Welcome to Ability Store

Lin Qing took a few seconds to react to what was being said.

Chen Xuan... closed the branch portal?

"Eh, this must be an accident, right?" Elorie was also a bit confused, looking at Lin Qing with a puzzled face, "Do we have any way to contact him?"

"Where’s the spaceship?" Lin Qing asked in a deep voice.

"It’s parked in the clearing in front of the Sect." Wei answered.

"I’ll go take a look."

It took half an hour for Lin Qing to search every nook and cranny of the Wind Song, yet she couldn’t find that fruit shop anymore.

The branch is really gone!

Does that mean there are other portals?

Yes... there are still two in this world! One is in Hot Pepper Village, the other in the Yunzhou Liu Family, both common lodging places for Liu Shuyue, frequently connected to the back door of Room 201.

But as she thought of this, Lin Qing’s heart sank.

Now Liu Shuyue was already dead.

Once a guest dies, her guest room will also be vacated, this was information directly from Chen Xuan.

The most critical issue lay with Chen Xuan himself.

Is this merely a temporary phenomenon, or did something change that caused him to close the branch? Like... did he suddenly decide to abandon all guests, including her?

As soon as this thought emerged, Lin Qing extinguished it in her mind.

She didn’t believe Chen Xuan would do such a thing.

Moreover, the relationship between the two of them had long surpassed the line of being just a store manager and guest.

Lin Qing returned to the Lotus Cloud Sect, "How many days have I been in the underground bath?"

"About five days." Wei replied.

"Then when did the room disappear?" she turned to ask Ji Lian.

"I only noticed the anomaly yesterday." Ji Lian’s emotions were still stable, she said after thinking for a moment, "I had been staying in Hot Pepper Village earlier to console the villagers and handle our master’s affairs... When I was cleaning her residence, I found that the back door was unusable, but didn’t pay much attention at that time. It wasn’t until I planned to return to Jiang City that I discovered the special room in the Wind Song had disappeared."

Lin Qing’s gaze swept over Ji Lian and Elorie in turn... so only the three of them were left in this world.

"Did anything special happen after I fell unconscious?"

Ji Lian nodded, "Master received an invitation from the Celestial Patrol."

"Celestial Patrol?" Lin Qing raised her eyebrows in surprise, "That giant nano-living body? What did it invite Chen Xuan for?"

"To witness its ascension." Ji Lian briefly recounted the situation at that time, "Eventually, the entire land turned into part of the Celestial Patrol’s shell, and it ascended to become the ruler of that world."

Lin Qing and Elorie were dumbfounded.

"So... ascension really exists?" Little Angel murmured, "I always thought it was just a concept passed down by word of mouth, didn’t expect it to be such a tangible thing."

So tangible that people could observe the whole process with the naked eye.

This was also Lin Qing’s thought.

Ascension wasn’t as mysterious as imagined, or rather... it’s the principle of simplicity: slaughter, annexation, control, unification... These basic rules operating within the biological chain are still valid when extended to the level of the Multiverse. Only those who can gather more power into one entity, using energy to the extreme, can become the victors in the competition of ascension.

Humanity as a tribe is obviously far from achieving this.

"Although I know the Dimensional Limit Mechanism deviated from its path, I didn’t expect the result to be like this..." Lin Qing’s heart was filled with mixed feelings, it’s like the mechanism tried everything, only to find that all the options among ABCDE were wrong when the answer key is revealed.

Even if the mechanism wasn’t split, even if they truly mastered more advanced prosthetic technology, it evidently still wouldn’t meet the standards for ascension.

This was a road with no solution in the first place.

Because the Dimensional Limit Mechanism was powerless to change the human race.

As for Chen Xuan...

"The room disappearing is probably not a coincidence, we can’t keep waiting for it to reappear." She judged, "Chen Xuan is definitely in trouble."

"Why does Miss Lin say that?"

"How do you know?" Ji Lian and Elorie asked simultaneously.

"Trust me, I... know him better than you do." Lin Qing bit her lip, said ambiguously, "Chen Xuan would never forget that we’re still stranded here, he must have encountered some mishap that made the room disappear, and it probably happened a few days ago!"

