The Floating City — The Evolution Cube Trembles

*Hiss!!*

The Sky Elevator doors slid open. Lu Yuan and Amy led the group out first.

The landing plaza was quiet — not a single Mechanical Guardian in sight.

Once everyone had filed out, Lu Yuan turned to Xu Qi and the others with a grin.

"The deal is done. We're heading for the core zone from here — as for you all, you're free to do as you please."

He paused, then continued. "One more thing — we'll be coming back here when it's time to leave the Floating City. If you want to leave with us, wait here in advance."

Xu Qi and the others exchanged looks. Surprise gave way quickly to warmth.

Lu Yuan had clearly thought ahead on their behalf, making sure they'd have a stable foothold.

"And when we go back down," Lu Yuan added, "I'll take the elevator's control unit with me. That way no other teams can come up, and you can search this floor in peace."

That detail was what really got them. Once Lu Yuan's group descended, the entire level would belong to them — no competition, no rivals, nothing between them and an open floor of resources.

*Since I already took their entry fee,* Lu Yuan thought, *call this the after-sale service.*

Xu Qi and the others were visibly moved, gratitude clear on every face.

Beiman placed a fist over his chest and gave a shallow, formal bow — the standard Elf expression of thanks.

"Mr. Lei's generosity does him great credit," he said warmly. "The Tianfu Consortium owes you a genuine debt."

"Thank you, Mr. Lei!" said another. "If you ever find yourself visiting our Elf homeworld — the Green Jade Planet — please come find us. We'll welcome you properly."

Xu Qi added: "I'll be sure to report all of this to Manager Wang."

"You're too kind," someone else said. "With our strength, we can hold this floor until the ruins close entirely. We have no plans to go back down."

"That's right. For us, this is already the finest resource point we could have hoped for."

*They're not wrong,* Lu Yuan thought. *I was overthinking it — I figured everyone would scatter to different Floating Cities. But a single Floating City is more than enough for them.*

"Alright, then," he said. "Good luck."

Amy planted her hands on her hips and declared with considerable satisfaction: "How could they possibly compare to us? Come on — let's move!"

The Floating City stretched roughly fifty kilometers across. Its streets were lined with skyscrapers: hundred-meter towers were the baseline, five-hundred-meter buildings were more common than not, and towering thousand-meter spires rose at intervals throughout, monuments to the mechanical civilization that had raised this place. Buildings shorter than a hundred meters only appeared outside the core zone.

The scale of resources here was almost beyond imagination.

Their group swept through the streets toward the core zone, tearing apart every patrol in their path. Within an hour, they reached the core zone itself — a district of even taller, more imposing structures.

The core zone was small relative to the full breadth of the Floating City — barely three kilometers across. At its heart rose a single monolithic tower, nearly three thousand meters tall. Four thousand-meter buildings stood at the four cardinal points, dividing the zone into four sectors. A hundred-meter skyscraper was merely the ground floor here. Five-hundred-meter towers clustered in dense rows between them, and the four thousand-meter pillars anchored each sector like the legs of something immense.

Outside the core zone, buildings were already packed more densely than anything on the surface. Inside it, the density was overwhelming. The resources that implied were almost beyond calculation.

The Mechanical Guardians inside matched the environment.

Most stood well over two meters — sleeker, taller, and more precisely engineered than anything on the ground. A patrol swept past: twelve units in tight formation. Their leader was a three-meter-plus machine at peak Boss Grade, and the eleven flanking it were all lower-rank Boss Grades, each formidable in its own right. The squad configuration was well-rounded: frontline crystal-shield tanks, Assault Type units gripping battle-axes and greatswords, and rear-positioned artillery units cradling Spirit Cannons.

The moment the patrol spotted Lu Yuan, their eyes burned crimson. They attacked without hesitation.

Lu Yuan raised his greatsword and charged.

**Boom!! Boom!!**

With Amy holding the flanks and Lin Xixi's group covering the gaps, the fight was messier than Lu Yuan would have liked — at one point, with that many units converging, he chose to keep mobile rather than tank the focused fire and risk a serious wound. But the outcome was never in doubt. Eventually the last unit went dark.

