Chapter 169: Metropolis
“Light! Great, it’s the sun, we’re saved!”
“Quickly pull open the curtains, hurry!”
“So warm, so wonderful, I actually have an urge to cry!”
Over here, Yuan Zhu was still closing his eyes, seriously organizing the brand new knowledge wriggling like maggots all over his brain. With Little Spicy Stick’s assistance, he used soul light (the light radiation of the soul crystal) to illuminate and fix these transparent ‘knowledge’ pieces one by one, then manifested the ‘soul light’ into palms, caught the bugs one by one, and threw them into the soul space for sealing and suppression.
Besides these seven fattest and most research-worthy zero-threshold ‘knowledge worms’; he also specially selected 13 more, sealed them together, planning to find an opportunity to see if he could sell them?
As for the remaining dozens of small fry ‘knowledge fragments’, he worried about polluting his own ‘knowledge base’, so he chose to destroy them all, without any hesitation or reluctance.
At the same time, continuous exclamations, tearful sobs, excited shouts, and fearful passionate releases came to his ears… turning the originally all-journey ‘mute’ state into noise mode.
Severely disturbed, Yuan Zhu also opened his eyes.
Just in time to see outside the windshield at the carriage head position, a beam of golden sunlight piercing through the thick cloud layer, straight down to the ground, cleverly mixing with the surrounding mist, producing an Oreo retribution?
Wrong, it’s the Daliyuan effect. Letting this group of Rain City natives who rarely see sunlight experience an immortal realm-like fantastical feeling. Instantly, moved to tears streaming down their faces, their nerves strained by ‘mist erosion’ completely released.
At this time, the bus had entered the final leg of the journey. Gradually driving away from the outskirts of the Misty Mountains, entering the oceanic climate of the West Coast.
With the appearance of the first ray of sunlight, the ‘mental pollution and erosion’ brought by the chilly mist completely dissipated. One could clearly feel the ‘chilly’ receding, a brand new ‘warm’ feeling enveloping the bus interior space.
Those window-seat passengers most affected by ‘mental pollution’ were now, under the warmth of the overall environment (sunlight), rapidly recovering their San value, regaining rationality, and urgently pulling open the curtains to feel the external warmth and appreciate the sun-pierced cloud layers.
Yuan Zhu did the same, pulling open the curtains, even opening the window, letting the moist sea breeze pour in, blowing away the gloom in his heart.
At this moment, the vehicle was still traveling between mountains, but the outside was no longer impenetrable mist; the majestic cyan mountain ranges were clearly visible, and further west, the gradually flattening coastal plains began to emerge.
Looking into the distance, straight thin lines with blurred outlines faintly disappearing stood irregularly on the ground. At first glance, one might think the display screen had glitched, with straight black lines appearing on the screen.
Yuan Zhu rubbed his eyes and looked again; the distant coastal plains indeed had these very thin and long ‘things’ standing irregularly. Some were near, some far; due to distance, they looked like thin lines. But judging by their height, up close they must be colossal objects.
Yuan Zhu gazed at those motionless black lines, lost in thought: “This… feels somewhat familiar, like I’ve heard of it somewhere?”
Little Spicy Stick quickly read through the original body’s memories and soon found the relevant content: “Got it, it’s structures! Your middle school geography textbook records them as ‘geological wonders’ common on Du Ling Star. Something about continental plate movement, where internal stress and material accumulate excessively, naturally uplifting into sturdy geometric structures. Similar to Earth’s volcanoes, a natural phenomenon representing regional activity.”
“Compared to the violent intensity of volcanic eruptions, structures grow more gently and safely. The appearance and growth of structures is the planet’s internal stress release. Their material is very special, usually grayish-white and indestructible. Thus, structures often appear in commons-defying geometric shapes, like standard ‘rectangular prisms’, growing very very high without breaking or collapsing.”
Yuan Zhu carefully recalled; the original body seemed to have learned related knowledge in class? But Running in the Misty Mountains had no such structures at all, and having rarely seen sun or moon since childhood, he had no chance to witness them, so he had long forgotten.
