates inside the city walk out of the gate.
At this moment, the number of people gathered outside the city gate is as high as thirty to fifty thousand.
And besides the ground outside the city gate.
The walls of Pingwu City are also crowded with silhouettes.
Tens of thousands of eyes, curious and expectant, nervous and puzzled, are looking at the ’Kind-hearted Turtle’ approaching from afar.
"City Lord!"
"It’s City Lord Yang!"
"He’s on top of the Kind-hearted Turtle..."
"Crisis averted, families, crisis averted!"
Outside the city gate, a sharp-eyed player raises his voice to shout.
As soon as these words come out.
The originally tense crowd also breathes a long sigh of relief.
Outside the city gate.
Nichole, who is slightly petite and inconspicuous among the crowd, stares closely at the giant turtle, with a few hints of contemplation in her eyes.
"Hmm..."
"Kind-hearted Turtle..."
"The former mount of the Legendary City Lord..."
"Suddenly visiting the Refuge City, the City Lord met with it, apparently friendly in result, without conflict..."
"So..."
"It’s likely to move to the CG cutscene of the storyline?"
"That figure atop the giant turtle..."
"According to the usual game design trope, either it’s the Legendary City Lord himself, or a clone projection of the Legendary City Lord’s consciousness, or at the very least, a former subordinate of the Legendary City Lord..."
"In any case, it must be related to the Legendary City Lord!"
"The storyline of ’Wasteland’ is about to officially start!"
Nichole mumbles constantly.
In front of her, Uncle Dean also hears these few sentences.
Regarding this.
He does not expose the truth but quietly watches the Mutated Giant Turtle like everyone else around him.
More precisely——
The figure atop the giant turtle, standing next to the Pingwu City Lord.
At this moment.
Unexpectedly, Dean feels a bold anticipation rising in his heart.
"If..."
"That person is really the Legendary City Lord, it would be great."
That’s how Dean from Shiva Star thinks.
Not to mention.
Inside and outside Pingwu City, there are a few players from Blue Star just like Yang Chu.
Some of them even occasionally dream that——
Yu Jin returns to A3 Planet, and takes them, who were once abandoned, on a higher and farther journey.
Thud——
Thud-long——!
As the giant turtle approaches, the tremors of the ground grow increasingly strong.
Before long.
The shadow cast by Xiaoming’s enormous body even envelops many people outside the city gate in the Refuge City.
And at this time.
Xiaoming stops at a hundred meters from the city gate.
Woosh——!
Two streams of light fly out in the sky.
It is Yu Jin and Yang Chu.
The two stand in mid-air, Yang Chu slightly behind Yu Jin by half a body length.
"Subordinates of Pingwu City!"
"I am the City Lord, Yang Chu!"
"This person beside me..."
Yang Chu originally intended to introduce Yu Jin’s name but realized that this guy only told his surname Yu, never mentioning his name.
"He..."
"He comes from Blue Star like me."
"He is human, just like you all."
Yang Chu changes his wording, emphasizing the words ’human’.
After all.
Before meeting Yu Jin, he also suspected that the figure atop the giant turtle might be some High-Tier Infected Body.
"Oh——!"
"Human!"
"Blue Star?"
"No wonder..."
"Players from Blue Star are all bosses!"
"This one who can conquer the Kind-hearted Turtle must be the boss of bosses!"
Yang Chu’s voice spreads inside and outside Pingwu Refuge City.
Originally tense people now fully relax.
In place of tension.
Is their curious and exploratory gaze towards Yu Jin.
On the other side.
As Yang Chu explains the situation to the city’s subordinates and announces the crisis averted.
Yu Jin’s gaze searches across the land below.
"Hmm?"
Very soon.
The gaze of Yu Jin stopped.
He looked toward the crowd, noticing the unremarkable girl with an expression completely different from the surrounding players.
That expression...
Confused, innocent, full of curiosity.
And also...
Fearless and composed as if nothing could daunt her.
