Doomsday Cat City Lord - Chapter 22

The sunset hung in the sky. Under the fiery red clouds, everything within sight was covered in a layer of warm, soft light, and the breeze blowing into the forest seemed to have become mild and pleasant.

The white cat walked through the tall banyan forest, its shadow gradually stretching behind it. The human youth lay on his back on the giant white cat’s spine, slowly flipping through a Plant Identification Guide.

“People often say that a single banyan tree can become a forest. That’s because banyan trees have two types of root systems. One is the normal roots growing in the soil, and the other is called ‘aerial roots.’ They grow from the lenticels of the banyan tree’s branches, looking like vines hanging down from the canopy or the beard of the banyan tree.

Aerial roots grow downward into the soil, becoming thick and sturdy as they grow, eventually becoming prop roots. Like ordinary roots, they can absorb water and nutrients, but they don’t branch out or grow leaves. Their main function is to support the banyan tree’s continuously expanding canopy. The largest old banyan tree in the world has tens of thousands of prop roots, and its canopy covers twenty thousand square meters.”

Cheng Ningye sat up from the big cat’s broad back, carefully observing the banyan trees around them, which grew taller and larger the deeper they went: “The banyan trees here have branches and leaves, but they just don’t grow aerial roots.”

“Meow.” It’s the apocalypse; it wouldn’t be strange for plants to mutate slightly.

Mi Miaomiao flicked its tail and looked up at the sky. Xuan Yu was flying very cautiously, looking as if it couldn’t get close to the green mountain ahead.

Their pace quickened. Walking out of the dense forest near the mouth of the canyon passage, what came into view was a towering, majestic mountain. Lush banyan leaves extended from the ground all the way to the summit, leaving not a single gap, and there was no foothold to be found to enter the mountain.

[Host… we’ve arrived. Up ahead is that plant city resident.] 012’s voice trembled slightly.

“God, a sky-piercing ancient tree…” Cheng Ningye stared in a daze, unable to recover for a long time.

As Mi Miaomiao crossed the boundary of the Rong City territory and touched the branches and leaves of the ‘great mountain,’ the entire mountain before them came to life.

Deep green branches rose steadily yet rapidly into the high sky, intertwining and circling deep gray trunks exposed to view, while beard-like aerial roots meandered down from the sky.

The evening breeze brushed past; the rustling sound of leaves was endless.

The trunk was like the body of a mountain with no visible boundaries. The upward-growing branches were like arms supporting the canopy of heaven, and the dense crown continuously expanded, expanded, and expanded even more! …The highest point reached deep into the clouds, and its edges were even able to shroud Mount Muyuan in its shadow.

Above the four or five large mountains nearby, there was suddenly an extra canopy!

The aerial roots dangling before Mi Miaomiao suddenly moved on their own, quickly weaving into a square basket—the kind that could fit a big cat.

The basket swung back and forth like a swing, rising slowly before stopping.

“Meow.” Go up and take a look.

Mi Miaomiao was just about to have its servant stay behind, but it saw Cheng Ningye lift his leg and flip over the railing, shrugging his shoulders as he said: “With a guarantee from the world consciousness, as a Vice City Lord of Rong City, I won’t be in danger. Let me broaden my horizons as well.”

Mi Miaomiao was helpless.

Their perspective rose gradually until only aerial roots of varying thicknesses and slowly drifting clouds remained before their eyes. Cheng Ningye felt deeply moved internally; it was such an existence that had guarded Boyun Province in his past life no wonder it could gather so many plant evolvers here.

Arriving at the center of the canopy, Mi Miaomiao once again felt that ethereal sensation of its soul being cleansed by all things, immediately followed by the realization that there was a barrier left behind by the world consciousness here.

Stepping on the intertwined branches, Mi Miaomiao found a hazy, pale green human-shaped orb of light in the very center of the great banyan tree.

“Little Cat, you’ve finally come.”

The low, resonant voice of an adult human male rang directly in its ears. Mi Miaomiao struggled with whether to reply in cat language or human language. It subconsciously turned its head, only to see Cheng Ningye leaning against a distant branch with his eyes tightly closed, his throat emitting the long, rhythmic breathing characteristic of deep sleep.

“Call me Mi Miaomiao, or City Lord.” The youthful, adolescent voice sounded high in the sky. Mi Miaomiao flicked its tail, inexplicably unable to get angry.

Little Cat it is, then. My size really can’t compare to the great banyan tree.

