Dawn City.
Following Zhang Daowen into the city, Feng Qi curiously looked around.
What he saw was a city where modern technology and cultivation coexisted. There were concrete buildings made from steel and cement, but also uniquely shaped cultivation structures that radiated spiritual energy.
Walking along the busy streets toward the inner city, Zhang Daowen pointed to a towering pagoda not far ahead and explained to Feng Qi:
"Uncle Qi, that building is called the Star-Gazing Tower. It was developed based on the surveillance architecture concept you proposed when planning this new city. Inside, it holds 182 formation arrays that can detect spiritual energy fluctuations, blood energy fluctuations, and mental energy fluctuations. It also has an observation feature that lets the user see areas over a hundred li away and even listen in on sounds within that range. It's kind of like the legendary Wind-Ear and Thousand-Mile Eye."
Listening to Zhang Daowen's explanation, Feng Qi's gaze fell on the Star-Gazing Tower.
It was obvious the tower wasn't made with any steel or cement. The materials used were mostly spiritual in nature, and under the blood moon's light, the surface shimmered faintly. At the very top, eight gemstones circled around the pagoda, glowing as they moved.
Zhang Daowen's explanation left Feng Qi deeply satisfied.
Proposing a concept was easy. Turning it into theory and then making it real took an enormous effort.
Before coming here, Feng Qi still held some hope for Dawn City's progress.
But deep down, he knew it was nearly impossible for this city to fully realize that vision in just one timeline.
Take the Mist Clan for example—their city development was the result of generations of accumulated knowledge.
For humanity, building a city that supported cultivation was still in its early, experimental stages.
While they could use other races' cities as references, humanity's cultivation city development was basically a journey in the dark. Trying to achieve it in just one timeline was next to impossible.
After entering the city and seeing that most buildings were still made of cement and steel, Feng Qi already had his answer.
But when he saw the cultivation structures, he still couldn't help but feel excited.
The future always had a way of tricking him into thinking everything was normal and ordinary.
But Feng Qi knew very well just how much blood, sweat, and effort had gone into even these seemingly simple structures—likely the result of several generations of craftsmen working together.
Looking past the surface, he knew that true success was never achieved overnight.
As they walked deeper into the city, Zhang Daowen acted like a tour guide, explaining every stage of Dawn City's development.
There weren't many cultivation buildings, but every time one appeared, Zhang Daowen would carefully explain it, and Feng Qi listened intently.
All of this knowledge would be taken back to the real timeline to help pave the way for their next attempt.
The only thing troubling Feng Qi was how to actually bring this knowledge back.
His Infinite Memory ability hadn't been unlocked yet. Still, as his strength increased, his memory had improved a lot—almost to the point of photographic recall.
But if the knowledge required memorizing things like in a virtual game, even if he had all the time in the world, it'd still be impossible.
Noticing the concern on Feng Qi's face, Zhang Daowen smiled and said:
"Uncle Qi, the process of developing these cultivation buildings was full of setbacks. The blueprints were revised countless times, and some structures were even torn down and rebuilt after problems were found. But the final versions have all stood the test of time. The finalized designs aren't that complicated. With your knowledge of cultivation systems, memorizing them won't be hard."
"That's a relief," Feng Qi let out a long breath.
It wasn't that he wasn't willing to memorize them.
The problem was that Little Black wouldn't give him the time.
After passing through the eastern district of Dawn City, they arrived at the city center.
There were no buildings in this area. The ground was lined with circular platforms made from spiritual materials, and shimmering energy mist slowly rose from them into the sky. The platforms continuously injected energy into the city's barrier, keeping its defense system running.
Curious, Feng Qi asked Zhang Daowen about how it worked.
As Zhang Daowen explained, Feng Qi followed the path toward the very center of the city.
After a while, they arrived at a large estate.
Compared to the rest of Dawn City's modern look, this estate felt completely out of place. It was built in an ancient architectural style using spiritual wood, and the plaque above the entrance had two bold characters: "Wu Dao" (Enlightenment).
Zhang Daowen introduced it:
"Uncle Qi, this is where I train and develop cultivation techniques. All these years, I've been working to improve the technique you once taught me."
