Lin Wu had mentioned before that all mission participants, after completing their tasks and leaving the apocalyptic worlds, would spend the rest of their time in a place called the System Tower.
Mission participants referred to this place as the Outer Tower.
It was vast, seemingly without boundaries, filled with buildings of various architectural styles, resembling a city—but only in appearance.
Most of the buildings were abandoned and empty. Some soared into the sky, others stretched in long, endless rows. There were traditional Chinese structures, Western-style buildings, some weathered and ancient, others pristine and bright.
The layout of these buildings was completely chaotic, disorderly, as if the creators had built them at random, without much thought or care.
Each mission participant had a personal space here—better described as a safehouse.
This was the place where every mission participant first woke up in the System Tower. The room was small, about twenty square meters, with monotonous colors and only basic furnishings: a bed, a table, a chair, and a restroom.
Later, as mission participants completed tasks and earned points, they could exchange them for furniture, decorations, or even upgrade to a larger safehouse.
These safehouses were bound to their owners, and without permission from the assigned mission participant, no one else could enter.
The Outer Tower was enormous, home to countless mission participants. Various factions and groups were intertwined in a complex web of power struggles. Those who had survived many missions had long established their own forces, claiming territories, leading to inevitable conflicts both overt and covert between teams and factions.
As for the trade hubs formed by different factions or independent mission participants, they were even more diverse. These places sold all kinds of supplies—cards, weapons, medicine, tools… and even people.
Men, women, young boys, and girls… beautiful individuals. Those mission participants who lacked the strength or courage to venture into the mission worlds repeatedly would sometimes sell their bodies in exchange for necessary supplies, or directly trade for points to exchange resources from the system.
In the world of the System Tower, there were no laws—only survival of the fittest and a single fundamental rule set by the system.
That rule was: mission participants were not allowed to kill within the System Tower.
The first violation would result in their system being suspended for three months, during which they could not trade with points or take on missions in the apocalyptic worlds.
A second violation would not only lead to another system suspension, but also a three-month lockdown of their safehouse. This meant that for three months, the participant would be stranded in the Outer Tower with no shelter, placing them in an extremely vulnerable and dangerous situation.
A third violation would result in immediate elimination.
Because of this strict baseline rule, no matter how chaotic the Outer Tower became, large-scale massacres and street brawls never broke out.
As long as this rule was not violated, the system ignored everything else.
**
The information Yu Xi had gathered from Lin Wu and Tang Yatong made the Outer Tower seem like the ungoverned zones of war-torn nations—a place where no authority intervened.
However, in her mind, the Outer Tower had always appeared as a city—perhaps located on some distant, desolate planet, or in the ruins of a shattered world destroyed by an apocalypse.
Yet at this moment, what she and Xing Min sensed as the System Tower world was something entirely different.
It was a bizarre, perfectly square construct, suspended in the darkness of space, held in place by some unknown force.
It wasn’t on a planet. There were no other celestial bodies around it—not even a single star. It was as if an empty piece of land had been abruptly placed in the middle of the universe. Surrounding it was a transparent dome, shielding the buildings and the mission participants within from the crushing pressure and freezing temperatures of space.
This alternate dimension felt completely different from the nebula world. It was like a sealed box—no mountains, no rivers, no oceans or streams, no sunlight or rain.
Even though the nebula world was corroded by dark matter, it still pulsed with vibrant life. In contrast, this dimension was exactly as Lin Wu had described—like a world where only the dead resided, filled with cold, lifeless hues.
Yu Xi: If this is the Outer Tower, then the Inner Tower must exist in a different space altogether. Also, Leng Mian only transferred control of a portion of the mission worlds to me. That’s why there are only 3,897 mission worlds in the nebula. So, is this Outer Tower world the complete one?
【From what I can sense, this space appears to be whole. But there’s another possibility—the Outer Tower world might not be singular. Given that there are billions of mission participants, the number of glowing specks in this space, though many, is nowhere near that scale. It’s possible that the Outer Tower is divided into multiple regions, but since mission participants have never been able to travel beyond their designated area, they would have no way of knowing.】
Hearing this, Yu Xi’s thoughts stirred. She knew that Leng Mian and Yu Zhenzhen were in the Inner Tower, but what about Tang Yatong and the others? Would Lin Wu and Xi Yuan be in this Outer Tower world?
She calmed herself and attempted to draw her consciousness closer to this space, just as she had done with the nebula world. However, before she could even approach, she felt an invisible force blocking her from entering the interdimensional space.
