My setting is above yours!

Chapter 130 sets out the "psychic potential" and the psychic awakening potion (5k).

'Aside from the countless [historical voids] that have already enveloped the city and almost swallowed up half the planet, there doesn't seem to be anything special about the [Void Age]...'

'Oh, no, that's not quite right—there are way more people than in Ideal City.'

Ron glanced around and silently stepped back to the edge of the road, making way for the crowd.

In this era of more advanced science and technology, although Ron has not yet witnessed any particularly advanced technology or many extraordinary wonders, he has seen significantly more of the human beings themselves compared to when he was in the Ideal City.

In the blink of an eye, countless people brushed past you, and strange people who had transformed themselves into mechanical forms flew through the sky, moving forward with the hovercars, crowding the steel jungle that was even denser than Ideal City, struggling to squeeze through the gaps between buildings...

Ron could see countless wealthy people dressed in fine clothes sitting in those hovercars. Those who had undergone a certain degree of mechanical modification, with all their prosthetic bodies gleaming with nobility, and who relied on their bodies to fly in the sky and race against the hovercars, were also dressed in fine clothes and looked quite rich.

The flashing neon lights illuminated Ron's eyes, and for a moment his gaze was fixed on the magnificent scene in the sky and the noble people, and he couldn't help but feel a sense of emotion:
'It's hard to imagine that in this dangerous apocalyptic era, where most of the world has been swallowed up by the [Historical Void], the now clearly different [Ideal City of the Future] can still support so many people...'

'Could it be that the current leaders of Ideal City are truly top-tier politicians, leading the entire [Future Ideal City] to crawl along in the cracks of crisis, desperately snatching a sliver of life from the crisis of [Historical Void], finding the best development path, and even managing to support so many people?'

But then Ron realized what he was thinking, looked down at the crowd he had just squeezed out of, and saw the somewhat ragged appearance of the people walking on the ground, who were being dominated by the rich. He immediately rejected his idea.

'It seems unlikely...'

Because in Ron's field of vision, he could clearly see countless, disheveled... "people" wandering in the shadows by the roadside.

They stood dazedly by the roadside, heads drooping and backs bent like broken puppets, swaying as if their spines had been emptied...

These people had dazed and intoxicated expressions on their faces, with saliva dripping from the corners of their mouths, and obvious needle marks visible on their bodies.

Moreover, if you look through their tattered clothes, you can see USB drives with warning symbols printed on them that are connected to brain-computer interfaces.

Clearly, besides chemicals, this group even has some methods of "having fun" that didn't exist in the original Ideal City at all, methods that, in a data-driven sense, are completely different...

'Using brain-computer interfaces to engage in addictive behaviors, and on such a massive scale... at least in the [Empty Age], the leaders here are probably far worse than before.'

"After all, Ideal City won't actually lift the restrictions on these addictive substances on the surface... Most of the people who can afford to consume these things in Ideal City are rich kids who've lost their minds; very few poor people actually have the means to obtain such products."

'But in this "ideal city of the future," citizens who choose to indulge in addictive hallucinations are everywhere...'

Ron, deep in thought, shrank into the shadows and observed coldly, then noticed something he hadn't seen in the crowd earlier—

Numerous cyborgs surged into the crowd, their faces showing obvious numbness and fatigue.

Some of them had completely modified their arms, installing giant, rusty mechanical clamps on themselves, and were now carrying large crates several times their own weight. It was unclear which company they were working for.

Some people have completely removed their lower bodies and replaced them with simple steel wheelchairs. They have also modified their chests to have large iron trays that can carry goods. At this moment, they are carrying takeout orders on the iron trays and speeding along the road in their modified wheelchairs.

Some people have modified their legs for high-altitude work, while others have altered their faces for the service industry...

Severe mechanical modifications seemed to have lost all ethical and moral constraints, appearing rampantly in everyone during the "Empty Age," and the vast majority exhibited a clear manifestation of this—

These substandard and serious mechanical modifications were clearly made for the sake of living conditions.

Without this transformation, they seem unable to perform their current jobs and would be laid off by the company, losing their source of income.

'Truly worthy of being called the ideal city of the future; this pervasive oppression, affecting almost the entire society, far surpasses the exploitation of its temporary workers by Noah Pharmaceuticals…'

'...At least working in drug trials at Noah Pharmaceuticals gives you a chance to live for more than ten years!'

'Such severe mechanical modifications and excessive exploitation of labor, three years or five years? It feels like these people won't live more than three to five years before they're destined for this little box, their eternal home…'

'In this era, with such severe exploitation, how can so many people still survive? It doesn't make sense...'

'What exactly did the leaders of this "ideal city of the future" do to lead the city to become like this...?'