“So those black lines are actually ‘cubic structures’ countless times taller than the highest peak of the Misty Mountains? Because they’re so tall, they look like line segments?”
Yuan Zhu roughly estimated with his eyes but couldn’t judge how tall those black lines really were? From certain angles, some blurry black lines already connected the ground to the sky’s cloud layer.
By Earth’s common sense, wouldn’t these structures be 2000 meters, 8000 meters, 10,000 meters tall?
Spicy Stick replied: “Not necessarily cubes; they could also be hexahedrons or octahedrons. Common structures on the West Coast are giant steles, huge rectangular prisms… In areas with active geological movement, structure clusters splice together into brutalist architecture groups similar to core structures, looking like cities inhabited by ancient giants. But most structure clusters only have outer contours, solid interiors, uninhabitable… though they can be artificially hollowed out.”
Yuan Zhu felt more and more off: “You’re saying massive structure clusters can naturally grow into giant-scale ‘city shapes’?”
Spicy Stick: “Yes, all from your textbook memories. I’ll share them with you; structure wonders are mainly concentrated on the New Continent and some large offshore islands. Geng Continent only has occasional appearances near the Arctic eternal night zone.”
Little Spicy Stick pulled out a pair of black-and-white illustrations from Yuan Zhu’s early memories. They were photos from the geography textbook about super-giant structure clusters, six in total, each scene incredibly shocking.
Specific sizes were distorted due to lack of scale reference, but one could still feel the ‘huge’ scale! In Earth’s terms, ‘brutalist, futurist’, Russian architectural style, poured from concrete.
However, local structures showed no traces of human involvement, yet their products were full of artificial intervention traces, unlike anything nature could grow.
But the problem is, over the past few centuries on the New Continent, observable recorded structure growth events numbered in the thousands, numbing to the point of indifference.
It can be confirmed that these purely natural ‘supernatural artificial structures’ are pure natural products, with no signs of human involvement.
Nowadays, structures are a hot discipline of great interest. Humans are trying to research and utilize these extremely regular ‘huge geometric bodies’ in city construction and natural transformation.
For example, treating ever-growing structures as endless material sources; transforming ever-growing structures into skyscrapers; hollowing interiors for various special facilities; combining structure growth with urban planning for ‘unity of heaven and man’ super-large infrastructure, benefiting the people.
Even combining structures with rituals, formations, supernatural systems… turning structures into ‘divine miracle wonders’ of different deities.
After hearing Spicy Stick’s description, Yuan Zhu exclaimed: “Eye-opening, eye-opening! But I seriously doubt their ‘pure naturalness’; there must be something behind this!”
Spicy Stick agreed: “This Du Ling Star is full of eerie vibes everywhere. There’s even a giant Buddha Head floating in low orbit, so it’s reasonable if these structures aren’t pure natural phenomena.”
During the conversation, the vehicle had left the mountain range. The view grew wider: blue sky, white clouds, sunlight, moist sea breeze, green fields, woods, farmland… occasional small structures, the smallest still more exaggerated than Earth’s buildings.
The bizarre geometric bodies were indeed like grayish-white concrete. Some looked like ancient temples, naturally weathered into rows of extremely regular ‘rectangular’ window pits, but solid inside.
Others like towering stone tablets, with rough traces on top and surface piled with soil, climbed by vines or plants like welcoming pines, looking full of life.
“Great scenery!”
The inexperienced rural Master Yuan expressed being blown away; not even arrived at Taixi yet, and the roadside views already surprised him. This was a spectacle Earth never had, making him feel like he was on an alien planet or in a super-ancient civilization ruin era, admiring distant ancient relics.
At this time, not only was he exhilarated and joyful, other passengers also got excited, staring at the outside scenery and whispering. Even frequent travelers between the two cities still raved about the external structures.
……
Time 4:00 PM, natural scenery on both sides of the highway decreased, dense standalone main houses and two-to-three-story small buildings increased; this was a style completely different from Running.
