He is the leader of the Tantric sect in Chagdu.

Chapter 135 The Fox's Farming Diary

February 4, 2078, Sunday morning at 7:00 AM.

Lin was awakened by the angry shouting from the living room.

Even though it was a rare weekend without a bunch of trivial matters, I still couldn't sleep in until I naturally woke up.

Lin, the current head steward of Golden Dawn, walked out of her room with a gloomy morning grumpiness. She looked up and saw a barefoot fox hopping around on the sofa.

"What's wrong with you so early in the morning?!"

After passing through the kitchen, Lin grabbed a bottle of ice-cold beer and walked over to Ai Yi. Without hesitation, she stuffed the ice-cold can into the back of the fox's neck.

"Ugh—!"

Naturally, there was a burst of squeaking and yelping, and her beautiful big tail instantly exploded into a ball—which made her even more beautiful—Aiyi the fox fell into the soft sofa, and after a moment she slowly raised her head.

"When did it come from—"

He seemed a little dazed, not like he was faking it, but like he had suffered some huge blow.

"You stayed up all night again?"

Lin clicked her tongue in dissatisfaction, looked around the living room but didn't see any familiar figures. "Where's Miya? Doesn't she care about you? I think you're almost useless."

"Still sleeping."

Ai yawned, looking a bit listless. "It seems to be a racial habit—although there's no winter here, the little snake seems to have started hibernating recently. It's not as extreme as lying down for months on end, but it's still very sleepy. It probably won't wake up until the afternoon."

"No wonder she hasn't been making breakfast lately —"

Lin muttered under her breath, then suddenly grabbed one of the fox's ears and raised her voice, "I'm talking to you now—"

"Hey! I'm going to legislate at Golden Dawn someday, making weekend disturbances a serious offense—do you know how hard it's been for me to sleep in lately?"

"Wrong, wrong—" Knowing it was in the wrong, the fox moved at lightning speed, gently twitching its ears to break free from Lin's grasp and slithered to the other end of the sofa.

He sighed, "I was mainly just angry. Ugh—is every second game in every world like this?!"

'

"Huh?" Lin tilted her head.

Ai Yi casually turned on the sharing mode of her personal interaction panel, and a light screen was projected into the air.

"Look—"

He pointed to the high-definition anime character illustration on the gacha screen, dressed in gorgeous attire, and declared righteously, "Including the ten pulls I just did, that's seven pity pulls in total, and I got nothing! — I just wanted to pull one to raise for fun, why is it so hard?"

"————" The other person's lips twitched a few times. "So, you're yelling like this first thing in the morning because you're obsessed with playing mobile games?"

"No way—" Ai Yi stubbornly insisted, but his drooping ears betrayed his guilty conscience. "I still did a lot of important things."

"hehe."

Lin was originally wavering between cat and dog factions, but in her recent daily life, she has firmly leaned towards the "cat faction"—after all, canines like foxes are really annoying, not only bothersome but also destructive to the house—and when you want to discipline them, you can't bring yourself to be harsh when you look at their cute and pitiful little faces.

So she gave him the middle finger, "You son of a bitch!"

"Listen to me, don't be in such a hurry." Ai pressed down the finger Lin had raised, her expression sincere. "Don't you want to ask what amazing things I've been up to lately?"

'

'

Lin thought for a moment and decided to give the fox a chance. She nodded, signaling the fox to speak.

"Look."

Ai raised her hand, drawing a highlight on the projected screen, then tilted her head back proudly and declared, "In the overall power rankings, I'm now number one in the entire server—"

"You Ma Yi "6

For the next minute, the fox crawled around the sofa like a cat-like worm in the shadows. Lin couldn't catch him, and he had a whole list of excuses: "Don't say I'm slacking off—I've just been really bored lately. Ever since the organization got on track, I'm just a half-baked political figure, a pure mascot. You can't expect me to be of any help in the actual operations, can you?"

—That's true.

Two months have passed since the official establishment of the Golden Dawn. During this time, apart from the initial need to deal with the hostility or goodwill coming from all directions of the hive, which required Ai to personally handle, everything went well after the most important god among them—the "Foundation"—fell silent.

After all, as the elder brother of Hallownest—when the Foundation took the lead in shifting its diplomatic stance into an "ambiguous period"—it would be rather impolite for those noisy factions to continue to hold onto the previous "unpleasantness."