“Then I’ll call you City Lord. My state is somewhat special. Whether or not you agree to let me join Rong City, I need to inform you in advance regarding my own situation.”

Mi Miaomiao: “Did the world consciousness tell you about the situation with the city-building system?”

The green human shape nodded: “I was previously a Level 9 evolver; now I am a Level 8 evolver.”

Mi Miaomiao felt a jolt to its spirit, swallowing nervously as it looked forward to the other party’s next words.

“I have lived for a very, very long time, and I had a vague consciousness even before the apocalypse. After the apocalypse descended, my consciousness fell into chaos, and my root system continuously expanded outward, depriving countless mountains of their innumerable life energy. It wasn’t until I entered the Rong City territory that I triggered a protection left by the world consciousness for Rong City. Its power brought me to my senses.”

Mi Miaomiao suddenly understood: “That’s why there are no monsters, evolved animals, or evolved plants in the mountains.”

“After regaining my senses and seeing the mountain forest I had ruined, I felt great regret.” The green human shape lowered its head. Beneath its feet, branches wove into squirrels, wolves, flowers, and schools of fish, which then dissipated.

“I want to return the mountain forest to its original state. I reached an agreement with the world consciousness: I will use my own energy to restore the vitality of this land, and He recommended that I join Rong City. The City Lord of Rong City can help me.”

Mi Miaomiao nodded: “I have wood-type ability; as long as I have seeds, this mountain forest will soon return to the prosperity of the past. From the beginning of Rong City’s establishment, our priority has been recruiting animal citizens. As Rong City continues to grow, more and more animals will gather here.”

The green human shape seemed to reveal a smile. It nodded and continued: “I must explain the pros and cons of me becoming a citizen of Rong City, after which you may consider whether to permit my inclusion. After seeing you once, I knew that even without this agreement, this mountain forest would gradually return to its past state along with Rong City’s development.”

“In order to completely block my instinct to absorb land energy, I have dug out my own crystal. As the energy in the crystal returns to the earth, my level will only continue to decline until I turn back into an ordinary, unconscious plant. This means I can only provide Rong City with one level-up reward point boost.”

“Then how long can you still live?”

“At longest a hundred years, at shortest twenty years.”

Mi Miaomiao: “…”

“This also involves another important issue: as the energy in my crystal dissipates, while nourishing the earth, it will also attract monsters. Recently, because there was a barrier from the world consciousness, this place was able to become a temporary pure land.”

And they both knew that the power of the world consciousness could not be exhausted here forever.

Mi Miaomiao closed its eyes, not thinking for too long before giving its answer: “There were never any pure lands in the apocalypse to begin with. To have this buffer period to allow Rong City to be established successfully, I want to say thank you to you!”

Saying goodbye to the great banyan tree, Mi Miaomiao carried the slumbering servant in its mouth and the black cat who had passed out at some unknown point on its back, hurrying back to Rong City.

The posture of the great banyan tree when it stretched its body was truly too shocking. Rong City residents looked at the massive canopy that had abruptly appeared in the sky, and the huge trunk that towered into the clouds in the distance, shocked to the point of being unable to speak for a long time.

When faced with man-eating monsters or the great tsunami that had submerged the city, none of those felt as strong an apocalyptic sensation as the great banyan tree brought at this moment!

A deep sense of powerlessness filled their hearts. Even without megalophobia, their bodies and minds were trembling with fear at this moment.

Some people wanted to run away, frantically packing their luggage, but looking around, they thought of the floods, fires, and monsters visible everywhere outside the mountains, and the collapsed society that had lost moral constraints.

“Even if I escape, where can I escape to?!”

“ROAR!” Everyone, calm down!

The old Monkey King stood up at the center of the platform. Its arms were trembling slightly, but its gaze was decisive and firm. Yungu and a group of other cubs were huddled in Luoyun’s arms, shivering, while the adult animals spontaneously surrounded the old Monkey King.

“Hisss-hisss-hisss!” Jiuxin rubbed vigorously against its dazed master. Lu Jia blankly withdrew her gaze from looking up at the giant tree. In her pitch-black eyes, a radiance flowed, as if dead wood had once again regained its vitality.

She stood up and walked toward the two-meter-tall black ape, her fair human fingers gripping the ape’s coarse, large hand. A calm, low female voice sounded; it wasn’t loud, but under the reinforcement of her ability, it was enough for every human and animal to hear and understand.

