The sound of footsteps echoed in the hallway, and everyone looked toward the door, seeing a man with a headband, wearing a trench coat over a flamboyant purple T-shirt.

Isn’t that the Card Emperor?

Li Cheng exchanged a glance with Gray Rain. This Level 30 Card Emperor was unfortunately captured during that Secret Realm mission, brainwashed by Cai Anjie’s personality replicas, and turned against other players, getting beaten up quite a bit afterward.

"I recommended the Card Emperor to the Tombstone team. According to the prophecy, having him in the team significantly increases everyone’s survival chances."

Carlos said, "Do you want me to explain the specifics of the prophecy?"

"Whoa, no."

Wanli Sealed Blade quickly waved his hand and shook his head, "It’s better if you don’t explain. Once explained, the future becomes harder to change."

The same future can be interpreted differently.

For example, if a Dungeon exploration team has a Divination Master who predicts that one person will definitely die by the end of the mission.

If the Divination Master predicts further and says the warrior will die, and the priest prepares the Resurrection Technique in advance to save them.

If the Divination Master says the priest will die, then the latter really dies—the other members of the team, upon hearing the prophecy, get affected by the fate anchoring effect, losing the possibility to change their fate.

With everyone here, it’s better to start soon rather than later. White Horse Tombstone urged the restaurant to serve the dishes quickly, Gray Rain was first to pack up, and the group signed a temporary collaborative Magic Contract before leaving the restaurant.

Given the astronomical distance between the coordinates and the slum, everyone chose to take the Teleportation Phone Booth. With a blink of an eye, they arrived at a grotto.

This area was rarely visited by people, the red phone booth stood alone among stalactite formations, the air humid and chilling,

the hydropower generator White Horse Tombstone had previously placed in the underground river was still running, providing electricity and illuminating the bulbs.

Sunset Melting Gold raised a hand, released a green laser to scan the grotto, and mused, "Humidity is 75%, temperature -9°C, 187 kilometers away from the target location. Cave diving required mid-way."

He turned around, glancing at the shivering Lulina and Zak, with a subtle expression, "Uh, do you two need help? I have professional diving suits."

As a Magic Pet Trainer from the Thousand Throats Beast Guild, Lulina’s main attributes must be invested in Intelligence, Perception to affect the maximum and recovery speed of Spiritual Power, and Charm to influence Magic Pet Affinity,

while the other Strength, Agility, Constitution Attributes are arbitrarily assigned, with her actual physical quality akin to a non-Strength event Olympic champion.

As for the gentlemanly professor-like Zak...

He, as a Close Combat Transcendent, still feeling cold, was truly embarrassing.

"Achoo!"

The sun-kissed Lulina sneezed, quickly using a tissue to wipe her nose, saying with a muffled voice, "No need."

"187 kilometers is neither near nor far,"

Wanli Sealed Blade pondered, "Shall we take the all-terrain vehicle I bought from Prometheus?"

"Better not," Carlos shook his head, "Taking the car, there’s a high probability it might overturn in the water, others might be fine, but Mr. Zak would catch a cold, hypothermia, and pulmonary edema.

It’s easy for ’bad news from the cave diving area’ to happen.

My suggestion is to ride on Miss Lulina’s Magic Pet instead."

"Been waiting for you to mention it."

Lulina, not hesitating, directly took out a purple and white Master Ball with an M mark embossed on it from her belt and threw it into the air.

Buzz!

The Master Ball emitted a strong light, and a gigantic tiger-striped feline creature appeared out of nowhere.

It was half-cat, half-beast, with a body size comparable to a bus, six pairs of legs, and a fluffy big tail.

The interior was half-hollow, forming a bus-like space with plush fur, with seats on both sides for passengers.

Through the glassless windows, one could observe the outside,

the giant cat’s front also had a sign that could switch destination displays (currently showing [Abandoned Building Cluster]), with eyes emitting red light acting as turning signals on either side.

