You Can Leave Xili City

The next day. Eleven in the morning.

Lu Yuan's body materialized inside his sparse room. Another Land of Origin session complete.

Seven days this time — a decent haul, all things considered. The only real regret was that the Moonstone Spirit Essence was gone. From here on out, tempering the Gene Chain meant relying on Spirit Crystals, and that was a slower process. Over those seven days, his tempering had crawled up to 93%. Once you passed the 90% threshold, gains slowed dramatically, and on top of that, 93% was already well past it. At this rate, reaching 100% would take roughly another week.

He figured this was probably the hard ceiling for now. Ever since his Land of Origin time had extended to seven days, no further cultivation progress had pushed it any higher. The next extension would likely have to wait until he broke through to First-rank.

Still, he was satisfied.

He got up, grabbed the cold steamed buns, fried dough sticks, and soy milk sitting on the table, and headed out to sell materials.

His routine visit to Wild Wolf Materials went the same as always. Xue Wang was mid-game when the door opened; he looked up, saw Lu Yuan, and grinned.

"Hey, old Lu! Back already? How was today's haul?"

Lu Yuan dumped out a heap of materials. They piled into a small mountain in the center of the floor.

Xue Wang let out a low whistle. "*Tsk tsk.* Every time I see you bring out this much, I still can't quite believe it. One guy, matching the output of two or three whole teams."

"Any Elite Grade Armaments? I'll buy those too."

Lu Yuan rolled his eyes. "Less chatter. Count."

Xue Wang laughed and started tallying. He picked up a jet-black claw — easily a foot long — turned it over in his hands, raised an eyebrow.

"Elite Grade Giant Wolf Claws? Another Elite Feral Beast?"

"The Ancient Sea Oasis has plenty of Elite Beasts. Stay lucky and they find you."

Xue Wang shook his head, still marveling. "Every time..."

"Cash is starting to feel pointless," Lu Yuan said. "I want to convert to Spirit Crystals."

Xue Wang stared at him, wide-eyed.

"I'm planning to put the armament up at Sandy Rock City's Auction House."

The shop went quiet.

Later, Lu Yuan set aside the haul and scrolled through his phone while washing up.

The first thing he saw was a message from Li Qinghe:

*"Little Yuan, last night the Black Rat Gang and the Wild Dog Gang had a major clash. The slum district will be more dangerous for the next few days. Stay safe when you go out."*

Lu Yuan smiled around his toothbrush and typed back telling her to do the same.

Then, opening the Future War Gods Group, he found someone had tagged him. A reposted article:

**"Last Night's Large-Scale Gang War in the South District!"**

The piece was thin on specifics — confirmed a clash between the Black Rat Gang and the Wild Dog Gang, but participant counts and casualty figures were listed as unknown.

*Figures. What reporter would risk their neck coming into this neighborhood to investigate gangs? Not even the police go near this — they'd have a death wish.*

Wang Xiangxiang: "Lu Yuan, that's your area right?? That dangerous?? Hundreds of people fighting??"

Lu Yuan read the messages and typed back with a smile: "I just happened to walk past. There was gunfire — pop pop pop, pretty loud."

The moment he posted, the group erupted.

Zhuo Ming: "For real?? Bro, you ran into a gang war?!"

Lu Yuan: "More than just a gang war. I caught a Gene Warrior fight too — four against one, but the four ended up dead."

Gu Yu: "How would anything happen to you, bro? You're that strong. Regular handguns can't even touch you, right?"

Zhuo Ming: "You're okay though?"

Wenni: "Don't overthink it, guys — Lu Yuan probably wasn't even there. He was probably in the Land of Origin."

Lu Yuan gave them the short version of what he'd seen, chatted a bit longer, then let the thread go.

He thought again about the fight.

*Second-rank strength... Could that actually have been the Wild Dog Gang Boss himself?*

His chest tightened slightly.

*If those four were Black Rat Gang leadership, the whole organization might be finished. And if that's the case — Pete might already be gone.*

He turned it over in his mind for a moment, then set it aside.

In the days that followed, the slum district settled into an odd calm.

The Wild Dog Gang had crushed the Black Rat Gang but kept an uncharacteristically low profile — no territorial posturing, no follow-up moves. The previous night of gunfire might as well have never happened. No ripple effects, no unusual incidents. The whole district went quiet.

Lu Yuan's daily rhythm stayed regular: into the Land of Origin at night, hunt Feral Beasts, collect Spirit Crystals. Because of his strength, the daily haul was substantial.

The Ancient Sea Oasis Feral Beasts ran tough across the board — he'd run into three Elite Beasts on recent stretches. One kill had yielded a full Elite Grade leather armor set, which he had no use for himself but could put up at the Auction House.

