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

Just like that, Sky City was flying very steadily.

In these vast grasslands, the next generation of children received an entirely new education model.

It seemed to have a good effect.

Human teaches human, there's no failure in teaching; experience teaches human, get it right the first time.

Another 19 months had passed.

The abundance level of these grasslands couldn't compare to that of the underground rifts, but since they hadn't been searched by other civilizations, they weren't exactly barren either.

Through the efforts of the Treasure Hunting Team, Human Civilization's essence minerals barely balanced the budget, but significantly replenishing the National Treasury was extremely challenging.

And perhaps it was just bad luck, but in the past six months, the wealth they dug up had been slowly decreasing.

"I really want to find a big mine! These past few months have been unbearably dull."

Lu Ying, a Colonel, flipped down from the "Flying Dragon," yawning boredly.

He took out a camera and uploaded the photographed map to the computer.

By patching these maps together, one could partially restore the true geography of the Pangu Continent—this task had been ongoing for a long time, from Lu Yuan's hand-drawn maps over a hundred years ago to the current computer-generated ones, technology has advanced, but the work remains the same.

"19 months, we've moved forward 68,000 kilometers... this grassland is just too big, how many times larger is it than the Earth's equatorial radius?"

Lu Ying mumbled to himself, fiddling with the computer for a good while, but found that some contents just didn't fit together, not knowing where the error was.

He made a phone call: "Brother Yun, there's a big problem, help me out with this."

"I'm also very busy, Uncle Eagle, can you stop coming to me all the time."

Hai Zhiyun felt helpless, ever since the capabilities of humanoid computers became known, every few days someone asked for his help, truly fame comes with a price.

"Brother Yun, I'll definitely bring you on the next treasure hunt. I'll pick up some junk ores for you."

Brother Yun had a hobby of collecting junk, and he immediately beamed with joy: "No problem, no problem! Send over the files, they shouldn't be military secrets, right."

"No, no, no, just ordinary maps."

But this time, the processing took longer than expected; a job that used to take one minute now took about ten minutes.

Hai Zhiyun called back: "Uncle Eagle, are these maps from today?"

His tone was somewhat serious.

"Yes, what's up?"

"We might have returned to the same place we were half a year ago... I found that the similarity of the maps, compared to six months ago, is over 95%."

"Especially the geographical positions of several large lakes, identical." Hai Zhiyun highlighted several similar lakes with a red box, and transferred the photos over.

All things change, lakes and grasslands alike.

Although the lake water is shallower than six months ago, the reconnaissance room's team immediately discovered it was indeed the same place.

Everyone was suddenly shocked, gasping in realization—they had just been making a huge loop all this long time!

"What's going on here?"

Lu Ying didn't dare to delay, and immediately sent up a report.

The matter quickly gained the attention of the high council.

"It can now be confirmed that we have encountered a 'ghost hitting the wall' event."

"It's serious in a way, all the compasses have stopped working, even the sun's rising and setting have failed... We've wasted half a year in vain, just going in circles."

"If the reason isn't found, we might be trapped here for a long time."

Lu Yuan sat in the center of the conference room, looking at these maps with a mix of shock and confusion in his heart.

Aside from the compass and the sun, the Yingyu Tree could communicate with the Parasol Tree in Yunhai City through Dream ability, so the general direction was also known.

But even with such guidance, it had failed!

Yunhai City had spent half a year, making a big loop of 21,000 kilometers.

The situation was truly strange.

"But it's not a life-threatening crisis; we have carried ample supplies, and here the water and grass are lush, wildlife is abundant, it looks... we should have enough time to solve this problem."

"If we can get out of this strange place in a limited amount of time, there's no rush to inform the public."

"Let's try moving in different directions."

So, under the leadership of Lu Yuan, many soldiers increased their reconnaissance efforts, riding Flying Dragons, taking two months to survey an area thousands of kilometers in radius.

But the situation was strangely the same, other than the grassland, there was almost nothing here... various wildlife inhabited this place, thriving and seemingly harmonious.

Three Worm Kings traveled at supersonic speeds, trying every direction, but no matter which way they flew, they could only make a loop of over 20,000 kilometers and end up back at the starting point.

Lu Yuan, although possessing the ability of Spatial Teleportation, did not know where to teleport to.

The whole world seemed vast with grasslands, yet it was as if cloaked by an invisible boundary, and what was more crucial, he had no idea where this boundary actually was.