This creature was undeniably the Dragon Cat Bus from Hayao Miyazaki’s "My Neighbor Totoro" movie, moving faster than a sports car, effortlessly traversing any terrain.

Everyone marveled as they boarded the Dragon Cat Bus, Gray Rain curiously running a hand over the fur-covered seats, finding them soft and warm.

"Hold on tight, we’re departing."

Lulina gave a gentle tap on the seat, the Dragon Cat’s large eyes projected forward light beams, its mouth curling into a smile, and with all six pairs of legs stepping forward, it leapt up a ten-meter-high steep slope.

"Wow."

Gray Rain quickly stabilized himself, exclaiming, "Now this is what I call a Summoner, summoning Pocket Monsters way stronger than the Red Driver’s."

"Ahem."

Sitting opposite, Wanli Sealed Blade lowered his voice, correcting, "This is the Dragon Cat from Hayao Miyazaki’s movie, not from the same IP as Pocket Monsters."

"Huh?"

Gray Rain skeptically said, "Isn’t Hayao Miyazaki the one who makes the Dark Souls games?"

Wanli Sealed Blade’s eye twitched, "...That’s Miyazaki Hidetaka."

"I didn’t read much so don’t fool me."

Gray Rain shook his head like a rattling drum, taking out PS5 game discs at random, "These are the legitimate discs I spent money on buying."

Wanli Sealed Blade, Lulina, White Horse Tombstone leaned over to take a look,

all they saw were titles like "Havier’s Moving Castle,"

"Heaven’s Iwami Castle,"

"Ghost Princess,"

"Little Greeter,"

"What kind of death do you want to play?"

What are these things?

Everyone’s eyelids twitched. The key was that these game disc covers looked serious, so refined as if they were genuine.

"Maybe they were created by some gaming enthusiasts in our guild... possibly."

Sunset Melting Gold scratched his head, the Whale Song’s breakthroughs in electronic information technology had significantly promoted the prosperity of the cultural industry.

With neural link+Universal model+AI smart assistant, a combo move,

even an ordinary person with zero game development experience, as long as they have ideas, understanding of games, and enough money to buy computing power shares,

can, with the help of an AI assistant, spend several months working to create a playable video game.

This is naturally good news for ordinary people on Earth, with big game productions emerging endlessly, avoiding being spoon-fed poor game design,

but for game industry practitioners, the competitive pressure suddenly increased, and it’s tough to prevent piracy infringement—just give a character holding chained dual swords hair, and you can argue he is not Kratos.

These "Havier’s Moving Castle," "Heaven’s Iwami Castle," were clearly products of the AI gaming era.

Printed on the front, they bore the words [Hayao Miyazaki New Work].

Upon closer examination, you could spot a barely visible small dash between [Hayao Miyazaki New-] and [Work], so actually, the creator was [Hayao Miyazaki New].

"Some Jin Yong New- Work. Gulong-Work."

Wanli Sealed Blade quipped, "Brings me right back to the era of pirate bookstands."

"Indeed,"

Li Cheng nodded, "By the way, why didn’t you, Brother Blade, write letters urging Hai Zhulou Master to update when you were little? Waiting for ’Shushan Swordsmen’ to release a sequel."

Wanli Sealed Blade glanced at him, "I’m not that old!"

Li Cheng shook his head, "What a pity ’Dream of the Red Chamber’ never completed the Ming version, luckily Ming Chao filled the gap."

"The crossover didn’t work as well as Rice Noodle Mountain, zero points, do it again!"

Wanli Sealed Blade naturally retorted, and the exchange, like a duet, made Sunset Melting Gold scratch his shiny head, softly asking White Horse Tombstone, "Are these two very familiar?"

"Probably... not that familiar."

White Horse Tombstone was equally puzzled, "To my knowledge, they only temporarily teamed up during the last mission."

Having nothing better to do, Gray Rain took out a monitor, a game console, and a diesel generator, began playing video games on the spot, not having the decency to mute the game music,

Amid the noisy music, the Dragon Cat Bus crossed mountains and waters, quickly emerging from the grotto.