Ye Bai had only stayed at the capsule hotel for one day and didn't renew her fee. In-game day ten was exactly when her room expired.
Before leaving the hotel, Ye Bai took another shower and then changed to a free bench in the park area, as it was early enough to still find a spot.
Who would have thought that even though Bai Ye—or 'Night'—was already a faction leader in Etera, she was still sleeping on the street in real life? Wait, that's not quite accurate. In the game, there isn't even a leader's residence. The villagers all have their own houses, and their leader is essentially a 'wanderer' too.
Tsk, thinking about it, it feels even worse.
【You Have a New Message】
Just as Ye Bai was about to log into the game, she suddenly received a new message.
This made Ye Bai's heart tighten, as receiving a message in real life was different from the Star Network. Here, the message would be for Ye Bai, not 'Night'.
Moreover, the message couldn't be from Aurora, as Aurora's home galaxy of Phantasia is on the first spiral arm of the Milky Way. Aurora would have to take a spaceship back and use wormhole jumps, which could take anywhere from ten days to half a month.
But without using the Star Network, it's like the difference between the modern internet and the ancient relay station communication - a relatively recent technology even in today's terms. Depending on space, Ye Bai receiving Aurora's message here on the blue stars' earliest borders involved just the slightest segments of ashore connectivity protocols, a reserved snippet below for its debut scored jazz. In addition to this, underwater towers, veteran vessels per cubic unit, symphonies consolidate rocket connections to masterfully negotiate with her.
Perhaps the Blue Star Council has discovered something?
With a nervous heart opening the information, after seeing its contents, Ye Bai was slightly stunned, then relaxed.
The message came from a group on Macul Star, which wasYe Bai's backup plan from a week ago when she had just left the laboratory.
That was one of thousands of resumes Ye Bai had sent out, and the only invitation she received.
Originally, after Aurora left, Ye Bai planned to head to Makur Star, but then she saw the "Etera" billboard and the job application naturally fell by the wayside.
This kind of two—way selection job invitation doesn't necessarily require a reply, especially for inter—stellar recruitment. With how expensive Star Network accounts are and the long time it takes to transmit information, whether someone shows up can often speak for itself.
Ye Bai thought that since she didn’t show up for the interview, the other side would cancel this matter, but she didn’t expect them to continue sending messages.
After reading the content, Ye Bai understood the reason.
The email asked if Ye Bai was still on Blue Star and whether she accepted the job, while also raising the salary and benefits. Their company's spaceship was coincidentally passing through the solar system's wormhole and would be staying for a day, so they could pick her up and save her travel expenses.
The wormhole in the solar system, being the second largest traffic hub in the Milky Way, has countless spaceships stopping here as a jumping-off point for interstellar travel.
It’s normal for a spaceship from Makur Star to pass through here and ask her as a matter of course.
However, Ye Bai naturally wouldn't go to an inter-stellar zoo now. After sending a polite refusal, Ye Bai drank some nutrient fluid and lay down to return to the game.
...
The village was steadily under construction. After upgrading [Exploration], iron and copper ore resources were discovered in the mountainous terrain to the southwest of the territory.
This was a factor Ye Bai had considered when she originally designated the southwest as the industrial zone. Ore, as an essential resource for territory development, isn't hard to find—almost all mountainous terrains have it—the difference is just the amount.
Even if the reserves aren't high, they’re definitely enough for the initial stages of territory development. By the later stages when the territory expands, finding new mountains to mine wouldn't take much time.
This step’s ideal resources would’ve been iron ore and coal, but since Ye Bai already had the highest-level Energy Crystal Mine, coal wasn’t necessary.
Seeing the mine under normal construction and the market nearing its end, Ye Bai was satisfied and headed to the Well of Origin.
Standing at this 'lucky charm' location, Ye Bai had even 'showered and changed' at the capsule hotel—all for this special moment:
Identifying a Legendary Building Blueprint!
After reaching level 15 and unlocking the [Appraisal] talent, Ye Bai was busy preparing for territory upgrades and hadn't yet opened this 'blind box'. Now that the monster siege event was dealt with, it was time to see what this wonder structure was.
Even if it couldn't be built right now, at least she could feast her eyes!
【You Obtain the Blueprint for the 'Night's Cloak'】
To "warm up" her luck, Ye Bai decided to start with a blue blueprint that she already knew the outcome of, taking a deep breath before using her 'Identification' skill on the golden blueprint.
【You have obtained the building blueprint 'Well of Origin'】
Well of Origin?
WELL OF ORIGIN!
How could she obtain this building?!
Receiving the system notification, Ye Bai's eager expression transformed in an instant. She froze in place, filled with inconceivable disbelief. Her state at that moment was not unlike when she had seen the advertisement for *Aurora* from the sky after leaving the laboratory.
Because the [Well of Origin] blueprint, according to logic, shouldn't have appeared in *Aurora* at this stage.
It was indeed a legendary-tier building, and a very significant and precious one at that. But it wasn't part of the current "legendary buildings deluxe package" in this version of the game.
The [Well of Origin] belonged to the next major expansion of *Aurora*, the *Shattered Divine Court* update, which would introduce a new map and story. This area was meant for players who had reached the third stage of advancement, a high-level zone that was currently only in the planning stages before the open beta.
Even the core code for the expansion's map and NPC behavior was stored on Ye Bai's personal computer!
