Chapter 647: An “Infinite” Number of My Expanding Realm
Time flies.
The semester is already halfway through.
Although the time the Expanding Realm has been open has not strictly reached half a semester, a considerable amount of time has already passed.
For the Expanding Realm, it seems that the students from the Witch Academy and other extraordinary academies are not needed to save it.
Those students appear to be eternally trapped within a circle that expands outward from Ninglan New City.
Even during this period, the third refuge has been completed, and even the construction of the fourth and fifth large refuges has been finished under the powerful infrastructure of extraordinary power, establishing communication roads with the main city, “Ninglan New City.”
There are indeed a few individual students who, regardless of everything, venture into the distance, exploring unknown areas like the nearly vanished “Teaching Assistant Xiao Han.”
As for the rest of the large clubs, their exploration is predicated on whether they can reach out for their own interests, after all, everything they do is driven by profit.
During their explorations, many students claimed upon their return that they encountered the long-absent Teaching Assistant Xiao Han. At first, this news was quite captivating, as they were curious about what the “legendary” assistant had been up to during this time.
However, this situation occurred repeatedly afterward, in different directions and at different distances, leading to conflicting statements, as they didn’t believe Xiao Han possessed the cloning technique to support such actions.
Ultimately, all of this became a “joke.”
From that point on, there weren’t many people discussing the topic, as even if they truly encountered her and desperately tried to confirm it or take photos, no one believed them.
As each extraordinary academy established its own “base” in the Expanding Realm, their collaboration remained tight, but as they continued to push outward, they discovered unexpected “resistance.”
Mutated Beasts.
Those once weak beings that they had slaughtered like chickens had now become the greatest threat to their expansion!
It wasn’t that they had become irrationally powerful in just a few short months, but rather, they had become… “smart,” understanding higher-level profit and danger aversion, able to cooperate, and… know how to escape.
To eliminate them required powerful senior students with strong spellbooks or even the teaching assistants to take action personally. Once such actions became too conspicuous, the opponents would learn in advance and migrate away.
Although these mutated beasts couldn’t inflict significant terror on extraordinary students, the damage they caused to ordinary people was indeed incalculable.
The students aimed to establish a social framework, create a circulating market, and even advance to sophisticated capital operations; society needs ordinary people to sustain it. This isn’t just a child’s play; they need continuous streams of people to earn money for them.
Thus, the casualties of ordinary people and the potential threats became the primary issues for the combined region of the Expanding Realm centered on Ninglan New City.
Moreover, within those mutated beasts, specific groups exhibited terrifying reproductive capabilities, and under the influence of extraordinary energy, they began to learn how to harness their innate mutated talents.
Therefore, both the reproduction abilities of the mutated beasts and their combat potential were continually improving.
With the involvement of extraordinary power, this long natural selection process achieved previously impossible rapid optimization within just a generation or two.
But rather than calling it optimization, it was a mutation; they were developing into mutated individuals under extraordinary power. Mutation carries both drawbacks and benefits.
The cost was significant mortality, yet their reproduction speed lightly compensated for that flaw.
In summary, those mutated beasts had completely formed a scale, and they had lost the best opportunity to completely eradicate the mutated beast population.
Besides the development of infrastructure and the issues faced with mutated beasts, another area of development worthy of attention was the Plant Technology Tree.
Since reaching an agreement with Teaching Assistant Xiao Han in Ninglan New City to dispel the dream overlap, Ninglan New City began advancing toward plant technology.
The banner of civil technology within Ninglan New City was led by the Extraordinary Research Association.
After all, technological development is not merely about cutting-edge breakthroughs but also the development and dissemination of foundational technology.
Thus, the Extraordinary Research Association, which possessed a foundation of extraordinary technological research, was perfectly positioned to engage in this.
Moreover, they discovered that this Plant Network was indeed vastly more convenient than the previously adopted technology. The earlier technology required power plants, power sources, wiring infrastructure, and even network cables with rigid requirements. However, plant technology was directly simplified by the “Universal Plant Network” technology.
Hence, plant technology gradually became more comprehensible.
As the development of plant technology advanced, the importance of the Wanlian Main Network Tree became self-evident.
However, the Wanlian Main Network Tree in the Disaster Refuge had already been “requisitioned” by wave after wave of instructor teams.
