My setting is above yours!

Chapter 122 Ideal City Area A, "The Tower of Mirrors," a New World Setting! (4k6)

404 acted very quickly.

After informing Ron that she was taking him to Area A of Ideal City to meet the [Central AI], she took Ron's hand and quickly walked towards the surging space to the side—

In an instant, Ron saw the surging, seemingly chaotic space swallow 404 whole...

Ron could only see the chaotic fluctuations of space because he was too close. If he were farther away, the 404 would have disappeared little by little, as if being erased by an eraser.

Upon seeing this, Ron was momentarily stunned, recalling what he had seen in the version update PV:

'404 uses... the same teleportation method common to all Level 5 characters!'

'But... why is it a [spatial] ability?'

Ron frowned as he was pulled into the chaotic, fluctuating space by 404. He felt a subtle, icy sensation rise around him, engulfing and enveloping him...

Then, Ron saw a seven-colored, murky light appear before his eyes.

A sense of freedom washes over you, as if you are enveloped by water and swimming in the waves...

He opened his eyes and saw countless stars flying by, their vibrant colors painting his vision as if he had fallen directly into a sea of ​​stars.

But soon, he felt grounded, and with 404 he landed on the ground and stood on the street in Area A.

Ron suppressed the dizziness originating from his [Spatial] ability and subconsciously looked around, taking in the most important core of Ideal City—Sector A, which he had never been to before and had only glimpsed through version update PVs.

Then, Ron was stunned.

He saw many old buildings, some obviously old wind turbines, and some ancient buildings overgrown with weeds...

'What...is this?'

He looked around somewhat bewildered. To be honest, he had imagined what Area A of Ideal City would look like many times.

Whether it's top-tier technological creations, buildings far surpassing those in District B and standing at the pinnacle of technology, or giant magical courtyards belonging to magicians, or manors resembling those of ancient nobles, Ron can understand them all...

But he never imagined that... Ideal City Area A would look like an ordinary city from hundreds of years ago, like the metropolis where Ron lived before he traveled to Ideal City!
Although Area A of Ideal City was undoubtedly a magnificent metropolis in the era before Ron's transmigration, with its skyscrapers being something many cities simply couldn't support, in Ideal City's current era, Area A is even less impressive than Area C...

And, it's not just that.

Ron looked around, a deep sense of fear rising in his heart.

Not for any other reason, but because of the sky above—

He looked up and saw a hazy, seven-colored glow covering the sky above, extinguishing the midday sun and causing a blood moon to rise...

The enormous phantom of the gate still stands above the red moon, glaring menacingly at the mortal world!

Moreover, Ron even glimpsed other, somewhat blurry, phantom figures—

He saw a giant tree, a magnificent tree that shed golden light.

In a daze, Ron saw the giant tree transform into a human form, a gentle and maternal figure.

He spread out his thousand hands, stretching out his magnificent figure, and opened his scarlet eyes in his palms, his eyes filled with intense love, gently casting his gaze toward the Ideal City.
Ron saw another dark shadow.

The somber hues obscured half of the crimson moon, and a slender figure, wearing a pointed hat and appearing as ordinary as anyone else, emerged from the shadows, gently unfurling her robes and showering starlight upon the ideal city—

And so Ron saw the world crumble, the sea overflow, lava erupt, and dust fill the air...

Endless calamities were inflicted upon the ideal city; under the scourge, the city was destroyed and the sky collapsed!
'I... am dead?'

In that instant, a hint of confusion appeared in Ron's eyes.

A dark shadow suddenly fell upon his spirit.

The chilling malice continued to extend, about to etch patterns onto Ron's spirit.

But the next moment, Ron suddenly felt his hand being squeezed.

'If you're dead... how can you still feel touch?'

Having been through countless battles and influenced and confused countless times by [7]'s [world script], Ron suddenly woke up and came to his senses:
'I'm not dead! It was all an illusion!'

The next moment, the dark shadows on Ron's spirit body shattered and disappeared, no longer able to affect Ron in the slightest.

When Ron came to his senses, he almost slapped himself. He immediately lowered his head, looking at his and 404's toes, and dared not move his gaze any further.

Although there seemed to be some other shadows in the sky, Ron dared not look any further.

At this moment, 404, who had clearly noticed Ron's unusual behavior long ago, released his hand and said gently:

"There's no need to panic too much... Everything in the sky is just a reflection of the [spirit realm]."

