I became a god by treasure hunting after arriving 500 years early

"Are we conversing in a dream right now?" Lu Qingqing looked around the empty Yunhai City, where all the buildings were identical to those in reality—only there were no people around.

The scenes further away were even more hazy.

"Don't dwell on these things; you'll wake up. You're all in the Qingming Dream that I've constructed," Han Yue said softly, "You need to imagine a trigger that you can't pull off in real life. Like the spinning top in 'Inception,' having a trigger helps you distinguish between dreams and reality."

After linking the dreams of three people, there was just one final step: with the help of the "Locating People" ability user, and the team leader, Li Lan, to find Lu Yuan who was far off in the distance, and then have his sister, Lu Qingqing, send him a dream.

Combining these steps was extremely difficult!

Because this was happening within a dream, not the real world…

How to locate someone was a big problem!

Moreover, the time ratio at Lu Yuan's location was different from the Safe Zone.

While they slept, Lu Yuan might experience forty or fifty days… Well, indeed, that's quite fascinating.

Which means they need to find him quickly, in the instant that Lu Yuan falls asleep, to carry out the dream sending. The odds were as slim as winning a lottery.

"Let's start. We'll leave the Safe Zone and see," she said.

The scenery became increasingly blurred.

The three people, guided by the "Pathfinding" ability, actually crossed beyond the Safe Zone.

The Light Screen was breached.

They faced the sprawling expanse of the Pangu Continent.

Suddenly, the whole world darkened.

Unnamed mists rose from somewhere unknown.

The murmurings, gentle like whispers beneath the stars.

"Why do I feel like there's an extra person in our team… that there are now four of us?" Lu Qingqing shuddered.

"Now there are five people!"

"Six people??"

Humans weren't the only beings with Divine Skills.

In the splendid dreams, one pair of eyes after another slowly opened, mocking the incompetent humans.

Each star in the sky represented an eye, watching them with a barely perceptible gaze, squirming to outdo one another!

The dream suddenly became dark and rapidly transformed into a terrifying nightmare.

Chewing and swallowing sounds came from the void.

"We need to wake up, something might be interfering with us." The student with the "Dream Entry" ability, Han Yue, was tense all over and led the team back to the Safe Zone.

Then, the team was back to three people.

She wiped off her sweat: "Nightmares are often a sign of crisis—this sky is too unusual."

"There are other Dream Ability Users in the Pangu Continent…"

"It could be a monster, far more powerful than us."

"If we get attacked, we'll die in the dream."

…

The first attempt at Dream Sensing ended in failure.

Only by trying could they comprehend how terrifying the outside world was.

Even though it was the beginning of the Ninth Epoch, the Pangu Continent was not something they could easily cross, nor was the world of dreams.

Assessing the situation, the leader of the "Pathfinding Plan," Li Lan concluded that if their cumulative Ability value was 100, the difficulty of the project could be over 100,000.

It was not something they could currently accomplish.

She was really worried!

"Perhaps we could collaborate with other cities?" the advisors discussed fervently within the room.

"Since dreams can indeed transcend the Safe Zone… other cities should also have similar Divine Skills."

"But is it practical to unite in a dream?"

"I think it's possible… which city wouldn't want to find Lu Yuan? At the very least, they would want to know whether he's dead or alive."

After much discussion, Li Lan knocked on the table lightly: "First, we try to sense people from other cities over ten thousand kilometers away in the Dream."

"If we can't even sense those, the thought of finding Lu Yuan, who is who knows how many kilometers away, becomes impossible."

…

Thus, Yunhai City made its decision: to practice internal skills diligently and enhance external ones!

The conditions in other cities were different.

Those cities with abundant resources managed to maintain stability, continuously discussing "the risk issues of the Pangu Continent."

The information transmitted by Lu Yuan was indeed of great value.

Any ruler with some brains would no longer harp on whether "Lu Yuan was dead or not"… but rather considered finding him.

Some cities, like Yunhai City, tried to contact Lu Yuan through abilities.

"Jacob, now that you're familiar with Lu Yuan's appearance and voice, use your telepathy to verify if he is dead."

"Sir, that's impossible! I must come into face-to-face contact to sense him, not just by looking at photos and videos, my ability has limits," Jacob replied.

"What if another person was added to assist…"

Outside the door, a Gypsy lady entered.

The Divination Master, Jenny.

As an internationally renowned astrologist, she had been famous for many years.

She was known worldwide for her predictions such as "Abe Jin Si's death," "Messi winning the World Cup," "the U-You War," and "Chuan Pu winning the M Country election."

Naturally, her ability was Divination.