Following Zhang Daowen past the threshold, Feng Qi was greeted by a lush bamboo forest.
Walking along a stone path deeper inside, the surroundings felt peaceful. Every breath he took seemed to carry a calming spiritual power that quietly seeped into his body.
Activating his perception, Feng Qi discovered that the calming energy in the air was coming from the jade-green bamboo around them.
It was clearly a type of spiritual plant that Zhang Daowen had transplanted here.
When they reached a clearing at the center of the bamboo forest, Feng Qi noticed that the place was very simply furnished. There was just a wooden bed, a desk, and a bookshelf crammed with books.
Walking closer, Feng Qi saw that the desk was covered with plans and documents related to the development of Dawn City.
"You handle city affairs out here in the open?" Feng Qi asked curiously.
"Uncle Qi, the energy barrier covers all of Dawn City. We don't have to worry about rain or wind. Honestly, it feels much nicer working out here than being stuck in a room. Besides, I rarely get involved in managing city affairs anymore. I spend most of my time on cultivation."
Hearing this, Feng Qi suddenly fell silent.
It sounded like a simple answer, but it revealed a lot.
He knew that it wasn't that Zhang Daowen didn't want to manage the city. It was that he had no choice but to prioritize improving his strength.
Compared to the previous sacrificial timeline, humanity had clearly grown a lot in this one.
But even with all that progress, humanity was still the weaker side in the brutal competition for the future.
Zhang Daowen was humanity's final trump card. Only by growing stronger could he give humanity the confidence to keep moving forward.
The gap between humanity's overall strength and Zhang Daowen's growth was a fact that couldn't be denied.
This forced Zhang Daowen to push himself harder and harder. Only that way could he hold the line for humanity.
Realizing Zhang Daowen's situation, Feng Qi also understood the meaning behind the choices he had made.
"Xiao Wen, you've had it tough all these years."
Seeing the change in Feng Qi's expression, Zhang Daowen smiled and shook his head.
"Uncle Qi, this is the path I chose for myself. Don't go getting all sentimental on me now. Let's sit over there and make the most of the time we have. I need to share the critical information with you."
Next, Feng Qi followed Zhang Daowen to sit cross-legged at a small tea table in the center of the courtyard.
Po Jia stood silently behind Feng Qi.
Zhang Daowen didn't mind his presence. He picked up a teapot and poured Feng Qi a cup of tea.
"Uncle Qi, this is tea brewed from Tranquil Heart Bamboo leaves. It has a similar effect to mental-soothing agents, but without any side effects. Give it a try."
Feng Qi picked up the cup and drank it all in one go. He felt a cool sensation spread throughout his body. Looking up, he asked Zhang Daowen:
"Xiao Wen, how is humanity's current cultivation system? Has the Rune Modification Project been implemented?"
This was one of Feng Qi's biggest concerns.
Since the Blood Moon was hanging in the sky, it proved that Mo had killed Mu Yan and claimed the final victory.
That meant humanity's cultivation system had collapsed the moment Mu Yan lost.
The Rune Modification Project, developed jointly by Dawn City and Winterfell City, was the only replacement system after Mu Yan's defeat.
Feng Qi urgently wanted to know if the Rune Modification Project could really shoulder the burden of replacing the cultivation system.
Faced with this question, Zhang Daowen's expression showed a trace of helplessness.
"Uncle Qi, the early stages of the Rune Modification Project were very successful. We went from an extremely high failure rate to a success rate of about 99.5%. We overcame the hardest barrier of compatibility. After that, a rune warrior's strength depended mainly on the quality of the rune crystals they were implanted with."
"Before Mu Yan even lost, the Rune Modification Project had already begun large-scale implementation. We even formed a Rune Modification Legion here in Dawn City. That was the peak period of our city's strength, when our combat power began to surge."
"But the Rune Modification Project has many problems. Even though the failure rate has been drastically reduced, success still depends on the subject's physical fitness and mental state. Even if a rune crystal has a 95% compatibility rate, once implanted, the subject's body will gradually be affected by the crystal. Their lifeform will change, and the most obvious effect is that their lifespan will be significantly shortened."
