"Day 366: We can’t receive any signals from the Narrative Civilization here, not even a trace of Dimensional Fragments dispersing from the Inherent Time Domain." 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

"It’s really strange, a whole year has passed, and none of us can get in touch. Is it that they went silent on us, or did we go silent on them?"

"Forget it, the Primordial Matter readings are normal too, there’s no sign of [Society] around here—not to mention [Society], we haven’t even seen a single native in this place."

After the initial excitement, the lack of entertainment and the busy work quickly wore down their spirits, leading to a daily grind of demoralization through failed attempts.

Even the personnel in the contact center began to slack off over the year, and even Li Aozi started to question his decision.

He hadn’t been idle this year; while engaging in closed-door cultivation to study Arcane Energy, exercising his body through Gravity, trying to induce gene mutations with decay rays released by Weak Force, and attempting to manually enhance his Arcane Energy.

Regrettably, he hadn’t acquired the final Sequential Arcane Energy—[Strong Force]

That Arcane Energy is quite difficult to obtain... but once acquired, with his current accumulation, the day he changes his profession to [Meteor Fall Master] will be the day he Ascends to Godhood and receives a sealed title.

However, his Arcane Energy hasn’t been enhanced much, instead, his magic resistance has been fortified—in such a way that he’s now immune to all magic/radiation effects at Iota Rank (9) and below.

Besides that, his health bar has comfortably returned to 800,000, though it’s still far from his peak, it offers some solace.

"Even though I have become a Longevity Breed, I still can’t shake off the habit of pursuing efficiency."

Li Aozi was getting a bit restless.

Although rationality told him if he came to the Border Abyss, he should learn to lie low, develop quietly, and wait until he was fully equipped and powerful to explore deeply, the prolonged state of lockdown-like existence made Li Aozi worry about future prospects.

The journey had been too smooth, so smooth that it made him doubt it was just his luck.

Despite lacking scientific evidence, every time Li Aozi met a [Mechanic], his luck turned awfully bad, as if they had some sort of luck black hole that siphoned off all his fortune, and he didn’t have a [Gambler] as a partner to help him check his luck attributes.

No, these were all secondary.

What truly unsettled Li Aozi was the inability to contact the local civilizations.

This wasn’t the Layer Abyss; the land of the Border Abyss was too vast, the ships would fall apart before reaching anywhere, and many areas could only be traversed on foot. Without the help of the locals, especially without the Inherent Time Domain, they couldn’t establish contact with the Layer Abyss even after a thousand or ten thousand years.

This was one of the harms brought by silent disconnection and a problem Wild Port inevitably faced.

In hindsight, this Wild Port they acquired was possibly even less advantageous than being within the "Crimson Blood Alliance" territory.

Li Aozi instinctively wanted to charge ahead, as he was accustomed to rampaging through the Layer Abyss for so many years. Making him stay low and develop steadily for twenty years was rather demanding, but upon reconsideration, rationality still reined in his impulse.

"I can still handle Kappa Rank, but above that? Facing levels over two hundred, while enduring curses, there’s no way I can be the opponent’s match."

At least he now had four [Fine Artistry] Secondary Pathway professions. Although his attributes took a hit, his intelligent mind gained the upper hand. However, Li Aozi was begrudgingly forced to hold back a bit longer.

And so, the second year in the Border Abyss passed just like that.

The players were building Green Field City every day, and the process of pioneering was always joyful. With the city’s prosperity, various task commissions started increasing.

Meanwhile, Li Aozi had reached a point where he had nothing to do.

At his stage, ordinary knowledge was no longer useful. He had even started researching fishing; every day, players could see Li Aozi carrying a bucket back, followed by a group of wild cats larger than asteroids, and then posting in the local lifestyle circle:

—It’s not heavy, around two billion tons.

Before long, Li Aozi lost interest in fishing as well.

The N4 biochemical experiments were going sensationally well, the little alligator Nephis was out conducting investigations year-round, Banam worked a 996 schedule every day and still had to teach students after work, everyone busied with their endeavors.

He indeed wanted to enhance his strength, but as of now, gaining levels was meaningless, as bearing the curse didn’t improve his combat ability one bit.

Presently, he was the only one of the Iota Rank in the city, so he couldn’t easily leave. If something happened, this trip would be in vain.

Under these circumstances, Li Aozi couldn’t put into practice the secret technique given by his old classmate Lucite—the method was somewhat extreme, and Lucite had initially warned him not to publicize it. Thinking back, it seemed it wasn’t about hiding wealth but rather about ’keeping a low profile, not letting people know this is illegal.’

As for the ring given by Hobbs, Li Aozi tried for half a day, but couldn’t communicate with the [Mechanical World Society] Speaker—Meganiros within it.

Even the soul of Zaniya within the Sword of Destiny Awakening wouldn’t allow him to use it anymore, possibly due to the stimulation from the Ether Blood in his body after he acquired the [Blacksmith] profession.

With nothing better to do, Li Aozi could only engage remotely with the Invincible True General, continuing their undefeated legend in the Layer Abyss, even returning to his old skills of live streaming, and earned quite a fortune in Point Tickets by promoting products.

However, the good times didn’t last long. During a live stream, the Invincible True General had his pants burned by a Fireball Technique and was banned by a super moderator for 6 months.

Caramel Snail, upon inquiring, specially came to offer condolence wreaths.

Recently, Niuniu had been quite diligent, reaching the world’s third level, privately sparring with a few professional players, mostly achieving crushing victories. The number of his fans soared, many of whom referred to themselves as ’Caramel Pudding’, vigorously supporting the player considered to have ’the most potential to win the individual competition championship’, ’National One Sword’, and ’World’s Third’, with both fame and wealth rolling in.

—Just don’t know where his little girlfriend went.

Originally full of enthusiasm and wonder, the Border Abyss journey, at present, seems to make everyone happy except for Li Aozi.

Days passed one after another, until the moment Li Aozi thought he would spend the remaining three years in despondency, an incident occurred.

"Day 627."

On this day, chaos erupted in the communications center. A panic-stricken atmosphere filled every corner, the air raid alarms wailed piercingly, and everyone could clearly hear the terrifying reality approaching:

"Primordial Matter concentration has risen to 12.7%!"

"Everyone, evacuate the city-state immediately! Scatter and retreat!"

"[Society]’s main body—it’s only 2.89 million kilometers away from Green Field City!"

"According to the classification, this is a Predator [Society], with the Speaker’s strength being extraordinarily powerful."

"Moreover..."

"It’s a large Predator."