Chapter 288

Chapter 288: The Tip of the Iceberg

El ultimately declined Lin Qingliu’s assistance, and a tremendous power surged from the boy’s body as he vanished with the artificial corpse into the basement walls.

Watching the figure gradually disappear, Lin Qingliu silently wished him success in his endeavor.

Meanwhile, several blocks away, Shi Jin emerged from the sewer, her body weary.

The intricate grid structure had drained all her strength and resources, and over the past few hours, Shi Jin felt that her once-proud sense of direction had been thoroughly tested.

The sewer was incredibly complex; even knowing the boy had deceived her and roughly inferring the possible area of her target, she could not locate his trace in just a few hours.

At this moment, Shi Jin was humbled by reality; she planned to return to the central spire, rest for a while, and then begin anew with the sewer map.

On the other side, Zhuang Mian also received permission to act and obtained the sewer structure map. November 5th was destined to be an extraordinary day.

—

Inside the mental health clinic, Lin Qingliu, who had not ventured out, hung the closed sign. He had something very important to ponder.

Fully sinking into the soft recliner, Lin Qingliu used his abilities to shield his five senses.

In absolute silence, free from any disturbances, he entered his consciousness space.

This was the first time Lin Qingliu had used his ability in this manner, and it was an unprecedented experience for him.

In a space devoid of direction or time, existing outside of reality, all of Lin Qingliu’s memories of arriving in this world unfolded like a scroll before him.

At this moment, he felt like a player from a past life opening a game settings guide, attempting to piece together a coherent background story from the fragmented narrative using his wit and the sparse clues provided.

From the moment he soul-transferred into a body with the same name, to secretly nurturing followers with his golden fingers.

His memories after arriving in this world echoed like background music in the consciousness space.

Lin Qingliu kept reviewing everything, setting aside the valuable parts.

Beast tide, high walls, spires.

Superpowered individuals, mycelium life forms, biological fields.

Lines of clues, some clear and some obscure, interlinked in the space, like particles in a vacuum that always felt both near and far.

The rules of this world resembled a scrambled Rubik’s Cube, containing some order amidst the chaos.

After seeing the underground structure of the spire, Lin Qingliu had an inexplicable intuition.

It was a strange premonition, as if urging him to question everything around him.

But his experiences were so real; if he admitted this world was fake, then what exactly was he?

As the memories belonging to the original owner were fully accessed, Lin Qingliu’s questions did not decrease but continued to multiply.

But that was not the end.

The memories of the original owner began a new round of playback.

The original owner was just an ordinary person living in the outer city, and childhood memories had severely deteriorated, occasionally presenting fragments that were difficult to perceive.

It wasn’t until he started school that the memories of the native Lin Qingliu began to flow continuously.

Lin Qingliu felt like a divine player viewing everything the original body experienced from a third-person perspective.

His family, his experiences, the education he received.

Education.

He suddenly grasped a new focus.

After crossing into this world, the original owner had already graduated completely, which is why Lin Qingliu’s first task after arriving was to earn money.

Education was something that every resident of Hope City inevitably received, and general education contained important content that could be widely applied.

In other words, the foundation of social cognition was precisely constructed by general education.

Aside from semi-literate individuals like Xiao Huimao, nearly all residents of Hope City had undergone the most basic education.

Within that education, there should be information he desired.

Soon, Lin Qingliu pieced together the part related to general education from the original owner’s memories.

After filtering through the content, he retained the subject most useful to him at the moment—

History.

Human history is long, but the history of Hope City is short.

The history class in Hope City seemed to be influenced by pragmatism or something else, as it not only had shorter class times but also contained very little content.

After summarizing, he could only draw a few conclusions:

Humanity had thousands of years of history during the Old Era and developed a rich and brilliant civilization.

A low-probability event—meteorite impacts occurred on this planet, causing immediate destruction and secondary disasters that ruined everything.

The vast majority of life perished in this disaster, and those that survived were affected by the meteorite, resulting in varying degrees of anomalies, including both humans and extraordinary beasts.

The remaining humans gathered on the other side of the planet, establishing Hope City as a spark of civilization. The emergence of superpowered individuals greatly strengthened the confidence of humanity, as everyone believed they could reclaim this planet.

This content was what would be taught in Hope City’s history class.

Lin Qingliu began to correlate this section with reality.

From his interactions with Fresnel, also known as Ethan Shidelo, it was clear that his family held a prominent position during the Old Era and the early New Era, maintaining connections with Some Politician, thus wielding a certain influence; their family inheritance had never been broken.

Therefore, the Old Era truly existed and was not fabricated.

The secondary disasters caused by the meteorite impacts were severe, which explained why the majority of areas outside of Hope City became wasteland, but it could not explain the peculiar swamp area and forests.

Humans indeed underwent anomalies, and extraordinary beasts possessed some traits of their original animal forms; however, according to Fulan’s memories, extraordinary beasts came from cocoons on anomalous trees.

These anomalous trees exhibited certain mycelium characteristics, thus extraordinary beasts naturally had a tendency to be manipulated by mycelium, but humans did not share this trait, suggesting that the anomalies on both sides might not originate from the same source.

In the fifty-two years recorded, Hope City had not received any signals from the outside world, seen any outsiders, or found any traces of humans surviving outside Hope City.

From a probabilistic perspective, if humanity could establish a densely populated area like Hope City with nearly ten million people, there was no reason that this would be the only one.

The central spire was undoubtedly the core location of Hope City; the technological level here far exceeded that of the outside world, even inducing thoughts that it did not belong to the same worldview.

Cognition collided with reality, and ideas emerged and vanished in an instant.

In the realm of thought where time seemed almost nonexistent, Lin Qingliu’s consciousness filled with contemplation.