"Compared to the cultivation system, which builds up generation after generation, rune warriors have no bloodline potential to pass on to their offspring. It's a one-time deal with no sustainability."
Hearing this, Feng Qi nodded.
He had already considered this problem before.
One of the biggest advantages of the cultivation system was its ability to build generational strength. The bloodline improvements gained by one generation could be passed on to the next.
With the help of cultivation, the whole race could become stronger with each new generation.
But rune modification obviously couldn't achieve that.
"Xiao Wen, can rune crystals be passed down? Like, could a father's rune crystals be removed and given to his child?"
"They can, but the child might not be able to handle it."
"What do you mean?"
"Like I said before, rune modification depends on the subject's physical fitness. This creates an unavoidable problem: the next generation might not have stronger bodies than the previous one. And this is also influenced by the cultivation system."
Zhang Daowen paused for a moment before continuing.
"Uncle Qi, the time when rune modification and the cultivation system coexisted was humanity's golden age. Our overall strength was more than ten times greater than it is now. That was thanks to both rune modification and the cultivation system."
"Let me give you an example to explain why rune modification is still tied to the cultivation system."
"The strength of the rune crystals we implant is directly related to the subject's physical fitness. This means that to handle stronger rune crystals extracted from high-level domain creatures, the subject's body must meet certain standards. Otherwise, the success rate drops sharply. Back when the cultivation system was still active, warriors could improve their physical fitness through training. With a stronger body, they had more choices."
"But after Mu Yan lost and the cultivation system collapsed, it was no longer realistic to improve strength through training. This left the next generation unable to build their bodies through cultivation. With no progress in the system, even if a father's rune crystals were removed for reuse, the child's body might not be able to handle them."
"In the years that followed, each generation grew weaker than the last. Even though our rune modification technology kept improving, our physical limitations hit a ceiling. We had to rely on gene serums to improve physical fitness, but that also shortened the warriors' lifespans. It became a vicious cycle, and I haven't been able to solve it."
As Zhang Daowen spoke, Feng Qi could feel the deep helplessness in his words.
Even though he carried great ambition, he couldn't change humanity's current predicament.
Zhang Daowen had witnessed humanity's rise from nothing, only to watch it decline again. Feng Qi could fully relate to the frustration he felt.
Taking a deep breath, Zhang Daowen pulled himself out of his thoughts and looked seriously at Feng Qi.
"Uncle Qi, there's only one real solution to this problem: help Mu Yan defeat Mo. Only then will humanity's cultivation system survive, and the future timelines will stabilize and improve."
"Mo is like a giant stone blocking humanity's path. No matter how well the cultivation system develops, in the end, we'll still hit that wall. Smashing it to pieces is our only choice."
After hearing Zhang Daowen's explanation, Feng Qi nodded.
If Mo wasn't dealt with, humanity's cultivation system could never keep running.
It was like cutting off humanity's path upward.
Whether the Faith Growth System could adapt was still unknown. Even if the Rune Modification Project could ensure that humanity retained combat strength after Mu Yan's death, it was still a dead-end road where the outcome was already in sight.
History had already proven that the Rune Modification Project eventually turned into a vicious cycle on this timeline.
Without cultivation, human warriors couldn't improve their physical fitness. Without stronger bodies, they couldn't implant stronger domain rune crystals. That caused humanity's overall strength to decline, making it impossible to hunt more powerful domain creatures, and the next generation would fall even further behind.
The Rune Modification Project was like a muddy swamp.
And the brutal survival environment of the future was like a fierce beast chasing from behind. Stepping into that muddy swamp was a choice humanity had no way to avoid, but it only led to sinking deeper and deeper, falling into decline.
History showed that the Rune Modification Project had huge value, but it was still tied to the cultivation system.
With the cultivation system supporting it, the Rune Modification Project could put humanity on a positive growth cycle. Without that foundation, its value would be severely limited.
After understanding the historical reality, Feng Qi knew that a new challenge had already begun.
The hidden threat of Jian Ji had been resolved, and the next focus was figuring out how to help Mu Yan defeat Mo.
