An Unexpected Encounter with "Colleagues"

The risk of consuming these abilities far outweighed the benefits, so Li Rui, Xiang Sheng, and Song Bai all chose not to eat them.

Tu Ran ate all of them by herself.

She now had twelve intermediate-level abilities, three of which were of little use and could be discarded. If she accumulated four more, she could upgrade [Phantom Realm].

Unfortunately, in the following days, Tu Ran encountered no exotic creatures with inner cores, and those four cores remained elusive.

On the sixth day of their journey together, Tu Ran, who usually walked at the front, suddenly stopped in her tracks.

The three behind her immediately went on alert.

The past few days had taught them that whenever Tu Ran stopped, an exotic creature was sure to appear.

But today, it wasn't a creature that appeared.

It was humans.

Two of them.

By their builds, both seemed to be male.

They wore the same cool black combat suits as Tu Ran, with the words "Pioneer" printed across their chests.

They were most likely Tu Ran's colleagues, the three speculated silently.

Tu Ran had never mentioned why she, a person from the First World, was wearing Second World combat gear and entered the Third World.

She never spoke of her experiences. Throughout their days together, she only shared information about the Tech World and the Shan Hai Jing World, pouring all her knowledge into them.

In truth, they knew very little about Tu Ran.

The two colleagues across from them also spotted Tu Ran and the three people behind her. After a brief pause, they exchanged glances and moved closer.

Tu Ran tilted her head slightly and said in a low voice to Xiang Sheng behind her, "Take them and hide. Don't show yourselves."

Xiang Sheng immediately did as she asked, pulling Li Rui and Song Bai along to a large tree about a dozen meters away, and they hid behind the trunk.

Because Tu Ran had emphasized not to show themselves, Xiang Sheng held one head in each hand, preventing them from peeking.

Voices soon drifted over.

"Tu Ran?" the other side asked uncertainly.

"Mm." Tu Ran replied with a single, aloof word.

"What a coincidence, running into each other like this." The other side tried to get friendly.

Tu Ran wasn't swayed. Instead, she asked flatly, "When did you two come in?"

"Over a month ago," the other replied without thinking, then asked back, "And you?"

"By Federation time, today is day ten."

"Who were those three just now? I don't recall seeing them in the Pioneer Team."

"Ordinary Federation citizens who wandered in by accident."

"So there are other Thresholds besides the ones in Regaken State and the Federation Center?"

"Yes."

"Seems like a lot has happened in the Federation while we've been out here." One of them sighed.

Tu Ran was silent for a moment, then suddenly brought up, "Have you heard of inner cores?"

The other side seemed surprised, their tone confused. "Inner cores? What's that?"

"Inner cores on exotic creatures. Eat one, and you gain special abilities."

"There's such a thing?" The other was shocked. "Really? We've never heard of that."

Tu Ran's tone grew meaningful. "Is that so? I forgot to mention, I've already gained a special ability—I can tell whether every word someone says to me is true or false. If it's a lie, the other person's body glows red. In the past few minutes alone, you've lit up quite a few times."

Xiang Sheng and the others couldn't see the faces of the two across from them, but several seconds passed before they reacted, and when they did, their retort lacked confidence—so the three hiding behind the tree knew Tu Ran had hit the mark. They had definitely lied before. They probably knew about inner cores all along.

"Ridiculous. What would we have to lie about? Your special ability is pretty poorly made up."

"You think we're stupid? Who'd believe that nonsense, huh?"

The two went back and forth, denying they'd lied.

But their voices grew weaker and weaker.

In the end, even though Tu Ran said nothing at all, they voluntarily admitted it and lowered their posture.

"No offense intended. We were just passing through, and we took that route only to survive. We hope you'll let us go our separate ways."

Tu Ran didn't speak.

But footsteps approached, and the two men slunk past the tree where the three were hiding.

Evidently, Tu Ran had let them go.

Seeing their retreating figures, the three prepared to come out and rejoin Tu Ran.

Just then, the two departing men suddenly turned around, a bloodthirsty smile curling at the corners of their mouths, their gun barrels aimed at Tu Ran as they fired a barrage of bullets.

"Tu Ran! Die!"

Xiang Sheng noticed first and shouted, "Tu Ran! Look out!"

Tu Ran was already prepared.

The moment they fired, she flashed behind the nearest tree trunk.

Then something bizarre happened. The bullets originally aimed at her, which should have whizzed past, suddenly curved mid-flight and chased after her position.

Tu Ran wasn't surprised in the least.

[Absolute Hit]

The other's ability.

She'd seen that ability the moment she laid eyes on the two.

The other one had [Discern], the very ability she'd fabricated about judging whether someone was telling the truth.

Both of them had abilities, so Tu Ran didn't believe they were unaware of such things.

And the one with [Discern] couldn't detect her lies because [Discern] was a beginner-level support ability, suppressed by higher-level support abilities.

She had multiple high-level support abilities, which directly suppressed [Discern]. No matter how false her words were, [Discern] couldn't detect them, but the person with [Discern] would be deeply convinced by her.

Both abilities were excellent, especially [Absolute Hit]—it was practically tailor-made for her.

She'd been considering whether to make a move on them, but now that they'd struck first, she had no reason to spare their lives.

Tu Ran decisively activated Blink, circling around the tree trunk and leaving the bullets far behind.

The two were still aiming and firing at Tu Ran, their bullets forming a dense net that sealed her off from every angle—a clear sign of their determination to kill her.

Tu Ran's allure was immense, for anyone.

Those short on money would think of capturing her for the one-billion Federation credits bounty.

Those not short on money would greedily covet her formidable combat strength and the inner core within her, packed with who-knew-how-many abilities.

At this moment, the two men's minds were already calculating how to split her inner core after getting it, and whether they should kill each other too, so they could keep it all to themselves.

Their minds were too cluttered with thoughts. By the time they reacted, Tu Ran was already charging toward them, a tail of bullets chasing behind her.

The two hadn't expected Tu Ran's speed to rival bullets—even slightly faster.

Back when she'd first entered the Threshold, her speed had been far slower than bullets, nearly overtaken by them.