Chapter 10: The Land of Outstanding People and Fertile Grounds—Runing City, Where Simplicity and Sincerity Prevail in Taixi City

With time pressing, Yuan Zhu reluctantly left the manor master’s bedroom under the persistent urging of the little spirit, carrying only a few valuable treasures as he departed the Western-style mansion.

“I’ll tell you, although the things you pocketed aren’t many, each is a masterpiece. Every single one carries an aura of contamination, yet they are exquisitely small and easy to carry. I’ve come to understand: aside from the shadow-related powers temporarily placed on the ‘white list,’ all other supernatural items and forces on this Dukling planet are seen by the ‘Xianjing Old Deng’ as sources of pollution. They’re just categorized into general danger, extreme danger, and damn near apocalyptic danger!”

During their search of the mansion, Yuan Zhu and the little spirit had relied on the inherent contamination sensing ability of the Xianjing to unexpectedly uncover several hidden compartments within the bedroom, revealing these treasures.

Holding these small items in his hand, his “Great Wilderness Xianjing: Standard Edition” repeatedly issued danger warnings, its retinal display panel constantly updating with messages:

“Warning! Subjected to unknown contamination erosion, spiritual contamination level 1. Resistance check… passed, immune to this attack.”

“Sustained spiritual contamination attack level 2, judgment passed, ignored.”

“Soul contamination level 1, damage shield active…”

Though the objects in his hand could not penetrate his passive defenses at all—comparable to a gentle breeze—the continuous alerts about spiritual contamination and attacks caused him some concern.

In Yuan Zhu’s view, if these items truly carried some form of contamination or curse capable of harming a person, the manor’s owner would never have hidden them in a bedroom used for everyday living.

The reasoning was simple: if you found finely packaged nuclear waste marked with special radiation symbols discarded by a nuclear power plant while strolling around your neighborhood, and brought it home hoping to sell it online, you certainly would not keep it under your pillow for better sleep. Even a sports student who dislikes studying knows radioactive material harms the body and causes hair loss.

Similarly, the owner placing these items in a secret compartment by the bedside could only mean they were beneficial to the body, or perhaps warded off evil spirits, improved sleep quality, or carried some other enhancement.

Yuan Zhu reminded the system spirit, “From now on, we must be careful not to lump all ‘pollution’ together. We have to make finer distinctions—identify what is truly dangerous, and what merely appears so to the Xianjing but is harmless or even beneficial. By the way, can you do that?”

The little spirit replied confidently, “Absolutely! I specialize in this. The Xianjing has built-in professional detection programs. If you successfully reach the Xian Dao universe, the Xianjing will directly activate environmental monitoring, spiritual energy spectrums, biological gene sequencing… and more. Now that we are in a different world, all those preset parameters are invalid, but the basic functions remain.”

“After some adaptation, I can recalibrate the parameters bit by bit to help you quickly integrate into the new environment and deeply explore the world’s secrets. Your former self, Brother Yuan Zhu, knew nothing about the supernatural system, recklessly rushed in, and died. Yet look at us now—just by cleverly using the Xianjing’s sensitivity to contamination, we’ve uncovered these treasures.”

While the game spirit was blindly optimistic about the future, Yuan Zhu remained calm and clear-headed. He still had one hurdle to clear—proving his innocence—and needed to plan carefully.

After leaving the mansion, Yuan Zhu stood on the empty lawn, took a deep breath, and felt refreshed.

He raised his wrist; the mechanical watch dial he had picked up showed 4 p.m. Normally, he would have finished clearing this manor by now and been ready to return to Runing City.

But for now, he had no intention of fleeing. Instead, he would stay and wait for the police to arrive.

“Fortunately, this world has invented the telephone, so I can call the police directly.”

This manor was a private residence and naturally equipped with a remote communication device called the Dialer. The police station’s universal number, 7711, was common knowledge, so his surrender went smoothly.

Now standing in the front yard, he finally had the energy, time, and mood to admire the scenery of this unfamiliar planet. “So beautiful!”

Looking up, to the right of the north-facing courtyard, a continuous range of soaring mountains stretched endlessly. Peaks piled upon peaks rose ever higher, the tallest shrouded in clouds and mist piercing the heavens.