Only by removing the giant stone that was Mo could humanity's system construction truly move forward without barriers.
Once the Blood Moon fully pressed down on the Sun, the collapse of the cultivation system would turn all of humanity's early research into nothing more than wasted effort.
But defeating Mo would be much harder than defeating Jian Ji.
Feng Qi's first thought was to go to the Institute of Technological Research and kill the Mo who was studying how to control Little Black.
But the current intel already proved that was just one of Mo's projections.
Even if Feng Qi killed him, Mo would just regenerate like Mu Yan. That wouldn't solve the real problem at all.
It seemed like a life-and-death showdown with Mo in the future was the only real solution.
But Mo didn't stand alone. Over the long years, Mo had recruited who knew how many powerful people by signing Task Contracts with them.
Maybe some of those people died along the way before they could grow to their full potential.
But there would definitely be some who rose to power, maybe even becoming major powers or top clans in the future.
The Psionic Race was a perfect example.
Luckily, Ling Zhan had chosen to sacrifice himself to free his people from Mo's control.
Otherwise, just imagining it made Feng Qi's scalp tingle.
A whole army of powerful individuals, plus a future top-eight royal clan like the Psionic Race—how could humanity possibly stand against them?
If humanity wanted to defeat Mo, they had to beat every powerful faction that had signed a Task Contract with him.
How many of them there were, how powerful they would become—there was no clear answer in the current intel.
Feng Qi had to admit that Mo was extremely cunning.
While Mu Yan was locked away on the Ruins Island, Mo had already begun preparing for the future. By the time Mu Yan returned from the Void Ruins Island, the outcome was already set in stone.
Mu Yan's efforts were not wrong from a historical perspective.
Starting with the establishment of the Crimson Research Institute, Mu Yan had laid the groundwork for humanity's rise. After returning from the ruins, she joined forces with Mu Qing to form the Scavenger Army and united humanity's scattered forces.
She had even launched the Rune Modification Project to give humanity a way forward after her eventual defeat.
But all these efforts seemed like child's play in the face of Mo's schemes.
Signing contracts with countless potential powers, restricting the Sun's origin, launching the Black Reaper Project… and these were just the plans Feng Qi knew about. Who knew what else Mo had in secret?
From Feng Qi's perspective, Mo's victory wasn't luck.
Behind all the carefully laid plans, Mo had already predicted the world's trajectory over a thousand years ago—or even earlier.
As the Domain World declined, Mo saw humanity's world as his only way to survive. He had long anticipated that he and Mu Yan would one day face off.
And to prepare for that day,
Mo had started laying plans from the Domain World. Even after arriving in the human world, he never stopped. In the end, he even split the Psionic Race, established his own lab at the Institute of Technological Research, and pushed technological innovation forward.
Even though Mo had chosen to stand on the opposite side of humanity, Feng Qi felt that Mo's victory was almost inevitable. He had set a perfect death trap for Mu Yan.
In the grand scheme of things, most people were just chess pieces. Only a rare few could become players in the future.
Looking at Mo from a historical perspective, this cunning and ambitious figure was undeniably a master player.
Many powerful clans had been nothing more than chess pieces in Mo's game of victory.
That chubby little kid with the backpack, who looked so harmless, was far more dangerous than warriors like Jian Ji who pursued solo strength.
Feng Qi downed his tea in one gulp, feeling the cool sensation spread through his mind.
He sank into deep thought.
How exactly could they defeat Mo? Right now, he had no idea.
If humanity wanted to help Mu Yan defeat Mo, they had no choice but to fight those powerful factions that had signed contracts with him. And with their current cultivation system, there was no chance of winning.
In fact, just pulling out one of those factions alone would be enough to crush humanity.
This was a completely one-sided war.
Feng Qi didn't dwell on the problem too long. He had many more questions he wanted to ask Zhang Daowen.
Xiao You was already doing her best to buy him more time. His worries could wait until he returned to the real world.
At that moment, he looked up and asked Zhang Daowen:
"Xiao Wen, tell me about the Elf Race. After I left, did you have any contact with Elf City?"