Among the shop staff, if anyone was most familiar with the store’s secrets, it was indeed her. She knew the "World Ability Center" didn’t exist, understood how Chen Xuan traded abilities, and how branches and guest rooms operated. As long as it didn’t involve areas needing the store manager’s manipulation, she could even use the computer at the bar to handle it for Chen Xuan.

Lin Qing had realized long ago that what Chen Xuan possessed was not just a single ability, but a hugely extensive system. As the store manager, he was also part of this system.

Otherwise, why would he rack his brains to write those advancement applications?

Of course, these secrets were extremely important, and even when facing the Gemini disciples and Little Angel, she couldn’t reveal them casually.

Lin Qing once believed firmly that if she could draw Chen Xuan into her plan, using the power of this system against the Mechanism, changing the future wouldn’t be difficult.

But at this moment, she realized she had overlooked the most important point.

Would the system behind the Ability Store support Chen Xuan in the same way he supported her? If a divide appeared between them and the store no longer granted this power to Chen Xuan, the situation would change entirely.

Just thinking about this possibility made Lin Qing feel cold to the bone, as if she had fallen into an icy abyss.

It’s the scariest possibility among all guesses, even more frightening than Chen Xuan being assassinated by the Mechanism, because there are countermeasures for the latter, but none for the former.

What she feared wasn’t the eventual destruction of the future, nor failing to complete her mission to save humanity.

What she’s afraid of now is the disappearance of the Ability Store, where she would no longer be able to see Chen Xuan.

Lin Qing took a deep breath, gritting her teeth as she said, "We must find him."

"But... how do we find him?" Elorie murmured, "We don’t have the ability to traverse worlds."

Yeah, what could take them across worlds?

"Invasion points!" Lin Qing suddenly raised her voice, "There must be plenty of invasion points in this world, perhaps one of them leads back to Jiang City."

"Are there?" Ji Lian looked at Wei, "You should be quite familiar with the situation inside the Grotto Heaven, right?"

"You mean the passage through which strangers enter the Lotus Cloud Sect from the outside world?" Wei pondered for a moment, "There is one on the First Peak, but after you defeated that worm, the passage disappeared. Beyond that, there are no other passages in the Grotto Heaven."

"Really none at all?" Lin Qing doubted, "I heard from Chen Xuan that Liu Shuyue once tore open a rift while slaying a dragon on the edge of the Wanshan Wilderness, and the other side of the rift led directly to Jiang City!"

"I don’t recall such a thing, but..." Wei paused, "The Sect Protection Array did indeed issue a warning, stating a foreign object had weakened the Array’s Spiritual Qi barrier at a location near the Wanshan Wilderness. I conducted an emergency repair afterward, and there haven’t been any abnormalities with the Array since."

"So it was you who repaired it!" Lin Qing realized, "No wonder he said the rift closed on its own not long after. Wei, can you recreate this defect?"

"No." Wei firmly refused, "The Array is like a layered framework; it’s easy to add things on top, but extremely dangerous to remove something. If the circulation of Spiritual Qi is obstructed, the Array could collapse instantly, bringing cataclysm to the entire Grotto Heaven!"

"But—" she trailed off.

Even sacrificing all the citizens of the Six Kingdoms to open this passage? Lin Qing couldn’t bring herself to say so.

"But the barrier’s purpose is to isolate and repel, right?" Ji Lian spoke up, "From your description, it seems like this invasion point might not be within the Lotus Cloud Sect. It’s the Spiritual Qi disturbance effect of the Demon-Slaying True Sword that made it manifest in the sky."

"So you’re saying it’s actually somewhere outside the Grotto Heaven and very close to the Wanshan Wilderness?" Lin Qing made a decision immediately, "Then please send me out of the Sect! Even if the outside is ravaged by Inner Demons, I must find this invasion point!"

That person had once risked his own life to retrieve her lost memories and soul in an apocalyptic world filled with deadly threats.

Now it’s her turn.

A rare smile tugged at the corners of Wei’s lips, "Miss Lin need not be so resolute; in fact, the power of the Inner Demon has dwindled greatly, and areas outside of the Lotus Cloud Sect are now passable."