My wife, who's in a vegetative state, please stop eavesdropping on my thoughts.

"Sabhi"

The next second, the parrot flapped its wings twice, puffed out its chest, and immediately started cursing.

Weiss and Aunt Bai's expressions shattered almost simultaneously.

Ok.

This thing can actually talk.

After a few seconds of stunned silence, Weiss and Aunt Bai both retreated back into the carriage with unsatisfied expressions, ceasing all communication with each other.

"Wait, its name is Sapi, and it's introducing itself!"

"Fuck you!!"

The slightly flustered explanation from outside came through, but it was immediately drowned out by the parrot's clear and loud profanity.

So neither Aunt Bai nor Weiss were fooled again, and instead of responding, they directly instructed Sebastian to hurry up and leave.

Wei Xiao: Hahahahahahahahaha!!!

In their view, this young lady from the Wilderges family was simply a random passerby chosen to be punished.

It's a pity that this wave of infections occurred.

However, one shouldn't argue with an animal; that would be far too unbecoming of a nobleman.

For the next two days, the carriage traveled smoothly on the official road leading to the capital. The number of pedestrians and carriages on the road increased, and almost all the noble caravans were escorted by members of the night patrol.

Mona, who was sitting in the car in front and was bored, would occasionally chat with the members of the Night Patrol Headquarters.

Unfortunately, Nefertir and Vera were together before, but the attack by the caged bird interrupted their journey. Only Mona and Sebastian came to pick them up immediately, while the remaining maids and guards followed far behind.

In the carriage behind.

While pretending to be lost in thought and admiring the scenery, Weiss secretly practiced his wind field abilities.

After a week of continuous training, the wind field's coverage radius has expanded from 5 kilometers when it first woke up to about 7 kilometers.

Then, Weiss finally felt the bottleneck.

No matter how focused he was on his cultivation, the outermost layer of the wind field seemed to have hit an invisible wall, and he could not break through it even slightly no matter how he tried.

It seems that this is the highest limit of the values ​​for an 8th-level climate master.

"If I stop taking potions, my climate master abilities will likely stagnate..."

"Furthermore, there are no Feathered Ones to kill here, and there's no way to increase killing experience in the short term."

Weiss sighed inwardly, feeling somewhat helpless.

Now, all we can do is hope for a new breakthrough opportunity in the capital.

"Ding!"

Just then, a crisp notification sound rang in my ears.

Upon hearing that pleasant voice, Weiss's heart skipped a beat, and he almost reflexively opened the World Book.

Sure enough, the progress screen, which had dimmed, lit up again, and golden light shone from the pages of the book.

A line of golden text slowly appeared in the void.

Current location changed

Royal City Exploration Progress: 1.7%

Upon seeing this line of handwriting, Weiss's mood immediately brightened considerably.

We've finally found the second main storyline!!!

As expected, the region determination in the World Book is reset as geographical location changes.

Having visited so many new towns without unlocking them, he was actually a little panicked, wondering if his progress in Moonlit City was blocking the main storyline.

Fortunately, Wangcheng District

The domain determination was successful.

Immediately afterwards, another line of golden text appeared.

World Book: The version has been automatically updated; a reward option can be unlocked every 5% of progress.

Weiss's heart stirred slightly.

"Every five percentage points...?"

"That means there are a total of 20 reward opportunities within the royal city."

"However, the exploration difficulty is estimated to be much higher than that of Moonlit City, and correspondingly, the rewards will likely be much more generous."

In fact, when he first got the World Book, because the exploration progress didn't change for a long time, Weiss thought he would have to search every house and every room, just like opening treasure chests one by one in an open-world mobile game.

But in reality, it seems that all you need to do now is experience the more important main storyline events.

The operating logic of the World Book was much simpler than he had imagined.

Thinking of this, Weiss's sense of anticipation quietly rose a little.

Before long, the carriage drove up a slightly higher slope.

The view suddenly opened up from the top of the slope.

Vis finally saw the outline of the royal city.

His expression froze instantly.

On the distant horizon, a colossal city of breathtaking scale stands silently. Behind the city walls, countless buildings of varying heights rise up like stone pillars, with the tallest towers piercing the clouds, their spires almost disappearing into the low-hanging clouds.

The entire city was covered with a layer of pure white ice crystals, resembling a white palace sculpted from ice and snow.

Strangely, there was no chill in the air, as if it were a pure ice sculpture decoration.

Weiss could not even imagine what it was like inside the city walls.