The blonde lady said with a smile, "Mr. Jacob, Yunhai City has sent an invite for the 'Pathfinding Plan.' I believe international cooperation is necessary, and the chances of success are not small."

"Lu Yuan's fate matters a lot."

In the world of superpowers, nothing is too strange.

The existence of the Divine Skills brought limitless possibilities!

...

Of course, there were cities with scarce resources where the government was not strong enough to partake in cooperation.

Or it could be said that these governments were an amalgamation of corruption and chaos, and panic still boiled in society.

Human civilization, the second branch, Kahelen, was in a state of anarchy.

All the supermarkets had been looted.

Entire blocks looked like ghost towns, with many cars having their windows smashed and their gas stolen clean.

Bloodstains on the streets had turned from red-brown to black, and occasionally one could see decaying bodies.

Even if people did appear, they moved in groups, armed with axes, machetes, and other weapons.

Gangs and warlords had become the real rulers in the power vacuum.

But the gangs and warlords couldn't solve one problem: the food issue!

Kahelen was a drought-stricken city with low grain productivity. During the Earth era, it had long relied on international trade for food supply, and the food reserves were not substantial.

Now, with international trade gone, how could the massive food deficit be remedied?

Desperate with hunger, people could do anything!

"Professor Totte, how do we solve the food problem? What about the supernatural crops in our city?" asked a general in the military base, who was smoking a cigarette and wearing sunglasses, to a university professor.

The middle-aged professor did not dare to delay and immediately replied, "I regret to say we don't have the technological capability."

"But if we open the granaries, distribute the food, and plant potatoes right away, they can mature in three to four months, perhaps barely addressing the problem."

"General, we can't open the Safe Zone! We haven't spread the Extraordinary Spark yet, we... will die!!"

"The water sources near our city have increased substantially; it's still possible to cultivate farmland now!"

The general remained silent, not making any statement.

With the government's collapse, the current power structure had become decentralized.

In layman's terms, it was every man for himself, with possibly tens of thousands of gangs.

Some warlords were willing to open the granaries; some were not.

Not everyone was willing to contribute their wealth for the good of the civilians to stabilize society.

"Cultivating farmland requires a stable environment. We don't have that at the moment, everyone is thinking about looting, no one wants to cultivate."

For the poor, the only option was to open the Safe Zone and head towards the Pangu Continent!

After all, they held the voting power. People were starving to death, and they were left with no choice but to take risks!

As the vote rate kept climbing, the chaotic deadlock was still unsolvable.

Having finished his cigarette, the general finally waved his hand and gave the order, "Spread this video to cause even greater panic!"

"We must lower the vote rate... even if people starve, the Safe Zone absolutely cannot be revoked!"

And so, the video of "Lu Yuan's battle with the Donkey-headed Monster" began to circulate widely within the second branch of human civilization, inducing the highest level of panic.

Creating panic just to avoid opening the Safe Zone was ridiculous, yet it was the reality.

In any case, those high-ups who had seized power were not the ones who would starve to death.

...

Coincidentally, human civilization's 17th branch, Peace City.

The sound of gunfire still spread across the ruins.

Most of the city had turned into wasteland.

This city was even more chaotic than Kahelen, the second branch of human civilization.

Because Peace City had been in the midst of a war before the shift!

"Liberate Peace City!"

"Take back our land!!"

"If you're human, stand with us. If you're human, pick up the guns and resist those thugs."

Boom!

Houses collapsed as the war persisted.

This madness meant that the city had no real leaders, just two camps waging a deadly war against each other.

Until one side was exterminated, they had no time to pay heed to other matters.

...

Human civilization's 11th branch, Dongjin City.

A bunch of researchers were gathered in front of a screen, carefully discussing something.

"Commander, such terrifying creatures have appeared, what should we do?" one asked.

"We don't even have the Extraordinary Spark... we'll be wiped out!"

According to their original thoughts, Dongjin City was considered one of the stronger cities out of the 17, with a not-so-bad industrial capacity; they were qualified to be the leaders of human civilization!

The V-formation pattern, leading other cities, wouldn't that be ideal?

As long as they were prepared with enough firearms and ammunition, and they opened the Safe Zone to hunt a creature with the Extraordinary Spark, they could regain this precious ability.

But now they were getting cold feet.

Adventurism and conservatism were clashing fiercely...

And some people, especially the scholars, believed privately that Dongjin City was doomed.

Without the Extraordinary Spark, they had fallen behind by who knows how many years; there was no prospect for the future.

Therefore, they wanted to flee.

The moment the Safe Zone was revoked, they would take off.

As for the direction of their escape... that was still under intense debate.

...