The Programmer Cultivator

Now that he had shrunk, the flat ground beneath his feet seemed riddled with ravines. Zhang Deming jumped directly into one of them. At the same time, his body rippled slightly, and he became like a small, lifeless bean.

Just as Zhang Deming finished his Concealment, two strange Puppets emerged from one end of the tunnel. They had entirely metallic bodies and were the size of a normal person, but their design was very peculiar.

You could call them robots, but they also possessed the distinct characteristics of puppets, their bodies covered in shimmering Runes that flashed with Spiritual Light.

But if you called them Artifact Puppets, you could still see numerous mechanical parts on their surfaces, making them look just like robots. 'All in all, they're a bit like… Demonic Puppets?'

'No, that's not it! These Runes are too much like Hongmeng Elements.'

The entire Puppet was a clear mixture of two major elements: Celestial Universe Intelligent Machinery and Hongmeng Array Artifacts.

'Or maybe they should be called creations of Spiritual Technology?'

After the two mechanical Puppets arrived, a unique Spiritual Light flickered within their rune-covered eyes. A moment later, they locked onto the spot where Zhang Deming had fallen through—that small, round hole.

The instant they locked onto the small hole, Spiritual Light flared around the bodies of the two mechanical Puppets, and they began to scan the surrounding area.

"No biological signature detected. No residual Spiritual Power detected. No biological fluctuations detected. Judgement: natural collapse. Initiating repair protocol."

An extremely mechanical voice emerged. At that moment, the mechanical Puppets were the very picture of robots.

But immediately after, a dense Spiritual Light shone from the robots' hands. The power of the Gold and Earth Attribute surged, and the small hole in the tunnel ceiling slowly healed under its influence.

It was a blend of technology and Techniques, a scene that should have been completely incongruous. Yet on the Puppets, there was no sense of dissonance at all, as if this was exactly how they were meant to be.

After completing the repairs, the Spiritual Light around the two mechanical Puppets slowly faded away. They returned to their Ordinary appearance, turned mechanically, and started back the way they came.

Zhang Deming could see that not only did they lack intelligence, but their degree of autonomy was also extremely low. They were definitely not intelligent robots or some kind of mechanical summoned pet.

Only after they had left did Zhang Deming re-emerge. He looked in the direction they had come from, contemplated for a moment, then grew his body slightly larger and cautiously made his way in that direction.

Along the way, Zhang Deming observed his surroundings carefully. He didn't find any surveillance cameras, but he did discover numerous faint detection Arrays that functioned like them, with a node placed every certain distance.

However, because these things were very low-level, they could at most detect obvious fluctuations. Therefore, shielding himself from them wasn't a difficult task.

At first, Zhang Deming was a little puzzled as to why they would use such low-level devices.

But as Zhang Deming continued forward, he slowly figured out the reason. There seemed to be a massive network of tunnels underground, similar to a city's subway system.

And for something of this incredible scale, if they wanted to achieve comprehensive surveillance with a high-level system—setting aside the cost for a moment—installing such a large-scale Array would make it impossible for those on the surface not to notice something.

That was why they had chosen this kind of detection system: to achieve preliminary, comprehensive monitoring.

Zhang Deming walked for a long time, gradually discovering numerous branching paths. If this had been his first time here, he definitely would have gotten lost.

However, with the distant sounds of the two Puppets ahead of him guiding the way, Zhang Deming followed them without any trouble and arrived at their destination. As he got close, Zhang Deming shrank himself once more.

Taking on the appearance of a speck of Dust, he drifted forward.

When Zhang Deming saw the destination, he froze completely. 'What in the world am I seeing?'

'An ant nest? An Underground City? What the hell is this?'

Inside a massive subterranean Space, there was what looked like an underground city. However, its architectural style also resembled an ant nest. In this dome-like space, the walls surrounding the dome were riddled with caves and passageways.

And beneath the dome, on the open ground, stood some relatively low-rise, exotic buildings of a very strange style. They felt like human architecture mixed with elements of an ant nest.

Staring at such a scene, Zhang Deming was completely dumbfounded. He had thought there might be something underground, but he had never imagined that an entire Underground City like this existed beneath the Hengduan Mountain Range.

'Hmm, wait a second... it might not be just one. That network of tunnels from before... could there be other cities like this?'

Zhang Deming stood at an entrance, gazing at the enormous domed Space before him and the dense web of caves surrounding it, momentarily stunned.

After a long moment, Zhang Deming came back to his senses. His eyes flickered as he took in the scene, and then he froze. 'In such a huge city, where are the people? Or rather, where are the creatures that live here?'

Beneath the enormous dome, even though the buildings weren't tall, they could still house at least several hundred thousand people. Adding the dense network of caves around it, housing over a million people should be no problem at all.

Looking at the ventilation systems and such, it was clear that preparations had been made, and nothing seemed derelict in the slightest. But as Zhang Deming watched for a while, he couldn't spot a single person.

The entire domed Underground City was like a ghost town, feeling unnervingly quiet and strange. Even the bizarre light sources used for illumination seemed somewhat dim.

Zhang Deming observed with confusion for a while, then followed the surrounding passageways to check a few of the caves. He discovered that the inhabitants seemed to have disappeared only recently. Well, it was more like they had just left.

Furthermore, after entering several more caves, Zhang Deming's sharp senses told him that the inhabitants here might have been human.

'Why "might have been"?'

Because while it was obvious that humans had lived in them, the remaining traces suggested a very strange social structure.

It was definitely not the feudal social structure of the Hongmeng Outer World, nor did it resemble the modern social structure of the Celestial Universe. Instead, it was somewhat like the beehive structure of legends.

Or rather, it was like the stratified social structures from the sci-fi movies of his past life, where people had moved beyond natural birth and entered an era of genetic cultivation.

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