In his previous memories, Runing was a second-tier city on the western coast of the Arid Continent, built in a basin surrounded by endless misty mountains.

The city was shrouded in clouds and fog year-round, with extremely high humidity. It rained about a third of the year, and on the other 240-plus days, the sun was rarely visible—mostly overcast, foggy, or intensely humid clear days.

In short, the daylight could be bright with long visibility, but not a ray of sunlight could be seen.

Because of its excessive humidity, Runing had earned the nicknames “Rain City” and “Rain Capital.” Why not “Fog Capital”? Because just a hundred kilometers away was the New Federation’s economic and cultural center, the western coast’s largest super-tier city, Sigh City, often cloaked in thin mist drifting down from the misty mountains at dawn.

In some ways, Runing had long served as a satellite and auxiliary city to Sigh.

Sigh was a coastal trading port city connected to Runing by a jade ribbon river.

When the first wave of new immigrants from the Eternal Continent arrived at the New Continent, they immediately chose Runing as their colonial foothold.

Surrounded by mountains, it was well protected from typhoons and oceanic monsoons. Though rainfall was heavy, a river ran through the city center, meandering through the mountains before flowing into the sea at Sigh, making water transport convenient.

Moreover, ample rainfall and suitable temperatures fostered lush vegetation. The nearby mountains had been logged for over two centuries, yet distant areas remained dense primeval forests teeming with rich flora and fauna.

Today, Runing still serves as the fruit and vegetable supply base for Sigh.

Besides convenient waterways, abundant biological resources, and a secure geography, the main reason new immigrants selected this area was the rich underground mineral deposits.

The surrounding mountains and subterranean regions of Runing were riddled with natural fissures wide enough for human passage, containing abundant coal, metal ores, and rare gem deposits.

Those immigrants had endured dynastic collapses, brutal attacks by magic-wielding aliens, and finally, as they prepared to flee, they caught the wave of the second great magical industrial revolution.

The reason the old aristocratic factions of the Xi Kingdom failed to defeat the Crimson Dragon Empire controlling the Eastern Sacred Relics was that the latter decisively abandoned outdated magic, embracing the emerging “elemental steam engine plus alchemy” to utterly crush the old-timers clinging to “magical cultivation.”

Though the Xi Kingdom’s old nobility suffered disgraceful defeat and were forced to seek new lands, they still desired progress. Before reaching the New Continent, they dispatched multiple geological survey teams to identify coal and metal resources, selecting Runing to build the first “magical industrial” city.

Thus, Runing possessed a complete yet outdated industrial system. Numerous abandoned mines were overexploited and liable to collapse, alongside a once-thriving gem processing and high-end jewelry manufacturing industry.

In short, Runing had once been prosperous, but because the basin was limited in size, it was eventually drained by the rapidly expanding Sigh.

New immigrants first established factories in Runing, mining and smelting intensively, then shipped materials via river to the coastal new city, erecting a more prosperous port city.

Over the past century, the second magical industrial revolution, like the first magical revival, flourished briefly before being swiftly superseded.

After all, Dukling’s reach extended beyond one or two universes. As connections with more strange universes formed, the natives’ horizons broadened, rejecting mere optimization of existing technology. They sought to integrate the strengths of each system into a superior, unique supernatural framework.

The reason was simple: if Dukling’s humans had stubbornly clung to the magic system, striving to create a new natural cycle of mana on this planet and enter a magical civilization, Dukling might have become a colony of the Crystal Barrier Magical Universe.

Similarly, the second magical industrial revolution was a modification of the elemental steam engine built on the original alchemy of the steam universe, incorporating newly learned magic systems for a slight innovation.

Afterward, Dukling’s major nations engaged in chaotic magical modifications, causing the classical industrial city of Runing to quickly fall behind and become obsolete. By the time attempts to transform were made, the inertia was too great.

For decades now, Runing has been a resource supplier for Sigh, sending highly educated technical personnel, while Sigh offloads obsolete production capacities and marginalized populations back to Runing.

Consequently, Runing’s crime rate soared, with no fewer than three heavy prisons built to detain Sigh’s criminals. Various evil spirit incidents occurred frequently, handled by specialized teams, then dumped on Runing.

Beneath the city lay numerous natural or artificial fissure tunnels; by selecting sufficiently deep pits, contaminations, evil spirits, and monsters were dumped in, explosives detonated, and collapses induced to bury the problems out of sight.