Even though City Lord Yang had already explained his identity, and Yu Jin hadn’t released any of his Tier Fourteen aura.
But the majority of people on the ground or on the nearby city walls looked at him with a certain degree of reverence, regardless of their initial emotions.
This reverence stems from strength, from instinct.
But this girl...
She looked at him as if he were an NPC in a game.
"A new player?"
"Just logged in as a new player?"
"Kind of reminds me of when Yu Fei first logged into Alpha City and met that old man..."
Yu Jin murmured softly to himself.
The new perception ability granted by the Divine Bloodline authority revealed some special fluctuation here to him.
But...
The source of the fluctuation wasn’t pinpointed to an individual.
In other words.
Yu Jin only knew that the suspected new Divine Bloodline authority holder was near Pingwu Sanctuary City, but he wasn’t sure who it was.
"Not a big problem."
Following his intuition, Yu Jin activated the Eye of Insight.
Whoosh—
The girl’s information appeared line by line before him.
[Name: Nicole Audrey]
[Race: Shiva Star]
[Tier: Unawakened]
[Attribute: Unawakened]
[...]
[Evaluation: A new player who just logged into ’Wasteland,’ filled with curiosity about everything around her. She hasn’t yet realized what she is truly experiencing...]
Simple sentences, seemingly without any anomalies.
Yu Jin’s eyebrows arched slightly.
"Not this one?"
Based on Han Ling and Su Chen’s situations before.
Divine Bloodline authority players inherently have a ’shielding’ ability.
This ability would partially invalidate Yu Jin’s ’Eye of Insight,’ even though his tier far exceeds theirs.
For example, during the Venus Server incident, Yu Jin, at Tier Nine, could barely see anything beyond Su Chen’s name, even though Su Chen was only Tier Four.
"Maybe my intuition was wrong."
"Let’s take a look at others..."
Yu Jin shook his head and shifted his gaze away from the girl.
Buzz—!
This time.
He activated his perception ability on a large scale.
The Tier Fourteen perception ability was terrifying.
From Yu Jin’s perspective.
Before him, semi-transparent panels emerged like bamboo shoots after a rain, appearing and disappearing in quick succession.
The information of tens of thousands in Pingwu Sanctuary City was all captured by Yu Jin’s ’Eye of Insight.’
And all this.
Happened in just a few breaths.
"Hm?"
"Nothing?"
Whoosh—!
The last few hundred semi-transparent panels appeared and disappeared, Yu Jin’s brows furrowed tightly.
Throughout the entire Pingwu City, he had gone through the information of tens of thousands of players.
But...
Not a single ’?’ appeared.
"Could it be not here?"
"Not in this refuge city, but perhaps in nearby areas, or around the Wasteland Wilderness, or even near the Mutant Beast Infected Nest?"
Such thoughts arose in Yu Jin’s mind.
The most important goal of his trip to A3 Planet was naturally to promote all Blue Star players to the Drake-3 Star System Wasteland, and eventually to the Ophelia Federation.
But...
This was not something that could be accomplished overnight.
Back during the Venus Server, to promote twenty billion players, he had also made numerous arrangements and preparations, including establishing Dawn City.
Now, returning to A3 Planet, without capable assistants like Bai Zhining and Zhong Muqing, Yu Jin was in no rush to start the plan immediately.
So...
"Let’s find someone first."
"Find them and then we’ll see."
"If they can be of use to me, perhaps they can become a new deputy, saving me from running around, frazzled."
Since taking over Dawn City.
Yu Jin, most of the time, played the hands-off leader, only making major decisions while leaving specific tasks to others.
"Yu, Yu classmate?"
As Yu Jin was lost in thought, Yang Chu’s voice sounded.
"Hm?"
Yu Jin turned to look at the young City Lord.
"Since you’re here, why not enter the city for a discussion?"
Yang Chu demonstrated respect and etiquette rooted in Huaxia’s traditional culture.
Upon hearing this, Yu Jin pondered briefly, then nodded.
"Sure."