Suthia's fruit platter was indeed impressive.
Besides cherries, it included peaches, juice, strawberries, grapes, ice cream, and more.
After making up for the celebration that was interrupted by "Zero" that night, Suthia seed to have filled a void in her life, looking completely satisfied.
After a brief mont of leisure, it was ti to back to business. Renji called back 86 and Control Number One, who were responsible for patrolling the surroundings, to prepare the next steps.
Having finally gone online on a large scale, Renji hoped to take advantage of having a top-tier combat power like Suthia backing him up. He wondered if it was possible to find Zero directly and speed through Dream Zero.
However, Control Number One's response thwarted Renji's plan.
[I'm sorry Commander, we do not have the coordinates of the base]
'No coordinates?'
'You don't know where the base is?'
Renji was puzzled because the "base" was where Zero slept and should also be the respawn point for all chanical servants. How could Control Number One, a chanical servant herself, not know?
Noticing Renji's confusion, Control Number One quickly continued to explain:
[We do not have the program to retain the base coordinates. Once dispatched to the corresponding war zone, the only way back to the base is through destruction in battle, to return in a form of consciousness]
In other words, Control Number One ant that all chanical servants were essentially "blindfolded" when sent out to fight. From the mont they left the base, there was no turning back; they could only remain on the battlefield for life.
From a human perspective, Renji initially found this outrageous—how could frontline soldiers not be allowed to return ho? But from the perspective of chanical servants, it seed reasonable; their mission was to fight, and everything else was "extraneous" programming.
It seed that the shortcut wouldn't work. To find the base and Zero, they would have to follow the rules of Dream Zero.
That is to clear the remaining three war zones like the Witch War Zone, the world's miasma would disappear, and the base would appear.
This gave Renji the feeling of not being able to unlock the next area in a ga without completing the "preliminary levels" first.
The remaining three world bosses were the dragon, the witch, and the fairy.
It was clear which one to tackle first; Renji directly set the "Dragon War Zone" as the next target.
After all, based on the experience of the Witch War Zone, as long as he passed the "dragon's" test, another major character in reality, the true Dragon Empress, would also co online.
If Renji felt uncertain with just Suthia, adding Nova to the mix gave him confidence to push through Dream Zero.
With the target set, they were ready to set off. Control Number One had the coordinates of the Dragon War Zone recorded internally. Initially, the chanical servants planned to activate flight mode and carry Renji and the others over. At "Advance iii" speed mode, it would take about a day to get there.
But Suthia was not just here for show. After getting the coordinates from Control Number One, the nun chanted on the spot, and a huge pentagram holy pattern array appeared under everyone's feet.
The next mont, a rich radiance enveloped everyone on the array, and Renji along with all the chanical servants vanished from the spot.
When Renji's vision cleared, the land that had been purified before had once again turned into a barren and cracked terrain, the air filled with the red miasma of pollution. Directly in front of them, they could see the shadow of a huge building resembling a city.
Renji was familiar with this.
This was the symbol of real power in the wasteland — the base.
In the old era, the scale of power was divided from villages to gathering place, then to shelters, and finally, to concrete city bases.
No matter how many people or power you had, it would always be just a gathering place or a shelter. Only when one owned a city in the wasteland could they truly step into the ranks of a "base."
Arriving at the Dragon War Zone and seeing the outline of the base in the distance, Renji showed an expected expression.
He had guessed this scene.
The Witch's story was about Suthia's past experiences, so correspondingly, the dragoness should also represent Nova's past.
Nova, in the order of their encounters among "them" was the third.
Suthia helped him beco a regional overlord at the settlent level, and then the addition of Zero upgraded the Ashen Gathering place to the Ashen Shelter.
Thinking ahead, to develop further, it was necessary to transition from a "shelter" to a "base." At that ti, he was in dire need of a city.
Building a city oneself would consu a vast amount of resources and was too risky, so naturally, Renji in the ga thought of directly seizing an existing one, taking down soone else's base for his own.
Bases also varied in strength, and with his forces at the ti, he could at most take down a lowest-level city base, also considering whether there were other allied forces behind the base.
So, in the end, Renji clearly rembered that he set his sights on the "Gulase" base, precisely the city within the Dragon War Zone opposite them.
This base, full of chaos and violence, known for its gambling and slavery businesses, and developed through its "arena".
And it was here that he t Nova.
Past ga mories flashed through Renji's mind, driving him to lead everyone quickly into the city.
At the city gate entrance, they could see many wasteland people entering and exiting the base, all created NPCs by Dream Zero. Hence, Suthia couldn't help but suggest that she directly attack the city, wondering if that would make the dragoness appear imdiately.
But Control Number One negated the idea.
[I'm sorry, different Miasma Masters have different personalities. Such an approach may work for the witch, but the dragoness is different. Currently, there is no record of a dragon appearing on its own initiative]
Suthia opened her mouth as if she wanted to defend her suggestion, but what was said was indeed correct. Nova's personality is not the type to be ostentatious, but a bit introverted, with very few words spoken, and silence is mostly maintained, just like a real-life empress who stays out of worldly affairs and locks herself in the Dragon Palace for seclusion.
In the dream, finding the witch's trial is simple; just breaking into the witch's area can directly trigger it.
But the dragoness is different. After entering the Gulase base, everyone acts as if it's business as usual, with no clue what to do next, where the trial is, or how to initiate it.
This is probably why, after so many years, Kael Technology has only obtained the Witch's Mark. They are also clueless about the dragon, hence the frantic search for ancient scholars, hoping to get a "guide" or walkthrough.
Indeed, after all, how could the later generations imagine that today's empress, her true identity in the past, was rely a gladiator in the arena?
So for Renji, finding where the dragoness is and triggering the trial is not a difficult task.
Renji carefully recalled the map of Gulase, following the path he once took. Fortunately, despite so differences, he successfully found behind-the-scenes forces operating the "arena."
This ti, Renji didn't choose to be an "audience mber" like before but used the connection with the backstage forces to participate in the arena as a "gladiator" through internal channels.
After all, Renji is here not just to clear Dream Zero only, but he also genuinely wants to take this opportunity to understand the aspects of "their" pasts that he never knew.
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