Running is in a mountain basin, limited area, buildings piled together, crowded, dilapidated, with an outdated industrial vibe.
Taixi is different: sunlight, blue sky, green belts, strangely shaped trees, villas, garages…, small parks, bars, peculiar structure totem god statues, archways, temples…
Everywhere exuding an upper-class refined aura, with heavy religious atmosphere and supernatural traces everywhere. He even saw a 4-meter-tall bipedal, four-armed, three-headed humanoid skeleton impaled on a utility pole, dressed up grandly, made into something like ‘worship object + spectacle statue + living facility’.
As the bus passed this ‘artistic skeleton’, the thing actually moved its head, waving goodbye to the bus.
Spicy Stick: “That thing has strong ‘supernatural aura’, but residual pollution was erased, modified to continuously improve the street environment and expel/suppress evil. High artistic value too, likely an ‘art piece’ funded by a religious order.”
4:30, the bus arrived at Taixi East Station.
Yuan Zhu got off smoothly, using the Holy Light registration ID issued by Rain Courtyard, passed inspection smoothly, entered the subway station via an underground passage.
Taixi City has a mature ‘underground transit system’, totaling 42 subway lines. From the map, the city radiates outward from a near-circular ‘central district’ as the center, dividing into 36 sectors, simply marked with numbers one two three four.
His negotiation target ‘Cat Street A Miao’ operates in Sector 16. Additionally, Taixi University where Meng Xiyue is located is in Sector 3, close to the city center.
But before that, he needed to find a place to stay first. Visiting at this hour was a bit late; he planned to rest one night and experience Taixi’s nightlife along the way.
So aimless Yuan Zhu didn’t hurry to take the subway; instead, he found the exit and strolled nearby.
Just as he exited the subway entrance, he was met with crowded crowds; street sides had buildings not too tall, about seven or eight stories, up to eleven or twelve. But streets were very wide, not crowded like Running; densely flashing colorful neon lights, hanging photographs, glowing signs dazzled the eyes.
But most eye-catching were three straight-to-the-sky superstructures and a circular floating island suspended high in the air.
The three structures: the thickest in the central district, quadrilateral straight to the sky, piercing the floating island’s right side. The upper part was obscured by the ‘island’ base, unclear, unable to judge.
The second structure, cylindrical, below the island’s ‘center point’. Height not reaching the floating island, but propping up a huge ‘suspended fragment’ with a large visible cluster of Eastern classical palaces, excellently greened; just the exposed edge gave a heavenly palace feeling, clearly an aloof rich area.
The last structure, positioned at the ‘floating island’s’ periphery, likely Sector 1 direction, similarly towering beyond the floating island’s height, connected to the island by a huge chain.
These three thick massive structures gave the illusion of sky pillars, propping up an unknown-how-big floating island, becoming Taixi’s iconic architectural wonder.
As time approached dusk, the surfaces of the structures shaded by the floating island’s bottom shadow also lit up with lights one after another.
Structures are naturally grown wonders, but their surfaces are artificially carved, with elevators inside and outside, and ‘glowing light strips’ laid on the surface.
Even the floating island was modified and processed, bottom consisting of ‘reverse buildings’ growing upward from below, now lighting up layer by layer, pure glass windows outside, looking stylish and modern.
Yuan Zhu at this moment stared wide-eyed upward. Taixi’s art style led Running by at least 100 years. This wasn’t cyberpunk; it was a never-felt, indescribable yet incredibly familiar feeling. Cyber immortal palace thick with Eastern charm!
On the streets, not only many humans, but also burly orcs, half-elves… monks, shamans, Taoists… oddly dressed out-of-towners…
His soul crystal ran in background mode without active activation, yet perceived one after another pollution sources of varying strength in the crowd.
Worthy of a big city; supernatural beings outnumbered Running City completely. On average, one in every 50-80 people carried ‘polluted aura’, holding at least one supernatural item.
“This is the quality of a West Coast super-tier-one city?”