"They have no power to influence reality. Everything you see is separated from you by the eternal foundation of the ideal city. Nothing can harm you. As long as you don't look up and stare at them, there won't be any major problems."

Hearing this, Ron relaxed a little, feeling his back soaked with cold sweat.

He couldn't help but ask:

"A reflection from the Spirit Realm? Why is it reflected in the sky above Area A?"

Upon hearing this, 404 paused slightly, his expression becoming somewhat complicated:

"Because of some...historical reasons."

"Ideal City Area A, the starting point when Ideal City was first built, the area that was built from the very beginning..."

"It is built at the boundary between the Spirit Realm and reality. The mainframe of the Anti-Mystic Equation, the Central Intelligence, was built here to resist the erosion of the Spirit Realm."

Upon hearing this, Ron's expression faltered slightly, thinking to himself, "Just as I thought."

'After all, the Ideal City was built by the victors in a war between the gods...'

'But when Ideal City was built, it was clearly still in the final stages of the God War. The God War was by no means over, otherwise there would be no reason for various crises to occur, such as the [xx Great Void]—'

'In that case, it seems that back then, Atina fought against other gods in the spirit world while establishing the foundation of her ideal city at the boundary between the spirit world and reality, and that's where she started...'

'No wonder this place looks so old... These old buildings are probably thousands of years old. Considering the special nature of Area A of Ideal City, probably no one would want to renovate this place or demolish and rebuild these buildings—'

'After all, who knows if demolishing this place might affect the Anti-Mystic Equation, leading to the Lords of All Spirits attacking reality?'

In this place where the spirit world and reality meet... you can never be too careful!

'I previously thought Ideal City didn't know much about the Spirit Realm, but now it seems I was too arrogant... How could Ideal City, with its foundation for creating a new era, not know about the Lords of All Spirits in the Spirit Realm?'

'But back then I was just too weak, and 404 didn't bother to explain anything to me, afraid of causing me unnecessary trouble...'

Ron was thinking to himself. Seeing his furrowed brow and pensive expression, 404 assumed Ron was frightened by the [Spirit Realm], and his tone immediately became teasing as he said:
"Now you know how terrifying the [Spirit Realm] is, right?" "Prometheus's [Experiment of Knowledge] is not so easy to solve... The experimental target of faster-than-light travel must rely on the power of the Spirit Realm, but so far all the 'space teleportation' abilities and magic arrays have been achieved by using Ideal City Area A as a transit point."

"If you want to complete Prometheus's Experiment of Knowledge, you must leave the protection of the Anti-Mystic Equation, leave the last borderland of Ideal City A, and head to the depths of the Spirit Realm..."

"Then, everything you just saw will be out of the way..."

Upon hearing this, Ron finally understood why, despite having numerous spatial ability users and a teleportation array like the Central Hub in Ideal City, Prometheus's Experiment of Knowledge was still incomplete...

Thinking of this, Ron suddenly felt enlightened, and a sudden realization dawned on him:
'So, all of this was accomplished thanks to the unique features of Area A of Ideal City…'

'So what Prometheus's experiment in seeking knowledge required wasn't so-called FTL technology, but rather a method of smuggling oneself into the true spirit world without being detected by the Lords of All Spirits!'

'What the hell should we do...'

Thinking about this, Ron suddenly felt a headache coming on, but after a moment of thought, he put the problem out of his mind.

'I'll do the Level 5 [Knowledge Experiment] later, when I'm almost at Level 5... Right now, the most important thing is to meet with the [Central Intelligence] and complete my [Ability Formula]!'

After thinking about this, Ron paused for a moment, then nodded and said:

"That's true... but the Lv.5 [Experiment of Knowledge] is not something I should be thinking about right now."

He spoke calmly, his tone revealing a clear confidence:

"Maybe, once I reach Lv.4, I'll have the ability to face all of that?"

Face it all?
Looking at Ron's confident expression, 404 couldn't help but find it somewhat amusing.

Facing those gods head-on... how could a mere Lv.4 be enough?

But considering that Ron was already the most promising superhuman she had seen recently, she wasn't going to affect his confidence, and simply shook her head and said:

"Let's wait until then to talk about it."

"Come with me... I'll take you to see the [Central Intelligence]."

