Chapter 125: Retreat Like The Wind
Two days later, fully developed Yuan Zhu ventured alone into the interior of Cicada City.
“Boss, is this what you call ‘expand and strengthen, virtuous cycle’? This stealth feels way too strong! We should make a big scene.”
“What do you know? This is called steady. Bold vision strategically, cautious step by step tactically.”
Yuan Zhu, who had activated Tiger Demon Form, was hidden in the Shadow Layer, with his snake tail holding a map to guide his path.
For the sake of stability, before this expedition, Yuan Zhu temporarily shut down the thriving Shadow Domain, putting it into standby mode. Then he went all out and forcibly extracted the Shadow Dream Hole from the center of the camp.
This interrupted the Domain’s self-growth and optimization. Exaggerating a bit, it was like directly digging out a living person’s heart and brain.
The Domain, which had originally fused into one body, begun accumulating shadow attributes, and was slowly evolving, was suddenly interrupted. It got stuck on the upgrade path at lv0.
His Shadow Domain was not legitimately obtained to begin with; it was a product of inverted Heavenly Gang. Like skipping the embryonic development stage entirely, being born directly in infant form, and then relying on the Shadow Dream Hole to reverse the rules and gradually complete the embryonic development content.
Now that the Tiger Demon had pulled out the Shadow Dream Hole, the development process was shut down, leaving only 12 Worm Pillars propping up an empty shell. If the Shadow Dream Hole wasn’t reinstalled in time, it would be normal for his Shadow Domain to collapse and disintegrate.
The snake tail continued to urge: “Hurry up and act. Forcibly pulling out the Shadow Dream Hole is also a damage to the Dream Hole; who knows how much energy it will take to repair? Based on the data I’ve collected, if the Shadow Dream Hole is allowed to normally feedback into the Shadow Domain for three months, it should grow to Lv1 level. Unfortunately, just three days after birth, you banned it!”
The Tiger Demon didn’t care at all and argued confidently: “Just reinstall it later, right? Since it’s given for free by the World Will, repairing it shouldn’t be hard; let the Bubble World give another free wave.”
“We’re here, we’re here! At the end of this concealed tunnel, there are actually three layers of stealth magic arrays protecting it—hidden so deeply. Quickly use the Shadow Dream Hole to reinforce the shadow stealth effect and obscure the heavenly secrets.”
With the internal defense map of Cicada City provided by Commander Zuo, the Tiger Demon’s first stop was in the Central Urban Area, at a secret warehouse used to stockpile reserve basic civilian supplies.
Unfolding his own true commercial warfare!
Relying on a Dream Hole that even Heavenly Rank Experts might not have to commit theft—its extravagance is something normal natives can’t comprehend.
If used to steal from ordinary shops, it would be a waste. Plus, shops are numerous, supplies are few, scattered, and people constantly come and go to inventory. Not to mention how shameless it is and losing face; once detected, it would trigger vigilance and large-scale searches, completely ruining the chance.
On the contrary, such large secret warehouses are usually not easily opened, with massive internal supply reserves. As long as the action is fast, several trips can be made undetected, accumulating the first pot of gold for camp development.
Unfortunately, this kind of commercial warfare can only be used once in a lifetime.
Once this ‘theft case’ blows up, Cicada City will definitely respond with new arrangements. Trying to catch them off guard next time would be difficult.
…
With the double blessing of Shadow Dream Hole + defense map, the Tiger Demon easily bypassed the three layers of magic arrays, took out the unsealing item prepared by Commander Zuo, and smoothly entered the warehouse interior.
Of course, this also had to do with the Central Urban Area’s defenses not being as strict as the Lower Urban Area. After all, this was just a civilian warehouse; the truly most valuable items were stored in the safer Lower Urban Area.
This was also why Little Spicy Stick thought the boss’s tactics were too conservative. Dare to directly rob the central bank vault? You, the grand Mimi King, making your first move on a civilian supplies warehouse? Too embarrassing for me, Yu Jingzi!
“What do you know? What our camp lacks most is food. Old Lu brought a bunch of starving ghost reincarnations, and there will be more technical talents later. We have to solve basic sustenance at least, right? Turn them all into retarded Ghost Companions, and what construction is there to do?”
Yuan Zhu’s main goal for this outing was to obtain enough food. Therefore, he didn’t choose to charge straight into the underground city but first came to the Central Urban Area to steal from the warehouse. For easier transport, he even dug out the Shadow Dream Hole.
Fortunately, everything went smoothly without disappointing him; he infiltrated the warehouse without triggering any alarms.
The snake tail reminded: “Don’t celebrate too early. The warehouse interior still has multiple warning magic arrays; stay vigilant. I’ll mark them for you—avoid these areas.”
