"Where is your city’s ten-day protective shield?"
"Why did your rune building appear on the border? Shouldn’t it be at the city’s geographical center?"
At that moment, once multiple translators confirmed the message, a wave of shock went through the crowd. A committee member present felt a chill run down his spine, a rare look of horror appearing on his usually placid face.
He recalled something a staff member from the Urban Construction Bureau had once said... The city center wasn’t the same as the city’s geographical center. From a geometric standpoint, the Holiday Shopping Plaza on the southern edge was indeed the geographical center of Dongfu City.
That raised the question: why was the geographical center on the border? It was because their current Dongfu City was incomplete.
Half of Wanghai District, all of Bright District, and most of Qixia District were not part of the current map of Dongfu City.
They had assumed those districts hadn’t been transported, but now it seemed... they might have come along as well.
But where had these sections gone?!
Were they scattered across the world, or had they been utterly obliterated during their fall into this new world?
"Wait, what’s this about a ten-day protective shield?"
"Don’t you get attacked by outside monsters?"
The people around them were starting to lose their composure. What was going on with Dongfu City? It was as if one city was on easy mode, while the other was on hard mode with the tutorial skipped.
Amidst the clamor of voices, the two Priests didn’t know how to respond without a translator.
"Can you tell us how you got here?" A captain from an investigation squad quieted the crowd and, being multilingual, asked the question directly without needing a translator.
His professional instincts told him they had arrived with astonishing speed. The Investigation Legion had long ago spotted the silhouette of a city far to the south of the forest and had even attempted to observe it with a weather balloon capable of rising to an altitude of 20,000 meters.
However, a heavy storm that day had thwarted their plans.
They hadn’t launched a second observation because they were subsequently caught in the parasite swarm crisis, which had delayed matters until now.
Based on a rough estimate, it would have taken at least a full day and night of flying at top speed to reach them. Considering last night’s extreme cold, which made the forest uninhabitable, how had they managed to arrive?
"A Teleportation Gate."
「Twenty minutes later.」
This bombshell news quickly reached the Security Committee, and personnel from the three major agencies were briefed on the intelligence immediately.
In fact, because so many people were present, the news leaked ahead of schedule. "Hunter’s Home," a well-known private radio station with a reputation for authoritative inside information, jumped the gun and broadcast an important announcement to the entire city.
’...The rumors are true. We’ve confirmed the appearance of a second city. It’s Oran City. They were transported at the same time as us, and they even have a ten-day city-wide protective barrier against external attacks.’
At the Qingye Collection campsite, inside the three-story camping supply store, Pang Peng, who was adjusting the signal on the rooftop, jumped in surprise.
"Everyone, get to the balcony! Quick!"
He had just unexpectedly picked up the signal from the distant "Hunter’s Home" radio station on his all-band receiver.
But the message it carried was so explosive that his expression changed drastically.
’...An arena, a Trial Tower, a Mercenary Tavern, a teleportation hub, a Spirit Core Well, and a pool of life. In total, Oran City has unlocked eleven such rune buildings.’
’...At the same time, they’ve relayed another important piece of information. In Oran City, two national-level artificial intelligence computing centers and a nuclear power plant were completely neutralized the moment they were transported. All the computing chips in their server rooms became overgrown with elemental crystals and were rendered useless.
The same thing happened inside the nuclear power plant’s reactor—it was entirely converted into crystal.
As for what that implies... we’ll let our listeners ponder that for themselves.’
Yan Ziqian, who had just arrived, only heard the last part. Lost in thought, he subconsciously reached for his glasses, only to find nothing there. His nearsightedness having been cured, he had naturally stopped wearing his black-rimmed spectacles.
’A lockdown on artificial intelligence and nuclear energy?’
’To be precise, is the Law of Elements imposing a rule-based lockdown on all scientific research related to strong artificial intelligence and nuclear energy?’
"Modern internal combustion engines and electricity, on the other hand, have been spared."
Yan Ziqian pondered this seriously. The era of Elements they now found themselves in apparently did not welcome creations from the advanced-technology side.
If the theory Su Chen provided was true, this world would undergo epochal iterations. Since a flesh-and-blood evolution system could leave behind a related civilizational legacy under the regulation of this Law of Elements, then the advanced-technology side might very well have a legacy of its own.
That raised another question. Besides the three systems—apotheosis through the flesh, rune magic, and the technology path—were there any other systems, with corresponding epochs that also iterated along with civilizations?
’What about the Spiritual Runes, which are separate from Elemental Runes? Do they count?’
’Probably not.’
’They should be part of the same thing.’

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