“The location of the banyan tree is exactly the direction the City Lord went. Before it left, it had instructed that no matter what movement occurs, nothing will happen within the Rong City territory. Everyone just needs to wait for the City Lord to return.”

After translating the old Monkey King’s words, Lu Jia extended her hand, and a mass of black mist slowly dissipated, revealing a transparent crystal the size of a ping-pong ball. The starlight flickering within the crystal ball converged into a galaxy. She spoke slowly: “My ability can predict good and bad fortune; the appearance of the great banyan tree is a good thing.”

The determined attitude of the old Monkey King and some of the animals, along with the deterrence brought by Lu Jia and her snakes, caused the scene to gradually calm down.

The animals and humans who had originally been scattered in two log cabins gathered once again in a single house, huddling together, waiting for the City Lord’s return.

“Meow!” The great banyan tree is a high-level plant evolver. It is also a resident of Rong City and will not do anything to harm Rong City or the residents of Rong City; it is our guardian.

Hearing these words from the City Lord, although the city residents were still suspicious and uncertain in their hearts, when they looked up at the great banyan tree again, they were indeed not as afraid as before.

[Congratulations on your city having an 8-level evolver. You have received 100,000 reward points. Current points: 100,152.6]

[Detection complete. Your points meet the upgrade requirements. Do you want to use 10,000 points to upgrade the city level to 3?]

[Detection complete. Your points meet the upgrade requirements. Do you want to use 50,000 points to upgrade the city level to 4?]

“Confirm.” After Mi Miaomiao spoke in front of the great banyan tree, it couldn’t be bothered to conceal things from the system that had been staying in its mind.

[Data updated. Congratulations on your city successfully upgrading to Level 4. Rong City is currently ranked 1,003rd (Total participating cities: 2,314).]

It was three places away from entering the top 1,000. It had 40,152.6 points, with 59,847.4 points remaining until a Level 5 city. The higher the level, the larger the point gap, but every time a level was raised, the number of rankings one could surpass also increased.

Mi Miaomiao estimated that once Rong City was upgraded to Level 5, it would probably enter the top 500 on the leaderboard.

In addition, upgrading to a Level 3 city added a Vice City Lord position, allowing the unlocking of 2 more functional buildings. Upgrading to a Level 4 city allowed for the unlocking of up to 4 buildings. That made a total of 6 unlockable buildings or one could choose to upgrade the warehouse to Level 5, or just unlock one new building and upgrade it to full level.

Mi Miaomiao leaned toward unlocking walls. The barrier left behind by the world consciousness could last for 5 days. In such a short time, the number of residents and their strength couldn’t be significantly improved, so they could only increase defense.

Fortunately, at the current stage, monster strength was generally not high; without Level 5 or higher King-level monsters, there wouldn’t be large-scale beast tides. It would also take time for scattered monsters to be attracted into the mountains, and once they entered the mountains, the vast woodland would naturally cause the monsters to disperse.

“The great banyan tree clearing out the monsters deep in the mountains in one go is truly very powerful, but monsters are the norm in the apocalypse. I was previously afraid that city residents would become too complacent and Rong City’s development would stall. If everyone’s strength is disconnected from the outside world, Rong City would collapse directly when hit by large monsters in the mid-to-late stages.”

Cheng Ningye had slept soundly and was full of energy upon waking. Facing the sudden problem, his mindset was very stable.

Opening his foldable computer, he imported the terrain of the mountains near Rong City, as well as the movement speed and attack power of current low-level monsters, quickly constructing a data model. Soon, he produced a detailed data report on the number of monsters and the time Rong City might face monster attacks.

“System-produced walls cannot be destroyed physically, which means the interior of the walls is absolutely safe. Upgrade the walls to Level 5; the wall height reaches 20 meters, 7 meters wide, 20,000 meters in total length, and has 2 energy shields.”

Comparing the data with the system walls, Cheng Ningye proposed: “At this stage, we only need to upgrade the walls to Level 3. We can wait until the later stages of the apocalypse when we encounter monster tides to add the two energy shields. A length of 20,000 meters can encircle the entire Mount Muyuan. The actual area of Mount Muyuan is about 160 square kilometers; if placed on flat ground, it would be a third-tier city accommodating a million people. Considering the mountainous terrain and agricultural development, there is more than enough space to house 200,000 city residents.”

Mi Miaomiao hadn’t thought that far ahead, but with this data report, there were fewer concerns when taking action.

“For the remaining three functional buildings to be unlocked, we can consider building a Level 1 training room, and leave the other two as backups.”

Mi Miaomiao nodded in agreement.

