Beating Instances through Words Left by the Dead

Chapter 945: Chapter 400: A Big Payoff!

As the Lion-shaped Mechanical Beast loaded with the Differential Machine shattered, the Steam Rules shrouding Grimland began to dissipate.

Inside the city, the residents who had been turned into statues under the influence of the Differential Machine and the Steam Rules woke up as if from a dream and resumed their previous actions, completely unaware that the World had been ”paused” for a while.

For the residents outside the Crystal Palace, the Steam Rules hadn’t affected them much, but for the visitors inside the Crystal Palace, things were downright weird.

When everything returned to normal and people started clapping, they were shocked to find that Olivia on the speech stage suddenly looked a lot more miserable: his clothes were covered in dust, his high spirits had turned gloomy, and the Crown above his head was nowhere to be seen.

It was as if, while they weren’t paying attention, Olivia had missed a step, fallen off the stage, and rolled a few times on the ground.

If it were just Olivia acting strange, that would still be easy to explain—maybe he spaced out while clapping and misstepped.

But who could tell them why the glass wall of the Crystal Palace facing the square had completely shattered, and the steel framework had a huge hole smashed into it?

No way something that dramatic happened and they all just ”didn’t notice,” right? 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

Yet Olivia had no intention of answering, and the crowd was too embarrassed to ask. They could only withdraw with confused faces as the Secret Magic Knights and Secret Police guided the evacuation.

It wasn’t just the local Plane natives visiting who were full of question marks; the visiting Players were just as clueless about what had happened.

Only the three—Cold Mountain, Sword Star, and Divine Tongue—had vaguely seen something, but even they couldn’t be sure.

They heard fighting and followed the noise over, only to arrive and see a winged Lion-shaped Mechanical Beast brawling with a modern Mecha.

The sight almost fried their CPUs, already sluggish under the influence of the Steam Rules.

Like—what the hell, how did we jump straight from the Steam Engine era to a full-on sci-fi Plane?

After that came a sky-filling cloud of steam; once it dispersed, they saw Wu Chang, Julie, and Olivia, three people standing before a pile of rubble, saying something.

The only thing they knew for sure was that Peace had a Mecha—a very strong Mecha.

They surrounded Wu Chang, wanting to ask what had happened, but Wu Chang clearly had no intention of telling them.

Once the Dungeon’s main quest is completed, Players can only remain for a short period; once the time limit is reached, they are forcibly teleported out of the Dungeon.

After several failed attempts to get answers, they could only leave the Dungeon Plane with their doubts.

The final hidden BOSS of Steam Phantom, and what exactly happened at the World Industrial Exposition, thus became an unsolved mystery of the Desolate Realm.

Wu Chang was originally the same as other Players and should have been forcefully teleported out once the time limit hit, but Olivia’s and Julie’s approval allowed him to remain in the Steam Phantom Dungeon.

”Player has received the approval of Plane Controller of Desolate Realm—46957; Desolate Realm—46957 Plane has become the Player’s private Plane. Player holds management privileges within this Plane; any target not authorized by the Player will be unable to enter this Plane.”

”As Plane Controller, Player is anchored to Desolate Realm—46957 Plane and has opened a fixed channel to enter this Plane.”

...

”Player has been acknowledged by the World Will; any actions by the Player, including spreading faith, will no longer be restricted.”

”Detected that Player has obtained temporary management privileges of the Desolate Realm. Areas of the real Plane covered by the Player’s Divine Kingdom will be under the Player’s absolute control. The existence of the Player and the Divine Kingdom will be in a state of absolute legitimacy. Unless permitted by the Player, no other existence will be able to detect any anomaly.”

”Player has obtained the highest-level temporary management privileges of the Desolate Realm; unable to be further upgraded.”

By turning Steam Phantom into a private Plane, Wu Chang was able to extend his stay within the Plane.

After sending off the other Players and the many visitors of the World Industrial Exposition, he came to the remains of the Lion-shaped Mechanical Beast and took out the All-Knowing Crystal.

The body of the Lion-shaped Mechanical Beast had fused the cores of all the Extraordinary Steam Engines, including the core of the Differential Machine. Hidden within the Differential Machine’s core was the Primordial Spirit Core, and now it was time to recover it.

The All-Knowing Crystal slowly rotated in the air, extracting the Primordial Spirit Core from the Mechanical Beast’s wreckage—something even Wu Chang could not sense at all.

Although Wu Chang couldn’t perceive the Primordial Spirit Core, he could guess that the amount contained within the Differential Machine was definitely considerable. After absorbing it, the All-Knowing Crystal entered an ”I’m full” State.

It had already accumulated enough Primordial Spirit Core inside; it just needed an opportunity, or a bit of time, and it would be able to restore part of its Ability by relying on the Primordial Spirit Core.

Even in its injured Status, the All-Knowing Crystal was already this powerful. Wu Chang was rather looking forward to seeing how it would perform after recovering some of its Ability.

After collecting the Primordial Spirit Core, he took out Mortal Poison and began absorbing the Dungeon’s Erosion Power.

Clear S-Level Dungeon, Energy Value +3; S-Level Dungeon Erosion Core, Energy Value +7.

The S-Level Dungeon, as the Dungeon in the Desolate Realm most heavily tainted by the Abyss, allowed him to absorb almost twice the Abyssal Erosion Power of an A-Level Dungeon.

Combined with the 15 Energy points he’d accumulated before, the second round of extraction for Mortal Poison brought his total Energy to 25/50.

Thinking back to the first time he activated Mortal Poison, he had to clear a ton of Dungeons just to scrape together the 10 Energy points needed to unlock it. But now, he only needed to complete a single Dungeon to immediately stockpile 10 Energy points.

Time flashed by like a white horse crossing a crevice; back when each Dungeon clear only netted him a point-something Energy, it felt like that wasn’t all that long ago.