Ron frowned, deep in thought, his gaze involuntarily shifting to the clearly extremely important sky island floating high in the sky, and the tower atop it—

Whether they were wealthy people indulging in sensual pleasures and soaring through the sky, or poor people in tattered clothes huddled on the ground, they were all piled up beneath this sky island. No one ever looked up at this sky island that covered half the city, and it seemed that no one paid any attention to this giant island...

Everything in the city below seemed unrelated to him, but looking at the clearly more fantastical and truly sci-fi-like city and giant towers on Sky Island, Ron knew that Sky Island was probably the most important part of the "ideal city of the future" in the "Hollow Age".

'Maybe it's Area A of Ideal City? The guys in Area A aren't going to play with those poor out-of-towners from Areas B, C, and D anymore. They're just going to elevate the entire area to the top, becoming the elite above all others in Ideal City...'

Ron made a sarcastic remark to himself, but he didn't actually take it as a reality.

After all, Ideal City Area A is the foundation of an ideal city built at the boundary between reality and the spirit world—

In a situation where the boundless expansion of personal reality has completely torn apart the boundary between the spirit world and reality, and the infinite outbreak of the [historical void] has swallowed up most of the world, Ideal City Area A, a border region, would have been the first to be affected and would probably have been completely torn apart long ago.

That floating island was probably built because Ideal City Area A was completely torn apart, and the Moen City government urgently took away various important buildings such as the Mirror Tower and the Tower of Babel to rebuild a new city hub...

'Thinking about it this way... if we want to obtain those twelve singularity technologies, we'll probably have to make a trip to that floating island up there.'

'After all, you probably won't find these essential technologies of this era in this clearly defined lower city.'

Ron thought to himself, but instead of immediately trying to find a way to get to the giant floating island, he found a dark alleyway and quietly walked in.

There will obviously be some obstacles to getting to that giant floating island—after all, in the past, there were access restrictions in Area A of Ideal City, and outsiders without Area A household registration could not move around in Area A at all.

Now that the "Ideal City of the Future" has deteriorated many times over, that floating island must have some kind of rule or mechanism preventing the civilians below from reaching it...

Considering the potential dangers and obstacles, Ron decided to find a quiet place first to carefully take stock of his gains—

That's right, it's a harvest.

The moment Ron stepped into the "Void Age," the Dimensional Update Manual had already popped up a notification—

[Version 4.500 has been detected. Due to a special DLC update in this version, version settings are being extracted.]

[Setting extracted: Psionic potential.]

The void of darkness tears reality apart; some are crushed by it in fear, while others glimpse the dazzling brilliance of the deeper world through the cracks.

In the unknowable darkness, only the power of the spirit world itself remains unaffected.

"The stars will always shine brightly; this is the path we should follow..."

—Psionic Entity, Starlight, Hollow Explorer [Alan]. [This is the base setting for the 4.500 DLC. After loading this setting, you will gain psionic potential and etheric adaptability, allowing you to contain etheric psionic energy.]

Looking at the text on the Dimensional Update Manual, Ron wasn't surprised at all.

After all, based on his experience when he first went to the "Potion Age", Ron directly obtained the basic setting of the [Embers of the Age of Gods] version, which was used to support Ron in accommodating extraordinary characteristics and opening the Magic Vision.

Arriving in the "Void Age," it's perfectly normal for him to directly receive the [Psionic Potential] setting to support his etheric adaptability.

He switched to [Psionic Potential] and found that this setting, apart from conflicting with [Personal Reality] and [Superpowered Being], did not conflict with [Potion Sequence].

Even the fundamental concept of "illusion dissolution" in the "superpower era" seems to have no conflict or contradiction with "psychic potential."

Ron briefly studied the setting, but ended up feeling a little confused.

'Ethereal psionic energy...where are we going to get this stuff?'

He felt somewhat helpless as he experienced the world remaining unchanged after being equipped with [Psionic Potential].

When Ron went to the "Potion Age" before, he had already learned about the power system of the "Potion Age" and the existence of the [Potion Sequence] by relying on some fragmented historical fragments...

Therefore, he didn't need to think about anything at that time. After obtaining the [Embers of the Age of Gods], he only needed to find the "Sequence Potion" to advance step by step. He was completely without any confusion.

But for Ron, the "Void Age" was a future where there was absolutely no information except for version update announcements... Both "etheric fields" and "etheric psionic energy" were completely foreign to Ron.

'Hmm... Could the [Psionic Beacon], like "Introduction to Mysticism," offer some hints in this area?'

Ron pulled out the anchor for this version of the design, only to find the translucent, bone-like Möbius strip pendant lying coldly in his palm, completely unchanged.

He shook the pendant defiantly, fiddling with the little gadget for a long time, only to find in despair that he not only didn't understand how to use etheric energy, but he didn't even understand what the [Psionic Beacon] was for!
Well, that's it. I'm out of ideas.

