"If you can fly, just follow behind me; it's not far. We should get there quickly. But if we keep dilly-dallying, it might not be the case."

Zhou Muxi shook her mobile phone's GPS for emphasis.

"Does the phone show the exact location? Although I don't fly often, I use teleportation a lot. I can just open an Arbitrary Gate and teleport over."

While speaking, Zhang Yanhang waved his hand and opened a blue rectangular Arbitrary Gate right at the office's main entrance. Through the gate, one could see the scenery directly opposite, which seemed to be a suburban area.

Or more specifically, it was the Jiaozhou Industrial Zone, and Jiaozhou was a county-level city under the jurisdiction of Qin Island City, neighboring other county-level cities like Pingdu and High-density, also under Qin Island City.

"Why didn't you say earlier that you could teleport?"

Zhou Muxi had been agonizing over whether Zhang Yanhang would dawdle and refuse to compromise, in which case she might have to remove her shoes.

But it turned out she had worried for nothing. Or rather, she realized that Zhang Yanhang apparently valued the Transmission Channel much more than she did. As soon as he heard they might not have enough time, he immediately opened the teleportation without hesitation, whether or not the phone's location was correct. Zhou Muxi wasn't sure whether to be happy or...

"You didn't ask, did you?"

Zhang Yanhang couldn't understand why Zhou Muxi could ask such a question so confidently, so he chose to answer her just as confidently. Anyway, he just couldn't lose in terms of momentum.

"Just because I didn't ask, you wouldn't say anything?"

Zhou Muxi vaguely felt a sense of déjà vu with the words she was saying now, reminiscing about some cheesy lines from a romance drama she had watched when bored.

"You kept asking if I could fly; I didn't have the chance to mention it."

Zhang Yanhang stood his ground, feeling that he indeed had every right to do so.

"Enough talk, let's go through the Teleportation Gate."

Zhou Muxi already had a strong sense of déjà vu with such lines; she feared if they continued this dialogue, her inner domineering CEO might just go ahead and forcefully kiss Zhang Yanhang.

"Okay."

Zhang Yanhang readily agreed and stepped into the Jiaozhou Industrial Zone through the Arbitrary Gate.

"..."

Observing Zhang Yanhang's sudden change of attitude when transmission channels were involved, Zhou Muxi irrationally felt a bit peeved. Nevertheless, peeved as she may be, she obediently followed him through the Arbitrary Gate into the Jiaozhou Industrial Zone.

...

October 29, Thursday, four days after the Double Ninth Festival, also the first day Zhang Yanhang had left the Ashen World. At 9:06 am, Qin Island City, Jiaozhou Industrial Zone.

"Your Teleportation Gate is really accurate. No deviation at all."

Zhou Muxi glanced at the surroundings, then compared it with the map on her phone, noting that the position of the Transmission Channel was just two meters in front of them.

"Of course, I might not use the Flying Technique often, but I really use Teleportation Gates a lot."

Because there were free uses available each day, Zhang Yanhang often used teleportation to get around. Well, that's relative since he usually didn't go out much, but compared to the Flying Technique, which he had only used a few times, teleportation was indeed much more frequent.

"Now that we're in the suburbs, hurry up and give me that Yin Yang Mother-Child Tree."

Ever since she had received Zhang Yanhang's message, Zhou Muxi had been looking forward to seeing the actual appearance of the twenty-meter high and two-meter diameter Yin Yang Mother-Child Tree that he had reportedly stumbled upon during a nighttime stroll.

"Okay."

Zhang Yanhang, ever so eager to trade something he couldn't use for something useful, immediately pulled out the Yin Yang Mother-Child Tree from his Waist Bag.

Looking at the enormous Yin Yang Mother-Child Tree that Zhang Yanhang held up, with its massive interwoven roots, Zhou Muxi realized she might have completely underestimated it, "This is more than twenty meters? With the roots included, isn't this like forty meters? And, how come there are two trees?"

"Yin Yang Mother-Child Tree, Yin and Yang, mother and child, wouldn't it be strange if there weren't two trees?"

Because Zhou Muxi hadn't taken it, Zhang Yanhang continued holding the Yin Yang Mother-Child Tree, which was quite uncomfortable, especially since his face was against the tree trunk.