Sigh’s abundance of criminals and monsters wasn’t due to innate virtue but because it was the largest and most prosperous city on the west coast, attracting talent from all federations of the New Continent, its population surpassing twelve million.

More people meant more scum, which attracted more evil spirits and monsters. Eventually, the city’s management, seeking convenience, simply outsourced all the “trash” to Runing.

Once twin cities and brothers, Runing and Sigh had long complained of backward production capacity, outdated industrial chains, and inability to transform. Now, Sigh had decided to strongly support Runing’s development of the “prison industry,” transferring half the west coast’s criminals there to realize urban transformation.

A brand-new “prison city” would also develop “sports” such as prison fitness, cage deathmatches, death races, arena beast fights… since these were hardened criminals, their deaths mattered little.

If the sports thrived, the “prison city” might evolve into a “tourism city,” with prison tourism becoming a new economic driver.

Even Yuan Zhu’s faction, the Fire Fang, which hunted the rampant subterranean goblins, benefited from pharmaceutical companies drawn by the cheap prisoner resources, relocating laboratories here.

Dukling was rife with goblins, but only Runing’s people were enthusiastic about hunting and selling them, precisely because pharmaceutical companies clustered here, concentrating medical resources, enabling breakthroughs.

Why did pharmaceutical companies come? Because of the large, cheap prisoner pool available for drug trials. Some companies even sponsored prison fighting tournaments.

Before matches, prisoners took proprietary potions to complete herbal trials, significantly enhancing their strength and boosting the spectacle while showcasing drug effects.

Afterwards, half-wrecked prisoners were returned for rescue and reuse, allowing second validation of drug efficacy, side effect analysis, and hands-on training for new doctors to serve nobles and the wealthy.

A closed loop, completely closed! Runing was genuinely transforming: prison sports plus medical tourism plus traditional gemstone industry, combined with Sigh’s ongoing reverse flow of discarded elements, keeping Yuan Zhu’s hometown uniquely vibrant.

…

Standing on the lawn, Yuan Zhu gazed at the endless mountain ranges, sharp peaks, lush forests, and the indistinguishable mist or clouds—a scene so beautiful it seemed a fairyland.

Turning his gaze left, the manor’s elevation halfway up the hill offered a view of Runing City, where thick black smoke rose from the urban area, mingling densely with white clouds and mist, reminiscent of the Tai Chi symbol’s interplay.

The city looked like a green curtain sullied by a patch of glaring black mold.

Runing was far less advanced, prosperous, or developed than Sigh, but not terrible. Yet like Mexico in the Americas, its proximity to Sigh meant it was perpetually influenced and unable to stand independently, growing increasingly distorted rather than becoming a normal city.

Perhaps it was because Sigh relentlessly dumped its garbage on Runing that a single sacrifice spawned a dozen low-level evil gods.

“Could it be that endless treasure mines lie buried beneath this city?”

The original Yuan Zhu’s greatest ambition was to strive upward, achieve social mobility, become an elite, then leave Runing to settle in Sigh and live a life of luxury.

But the current Yuan Zhu felt Runing held great potential.

His Great Wilderness Xianjing wasn’t exactly a clean item either, and since it couldn’t see the light of day, staying in Runing might be a wise choice. After all, this city continuously absorbs pollution produced along the entire west coast. Blending in here wouldn’t attract attention, and he might even scrape a living.

Sensing his thoughts, the little spirit couldn’t help but tease, “Is the Xianjing Old Deng really that despicable in your mind? Reduced to scavenging pollution like garbage?”

Yuan Zhu retorted, “Can you deny that the Mutated Spirit Root was grown by the Xianjing eating garbage?!”

“Uh… binding special spiritual energy isn’t exactly garbage-eating. Hide these items quickly; that direction near the forest edge is good. We’ll come back for them when we have time.”

Lacking experience, Yuan Zhu complied, wrapping several special items along with some gold rings and jewelry, then buried them carefully.

He returned to the entrance of the sacrificial hall, found a step to sit on, and quietly waited.

Around 4:30 p.m., noises came from outside the manor as someone opened the gate. A vintage blue-gray sedan, belching black smoke and emitting harsh clanking noises, slowly drove inside.