Amy surveyed the wreckage. "These are the core zone's Mechanical Guardians? One peak Boss Grade and eleven lower Bosses — most of the teams that came up with us probably can't handle a single patrol."

She wasn't wrong. But for Lu Yuan and Amy — who dispatched Chief Grade Mechanical Guardians without meaningful effort — these were prey. Well-stocked prey, at that.

From a single patrol kill: 240 vials of Enhanced Spirit Power Gene Fluid, a haul of Boss Grade Gene Armaments, and a cluster of high-yield Boss Grade explosives. One blue loot orb drifted up (Chief Grade), followed by four cyan (Boss Grade) and eight green (Elite Grade). Lu Yuan swept up the blue and ignored the rest. The per-patrol yield worked out to roughly 600,000 First-rank Spirit Crystals in value.

Every street in the zone ran squads with this exact configuration.

*Plenty to work with.*

The thousand-meter building's plaza was a different proposition.

**Boom!! Boom!!**

Over a hundred Mechanical Guardians filled the open square — ten peak Boss Grade, the rest lower-tier. At the center stood the Mechanical Chief, still wrapped in Amy's Tianrao Purple Vine, its crimson eyes blazing with cold fury.

Even Lu Yuan had felt his nerves tighten when he first took in the sight: more than a hundred Boss-ranked machines on a single plaza. But between Amy's vines and battlefield control, Lin Xixi's group providing cover fire, and Lu Yuan pressing the front —

They ground through every last one.

He drove his Steel Sentinel Greatsword through the Mechanical Chief's processor housing. The Chief dropped.

**Thoom!!**

Light orbs spiraled upward from the wreckage. One of them was blue.

Lu Yuan picked it up.

**Mechanical Sentinel Armor (First-rank 100%): Chief Grade Armament.** *Primary bonus: Strength. Secondary bonus: Defense. Minor bonus: Agility.*

He glanced at the Boss Grade Mechanical Berserker Armor he currently wore. Not even close.

He swapped them on the spot. The difference was immediate — a noticeable surge running through his whole frame.

He was still taking stock of the upgrade when he felt it: a cold stare drilling into his back.

*Oh no.*

He recalled, suddenly and vividly, what had happened inside the thousand-meter building not long before.

Lin Xixi had stepped in front of Amy, arms slightly spread in a protective stance. Her expression was arctic.

"Mr. Lei." Flat. Measured. Deeply unfriendly. "What exactly did you do to our young lady?"

"I didn't do anything!" Lu Yuan protested immediately. "If you don't believe me — ask Amy!"

Amy, standing just behind Lin Xixi, had gone completely scarlet. She was glancing rapidly at everyone around her.

"A-ah... yes! Of course! How could Lei Feng possibly do anything to me?! If he ever actually dared — I would kill him!"

Lu Yuan stared at Amy's burning face.

*Why are you blushing? Nothing happened.*

He genuinely wanted Lin Xixi to sit Amy down and explain, with great patience and care, that holding someone's hand has never in the history of biology resulted in pregnancy. But Amy was right there, flushed to the roots of her hair, and if he raised the subject in front of all these people—

*She would probably follow through on the death threat.*

Nearby, Zhu Yu was watching the whole scene with the expression of someone whose favorite drama has just delivered an unexpected twist. Her gaze moved between Lu Yuan and Amy with undisguised delight.

Lu Yuan kept his face neutral through considerable force of will.

*I'll find Wang Lingling later,* he decided. *Privately. She can handle it.*

He felt exhausted in a way that had nothing to do with fighting.

"Though Lei Feng is something of an indecent character," Amy announced to the surrounding group with a self-satisfied air, "it does seem like he has some actual decency in him."

"Indecent?!" Lu Yuan turned to stare at her. "*Where?* *When?*"

He had done nothing. Absolutely nothing. He had been a model of restraint since the moment he became a Gene Warrior, despite any number of opportunities. He was — and he was painfully aware of how this sounded, even as an internal thought — entirely inexperienced in every relevant respect.