In the version of *Aurora* that Ye Bai was familiar with, which hadn't been released yet, the *Shattered Divine Court* was only hinted at through a few hidden plot points.
The most prominent hint was the backstory of the player characters' identity as "Children of Divinity." Every player starts their journey in a broken teleportation array, with a void gate (dungeon key) that allows them to obtain the [Seed of Genesis], indicating their status as foreign invaders. As players grow stronger, their divine bloodline strengthens at every 5th level, ultimately paving the way for them to reach the divine realm.
In the game's worldview, countless small worlds resemble a cluster of bubbles, all converging from the larger bubble of the divine realm. On a technical level, each bubble represents a server, while the divine realm is a future shared server where players can bring their characters from different servers.
The *Shattered Divine Court* expansion, as the name suggests, depicts the divine realm collapsing due to the wars among powerful gods. Players are descendants who fled from the divine realm. After growing stronger, they can return to the realm, choosing to either change, save, or destroy that world.
If the first major *Aurora* update focuses on management and strategy, the second update would shift to a fantasy adventure, emphasizing personal power and the unique world mechanics. Whether they are lords or free agents, players would find new thrills in this expansion. The most exciting aspect was that the players' actions could actually influence the direction of the world.
In the *Shattered Divine Court* update, the [Well of Origin] would appear in a special spectacle called the [Void Corridor] that refreshed outside major cities once a month.
The Void Corridor served as a cosmic ladder-style dungeon, requiring players to fight through numerous challenges to reach the final destination, the [Well of Origin], and enter the shattered divine realm.
However, the Well of Origin's energy was limited. Each world (server) only allowed the first 100 players to enter per cycle.
This unique building was naturally a mythic-tier golden rarity, but it clearly shouldn't have been available in the list of legendary buildings for lords to construct. Even if it could only be built once, it seemed absurd to allow a lord to charge admission to such an iconic structure.
...Was this a bug? Ye Bai wasn’t sure, but what she did know was that *Aurora* was becoming increasingly unlike the game she had known.
What particularly made Ye Bai's heart race was the construction materials required for the Well of Origin:
Origin Crystals X100
Divine Essence X1
[Divine Essence] was a legendary material, obtainable only by slaying targets with the 'Divine Creature' tag. Monsters with this tag would only appear on the divine realm map, and they were all boss-tier. Common elite monsters simply wouldn’t qualify. Collecting this material was extremely challenging.
But... Ye Bai just happened to have a [Philosopher's Stone], which could substitute for any material.
"..."
Ye Bai fell silent for a moment, deciding against immediately constructing the precious legendary building.
While it might sound paranoid, too many coincidences were making her feel subtly "managed" or "led" in a certain direction.
And, the 100 source energy crystals required for construction are also not enough in the current stockpile of the territory. Ye Bai also plans to save them up and prioritize using them for trading when the traveling merchant arrives.
...
On the fourth day of the game, during the day, while Ye Bai was inspecting a new batch of equipment made at the blacksmith's shop, she suddenly heard the villagers outside exclaiming in surprise.
"Huh?"
Stepping out the door, Ye Bai saw the villagers all looking up at the sky. Sensing something, she followed their gaze.
Sure enough, she saw a huge hot air balloon slowly drifting across the territory's sky, heading purposefully towards the residential area's marketplace to land.
Ye Bai's eyes lit up: The traveling merchant had arrived!
The first time using the **Traveling Merchant** policy card came with a reward, so the merchant arrived quickly and was likely to bring good stuff.
Yes, *Eternalverse* still follows logical details. Before establishing trade routes through exploration, even the system-arranged merchants couldn't "walk" into a wilderness lord player's territory. If a wandering merchant could walk in, then simply following their footsteps would allow one to find a safe trade route, right?
So, traveling merchants travel between cities in hot air balloons.
Ye Bai approached the marketplace and saw from a distance a middle-aged man dressed in a vibrant outfit, carrying a bundle on his back, stepping off the hot air balloon.
Ye Bai glanced covetously at that bundle. Unfortunately—
In *Eternalverse*, there is no concept of "non-attackable characters." Players can be ruthless and attack anyone they see.
For example, killing a traveling merchant would allow you to "zero-dollar shop" and take all the items in his backpack, and even gain the hot air balloon.
However, the corresponding price would be enormous.
All towns that had traded with the traveling merchant would reduce the player's favorability by 50. This directly results in being listed as an enemy by any town with less than 50 favorability, with city guards hunting the player down before they even enter the town.
For territory players, the territory reputation value, which only shows up after establishing external trade routes, would drop by 100. Even if the policy card is equipped again, traveling merchants would no longer visit the territory. The disaster doesn't stop there—in the future, when normal trade routes are established, the interval between external merchants visiting the territory would triple, and the overall level of items they carry would drop by one grade.
This is a cost that no player serious about developing their territory can afford, so for normal players, they can only covet the traveling merchant's magically large bag, which is even bigger than the backpack after upgrading.
Ye Bai arrived at the marketplace, and just like the other villagers at first sight, the traveling merchant immediately recognized her lord status:
"Greetings, honorable Lord, I am a traveling merchant. Is there anything in your territory you would like to trade with me?"
"Whoosh!"
As he spoke, Ye Bai's vision, similar to opening her own backpack, suddenly displayed thirty slots filled with various leveled items, an overwhelming array that dazzled the eyes.