Through this barrier, she could still see the mission participants inside—tiny as specks of light, indistinguishable from one another. There was no way to tell who was who.
Then, she suddenly noticed something—the force forming this barrier was a layer of faint golden light.
This was—Xing Min?
【I didn’t set up a barrier. What is this? Hold on a moment.】
A short while later, Xing Min’s voice came again, this time tinged with surprise.
【The spaceship system has entered an automatic upgrade state. The barrier you just sensed—I felt it too. It seems to have been generated automatically because of the system upgrade.】
Yu Xi: Upgrade? Your spaceship system can be upgraded?
【It wasn’t supposed to be possible, because the spaceship was trapped in the void, where there were no energy sources. The energy you brought back from mission worlds was barely a drop in the ocean—not nearly enough for an upgrade. But just now, after the system rebooted, it received an enormous influx of energy from the nebula world. That’s why the entire spaceship system has entered an automatic upgrade process…】
Even Xing Min hadn’t expected this. It meant that the amount of energy received was far greater than what they had initially sensed—so much so that it overflowed, triggering an automatic system upgrade.
Yu Xi: Will this have any negative effects on you?
【No. An upgrade is a good thing. It’s just… the system hasn’t been upgraded in so many years that it caught me off guard.】
Yu Xi didn’t fully understand what upgrading the spaceship system would entail, but since it wouldn’t harm Xing Min, she didn’t press the matter. Instead, she continued studying the interdimensional space.
Like the nebula world, this space seemed to exist within her mind—but Yu Xi knew that was just a representation.
It was like an app on a phone. An app, in reality, was just an intangible program—something unseen and untouchable. Only when a phone connected to the network could the app be accessed and used.
Now, it felt as if her mind had become the phone, and her consciousness was the network. She could directly interact with the nebula world and the interdimensional space through her thoughts.
However, she had no idea how to use these functions or the extent of their capabilities. She would need to figure it out little by little.
But she had a vague feeling—she could not only project herself into the nebula world but also select a “light speck” from the interdimensional space and send it into the nebula world.
Wait—
Yu Xi suddenly realized—if she could send mission participants into the nebula world, then in a way, didn’t that make her… like a system?
【Yes. If you can send mission participants into the nebula world, then you should also be able to determine the nature of their missions. Maybe not in extremely specific detail, but you could adjust the main objectives. For example, if you set a particular world’s objective to “rescue,” then any mission participant entering that world would receive a similar mission…】
【But right now, there’s no concrete method for doing this. Perhaps once the spaceship system upgrade is complete, new functionalities will emerge.】
Yu Xi: How long will the upgrade take?
【From just now until now, the progress is at 0.00001%.】
Yu Xi: …
**
On her first day back from the mission, Yu Xi didn’t leave the house, nor did she organize supplies to show Yu Feng and Fan Qi all the new materials and delicacies she had brought back. Instead, she spent the entire day lazily lounging around.
When she had returned at midnight, she had immediately stored all the perishable food supplies from the terrace and living room into the Star House storage.
Before breakfast, she discovered that Xing Min had expanded her Star House storage from 1,314 cubic meters to 5,200 cubic meters. So, she went ahead and moved the silver mini RV and other non-food supplies from the terrace into storage as well.
Interestingly, the 450-cubic-meter space she had gained in the Endless Train world was still accessible.
Back when she left that world, this space had merged with her 1,314-cubic-meter Star House storage. But the “merging” wasn’t a full integration—the two spaces were more like adjacent rooms with a dividing wall between them.
Worried that this spatial fusion might be temporary, she had transferred all the supplies she wanted to keep from the Endless Train world into her 1,314-cubic-meter Star House storage before leaving.
But now, she realized that even with the expansion to 5,200 cubic meters, the 450-cubic-meter space still existed. It remained like an extra room attached to the Star House storage—separated by a boundary.
She tried moving a cup of hot water into the space, and an hour later, when she retrieved it, the water temperature remained unchanged.
Now that the spaceship system had abundant energy and the Star House storage could be expanded at any time, she wasn’t too concerned about this extra space. She just found it a bit of a pity—if she could separate this small space and bind it to Fan Qi or Yu Feng, that would have been ideal.
Perhaps because it was spring, the rain outside had been falling steadily for three days.
Standing on the terrace, she looked down at the valley below and noticed that the sea of bamboo had grown even taller.
These bamboo stalks had already undergone mutations, originally standing two to three times the height of normal bamboo. But now, in just two days and nights, they had shot up another two to three meters.
She walked to the southern side of the terrace and gazed outward for a while, but from her current height, she couldn’t get a clear view of the entire scenic area on this plateau.
