The whole nation is trying to survive on the cable car; I'm choosing one of three options at ea

"Commander Bai, please have a seat."

Bai Liuxi sat down in the empty seat next to her teacher. She sat upright, with her hands flat on her knees and her eyes looking straight ahead.

The middle soldier with graying hair spoke first. His voice wasn't loud, but it possessed the calm composure characteristic of someone long accustomed to a high position. "Commander Bai, we've received your report on the progress of this mission. The basic procedures were as expected... contact the new batch of infiltrators, provide limited assistance, and evacuate at the appropriate time. However, the report mentioned some...things that are outside the norm."

He paused for a moment.

"That survivor named Su Mu. You had several direct contacts with him. What are your thoughts on him?"

Bai Liuxi didn't pause. She recounted her encounter with Su Mu from beginning to end... In the probing exchange in the Dark Zone, she was clearly at a disadvantage in the brief confrontation; when they fought together against the level 10 green hunter, Su Mu almost killed her with a single shot; and later, in the battle outside Ash City, he single-handedly suppressed the level 12 purple ice witch and, with her cooperation, killed the zombie king.

She spoke concisely, accurately, and without any embellishment. But when she mentioned Su Mu's last few battles, her speech slowed down noticeably, as if she was carefully choosing her words.

"Furthermore... I suspect he possesses some kind of bloodline aura. During that final battle, a golden halo appeared on his skin. It wasn't a skill, nor a special effect from equipment, but more like..."

"More like what?" The gray-haired soldier leaned forward slightly.

"It's like a bloodline," Bai Liuxi said, "and a gold-level bloodline at that. I've seen a similar description of that aura in a record before. If my judgment is correct, the purity of the gold bloodline within him is extremely high, and it might even be some kind of rare species."

The room was silent for a few seconds.

The gray-haired soldier leaned back in his chair and exchanged a glance with the person next to him. The woman next to him, who looked to be around fifty years old and was wearing a dark blue military uniform, spoke first, her tone filled with undisguised shock.

"Seven days. From entering this world to killing the Zombie King, it only took him seven days. That's impossible. Even the top talents recorded in our history... those called 'geniuses'... it would take them at least a year to reach the same level of combat power. And that's with a complete training system and resource support."

Another officer chimed in, "Our current training system is much more refined, and the selection mechanism is more precise than before. Even so, it still takes at least two to three years to go from zero to being able to independently handle level twelve purple monsters. For exceptionally gifted individuals, this can be reduced to about a year. But seven days..."

He didn't finish speaking, but everyone understood what he had left unsaid.

Bai Liuxi remained silent. She knew those numbers, and she knew they were true. If someone said that someone could reach that level of combat power in seven days, she would also find it absurd. But she had seen it with her own eyes, experienced it firsthand.

"His growth rate is abnormal," the gray-haired soldier concluded, "but that's not a bad thing. We've always been looking for people who can truly stand on their own two feet in this world... those seeds who can forge their own path without our protection. This Su Mu..."

He glanced at the documents on the table.

"Encountering a ghostly siege is extremely rare. To our knowledge, there have only been a handful of documented cases, and most of them failed. If he can leave that area alive, then he certainly deserves our close attention. He's worth the effort to win over."

Bai Liuxi paused, then said, "I left a token in the ice staff I gave him. It can sense whether the cable he's on has been damaged."

The gray-haired soldier raised an eyebrow slightly, a barely perceptible smile playing at the corners of his lips. "Well done."

"What if he hadn't been able to leave that area?" Bai Liuxi asked. Her tone was calm, as if she were asking about something that had nothing to do with her.

The gray-haired soldier didn't answer immediately. He glanced down at the map on the table, tapping lightly twice on a certain area. That area was marked in a darker color than the rest, with an irregular red arc drawn around its edge... that was the marker for the area where strange creatures gathered.

"That's a pity."

He spoke softly, but every word was clear.

.......

The cable car slowly spiraled above Ash City.

Su Mu stood by the window, his gaze passing through the glass and landing on the city ruins below.

The cable car's trajectory followed the inner circle of the city wall... as if drawing a giant circle around it, neither accelerating away nor slowing down to stop. The night wind blew through the steel cables, causing the carriage to sway slightly, and the ruins of Ash City outside the window shone with a dim, burnt gray hue under the moonlight.

He saw that the dense, eerie creatures along the edge of the city wall were still in place... maintaining their siege posture, as if frozen in place. But upon closer inspection, their bodies were wriggling slightly, like a prelude to some kind of awakening.

Su Mu withdrew his gaze and opened the chat channel.

The atmosphere in the channel was completely different from when he first came back.

Just hours ago, those people were discussing the tragic sacrifices of the military, mourning Zhao Derong's death, and repeatedly saying the words "strong wind." But now, those heavy emotions have been diluted by new topics... Life must go on, and the living must continue to live.

"Individual competition...what kind of format do you think it will take?"

"I'm guessing it'll be direct combat. Like an arena in a game, two people fighting in a ring."

"I definitely can't do that. I'm only level three; I'd just be feeding them."

"If there's a ranking, there should be rewards, right? Otherwise, why would anyone bother playing?"

"There must be rewards, otherwise what's the point of having this feature? The important thing is what the rewards are."

"Cable-only instance: 'Ash City'... We just came out of Ash City, and now we have to go back?"

"A copy is definitely different from reality, right? It might be a simulation or a replica."

"If it's a replica, will those who died inside before... appear in the form of monsters?"

After the message was sent, the channel was silent for two seconds. Then someone typed an ellipsis followed by "Damn it, don't scare people."

Su Mu continued scrolling down and saw more and more people discussing guilds.

"The system-recognized guild has finally arrived. The previous guilds were all privately established, without system protection; once you joined, it was entirely up to the other party's conscience."