Three-dimensional beings could never touch the boundaries of four-dimensional space, just as two-dimensional beings will never know the concept of "height."

"It seems things have gotten quite serious..."

That day, after a busy fruitless effort, Lu Yuan's heart pounded as he thought of a very mysterious natural disaster—an Anomaly[Monster]!

Wouldn't it become like this if one inadvertently entered the territory of the [Monster]?

Of course, the [Monster]'s combat power isn't strong, and it excels at spiritual attacks and rearing minions.

However, from this angle, it's too similar, humans have stayed here for half a year without a single disappearance, which doesn't quite match the behavior tendency of the [Monster].

"Don't let your guard down, [Monster] is different from other natural disasters. It's as timid as a mouse, and once it detects an enemy too strong, it will not rashly make a move," Lu Yuan cautioned the numerous soldiers, "You continue to scout the surroundings and explore more clues."

"I will stay here."

He didn't dare to leave the city now, controlling the "Greedy Demon God" every moment, perched at the highest point of the Opium poppy, watching over the entire city.

Once the [Monster] activates its Space Ability, abducting the people, he will immediately initiate Spatial Teleportation and follow them in.

As long as the Greedy Demon God breaks into the [Monster]'s Different Space, defeating this natural disaster shouldn't be a big problem…

...

Thus, in the fourth month of weary waiting, a turning point finally arrived!

A "Flying Snake" that had gone out for reconnaissance returned to the city, and the soldiers swiftly removed the camera from its head, processed it with a computer, and then fed it exquisite food.

Having no leads from the current reconnaissance, humans can only expand their search area, from a few thousand kilometers to tens of thousands of kilometers, resorting to Flying Snakes as the preferred method of reconnaissance due to insufficient manpower.

The single operation of the Flying Snake, lasting 12 continuous days, successfully detected a distance of twenty thousand kilometers, which is quite cost-effective.

The current AI technology has gradually caught up with Earth's level, and abnormalities in the videos can be discovered by AI in less than a few minutes.

Due to the long absence of information, the morale of the reconnaissance team was actually not that good, with everyone working in a procedural manner.

"Beep!" Suddenly, a large screen sounded an alarm, and the fast-forwarding image came to a halt.

"What is this...?" a member of the identification team suddenly rubbed their eyes, staring incredulously at the big screen.

A… City!

A desolate city floating in the sky?!

The city wasn't too big; it was roughly 8 kilometers in length and 7.2 kilometers wide, its overall shape akin to that of an exquisite large palace!

Its main building was octagonal, with a hemisphere dome in the center surrounded by sixteen smaller domes, each typically carved with vague patterns resembling the Sun God.

A vibrant blood-red flower, filling every nook and cranny of the palace, making it look like a city filled with flowers.

Ancient halls, decayed pillars.

Vanishing light, crawling with darkness.

Grey and white colors, cold brightness.

Vibrant red flowers, telling of horrors.

Wherever the eye reached, all was absurdity.

The worker stared for a few seconds and jumped from their seat in fright; even if this information seemed unremarkable, at most signifying that the palace was particularly luxurious and the flowers especially bright, they inexplicably felt extreme terror, as if facing a true natural enemy of life.

After detecting this palace, the "Flying Snake" turned around and fled back from afar; the footage from the investigation was quite limited.

Therefore, the investigators could only analyze the video over and over again, trying to glean more clues.

"Look here quickly!"

A sharp-eyed worker pointed at one scene.

In it, one could see suspicious life forms standing on a certain platform.

They were slender in shape, with hands and feet, and pink tongues forked; their cold gaze seemed unfocused, staring into the distance.

These snake-like beings, holding rusty weapons and wearing tattered armor, left people unable to decipher whether they were mummies or actual alive creatures.

"Is this a statue?"

"Absolutely not."

"Why don't they move at all... In the footage of several minutes, not even an eyelid was blinked."

The leading investigator shivered and reported to the higher-ups: "Report! We have discovered a small Floating City 8838.76 kilometers in the Northeast direction, which may be the relic of a Prehistoric Civilization. The specific level of technology is unknown."

"The footage captured by the Flying Snake brings about a strong sense of unease."

Upon receiving this notification, Lu Yuan did not dare to be negligent.

He first glanced at the photos a few times, the mysterious palace adorned with plenty of flowers, looking as if it had syphilis, indeed induced a grotesque sense of discomfort.

As for those strange Snake-men... he also could not tell whether they were dead or alive.

"Send some drones... no, wait, don't alert them just yet!"