Now that she was well-rested and the spaceship had ample energy, she decided to go out for a walk.
So after breakfast, she mentioned her plans to Yu Feng and Fan Qi.
“How about I go with you?” Yu Feng was a little uneasy.
“Dad, if you want to go, we can go together. But if you’re only coming along because you’re worried about me, there’s no need to force yourself.”
Ever since they found out two days ago that she wouldn’t have to enter mission worlds for a long time, both of them had completely relaxed. Their mood had improved significantly, and aside from their basic physical training and cooking delicious meals, they had spent most of their time binge-watching dramas.
“You really don’t have to worry about me. If anything happens, I can teleport back instantly,” Yu Xi reminded them.
“Exactly, you were just talking about that drama this morning—why bother going out? Your daughter is even more worried about you.” Fan Qi spoke while washing the Tata fruit and Clear Mint fruit that Yu Xi had brought back. “It’s been raining for two days, so there’s bound to be some activity outside. Let her go check things out first, and we can go out together in a couple of days.”
“That’s true. The drama will be finished in two days anyway, so I won’t have to keep thinking about it.”
Yu Xi: …
Yu Feng and Fan Qi decided to stay, but Bean Sprout was eager to go out.
It had been waiting outside her room while she changed, and as soon as she stepped out in her lightweight waterproof athletic pants and T-shirt, it immediately clung to her ankle, scrambling up her leg.
“Don’t rush, I’m taking you with me this time.” Yu Xi chuckled. She went downstairs to the entrance, changed her shoes, sprayed herself with a layer of 【Sunblock Spray】, then bent down toward Bean Sprout, who was waiting obediently. She let it grip her finger to steady itself before placing it securely on her shoulder.
Outside the Star House was a section of the scenic area with Western-style buildings. The area was small, consisting of a single main street flanked by about a dozen structures.
These buildings weren’t tall, and many of them only had simple doors and windows with empty interiors—no furniture, no water or electricity connections. They were merely replicas built for tourists to explore.
She took a quick glance around and immediately knew that no one was living in this area.
Walking between two of the buildings, she quickly emerged into an open space.
In front of her was a vast grassy hillside that sloped gently downward. Several winding paths crisscrossed the area, designed for visitors to stroll along, with elegant white windmills scattered across the landscape.
To one side of the grassy field, an area had been designated for slope slides.
Further down the hill was the main road of this highland park. Trees lined both sides of the road, enclosed by white railings. Beyond the trees, another wide expanse of open grassland could be seen—likely a camping and barbecue site.
Yu Xi spotted several low buildings in that area, resembling restaurants, cafés, and small shops. Looking further, she could see a lake, pastures, and an orchard.
These types of buildings generally had access to water and electricity. Since the park was situated on a highland, far from the ground level, most of these structures were equipped with generators and water storage tanks.
Those white windmills, she guessed, weren’t just decorative—they were likely wind turbines for generating electricity.
Looking at it this way, this highland had water, electricity, and food, making it an ideal place to stay for the long term.
However, the highland was vast, and Yu Xi didn’t plan to explore the entire area on foot. Instead, she took out a survival assistance device she had purchased in the Devourer’s Domain, retrieved a drone she had stockpiled from there as well, linked the devices, and sent the drone flying.
**
Beyond the highland orchard, several five- to six-story farm-style lodges stood tall.
This area was on the opposite side of the highland, positioned at the southern end, while Yu Xi’s Star House was in the replica Western-style buildings on the northern end. The two locations were at opposite ends of the highland’s width.
Although these buildings were designed as farm-stay lodges, due to the high cost of the highland park, they had been constructed to a five-star standard. They were built close to the southern cliffs, and below the cliffs, the valley was also filled with dense bamboo forests.
The people currently residing in these lodges fell into two groups—one consisted of tourists who had already been staying there when the mutations in plants and animals began, while the other consisted of refugees from the nearby county who fled to the highland after the mutations started.
Although the ecological park had existed for a long time, the scenic area on this highland was newly developed, meaning not many people knew about it.
However, due to limited resources on the highland and safety concerns, the refugees from the county shut down the operational cable cars not long after arriving.
For the past few months, these two groups had coexisted in the same area. While there hadn’t been any large-scale conflicts or violent clashes, frequent minor disputes over resources had arisen.
The main reason for this was that 80% of the original tourists on the highland belonged to the same group—a television production crew.
They had come to the highland to film a seven-day variety show.
But unexpectedly, the catastrophe unfolded within those very seven days.
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