Lust System: Conquering the World Beauties

Liam suddenly placed a hand on Tatiana’s shoulder, partly to steady her and partly because he was beginning to get irritated by the constant pressure coming from behind. The queue had become noticeably tighter, with people continuing to push forward as though moving half a metre closer to the gate would somehow make their turn arrive faster. He turned his head and tried to push the people behind them back, using enough force to create some breathing room without actually hurting anyone, but it was useless. There were simply too many people packed into the line, and every time he managed to move one person back, another body immediately filled the space. What surprised him even more was the reaction of the soldiers stationed around the entrance. They barely paid attention. A few glanced toward the crowd before looking away again, as though people being pushed around in the queue was such an ordinary occurrence that there was no reason for them to interfere.

"Seriously?" Liam muttered under his breath.

He tried once more, but the pressure behind them only increased.

"Liam."

Tatiana’s voice came quietly from beside him.

He turned his head.

She was looking at him, her expression unusually gentle. For a moment she seemed as though she wanted to say something else, but instead she quickly looked away, her red hair falling slightly across the side of her face.

"Don’t worry about it," she said.

Liam studied her for a second. There was something strange about the way she had said it, but he couldn’t quite place what it was. He eventually nodded and took his hand away from her shoulder, deciding there were more important things to worry about than the annoying crowd.

His eyes moved over the line.

They had actually made decent progress.

Tatiana was directly ahead of Irina, and there were only three people between them and the entrance now. Considering how long the queue had been when they arrived, that was surprisingly fast. The enormous gate still towered over them, its upper sections disappearing beyond their field of vision, while the guards continued processing people with an efficiency that suggested they had done this thousands of times.

Liam folded his arms and waited.

The first person ahead of them stepped forward.

A guard sitting behind a small stone desk looked up.

"Name?"

The man gave his name.

The guard recorded it on a thin metallic tablet before gesturing toward a strange circular device positioned beside him.

"Hand."

The man hesitated before placing his palm inside.

The device immediately produced a faint blue glow.

A soft humming sound followed.

The man was allowed through.

Liam watched carefully.

There was something familiar about the procedure, although he couldn’t immediately identify what it reminded him of. The circular container wasn’t particularly large, perhaps the size of a helmet, and its surface looked like polished black metal. There was no visible mechanism inside, yet the moment someone’s hand disappeared into it, the faint glow appeared.

Tatiana finally reached the front.

She stepped toward the guard.

"Name?"

"Tatiana."

The guard nodded and entered the information.

"Hand."

Tatiana placed her hand inside the circular device.

Her expression changed almost immediately.

The sensation inside was strange.

It wasn’t painful, but something seemed to move beneath her skin, almost like a cool current traveling from her palm toward her wrist. She couldn’t see what was happening inside the device because the interior was completely dark, but she could feel something examining her.

After several seconds, the glow disappeared.

The guard nodded.

"Accepted."

Tatiana withdrew her hand and stepped aside.

Liam immediately looked toward Leonid.

"And that’s how they know if you’ve stayed longer than a week."

Leonid’s eyes narrowed as he looked at the device.

"The map the goddess gave you really does contain a ridiculous amount of information."

Liam nodded.

"It does."

He had initially thought the map would simply show him where to go, but that assumption had been completely wrong. The information embedded inside it was almost absurd. It contained details about cities, territories, currencies, races, laws, dangerous regions, important locations and even small things that most travelers would probably never think about.

Liam had barely scratched the surface.

The map wasn’t simply a map.

It was almost like someone had handed him an entire encyclopedia of this world and somehow compressed it into something that could exist inside his mind.

Irina stepped forward next.

She looked slightly more composed now, although she still avoided looking directly at Liam for too long.

"Name?"

"Irina."

The guard recorded it.

"Hand."

She placed her hand inside the device.

The faint blue glow appeared.

Irina watched it with a curious expression before eventually pulling her hand out.

"Accepted."

She stepped aside.

Liam was next.

He walked forward and stood before the guard.

"Name?"

"Liam."

The guard looked down and entered it.

Liam placed his hand into the circular device.

For a brief moment, nothing happened.

Then the device glowed.

The guard’s expression didn’t change, but his eyes remained on the machine for a fraction longer than they had with the others.

Liam noticed.

He said nothing.

The guard eventually nodded.

"Accepted."

Liam removed his hand and stepped forward.

Leonid followed, then Agatha, Mary and Gregor.

Each of them went through the same procedure.

Each was accepted.

When the final person stepped away from the device, one of the guards stood.

"Follow me."

The guard walked toward the enormous gate.

Liam and the others followed behind him.

As they approached the structure, Liam finally understood just how enormous it truly was. From a distance, the gate had looked massive. Up close, it was almost absurd. The stone walls beside them were so wide that Liam couldn’t imagine how much material had been required to construct them. Intricate patterns had been carved across the surface, with symbols and images of creatures he didn’t recognize woven into the architecture.

The guard stopped near the bottom of the gate.

For a moment, Liam wondered why.

Then he noticed something.

There was a small door built directly into the enormous gate.

It looked ridiculously tiny compared with the structure surrounding it.

The guard reached for a mechanism beside the frame.

Click.

A deep metallic sound echoed through the stone.

The small door slowly opened.

"Enter."

Liam stepped through first.

And then he stopped.

His entire body went still.

For several seconds, he simply stared.

The others emerged behind him one after another, and every single one of them reacted almost exactly the same way.

Nobody spoke.

There was simply too much to take in.

The city stretched before them in every direction.

It was enormous.

Buildings of polished stone and gleaming metal rose into the sky, some only a few stories high while others climbed dozens of levels above the streets. Towers with curved roofs stood beside enormous glass structures that shimmered beneath the sunlight. Bridges connected buildings high above the ground, allowing people to move between districts without ever touching the streets below.

The roads themselves were astonishingly clean.

Crowds moved along them in every direction, made up of people from races Liam had never seen before. Some looked almost completely human, while others had horns, tails, unusual eyes, wings or strange skin colors. There were merchants pushing carts filled with glowing fruits, armored warriors walking in groups, children running between adults and elegant figures wearing clothes so elaborate that Liam couldn’t imagine how much they had cost.

Magical lights floated above the streets despite the fact that it was daytime.

Some hovered like tiny suns.

Others moved slowly through the air like lanterns carried by invisible currents.

Farther ahead stood a massive central tower that seemed to dominate the entire city. Its surface reflected the sunlight so brilliantly that Liam had to narrow his eyes.

Tatiana slowly looked from one building to another.

"Wow."

The word escaped her almost unconsciously.

Irina stood beside her with her mouth slightly open.

Even Leonid, who had lived long enough to have seen things most people could only dream about, looked genuinely impressed.

"This place is enormous," he murmured.

Agatha was silent.

Mary slowly turned in place, trying to take everything in at once.

Gregor looked like someone who had forgotten how to blink.

Liam said nothing.

He simply stared.

The city felt alive in a way the wilderness never had.

There was movement everywhere.

Sound everywhere.

Magic everywhere.

And yet beneath all of it was something Liam couldn’t explain.

A feeling.

As though they had just stepped into a place that was far more important than an ordinary city.

He looked deeper into the streets.

Somewhere inside this enormous civilization was the blacksmith the map had told him to find.

And somehow, Liam had a feeling that finding that person would be the beginning of something much bigger than simply repairing a weapon.

He slowly smiled.

"Alright," he murmured.

Tatiana glanced toward him.

"What?"

Liam looked at the enormous city before them.

"Let’s find that blacksmith."

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