Those who can establish themselves in the realm of mystery are not simple-minded individuals. The Foundation's choice to remain silent and appease the situation effectively signifies that the sole official authority of Hallownest, the monarch and authority of mysticism, has acknowledged the "legitimate status" of the Golden Dawn.

From that moment on, a new World Wing was truly crowned.

—Everyone saw it, the foundation did it first!

What happened next was quite simple—if you don't step in and build connections at a time like this, you'll never be invited when the big shots get together for a party in the future.

So the "choosing sides" phase went smoothly, and what followed was a long, ambiguous tug-of-war.

As we all know, the honeymoon period after a marriage is a sweet and romantic time, and this applies to diplomacy at the level of "giant corporations" and even "wings".

The foundation remained relatively reserved, as it needed to maintain its authority and prestige and couldn't afford to take the loss of face lightly. Regarding the accountability for that massive disaster, they said they would discuss it at a later date, but the specific time for this "later date" would probably be a topic that couldn't be discussed in detail.

As for the other side, the giant corporations of the city, the "Mega-Corpse Alliance" headquartered in Upper City, their offensive was far more intense than that of the Foundation, including but not limited to:

"Hey bro, does your Singularity need any security guards? My useless researchers have never seen anything good before, could they come over and learn from you?"

"Boss, I know there's a bunch of shameless bastards secretly sucking up to you, but I'm different from those slutty bitches. I'm sucking up openly and honestly!"

Of course, those giant companies would never be so obsequious on the surface, but judging from the constant stream of handwritten letters sent to her (handwritten letters are the highest level of social etiquette in Nest), and the 99+ letters that she consistently received in her inbox every day, Ai could roughly imagine the above context.

As for those scattered unofficial factions and mysterious folk societies, if they were able to sense the aftermath of this "Holy Nest shift" and react normally, they would all desperately side with the Golden Dawn without exception.

Don't ask why, the answer is always that they want to be dogs. Of course, Ai's attitude towards these guys is always the same: "leave them alone for now."

You can't let people think your place is some kind of public bus that anyone can get on.

In short, once the initial period of turmoil had passed, there was very little that Ai could do. For the suburbs, the most important task was to restore production, and the fox couldn't help much with that. So, like drawing cards, they could only dig out the useful ones from a bunch of mediocre suburban people and fill them into positions one by one.

So far, the work is progressing smoothly. Once the factories on Kane Street have resumed operations, at least for the time being, the suburbs no longer need constant external support to survive, and have finally escaped the awkward situation of being "nomadic".

However, this is still far from enough.

"Please, we're starving!" Ai kicked her feet and rolled her eyes.

Farming is not a simple matter. Fortunately, it is not a huge country to manage, but only a few hundred thousand suburban natives with a higher proportion of idiots than normal people.

—That sounds even more torturous.

For a faction of this size, Ai's concerns extend beyond simply feeding everyone; after all, food is not a particularly precious resource in the hive.

But what is most needed to establish authority and proclaim power is "influence," but unfortunately, this ethereal thing cannot be built up overnight.

For a behind-the-scenes organization to get the entire nest, or even all of humanity, to conform to its ideology, at the very least—you need someone to listen to what you say, right?

Force is only one aspect. In addition, you need to have people under your command, outstanding talent, good treatment, sufficient resources, high cohesion, mastery of core technologies, independent research and development capabilities, and basic say in the Muggle world.

All you can do is frame F2A; are you farming a market?

The Foundation is influential because they control the lifeline of the entire hive—even without considering the three singularities, just in terms of "resources" in the secular sense—and if you were to calculate the amount the Foundation controls, it would be an astronomical figure that is difficult to describe.

They have a presence in countless industries, and the foundation's members are scattered throughout every corner of the city. They are the "behind-the-scenes figures" in almost every major sector: finance, media, physical industry, and the internet. Being an authority on mysticism is just one of the most fundamental identities under their throne. Even without this "mystic veil," their size and influence are unbelievably vast.

In layman's terms: they have a lot of people, a lot of money, and a lot of resources. Everyone has to listen to what they say, the rules they set are the law, and their fists are strong enough.

—And they cheated.

This is definitely not a green player.

"This is so frustrating—" Aiabaaba, "The thought of leading a bunch of oddballs to fight the Foundation for influence is giving me Jade Syndrome."

On the other hand, the giant corporations are slightly inferior to foundations, but in terms of "foundation," they are incomparable to the current Golden Dawn.