'Try to find a place in this era to search for information and see where they've developed etheric energy and singularity technology...'

'I wonder if my old-fashioned brain-computer interface can still connect to the new-era network... No, that might be a bit dangerous...'

'I feel like I need to find a shady internet cafe in this era, so I searched online... But in this "empty age," will internet cafes even still exist?'

Ron pondered for a moment, sighed, reluctantly put away the "psychic beacon," and slowly walked out of the quiet alley.

But he had barely left the alley and returned to the noisy and congested main street when he suddenly heard a deafening roar and a fierce clamor coming from the horizon—

"You dare steal from our Black Dragon Gang? You little thief, hand over the [Psionic Awakening Potion] right now!"

Ron looked up and saw a hovercar speeding past on autopilot. A short-haired girl in a leather jacket was standing in the driver's seat of the open-top hovercar, while a dozen or so heavily tattooed, muscular, and heavily modified men were chasing after them not far behind.

They chased after the girl using their prosthetic flying devices, but the devices were clearly slower than the hovercar; even the exhaust fumes from the prosthetics were distorted, and the distance between them noticeably increased.

But the burly leader snorted coldly and said:
"Hmph... Stubborn fool! Since you like the [Psionic Awakening Potion] so much, then you might as well go down with it!"

As he spoke, he said something completely out of the blue:
"Twenty thousand!"

The next moment, a rocket launcher suddenly appeared out of thin air in his hand, and a rocket was fired at the airship.

Seeing this, the short-haired girl was clearly a little nervous, but she was somewhat prepared. With a casual toss, she threw a twisted, semi-transparent, strange energy ball, which collided directly with the rocket and exploded in mid-air.

Because they were not flying at high altitude, the sudden explosion directly overturned half of the street. Crowds surged past, and countless people were thrown to the roadside by the blast wave, turning into dust along with their modified cybernetic bodies.

The flow of people paused for a moment, but then, as if they hadn't seen anyone die, these numb people silently stepped over the corpses and filled the crowd again...

When Ron saw this scene, even someone as experienced as him couldn't help but tremble, his heart filled with horror.

'How utterly numb have these people become...aren't they even afraid of death?!'

Yes, they really weren't even afraid of death anymore.

Even though so many people had just died, and even though it was obvious that there was still danger here, they continued on their way without any regard for the consequences...

Meanwhile, the two sides were still fighting in mid-air. The burly gangster, seeing that he hadn't managed to take down the short-haired girl with a single shot, inexplicably showed a pained expression on his face. Then, gritting his teeth, he simply spoke again:

“…One hundred thousand!”

The next moment, a dozen small rockets appeared out of thin air beside him and were launched simultaneously, flying toward the girl with different trajectories. She was so frightened that she stood at attention and couldn't stop waving her hands, throwing out one translucent energy ball after another.

But the energy clusters couldn't completely catch the rockets. Although they were all hit and fell, exploding time and again, sending up clouds of blood from the crowd, each explosion brought them one step closer to the short-haired girl—

Finally, the girl narrowly intercepted a rocket, but because the missile was flying too close, the shockwave from the explosion almost overturned the convertible hovercar. She struggled with all her might to barely stabilize it.

However, the explosion clearly affected the airship; the engine seemed to have some power issues, and the vehicle's speed was much slower than before...

Seeing the girl slow down, the gang leader was overjoyed and shouted:
"Brothers, hurry up! This woman's vehicle is malfunctioning. Let's kill her here quickly, and make sure we don't lose reputation!"

"I'll listen to you, boss!"

In an instant, more than a dozen massive prosthetic flying machines simultaneously overloaded, rushing towards the girl at an even faster speed, closing the distance rapidly as if they were about to capture her—

Seeing the gangsters charging towards her, the short-haired girl broke out in a cold sweat. She anxiously glanced around, her gaze landing on Ron, who was standing on the street, frowning as he looked at them…

The next moment, the short-haired girl burst into tears and shouted:

"Damn, bro! I've been waiting for you for so long, why did it take you so long to come and meet me?!"

She shouted and casually pulled out a shiny test tube:
"Now! This time we're really in trouble... Let's split up and run!"

As she spoke, she hurled the test tube at Ron, then swiftly sat back in the driver's seat. Using some unknown method, the swaying hovercar suddenly spewed out blazing blue flames from its rear, turned, and vanished in a flash.

Ron instinctively took the test tube and saw that it contained half a bottle of colorful liquid. With just a slight shake, Ron felt that everything inside was flowing like grains of sand in a starry sea, which was extremely eye-catching.

But the next moment, he suddenly snapped back to reality and looked at the gangsters who had all turned around, their eyes fixed on him with deep intensity—

"What the hell does this have to do with me?!"

'Am I being made a scapegoat?'

(End of this chapter)