*Where,* he thought with great internal anguish, *is my justice.*

"...I'll explain it to her myself after we're out of here," he said aloud, flatly, and ended the conversation before it ended him.

They pressed on.

From the moment they'd entered the core zone, both Lu Yuan and Amy had been actively watching for an Aier Core Fragment. It was the reason they were here. Without a Fragment, they'd be at a severe disadvantage against any rival powerhouses competing for the same Second-rank breakthrough resources — that was a disadvantage they couldn't afford.

At their clearing rate, each sector took roughly four hours. Nine hours in, the East and North sectors were cleared.

They were currently sweeping the West sector.

Two full sectors searched. Not a single Fragment had turned up.

*Hiss!!*

West sector. A street between towering high-rises.

Lu Yuan brought his greatsword down on the last Mechanical Boss patrol leader in a casual overhead swing. The machine's frame buckled and collapsed.

And then his body went still.

Deep inside him — orbiting his Gene Chain like a small planet held in fixed rotation — the Evolution Cube gave a faint, unmistakable tremor.

Something cold moved through him.

*This is the third time.*

The first had been in the Mist Forest, when the terrifying Mirage Dragon appeared. The second had been in the real world, when he encountered the Soul-Devouring Orb — an S-rank Aberration.

*What is it this time?*

He raised an eyebrow, narrowed his eyes, and began walking in the direction the vibration felt strongest.

Amy, who had been counting up their haul nearby, noticed him suddenly change course. She frowned slightly — puzzled — but said nothing, just followed curiously.

"Lei Feng? What's wrong?"

"Nothing," he said. "Just feel like there's something in this direction."

Amy studied him with those large violet eyes.

"Something?"

"Just a feeling." A pause. "Want to go check?"

She thought about it a moment, then nodded.

"Let's go check."

The vibration grew stronger with every step. He traced it to the entrance of a narrow alley threading between two buildings. He walked in.

About fifty meters deep, he stopped.

In an unremarkable corner of the alley floor — easy to walk past, easy to miss entirely — lay a gray-white metal fragment.

Lu Yuan and Amy both went still.

Lu Yuan crouched down and picked it up. He and Amy turned it over together, examining it in the dim light.

At first glance: ordinary scrap. But tracing across its surface were the finest, most intricate patterns, and beneath the dull exterior, something profound and impossible to name radiated outward in near-imperceptible waves.

The instant the Fragment was in his hand, the Evolution Cube settled. The tremor faded completely.

*...So that was it.*

Amy's eyes went wide.

"This — this is the Aier Core Fragment?!" She couldn't quite keep the disbelief out of her voice. "We searched the East and North sectors for hours and found nothing — and we just walk into some random back alley and pick one up?!"

She recalled something. "Wang Lingling said it could appear anywhere in the core zone. But somewhere this out of the way..."

Lu Yuan said nothing for a moment, turning the Fragment over in his hands.

*Why does the Evolution Cube react to an Aier Core Fragment?*

He had no answer. But the pattern was undeniable: every time the Cube had trembled, it had been in the presence of something extraordinary. The Mirage Dragon. The Soul-Devouring Orb. And now this.

*It senses things I can't.*

The question could wait. The Fragment was in hand. That was what mattered.

"Lei Feng." Amy looked up at him, those violet eyes bright with quiet curiosity. "How did you know there was an Aier Core Fragment here?"

"I didn't," he said. "I just felt like there was something in that direction."

"Something?"

"Just a feeling." He shrugged slightly. "Wanted to go check."

Amy blinked. Then, slowly, she nodded — not quite satisfied, but letting it pass.

A few steps away, Zhu Yu was watching the two of them with the undisguised attention of someone following a story they've been invested in for a long time. Her gaze moved back and forth between Lu Yuan and Amy with great deliberate interest.

Lu Yuan pointedly did not look at her.

*Wang Lingling,* he thought. *Later. Privately.*

*Absolutely not here.*