The figure that appeared before Wang Batian was extremely strange, with no physical substance, just a vague humanoid silhouette.
Wang Batian was not surprised by the appearance of this vague and peculiar figure.
He reached out, poured himself a glass of whiskey, and drank it down in one gulp. He slowly said, "No, just a mere kid. If nothing unexpected happens, that brat won't see tomorrow's sun!"
As his words fell, Wang Batian turned to inquire, "What about you? So much time has passed, and there's still no progress with Shen Yunyao?"
The blurry figure remained silent for a moment before slowly replying, "Shen Yunyao is not as simple as you think!"
Upon hearing this, Wang Batian narrowed his eyes, making no comment.
.....
Mech City, Yu Family Villa,
"Chu Xin, you say you know that kid named Ye Feng who was just here?"
A gaunt, extremely aged woman, almost skin and bones, barely recognizable as female, frowned as she looked at Chu Xin before her. It was Yu Zhuangrong.
"Yes!"
"At that time, I was on your mission, exploring the City of Peril..."
Chu Xin nodded and described the scene where she first met Ye Feng.
"You're saying that when that kid entered the City of Peril, he was just an ordinary person, not yet an arcane energy practitioner... In the perilous City of Peril, he, an ordinary person, actually managed to survive...?"
"And not only that, this person traveled over a thousand miles to reach Mech City... and now his strength is already an arcane energy practitioner of the Steel level?!"
After listening to Chu Xin's account, Yu Zhuangrong's brow furrowed even deeper.
"Yes~!"
.....
More than half an hour later, Chu Xin left the Yu family's residence in Mech City.
Her face was filled with disappointment because she had just mentioned Ye Feng killing two mech masters, Ah Xiao and Ah Kun, intending to use a borrowed knife to kill, but Yu Zhuangrong showed no reaction. Instead, her words hinted at valuing and wanting to recruit Ye Feng...
.....
On the other side,
Ye Feng, Xiao Xiao, and Shen Yunyao boarded an off-road vehicle and drove directly to the Mech Star Hotel.
"Chu Xin, you've already become a quasi-armorer. The Secret Armor Institute has arranged accommodation for you; you have a whole floor to yourself. Why do you still want to go back to a hotel?"
"And it's the Mech Star Hotel, which is in the outer city, quite far from here!"
In the off-road vehicle, Shen Yunyao looked at Ye Feng with some confusion.
"Uh... I've prepaid for several days of accommodation, and I don't want to waste it!"
Ye Feng smiled slightly and made up a casual excuse.
The reason he insisted on returning to Mech Star was that there was an entrance to a secret array passage there. In case of emergencies, he could hide, observe the situation, or even slip out of Mech City undetected...
As for being in the inner city of Mech City, with its numerous experts and complex factions, the only array entrance he was familiar with was inside the heavily guarded Star Picking Tower...
"Oh, okay~"
Shen Yunyao didn't think much of it; she was in a good mood at the moment.
"Ye Feng, thank you for telling me so much about my father... When I was three years old, my father left me, saying he had something very important to do..."
"As time passed, my impression of my father became increasingly vague... so vague that it frightened me..."
Shen Yunyao looked at the dark night sky outside the car window, sighing with emotion.
"....."
Ye Feng felt a surge of helplessness within him, because what he had just told Shen Yunyao about Li Goudan was completely made up by him...
Seeing the girl's expectant and joyful eyes, Ye Feng felt a pang of guilt, even a strong urge to tell her the truth, but he forcibly suppressed it.
Who knew what would happen if Shen Yunyao learned that the loving, great father with a hidden ailment in her mind was a completely fabricated person... He didn't want to be captured and tortured...
"Speaking of which, Ye Feng, you're truly amazing!"
"You actually perfectly repaired the main rune of that Yellow-grade Rank 2 fire seed just now... Each fire seed is unique, involving the arcane energy attributes of the armorer who forged it, as well as their understanding of arcane runes..."
"But your repair of the arcane rune just now was as if you were the one who forged that fire seed..."
At this moment, Shen Yunyao's praise rang out.
"Uh... it's alright, thanks to the elder Li Goudan. I happened to have studied that rune a bit~"
Ye Feng chuckled and shifted the credit to Li Goudan.
"Hmm?"
Suddenly, Ye Feng's expression changed, as he saw a cold glint speeding towards them from the darkness ahead.
"Be careful!"
Ye Feng shouted in a low voice and lunged from the back seat to the front of the off-road vehicle.
"Boom~!"
Almost at the same instant, a deafening crack sounded from the front windshield, as a steel bar directly pierced through it.
Ye Feng's eyes narrowed. Without evading, he struck out with his palm, instantly deflecting the steel bar, which was as thick as a baby's arm.
"Whoosh! Clang!~"
"Crash~!"
The steel bar, imbued with arcane energy, pierced straight through the off-road vehicle.
"Boom~!"
As the steel bar emerged from the vehicle's metal plating, a dull thud sounded, and the off-road vehicle carrying Ye Feng and the others was lifted off the ground, tumbled in the air, then crashed heavily onto the ground, rolling over again.
"Boom~Boom~Clang~Clang~"
"Boom boom~!......."
After a series of violent metallic impacts, the off-road vehicle finally came to a halt.
"Boom~!"
Ye Feng kicked open the deformed car door and was the first to step out, narrowing his eyes as he looked into the distance.
Shen Yunyao and Xiao Xiao followed closely. Shen Yunyao lightly brushed the dust off her clothes with a calm expression, while Xiao Xiao nervously scanned their surroundings.
As for the driver of the off-road vehicle, he was either scared unconscious or knocked out...
The gazes of Ye Feng and the other two fell on a spot not far in front of them, where a bald, burly man over two meters tall, covered in dark scales, stood alongside a bare-chested young man wearing a leopard-print skirt.
"Really, does a Steel-level brat require both of us?"
"Leopard Zheng, don't make a move. I haven't had a proper meal in a while!"
The dark-scaled strongman looked at Ye Feng, flicked his scarlet, sausage-like lips.
"Kid, I'm going to twist your head off and then suck your blood dry like a beverage!"
The dark-scaled strongman grinned menacingly and lunged at Ye Feng at high speed.
"Ye Feng, be careful! Our off-road vehicle was just knocked flying by his body. His strength is at least Silver-level beginner!"
Seeing this, Shen Yunyao couldn't help but cry out in concern.
...........