Thus, the Wanlian Main Network Tree at the second large refuge became the centerpiece of plant technology development.
Yet, as a symbolic representation of the reopening of the plant network, it would forever be that one Wanlian Main Network Tree in the Disaster Refuge!
Even if it was somewhat smaller in size compared to that in the second refuge.
Because of the Wanlian Main Network Tree, the current situation of the other established third, fourth, and fifth refuges was extremely awkward…
If everything continued developing as such, it wouldn’t be a problem until the person responsible for maintaining the Wanlian Main Network Tree in the second refuge accessed the interconnected signal network of the plant network from another region!
In fact, the Wanlian Main Network Tree under the Great Knowledge Tree system didn’t require external maintenance at all; however, the Expanding Realm needed to develop plant technology, and the Wanlian Main Network Tree was an unavoidable hurdle. Thus, they requested Millien to contact that assistant Xiao Han, granting them access to the Wanlian Main Network Tree.
The response was affirmative, but with numerous restrictive conditions. Eventually, a contract was signed, and a maintenance team for the Wanlian Main Network Tree was established based on those who signed the contract.
Thus, this team, although bearing the title of maintenance, was mainly researching this Wanlian Main Network Tree and then expanding into accessible plant technology.
And now, this Wanlian Main Network Tree had linked up with another Wanlian Main Network Tree!
This meant… they had opened up a brand new domain on the plant network!
After all, information exchange was also the exploration of unknown territories!
Even if they couldn’t pass through, at the very least, they could understand how the world outside the territorial bounds of the Expanding Realm of Ninglan New City was doing.
This news instantly ignited heated discussions in Ninglan New City and all refuges and shelters.
Currently, the term “refuge” specifically refers to the Disaster Refuge and the second large refuge, while “shelter” indicates the third, fourth, and fifth shelters. From the naming conventions, it’s evident that many people disagreed with the claims made about that assistant Xiao Han.
Initially, the individuals in charge of the shelters looked down upon plant technology. Even as the conveniences and advantages of current plant technology became apparent, they… couldn’t exactly beg them to install it, could they?
Moreover, those three shelters weren’t entirely reliant on the Witch Academy’s efforts, but… ultimately, these three shelters corresponded to the channel developments of the three top academies, illustrating the convenience of turf battles and benefit exchanges.
However, now that they discovered the Wanlian Main Network Tree could connect to further reaches of the Expanding Realm, they suddenly became anxious!
Because as soon as the overall developmental narrative of the world was established, even if they wielded such powerful forces, they wouldn’t be able to reverse the situation.
So much time had already passed; the places they hadn’t reached weren’t simply due to the lack of their assistance.
But they obviously established numerous large and small shelters, with life always striving to save itself amidst catastrophe.
Even reconstructing some small towns, because the Expanding Realm still retained many former buildings, there was no need for those refugees to be choosy.
Yet, as they learned how they “repaired” the Wanlian Main Network Tree and built such an astonishing network system through the Wanlian Main Network Tree, they were shocked by the replies they heard.
They had received help from a girl who claimed to be the “Catastrophe Witch.”
That Catastrophe Witch granted them power, taught them to defend against mutated beasts, dispel dreams, guided them to construct shelters, gather crowds, and plant crops…
The Catastrophe Witch… seemed to be a title used by only one person in the Expanding Realm.
And that person… they were on the verge of forgetting her, but upon reflecting back, every event still lingered vividly in their memories.
When they inquired whether the “Catastrophe Witch” was still around, they received the answer that she was gone.
She had left.
After helping them perfect the shelters to establish a foothold in this ruined world, she left without a second thought.
That figure lingered only in their memories.
They didn’t understand why they suddenly connected with the Wanlian Main Network Tree here, but they quickly accepted the reality. Perhaps this was the handiwork of that Catastrophe Witch?
After all, the era they lived in had not experienced the arduous developmental period of the Wanlian Main Network Tree’s root system.
But as time passed, Ninglan New City started successively linking to the plant network of other regions’ Wanlian Main Network Trees.
The speed transitioned from linking to one every few days to one each day, and then eventually to multiple connections in a single day!
They could not help but confront a terrifying suspicion… the entire Expanding Realm was being connected together by the Wanlian Main Network Tree!