"That's true. Two trees are quite normal indeed, especially looking at these roots; they seem to be in a symbiotic relationship, which probably allows for the Yin and Yang transformation."

Although she had yet to begin absorbing them, just a simple feel of the abundant Yin Qi and Yang Qi inside made Zhou Muxi think that if she absorbed this tree, she could probably save four to five weeks of intense cultivation and advance to Fourth Tier on the spot, much better than the best scenario she had previously estimated.

In such a situation, Zhou Muxi really had to admit that a Lucky Awakened was truly fortuitous. Just an evening stroll could result in finding such high-level and conspicuous Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures that nobody seemed to care about.

Seeing how Zhang Yanhang seemed a bit troubled holding the two Yin Yang Mother-Child Trees, Zhou Muxi didn't waste any more words. Instead, she quickly stored the Yin Yang Mother-Child Tree inside her eyes, or rather, into the small world of the "Chaotic Eye."

Zhou Muxi really wanted to start absorbing the Yin Qi and Yang Qi from the Yin Yang Mother-Child Tree right away, but with the Fourth Tier Permanent Transmission Channel about to open, it really wasn't a good time. So she decided to wait until Zhang Yanhang had dealt with the Fourth Tier Permanent Teleportation Channel before going back to absorb it slowly.

Also, she felt that promoting her rank was something that indeed required a suitable and safe environment.

"We have less than ten minutes until the Fourth Tier Permanent Transmission Channel opens. I need to start setting up the Barrier now. Just wait a bit, it won't take long."

As she spoke, Zhou Muxi began pulling out a large bag of strange Artifacts from her eyes, most likely related to Barrier setup, that Zhang Yanhang didn't recognize.

"Just setting up the Barrier? There's no need to evacuate the people?"

Based on Zhang Yanhang's scanning results, the Jiaozhou Industrial Zone may not have a population density as high as downtown areas, but the number of workers was still significant. If a monster were to get loose, it could cause a massive Slaughter and inevitably damage numerous factory buildings, resulting in severe economic losses.

Even though Zhang Yanhang was confident in his abilities and believed not a single monster would slip through, one can never be too careful. Indeed, if a monster did escape, it certainly wouldn't be great.

And moreover, if because of the hustle and bustle a low-level monster was missed, it wouldn't be much of an issue, but the real fear was missing a high-level monster, especially a fourth-tier monster.

"No need to evacuate the citizens, the barrier I'm setting up is that kind of spatial barrier type of parallel space." Zhou Muxi was speaking to Zhang Yanhang, but her movements never ceased, appearing to be inspecting something.

"What do you mean?" It wasn't fair to blame Zhang Yanhang for his limited knowledge and experience, he really didn't understand.

"It means that the barrier I'm going to set up will create a small range of parallel space, and everything inside the parallel space except for biological entities will be a copy of the Main World. No matter how it's destroyed in the parallel space, it won't affect the Main World. It's only when monsters destroy the barrier that they can truly enter the Main World."

After confirming that the surrounding spatial environment was relatively friendly, Zhou Muxi took out an array plate and began to formally set up the barrier.

"So, you're saying that unless I'm too slow in killing and allow the monsters to destroy the barrier, there's no need to worry about anything else? But what if I actually fail?" Zhang Yanhang suddenly remembered that he hadn't told the group leader earlier that he was coming to clear the fourth-tier transmission channel.

"Then why insist on failing instead of succeeding directly?" Zhou Muxi was made speechless by Zhang Yanhang, who was being overly cautious despite his strong abilities.

"That's true." Zhang Yanhang nodded his head; he didn't really believe he would fail either.

"Moreover, even if the barrier is really destroyed, relying on the backup plan can hold off for a while, at least until other fourth-tier awakeners arrive there should be no problem."

Zhou Muxi felt that this time the backup plan would most likely not be needed.

"Oh, then I'm relieved, but do you always use such high-end barriers for clearing transmission channels? Directly generating parallel spaces?"

Zhang Yanhang couldn't help but be surprised by the logistical capability of the relevant departments.

"Of course not! This setup is for the fourth-tier transmission channel, alright! Who would set up something like this for simply fighting first or second-tier channels!"