"Finally, we're back in the royal city..."

A slightly wistful voice came from beside me.

She sat on the windowsill, her expression filled with a particularly complex sense of longing.

Weiss glanced at Aunt Bai but didn't ask any further questions.

Soon, the convoy gradually approached the city gate of the royal city.

They immediately noticed something was amiss.

A large number of young men and women dressed in uniform were gathered in the square in front of the city gate, looking like students from an academy.

They were holding up all sorts of banners and placards, shouting something at the night patrol members guarding the city.

It looks like they're protesting.

It's quite a big deal.

The night patrol members guarding the city all wore helpless expressions. They dared not drive them away or agree with them, and could only pretend to be dead as if nothing had happened.

Mona, who was in the front carriage, also noticed this situation.

As was her duty as a guard, she stepped down from the carriage first, walked over to a familiar member of the night patrol, and asked in a low voice:

What's going on?

"You can't say anything reckless. Go inside and read the newspaper yourself..."

The night patrol member gave a wary hiss, clearly not daring to express any opinion under the watchful eyes of the trainees, his gaze constantly shifting.

Mona had no choice but to turn around and go back to the carriage.

Weiss was actually already using the wind field to eavesdrop.

However, he didn't quite understand...

The students seemed to be shouting something about lard.

What does it mean...

Is lard some new and new swear word?

Weiss didn't quite understand this.

One minute later, as the identity verification process ended, the Serenenis family's small convoy passed through the city gate without any hindrance.

They officially entered the royal city.

To be honest, once I entered the royal city, the feeling was quite different.

It's a bit like the difference between a starting village and the main city in an online game.

Even the background music became more upbeat.

Anyone who's played an MMORPG should understand...

The streets are at least several times wider than those of Moonlit City, with tall and ornate buildings on both sides, and shop signs inlaid with jewels and metal decorations everywhere.

Many of the mansions are over ten meters tall.

At the same time, Weiss also noticed that the streets were full of uniformed students holding banners and marching in protest, creating a scene of fervent fervor.

He was genuinely curious.

He then told Sebastian to stop, ran to the roadside to buy a few newspapers, and handed one to Mona in the car in front of him.

Back in the carriage, Aunt Bai immediately came over.

Even Elune was secretly using her lunar powers to spy on people.

Weiss turned to the headline page.

The newspaper headline was in extremely large font size—

The number of the seven direct guards has been expanded to eight, and the selection of Ice Princess has sparked strong protests from the academic faction.

The content is as follows—

Recently, academics in major cities have organized marches and protests.

The reason for this was the addition of two new members to Snow White's seven personal guards—Snow Knight and Winter Duke—both former top students of the academy. Following long-standing tradition, the guards were always selected from elite members of the academy's factions.

However, this time Lady Snow broke with tradition, choosing a noblewoman from a southern border town, naming her "Ice Princess," and officially expanding her direct guard to eight people.

This move caused a huge uproar within academia.

At this point, Weiss still hadn't realized the seriousness of the situation.

They assumed these academic students were just being nosy, bored and with nothing better to do than interfere with decisions about the Seven Wonders of the World.

However, when I saw the last two paragraphs...

He almost choked on his own saliva.

In response, within the Lunette family, one of the Ten Kings, the Little Sword Saint, publicly voiced his support for Ice Princess's selection, declaring that all the brain-dead members of the academy faction, including the seven direct guards, were livestock that had eaten raw lard.

In the following days, the young swordsman manipulated the market price of lard on a large scale through the commercial channels under the Lunette family, causing the price of lard in several towns around the royal city to skyrocket several times over within three days. This action did not bring any substantial benefits; it was purely an open provocation against the academic school, further escalating the controversy.

Upon seeing the end of this news report, Weiss's expression became quite interesting.

No wonder he heard someone protesting against lard earlier.

How should I put it? Is the atmosphere in the royal city really that free?

Generally speaking, verbal abuse is fine, but actually manipulating lard prices is practically a masterpiece of performance art, isn't it?

It's quite bizarre, to say the least.

"Actually, it wasn't this exaggerated more than 20 years ago..."

Seeing Weiss's tense expression, Aunt Bai felt a little guilty and whispered an explanation.

Then, Weiss continued flipping through the pages.

The following news items were almost all about Bingfei.

Ice Queen, the eighth person chosen by Snow White in this era.

Rumors circulate that she has already mastered three secret pathways at only level 8, making her a once-in-a-century genius, and she is expected to surpass Night Patrol Snow Queen within ten years.