Xuan Yu listened quietly to the whole process. Involved in deep-level human knowledge, the cat, which had only just started learning, couldn’t understand most of it. Whenever this happened, it would subconsciously send messages to 012.

012 was very nervous. It wanted to reply to its previous host and provide some help within its power, but was afraid of being discovered by the current host.

Clearly, it was the previous host itself who proposed not exposing matters from the previous life; why was it that the one now most conflicted was itself, a simple tool system that just came to help save the world!

Drafting the city wall map, planning the city area on Mount Muyuan.

The next morning, Mi Miaomiao ate breakfast and began to go down the mountain to plant trees. System buildings needed to be attached to physical entities to be built, so Mi Miaomiao built the tree walls to be as dense, tight, and tall as possible.

[Host, don’t worry, the system walls will be as close to reality as possible; the city residents might think they were constructed by earth-type ability users.]

Mi Miaomiao flicked its tail. It was thinking about another matter: “Did the great banyan tree matter not cause any stir in the livestream room?”

012 pondered for a long time, finally thinking of an answer that wouldn’t discourage the host: [Perhaps the footage wasn’t shocking enough. After all, the livestream room could only see you talking to a humanoid shadow; there wasn’t much to see.]

Mi Miaomiao nodded, thoughtful.

The city area plan was posted on the log cabin wall and on the Rong City website. The panic brought by the great banyan tree last night seemed to have been dispelled by this news, and the city residents gathered together to discuss it enthusiastically:

“The residential area and planting area are interspersed together; the farmland is right at my doorstep.”

“My desire to save up points is even stronger. The residential area near the city center will definitely be the most prosperous in the future. I want to build a house as soon as possible, even if it’s just a thatched hut!”

Beside the fire pit, Hang Chun and his daughter were cooking; thick rice porridge paired with refreshing stir-fried vegetables and vegetable buns made the heat make the people waiting for food unable to feel the cold outside.

Yue Ya-yun tugged at the thin jacket on her body and looked up at the thermometer at the door. It was 7:00 AM, and the warm, white sunlight was spilling onto the ground, but the temperature was only 11 degrees.

She was 40, after all, and couldn’t endure the cold. Over the past few days, she had been hired by the Vice City Lord and had earned quite a few points, but after deducting the cost of hiring strength-type evolvers to help build the house, the remainder was barely enough to exchange for a thick quilt.

There weren’t many winter clothes in the exchange warehouse, so they were somewhat expensive. She was just wondering how to earn points quickly when she heard the crowd’s discussion about building houses. Immediately, she had a good idea. She stood up and shouted loudly:

“Professional house designer, 16 years of work experience, sufficient material reserves in the computer, can output drawings quickly. 5 points for a house structural drawing, 10 points for an additional interior rendering, 30 points for a full interior and exterior house design.”

“First come, first served!”

Before she added the last sentence, the crowd was a little stunned, but hearing ‘first come, first served,’ Feng Lu immediately pulled his grandfather and rushed to Aunt Yue’s side.

One old and one young narrated their vision for their new home bit by bit. Yue Ya-yun listened patiently, her hands quickly writing and drawing on the light screen, while using professional jargon to guide out the deepest desires in their hearts.

About ten minutes later, a structural drawing of a two-story farmhouse was completed, and two minutes later, an interior decoration rendering in a pastoral style was displayed before everyone’s eyes.

Once there was one, there were two. Regardless of whether the effect in the design drawing could be achieved, the crowd, who had saved up points for several days, was still willing to exchange 10 points for a rendering of their ideal house.

The three drawings spread across everyone’s communicators, and even some animals began to get restless.

King flew the fastest and successfully became the designer’s first animal client. Its human language was already much more fluent; silver mechanical wings flashed across the light screen, as it excitedly expressed its requirements in the soaring tone unique to birds.

Yue Ya-yun used her greatest patience and spent 30 minutes piecing together the “bird cage” that this King Bird-of-Paradise wanted from over sixty designated patterns.

A combination of fresh gardens and shiny steampunk metal if it were really made, it would be a unique residence that would dazzle people.

Yue Ya-yun hadn’t expected that even in the apocalypse, she would have the chance to break through her professional limits, with the client upgrading from human to animal.

The lightbulb in Deng Huai’s mind suddenly lit up: his own technical skills could also be exchanged for points!

Cheng Ningye hadn’t expected that Rong City would start an individual business model so quickly. Shouldn’t things like taxes also be planned for early?