Chapter 332
Time flew by in the blink of an eye.
A full week had passed since Liam moved up to the twentieth floor. In that time, Suzy’s spatial storage had finally completed its upgrade.
She was just about to turn in for the night when the system notification chimed. Hearing the sound, she instantly bolted upright in bed, all traces of sleepiness vanishing as a surge of adrenaline wired her awake. Without a second thought, she flashed directly into her space. She couldn’t wait another moment to see the changes.
Upon entering, Suzy materialized right in front of her familiar house. But before she could even look around to survey the area, Dummy and Kitty came lunging toward her.
"Master!" the two cried out excitedly.
Dummy was currently coiled around Kitty, his white snake body wrapped snugly around the cat while his tiny head bobbed up and down toward Suzy. As the only two sentient creatures inside the space, the little guys had clearly bonded over the past week and were now thick as thieves.
"It’s been a week. How have you two been?" Suzy asked, her eyes crinkling with a smile.
"Great!" Kitty replied, her tone dripping with her usual playful arrogance.
The spatial upgrade hadn’t impacted the two little creatures at all; they had carried on with their daily routines just fine. However, Suzy noticed that Kitty had visibly grown. She used to be just a tiny kitten, but seeing her now, she was noticeably larger.
"Kitty, did you get bigger?" Suzy eyed the cat, using her hand to gauge her size.
"You finally noticed!" Kitty’s voice carried a rare note of pure excitement. She was thrilled. She really had grown. As the space upgraded, it didn’t just expand her physical form; it boosted her abilities as well. She was genuinely pleased that Suzy had picked up on it.
"Is it because of the upgrade?"
"Yup!"
The pieces clicked into place for Suzy. It made sense; since Kitty was the space spirit, it stood to reason that the spatial upgrade would directly affect her.
"Master, now that the space has upgraded, aren’t you going to take a look around?" Dummy chimed in.
"I was just about to. Are there any massive changes?" As she spoke, Suzy swept her gaze over her surroundings.
The expansion was instantly noticeable. The total area had nearly tripled in size, drastically broadening her horizon. The surrounding scenery was lush and vibrant, filled with towering mountains and flowing streams that instantly lifted her spirits just by looking at them. On top of that, both the farmland and the pastures had expanded significantly.
Kitty had already automated the management of the newly added fields, planting them with a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, and grains without Suzy having to lift a finger.
After completing a quick circuit, Suzy noted that the primary facilities remained largely the same, having simply been scaled up from their original sizes.
"Are there no new functions?" she asked, slightly puzzled.
"Master, come over here!" Dummy gestured for her to follow.
At his words, Suzy’s anticipation flared. "What is it?"
"You’ll see when you get there," Dummy teased, deliberately keeping her in suspense.
"Alright," Suzy agreed, keeping her pace steady.
She followed the cat-and-snake duo forward. Before long, she realized the path beneath her feet felt incredibly familiar, and a spark of hope ignited in her chest. Could it be... that area has finally opened up?!
She had been curious about the mysterious, fog-shrouded zone in her space for the longest time, constantly wondering what lay hidden beyond the mist.
After walking for a bit, the landscape in the distance began to clear, and Suzy froze dead in her tracks. Seeing her sudden stop, Kitty and Dummy halted beside her.
"This area appeared only after the space finished upgrading," Kitty explained.
Suzy stared at the sight before her, completely dazed.
Rising up out of nowhere directly ahead of her was the massive, sprawling silhouette of an ancient town. It looked like something straight out of a historical television drama—quaint, classic, and full of old charm.
The blurry plaque she had spotted long ago had finally come into sharp focus. From somewhere deep within the ancient town, faint, overlapping echoes of bustling noise and chatter wafted over.
The scene left Suzy utterly bewildered.
Why on earth is there an entire town inside my spatial storage?!
It was bizarre. Looking at it now, the things Leonard had mentioned seeing back then definitely hadn’t been a hallucination!
"Kitty, what exactly is going on here?" Suzy turned to the cat, her voice full of confusion. As the space spirit, Kitty might actually know something.
Unfortunately, Suzy was met with disappointment.
Kitty scratched her head and shook it. "I... I don’t know either. It just turned into this after the upgrade finished."
"Host, why don’t you just head over and take a look yourself?"
Feeling a bit let down, Suzy nodded. She cast a glance back toward her house. Over there, her homestead stood exactly as it always had, with the pastures and farmland perfectly intact. Nothing had changed on her side.
Yet, this newly manifested ancient town felt completely detached from the rest of the space, as if it were a construct brought in from a totally different dimension.
Pushing down the subtle unease in her heart, Suzy looked back toward the town. "Are you two coming with me?" she asked.
Kitty and Dummy exchanged a quick look and nodded in unison.
"Master, I’ll go with you," Dummy offered eagerly.
Kitty chimed in, "Me too."
Suzy extended her arm, and Dummy instinctively coiled himself around her forearm, resting there obediently. She then looked down at Kitty and suggested, "Kitty, let me carry you."
Kitty didn’t answer right away, seemingly mulling it over.
After a brief pause, the cat relented. "Alright."
Suzy scooped her up, cradling her snugly in her arms. Kitty felt a bit restless at first, squirming a few times to break free, but after Suzy firmly nudged her back down, she accepted her fate.
"Be good," Suzy murmured.
With Kitty nestled in her arms and Dummy coiled around her forearm, she set off toward the ancient town.
The path ahead was entirely clear. Now that the space had upgraded, the boundaries had shifted, and that strange, invisible barrier that used to block her was completely gone. As she drew closer to the town, the ambient chatter and bustling noise grew louder and more distinct.
Finally, Suzy stepped beneath the magnificent archway. Up close, the three large characters carved into the stone came into sharp focus: Mountain Town.
Suzy repeated the name quietly to herself, her curiosity deepening by the second. She lingered there for a moment, studying the archway. A long, winding path cut beneath it, stretching quite a distance forward before actually reaching the town proper.
Strangely, she didn’t see a single soul in the immediate vicinity.
Deciding she had stared long enough, Suzy took a deep breath, stepped past the archway, and officially crossed into the territory of Mountain Town.
The moment she crossed the threshold, a sudden rush of potent energy washed over her. It was an indescribably surreal sensation, as if she had stepped clean out of her own reality and into an entirely new world. Her surroundings instantly sharpened, and up ahead, the silhouettes of moving people began to materialize.
A single step was all it took to change the entire atmosphere.
Suzy stared at the figures bustling back and forth in the distance, momentarily spellbound, until Kitty’s voice cut through her thoughts. "Host, what’s wrong? Aren’t we going in?"
Snapping out of her daze, Suzy replied, "We’re going."
She pressed forward. After walking a bit further, she finally crossed into the heart of Mountain Town. In the blink of an eye, the space around her suddenly swarmed with people.