The existence of the "singularity" only narrows the gap between the suburbs and the older generation: it's like an Iv10 newbie getting an overpowered skill mechanism and reaching the ceiling, but still having to rely on experience points to improve the stats.

Of course, if the nest only contained giant corporations, relying on the singularity to forcibly "flip the table" would be an option, but with the existence of a supermodel giant like the Foundation, Ai Yi has no choice but to follow the rules first.

My fist isn't even as big as his, so I'll just have to put up with it for now.

"So, the three main problems right now are—lack of money, lack of money, and fucking lack of money!" Ai gritted her teeth as she thought of this.

The concept of "money" here is rather vague. For exchanges between "wings" at this level, secular forms of "currency" are not that important. However, the Golden Dawn needs to use some "equivalents" to rebuild their own mess.

To put it another way: In the existing structure of the city, how much overt or covert benefit can Golden Dawn provide to the group that was originally sitting together?

—The adult world is so realistic and cruel. Without the power to overturn the table, you can only endure it for now. "Still enduring, still enduring—"

Looking at the sullen fox, Lin couldn't help but complain, "Don't forget how many layers of fur you've already squeezed from those giant companies, and you're still putting up with it?"

"You don't understand—every day I face a bunch of old foxes in sheep's clothing. The greed in their eyes is so intense it could spit fire. Those so-called dog directors and cat directors, although they are polite to us, secretly want to suck the marrow out of me."

Thinking about the torment of working with those old foxes, the little fox sighed, "Capitalists are terrifying, but luckily I'm a cut above the rest."

Having the technology in hand, things like "technology exchange" are essentially freebies; why not take advantage of them?

But that's still not enough—for those giant corporations, there are high expectations for the singularity technology of the Golden Dawn.

It is speculation in nature similar to "gambling": paying a price that is acceptable to oneself in order to gamble that the other party will have a moment of madness and actually reveal some of their best secrets.

Even without any technological gains, it can still strengthen the relationship with the new wing, making it a perfectly acceptable investment.

Those old foxes who wear the title of "director" are all cunning and wicked: they seem to be getting along well, and everyone is smiling at each other, but if a fundamental conflict arises, they will not hesitate to take drastic measures.

The foundation's ability to maintain its "uniqueness" stems from its authority in the mystical world. As for the major corporations, they also possess irreplaceable "characteristics": for example, Cardinal Heavy Industries' extremely high weight in heavy industry, Mizu Life's unique position in the medical field, and so on, including food, finance, precision manufacturing—in various fields, every force that can be remembered in the hyper-information age of Nest City has an unshakable foundation.

Golden Dawn has not yet found its "position," in fact—it is far from growing to the size of those old-school warlords.

These all require time to accumulate.

At present, facing an insurmountable gap in terms of foundation, Ai found three ways to deal with it: The first one is of course the popular method of poaching, such as when someone said that researchers should be sent over to visit the singularity, of course that's no problem!

But whether one returns or not is a different matter altogether—or rather, a different way of putting it.

The second option is external sales: as a mysterious faction, they certainly cannot openly promote their influence in the Muggle world, but they can still interfere discreetly.

The foundation turns a blind eye to this: In the past, even if some daring folk mystical societies tried to proselytize to ordinary people, as long as you didn't do something as reckless as "showing off your divine power" or "collective sacrifice," you would most likely only attract a few annoying police stations and wouldn't be seriously targeted for crackdown.

After all, in a place like the Nest City, there is so much useless information every day that it can drown you. For example, information about some "supernatural case" happening somewhere can be eliminated by marketing accounts' "Approaching Science" columns without the foundation having to do anything.

Therefore, Ai Yi also thought of another strategy, such as sending a group of people from the suburbs who were not completely out of touch with society back to the city, putting them back to work in small companies so that they could support themselves and even give back to the organization.

By the way—remind them to chat with their colleagues whenever they have a spare moment—

—Friend, have you ever heard of the messenger of light?

Of course, I don't expect anyone to actually believe it, but as long as I leave a name in people's hearts, that's enough for Ai Yi. As for whether there really is a group of people who are tired of ordinary life and step into the mysterious side under the temptation of the intangible, that's a later claim.

In conclusion, the second developmental method is merely an add-on and will not amount to much.

There is a third type —

"It's time for the next communication cycle."

Ai Yi got up from the sofa, stubbornly tried another ten-pull, and finally closed the game amidst a blue sky and white clouds, speaking softly.

"Have the pioneers sent by the Bottom Nest still not found that Aina guy?"