Before leaving, Yvette didn’t forget to place an order with Welding Gun to purchase two clean and hygienic new ID cards. This required establishing connections with the Police Bureau, and as one of the local syndicate’s influential figures, Welding Gun had no trouble achieving this—essentially, the police themselves were selling, and he was just acting as a middleman.

At this point, through her conversations with Welding Gun, Yvette had started to feel that there might be no necessity for her to buy ID cards. After all, unless the relatives of those three thugs stuffed the police with bribes, the quality of the police here was such that they hardly conducted serious investigations; they would just handle things superficially, and there would be no chance of them noticing the hacking into the police system or the modifications made to residents’ information.

Besides, the Blackwater Zone had a backlog of unresolved cases every year that could hardly be counted. Aside from the eager beginners just starting out, most seasoned officers had become jaded; why would they care about one more case?

However, Yvette, being new to this place only on the second day, lacked a significant understanding of the Blackwater Zone, Ish City, and the entire Origin civilization. It wouldn’t do to rely solely on conjectures. Thus, out of caution, she went ahead and paid for the two ID cards, totaling 16,000 credit points, which brought her remaining balance down to 69,800.

…

After leaving the Scrapyard Black Market, in the evening, Yvette and Rosalyn strolled around the city center, passing through the citizen park that had transformed into a manor after the apocalypse. They enjoyed a high-end dinner and even went up to the observation dome at the top of the Blacktower building, feasting their eyes on the neon night scenes of Ish City, illuminated by the continuously flowing magical light.

At that moment, looking at this beautiful sight, Rosalyn had fully begun to treat it as a true portrayal of the divine kingdom on earth, filling her mind with various wonderful fantasies.

Though Yvette was aware that no utopia existed in the world and that the Origin civilization was a society marked by stark wealth disparities, the beauty of the scenery had nevertheless entranced her, momentarily leading her to reminisce about the time she had gone to the Shanghai Tower with her family during her youth. Back then, she was still quite young, full of vigor; little did she think that she would end up delivering takeout after graduation…

At least she had struck luck now, and she had become a witch. Whether that was fortunate or unfortunate remained to be seen.

The next day, in the morning, Yvette, using a rental intermediary platform, abandoned the inn and rented an apartment covering about eighty square meters located in the “Light Apartment Building” on Acid Street.

This was an apartment building situated next to a flourishing commercial district in the Blackwater Zone, and the location was excellent with relatively reliable security, unlike Pixel Street, where one could wake up in the middle of the night to gunshots, leading to an involuntary accident. Of course, she wasn’t worried about needing the bathroom during the night, but that was a scientific assumption based on past experiences.

Standing at the entrance of the apartment, she looked up at the entire Light Apartment, a huge bright yellow honeycomb-like structure. The upper part was comparatively wide, with magitek motorcycles constantly taking off and landing on the rooftop platform in a busy flurry, while the lower section appeared narrower and more conservative, with no balconies and iron wire screens installed over the windows, leading to only one narrow driveway.

Quickly entering the elevator with Rosalyn, Yvette pressed the button for the 18th floor. This was a VIP elevator reserved for tenants above the 15th floor; the rent for this section was higher, implying better services.

“Hello, are you new residents?”

Arriving at the door of apartment 1809, as she opened it, Yvette saw a middle-aged man in a white coat walking out from the adjacent room, looking surprised as he prepared to head out.

“Yes, we just moved in today,” Yvette nodded slightly.

“I’m Regel Hoffman; we’ll be neighbors from now on,” Regel smiled, suddenly pulling out a business card from his clothes and handing it to them. “This is my card; feel free to reach out if you need any assistance.”

Yvette glanced at the card: “Hoffman General Clinic… You’re a doctor?”

“Yes, but my fees are quite reasonable, so no worries. Many tenants above the 15th floor are my regular patients.”

Regel glanced at his watch, waved, saying, “I’m in a hurry; I have matters to attend to. Enjoy your stay!”

As he walked away, Yvette entered the apartment, and the door closed automatically behind her.

At this moment, Rosalyn had already darted into the room ahead of her and was fiddling with a holographic display disguised as a fish tank.

However, her enthusiasm waned quickly, and soon Yvette noticed Rosalyn losing interest in exploring the apartment, instead sprawling on the living room sofa, skillfully scrolling through short videos using the holographic projection function of the magitek terminal, resembling a fish that had lost its fighting spirit.

“……”

Shaking her head, Yvette casually found a stool to sit on and began surfing the internet—not for leisure, but to research information on the Silent War.

There was a wealth of material online regarding this global conflict, making it not difficult to find.

According to well-documented sources on the internet, the war had erupted quite suddenly without any preliminary groundwork. The government launched a preemptive strike, and by the time the corporations realized something was amiss, it was already too late, placing the corporate forces at a disadvantage from the start.

What stood out to Yvette was that only three firms were directly involved in the war’s initial phase: Lingman Corporation, Sky Arch Technology, and Blacktower Pharmaceuticals.

The offensive side consisted of the “New Eden Commonwealth” and the “Future Alliance.” These were the two strongest nations in the Origin civilization, also serving as regional powerhouses in the Black Tide and Silver Mirror continents.

They initially used policy suppression and regulatory intervention, leading to minor armed skirmishes, after which other forces entered the fray, igniting the conflict, culminating in a large-scale hot war between the “Corporate Alliance” and “Global Government”… which seemed quite plausible.

Moreover, restraining the expansion of super corporations wasn’t such an odd decision; it was merely the means that had escalated excessively, and the corporations themselves had reciprocated aggressively…

Yvette thought quietly.

As for the war’s conclusion, just as Welding Gun had mentioned, both sides abruptly halted hostilities, citing a desire to prevent further casualties. They remained silent and revealed no additional information to the public, sourced hence the term “Silent War.”

After scanning through a day’s worth of myriad discussions and speculations on the internet, by the time evening arrived, Yvette sat on the living room sofa, wearily rubbing her temples, feeling she had come up empty. Even if credible leads did exist, surrounded by conspiracy theories, it was impossible for her to discern anything reliable.

Thus, after some thought, she decided to shift her strategy, foregoing the investigation into the Silent War and instead searching for tags related to the apocalypse.

Such a search criterion indeed yielded fewer results. After rummaging through various forums for a time and leveraging several AI search engines, one post finally caught her attention.

—A user with the ID “Fire Keeper” claimed the apocalypse was near and had established a shelter, hoping everyone would contribute their important knowledge to upload onto the server, serving as the seed for the rebirth of human civilization. Content originally comes from n0velfire.net

If this were Earth, it would surely be a scam, akin to those “get-rich-quick schemes.” But in the Origin civilization, considering the extreme measures taken regarding knowledge and intellectual property here, the author’s words seemed quite sincere.

Surely nobody would risk prison for posting nonsense on a forum…

Thinking this, Yvette looked at the dubious link provided in the post and clicked into it, only to see the anticipated risk warning appear.

Familiar with the drill, she clicked “Ignore Risk, Proceed to Visit,” and what appeared before her was a small website with a pitch-black background, featuring a dynamic image of a burning candle in the center. Below it was an upload module for files not exceeding a certain size to be uploaded to the server.

In the upper left corner of the webpage was a logo shaped like a burning candle, beside it written what was presumably the name of the organization—

Civilization Preservation Society.