After saying that, 404 lazily walked down the street.

Ron immediately followed behind her, and before long, he suddenly felt as if he had broken through a thin membrane, passing through an invisible and almost non-existent layer of air on the street—

Then he saw something that he hadn't seen at all when he looked around.

It was a tall tower... It had no unique accessories or special engravings, only a pure silver mirror as the surface of the tower, forming a tower that pierced the sky like a spear.

This is a tower made of mirrors!

"arrive."

At the same time, 404 stopped and whispered:

"This is the location of the Central Intelligence... the Mirror Tower, one of the core areas of Ideal City."

"Follow me closely from now on—you do not have the authority. If you are outside the scope of my authority, the Mirror Tower will swallow you into the mirror to fill the computational redundancy of the Central Intelligence."

"I think you probably don't want to become a reflection in a mirror, unable to escape it for the rest of your life, and constantly having your computing power extracted to calculate formulas, right?"

Upon hearing this, Ron immediately became somewhat tense.

So, if something happens here, you don't actually die, but are imprisoned forever and forced to do math problems?

'What kind of eternal torment is this?'

Thinking of this, Ron shuddered and immediately followed closely behind 404, almost turning into a sloth and clinging to her.

404 lazily led Ron to the bottom of the Mirror Tower, took out a small, round, pure silver mirror, first looked at his own face, and then pointed it at a pure silver mirror surface of the Mirror Tower.

A voice, indistinguishable between male and female, then rang out:

"Sector [Hestia], administrator, access request [pointer] 404 has been approved."

The next moment, Ron saw the pure silver mirror ripple like water. 404 lazily took Ron's hand and casually said:

"Alright, just come in with me..."

Then, she led Ron through the mirror, which suddenly rippled like water.

Ron felt a subtle warmth, as if he had been wrapped in a cotton coat for a moment, and even felt inexplicably dizzy.

But he quickly regained his senses.

Because the blurred silver ripples in front of him had disappeared, he and 404 had passed through the pure silver mirror and entered the [Tower of Mirrors].

The scene inside the Mirror Tower was different from what Ron had imagined. He had expected to see some sophisticated server room, some giant operating terminals, and what the Central AI looked like in reality—

But in reality, when Ron stepped into the mirror, all he could see was a square mirror made of pure silver.

A pristine white spiral staircase rises from the bottom to the top of the tower. The staircase is made of suspended pure white bricks. Despite having nowhere to stack them for support, it floats in the air, leaving no doubt about its load-bearing capacity.

Around this spiral staircase, floating are rows of pure silver square mirrors, each seemingly containing a blurry black silhouette. Some are human-shaped, some are beast-shaped, and some are indistinguishable, just simple, chaotic shadows...

But none of that matters.

Ron's gaze had already pierced through the countless pure silver square mirrors, landing on the giant mirror embedded at the very top of the tower—

In this silvery-white mirror, a slender, genderless shadow sits on a throne also made of shadow, with a blurry, heavy crown on its head.

He seemed to notice Ron's gaze and gave Ron a slight nod in polite greeting!
The moment Ron saw Him, he felt a sense of disorientation. Even though it was just a silhouette, it filled Ron with an overwhelming feeling of closeness and respect.

But he quickly regained his senses, and a thoughtful look appeared in his eyes as he gazed at the silhouette reflected in the dome's mirror:

'This shadow...this is definitely no ordinary shadow!'

'A deity…only a deity could give me this feeling—He even very politely indicated to me that He was definitely a benevolent deity!'

'Who is He? Is it Atina, or one of the other gods who stands on the side of the Ideal City?'

'Hmm...judging from his appearance, he probably isn't the Lord of Time...'

Ron pondered silently, but suddenly, a familiar mechanical voice rang in his ears:
[Anchor point detected. World setting generated: "Science", "Gods", "Starry Sea"...]

[The anchor for this setting has been detected to still be alive. The assimilation process has been terminated, and the individual world setting "science" has been extracted.]

Ron's eyes widened in surprise as he stared at the screen displaying the Dimensional Update Manual.

At this moment, clicking the "Create New World" option reveals a new setting: aside from the "Void" setting that already existed, Ron hasn't gained any new "setting anchors" yet.

【science】!
Now, he is able to use the world settings of [Void] and [Science] to create a completely new world!
(End of this chapter)