Without quite noticing, his savings crossed ten million yuan. He was pulling in several million per day and still couldn't spend it all.

*What am I even supposed to do with this much money?*

He invested heavily in consumables. Potent Serums — healing ran 120,000 yuan per vial, speed 200,000, defense 150,000. He'd spent lavishly on Potent Serums, stepping up from the lower Superior grade. On top of that, he picked up Scorpion Venom Serums — 350,000 yuan for the potent grade — and Antidotes at 200,000. Even after all that, the balance kept growing.

Money, he was discovering, was becoming an increasingly abstract concept.

After seven more days in the Land of Origin, he'd accumulated a full 340,000 Spirit Crystals — a genuinely substantial sum. He poured it all into the Evolution Cube.

Finally. He could evolve Black Iron Body.

He'd found, to his mild exasperation, that evolving Black Iron Body to Boss Gene required close to 200,000 Spirit Crystals. *Absolutely unreasonable.* But he'd scraped together enough. The breakthrough was just waiting to happen.

His tempering had climbed to 93% after those seven days. Still above 90%, which meant gains remained slow.

At this rate, hitting 100% would take roughly another week. Even for him — moving this fast — he was beginning to understand why Wang Xiangxiang and Cao Yan, kids from Gene Warrior families with no shortage of Spirit Crystals, had still spent close to three years just to be on the verge of their First-rank breakthrough.

The tempering wall was real. And it didn't care who you were.

One morning, eleven o'clock. Lu Yuan exited the Land of Origin again.

His tempering had reached 98%.

*One more week, maybe. Close.*

He made his way to Wild Wolf Materials.

Xue Wang looked up from his game the moment the door opened, broke into the usual grin. Lu Yuan dumped a fresh mountain of materials onto the floor. Xue Wang launched into his familiar routine of disbelief and careful tallying, the exchange moving smoothly.

The shop was lively for a while.

Then, just as Xue Wang was about to say something more, the shop door let out a slow creak and swung open.

Lu Yuan caught the shift in Xue Wang's expression — something subtle and suddenly hard — and turned to look.

A middle-aged man stood in the doorway. Handsome, in a weathered way; black hair threaded with silver-gray; something in his bearing that was cold and authoritative without effort. He stood with the sunlight at his back, shadow stretching across the floor of the shop.

The man who had been crouching over the materials pile straightened.

Xue Wang's face went to ice.

Lu Yuan glanced between them.

Then recognition landed.

His pupils contracted. Cold sweat crawled down his spine.

*That man.*

The Gene Warrior from the other night — the one Pete and three others had surrounded in the small park. The one who had dismantled all four of them in seconds and then walked away carrying the bodies. From what Lu Yuan had seen with his own eyes, this man's strength was easily Second-rank.

*Is this... the Wild Dog Gang Boss?*

The man glanced briefly at Lu Yuan — a single, flat look — and moved on.

*Did he recognize me?*

But the man's attention was already on Xue Wang. He hadn't spared Lu Yuan a second glance.

Lu Yuan breathed a quiet, careful sigh.

The attendants who had entered with the man addressed Xue Wang as *Young Master.*

Lu Yuan's thoughts clicked into motion.

*Young Master. So this middle-aged man is Xue Wang's father?*

He remembered the black-suited men who had come to the shop before — looking for Xue Wang, trying to bring him back somewhere.

*Wait.*

*If Xue Wang is the Wild Dog Gang's Young Master, then...*

*Doesn't that make Xue Wang the crown prince of the Wild Dog Gang?*

His head started to ache.

So he was Wild Dog Gang leadership. The Boss of the Wild Dog Gang was his father, who Lu Yuan had last seen — without knowing it — in the middle of a park surrounded by four Gene Warriors he'd just killed.

*I had absolutely no idea.*

Xue Wang's voice came out flat and cold.

"What are you doing here. You're not welcome."

The middle-aged man looked at his son without speaking for a long moment.

Then, quietly:

"I'm leaving. If you want to leave — go ahead."

"I know you don't like me. You can leave Xili City. Go wherever you want to live."

Xue Wang stared at him. For just a moment, something flickered across his face — genuine surprise, maybe. Then a short, sharp laugh.

"Oh? Last time you sent people to drag me back. Now you're telling me I can just go?"

The middle-aged man said nothing. He turned and walked out. The door swung shut behind him.

Xue Wang stood staring at the closed door, face unreadable, not giving away a thing.

Lu Yuan let out a slow breath.

*Not recognized.*

He felt the relief, and then, immediately, the headache behind it.

*If Pete's dead — if those four were Black Rat Gang leadership — the whole organization is probably finished.*

*And if the Black Rat Gang is finished, who exactly is left to investigate the Shadow?*

He stared at the closed door alongside Xue Wang for a quiet moment.

*This is going to be a problem.*