And the initiator of all this… was the person who had completely vanished from everyone’s sight…
“How could this be! How could it have been that person! Wasn’t her complete disappearance enough? Why did she suddenly reappear? She alone… how could she accomplish so much in such a short time!”
Watching the information coming from the plant network, the Expanding Realm gradually formed as a whole. Perhaps some places were not shelters, but the overall architecture was gathering crowds and… reshaping their world.
Now, communication was nearly complete, only requiring foundational infrastructure and transportation improvements for the Expanding Realm to be thoroughly formed as a cohesive unit!
And the catalyst for all this was that Assistant Yang Yuelan.
Although they obtained various names such as “Catastrophe Witch,” “Yang Yuelan,” “Xiao Han,” and “Yang” from the plant network, regardless of which name, they all reminded them of that one person.
“Don’t be so impatient; Assistant Xiao Han connecting us in the Expanding Realm might not necessarily be a bad thing. We have the initiative in the development of plant technology, in other words, we hold the monopoly on technological power, don’t we?”
With the advancement of plant technology in Ninglan New City, they naturally also made significant investments in it. As for the reason?
Of course, it’s profitable!
Now that someone was helping them expand this cake so large, they could earn even more.
With the advantage of technology, they currently wielded pricing power and the currency for trade settlements. What did they need most?
Naturally, it was the extraordinary materials that populated the entire Expanding Realm. They wouldn’t acknowledge the original currency of this world, especially that type of hard wooden coin. Using wood as currency was the silliest currency they had ever seen.
In the Core Realm’s society, if extraordinary materials couldn’t flow into the outside world, why would they issue such a currency?
That kind of currency held little value for them; the currency in circulation represented social labor force, but this society was composed of ordinary people, representing ordinary people’s labor force. How could such money be exchanged with extraordinary materials that serve as equivalent items crossing social classes?
At this moment, the heads of the societies congregated in Ninglan New City were merely expressing their dissatisfaction and unwillingness during this assembly.
They didn’t need to propose solutions; now someone spoke just to ease the situation. Everyone was savvy about interests; such an obvious thought wouldn’t be difficult to grasp, right?
They simply didn’t want to acknowledge that such a grand achievement could have been created by one person.
If it were them who accomplished this feat, they would have boasted widely, but everything remains hypothetical…
Thus, this incident became mere rumors exchanged among the populace, inevitable discussions arose.
However, the collective has no memory; it wouldn’t be long before the group forgets. Even if every individual didn’t truly forget, the collective would cease to discuss the matter.
But there was a group that wouldn’t forget, and that was Xiao Han’s support team.
This long-standing, ever-growing “idle organization.”
Moreover, the members of this support team were no longer limited to spreading the word within the Witch Academy; now they were doing so throughout the Expanding Realm as well.
……
And far from the reach of Ninglan New City, I am completely unconcerned about what is happening at this moment.
Because my travels are not yet over. During this journey, I experienced many things, and my clones did as well.
They shared their experiences with me through the Great Knowledge Seed and Great Knowledge Sharing Technique, allowing me to experience different kinds of excitement.
However, gathering all these events only made me realize one thing.
That whether something is meaningful or not is determined through experience, not… through thought.
Initially, I planned to plant trees all over the Expanding Realm, but when I personally participated in this revolution, I suddenly discovered that many things were not quite as I had predicted.
Regarding the survival of civilizations…
Perhaps even without me, they would radiate the brilliance of civilization and rebuild society.
Maybe without me, they would perish even faster than I had anticipated.
Regarding personal life and d*ath…
These are my experiences, yet regarding the same question, I often derive completely opposite answers, for such is reality.
Perhaps the world is a massive makeshift stage, but the forebears of heroes were all ordinary people who stepped forth bravely.
The turning points in history always occur unexpectedly, diverging in entirely different ways.
The development of reality is far more unpredictable than I imagined.
And the interesting degree of events also depends on how much energy I invested in them.
Perhaps because my clones still retained many features different from my original self, I yielded outcomes that my previous self would never have chosen under any circumstances, and this action opened up a life I had never seen before.
And I… stepped out of the information cocoon I had built for myself, out of the “identity” cage I had constructed.