With that, Little Spicy Stick projected a layer of virtual markers onto his visual field, outlining the warning magic array coordinates. This was the benefit of having an insider—everything was too smooth.
“What the hell is all this?”
Arriving at the area storing roughly processed ingredients, the Tiger Demon was greatly disappointed. What he saw were all sorts of air-dried weeds in purple, blue, black… looking extremely outdated, covered in soil and dust, not like human food at all—not even comparable to Earth’s livestock feed.
According to Zuo Fan’s introduction, these were all precious plants grown in the Reverse Birth Garden, edible and digestible by humans, belonging to high-end luxury goods that could supplement vitamins and dietary fiber. They had also been pre-processed to remove internal Immortal Zombie Tendrils and Iron Poison, falling into the safe edible category.
“Holy crap, this is insane. This stuff is for humans to eat?”
He grabbed a handful of dry grass, which crumbled to dust with a light rub.
Proceeding further, he saw more air-dried mushroom slices, dust-covered moss balls that looked like hamster bedding… multicolored, bizarrely twisted bug meat jerky, air-dried wriggling worms, locust skewers… and so on.
“Too eye-searing! Local residents’ lives are really too harsh.”
Amidst his sighs, the Tiger Demon activated the Shadow Dream Hole, summoning the hidden Shopkeeper Lu, then deactivated the Boss Template and confirmed again: “Take a look. Is this really a ‘food warehouse’? Can these things really be eaten?”
If not for the insider map clearly marking this as the ‘granary’ and the magic array layout being completely correct, he truly couldn’t imagine the natives eating this. Worse than the siblings’ Dung Beetle.
After glancing over, Lu Yan confirmed: “Reporting to the master, no mistake—these are all excellent food rations. And after special processing, they can be stored long-term. Don’t underestimate these air-dried plants; they have the greatest value. In the Underground World, ‘edible plants’ are the most precious.”
He casually grabbed a few samples and used basic pollution detection granted by Holy Light for a simple estimate. A casual grab showed a pollution index around 20%. These things in Du Ling would be dangerous goods targeted for investigation and destruction by the Security Bureau. Yet in Insect City, they were all ‘safe food’?
Yuan Zhu: “Are you sure these have been processed and aren’t awaiting processing pollutants?”
“Absolutely true, all safe food, already very clean. I sometimes buy some as supplemental food. Once true qi is refined, secondary pollution can be cleared from the body.”
“If they can be eaten, then load them up!”
At his command, four Eggplant Head Ghosts and five massive Magic Worms crawled out from the Shadow Dream Hole.
After several attempts, he severed the Ghost Companions’ link to the Tiger Demon and grafted them all onto the Shadow Dream Hole, allowing him to command and operate them in Human Stance.
Under his command, the five Shadow Magic Worms took action first, proactively arriving at the ‘food area.’ Shadows surged from their feet, sprouting large swathes of wriggling tentacles that bundled the already packaged food in batches onto their bodies, then turned to transport it to the front of the Shadow Dream Hole.
Next, the four Eggplant Head Ghosts excitedly jumped around, suddenly turning into pools of pitch-black slime that wrapped the ingredients into bundles, compressed and deformed them, flowed into the Shadow Space like water, then decompressed and placed the food.
The current Shadow Space, after expansion by the Shadow Domain, had inflated more than four times over.
Even after extracting the Shadow Dream Hole again, its internal space hadn’t shrunk. However, detached from the Shadow Domain, the Shadow Dream Hole’s internal space strength and shadow energy concentration had regressed to previous levels.
It clearly feedbacked feelings of inadequacy and insufficient power, urging him to reinstall the Shadow Dream Hole into the Domain quickly.
What he needed was precisely the Shadow Dream Hole’s unique storage function and its super-strong shadow system reinforcement effect.
Otherwise, relying solely on the Tiger Demon itself, even if he could come and go like the wind, stealthily entering Cicada City’s interior without a trace, he still couldn’t transport bulk goods without alerting local defenses.
With the Shadow Dream Hole’s blessing, it was like carrying a miniature warehouse; commercial warfare became even more composed.
In less than 20 minutes, he consecutively cleared three warehouses, emptying half the supplies and filling the Shadow Space. Among them, 1/2 food and 1/2 basic supplies.
With these, camp construction could truly begin, providing the most basic survival resources for the incoming ‘talents.’
“Withdraw!”
Retracting the Ghost Companions and Lu Yan into the Shadow Dream Hole, Yuan Zhu switched back to Tiger Demon Stance, retreating like the wind via shadow stealth, leaving the warehouse and quickly exiting the Upper City District…
And this was just the beginning.