If such a thing were used for clearing first and second-tier transmission channels on a regular basis, Zhou Muxi had no doubt that the Empire's finances would be in extensive deficit.

"I see, so this high-end stuff is definitely not used often." Zhang Yanhang couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief; it seemed his understanding wasn't too far off from the reality of the Main World.

Upon realizing he didn't need to worry about evacuating residents, Zhang Yanhang stopped bothering Zhou Muxi as she was setting up the spatial barrier and instead took out the two bottles of dark purple quality artifacts from his waist bag.

He planned to take advantage of the momentary pause to drink these two dark purple quality artifacts, adding a few points to his Charm attribute, which would also increase the fixed damage limit of his Death Wave.

But before drinking, Zhang Yanhang first checked the attribute list of the dark purple quality artifact he had just received from Zhou Muxi. He felt that it was indeed necessary to look at the attribute list; one really couldn't just drink it without thinking, after all, what if there were side effects?

[Enchanting Demon Essence (Solution)]

[Quality: Dark Purple]

[Type: Artifact]

[Origin: Ashen World, Dakota Basin, Dream City, Enchanting Demon's House, Nicholas Coulson.]

[Usage Effect: Charm +3.]

[Usage Requirements: Charm below 50 points.]

[Score: 200 (Dark Purple Quality Items score from 151 to 260.)]

[Introduction: Created by the Alchemy Master Nicholas Coulson, who followed a hero team to slay demons all the way into Dream City and personally captured a male Enchanting Demon that tempted heroes, extracting its essence and combining it with a series of demonic materials to create this Enchanting Demon Essence Solution, which has an extraordinary effect on boosting the confidence of female priests in the team.]

"Huh? It's made from extracting the essence of a male Enchanting Demon?"

Zhang Yanhang initially thought that the name surely meant it would be from a female Enchanting Demon. After all, when talking about Enchanting Demons, no one mentions a specific gender and directly assumes the default is female, which is because male Enchanting Demons are exceptionally rare.

Zhang Yanhang recalled that the ratio of female to male Enchanting Demons was at least ten thousand to one, indeed so rare that they are commonly overlooked.

Moreover, male Enchanting Demons frankly aren't quite the same as the typical sense of male; they are basically all cross-dressers, which further leads to their being ignored, for most are mistaken as flat-chested Enchanting Demons when judged merely by appearance.

"Although it's a bit odd for a hero to be tempted by a male Enchanting Demon, it could indeed severely affect the confidence of other female members of the team."

After briefly checking the attribute list of the Enchanting Demon Essence and making sure there were no side effects, Zhang Yanhang did not hesitate. He quickly stripped off the equipment he had that boosted his Charm, reducing his Charm attribute below 46 points.

Having assured that his Charm attribute met the requirements, Zhang Yanhang quickly drank down the two bottles of Enchanting Demon Essence Solution.

But whether it was because he wasn't a demon and thus could not discern the taste of the soul, or because Nicholas Coulson wasn't particularly skilled with flavoring, after downing two bottles of Enchanting Demon Essence, Zhang Yanhang could hardly taste anything. There was only a faint fishy sweetness lingering in his mouth, which seemed quite odd.

However, Zhang Yanhang was never very concerned about taste; as long as the effect was right, he was satisfied.

After redressing with his equipment, Zhang Yanhang immediately opened his attribute list to check, keen to know whether the Charm boosted by the two bottles of Enchanting Demon Essence had effectively taken effect.

[Strength: 70 (+3)]

[Agility: 71 (+3)]

[Constitution: 70 (+3)]

[Intelligence: 67 (+3)]

[Charm: 65 (+26)]

"Good, my Charm attribute has indeed increased by six points once more, going from 59 points to 65 points. With this, the gap between my Intelligence and Charm attributes is now merely two points.

In other words, if my Intelligence attribute doesn't increase, I can only raise my Charm by at most two more points, but fortunately, that's not a big problem, as I can't increase my Charm attribute for now anyway."

Unless the monsters inside the fourth-tier permanent teleportation channel dropped a treasure box containing an item related to the Charm attribute, Zhang Yanhang felt he wouldn't be able to further increase his Charm attribute anytime soon, so there was no point worrying about it.

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