157: Chapter 154 Intersection

She read this sentence again.

"Users who do not accept suggestions are not cute."

She closed her eyes for a moment.

To the Yanhuang Survivors, this was a playful attempt at acting cute.

To her—

No. To all Survivors of foreign civilizations.

This was Fate Master Yang Hang saying the harshest words in the gentlest tone.

Activate the life ring. It was not a request. It was not a suggestion.

It was a notification.

The three words "not cute" translated to—disobedient people, I have noted you.

Victoria read the announcement from beginning to end again.

Behind the mandatory binding of the life ring, there must be a deeper layout.

She could feel it.

An existence capable of constructing the Cause and Effect Fate Platform, and capable of distributing magic sea compasses and Numerical Panels to over a billion people, would not go to such great lengths to create a physical terminal and force everyone to wear it just to give the Yanhuang Survivors a slight advantage in the Sequence Battle.

But she did not continue to think deeply about it.

Because the answer was simple.

She could not refuse.

And she did not want to refuse.

The Fate Platform was the most important thing she had on this Magic Sea, besides the sword of the sea.

The price of being kicked out of the Fate Platform was far heavier than four hundred karma points.

Victoria clicked on her personal homepage.

On the right, a three-dimensional elliptical ring icon made of lines hovered quietly there.

life ring.

She clicked on it.

[Confirm consumption of 400 karma points to activate the life ring? (Installment payment supported)]

She selected confirm.

Pale blue light condensed from the Void Realm.

A thin, silver-gray metal band appeared in front of her.

"..."

Victoria reached out her hand.

The metal band hovered above her left wrist and then silently attached itself.

Cold.

Extremely light.

The two ends automatically underwent Fusion, becoming a seamless whole.

It was like a layer of film naturally grown from her panel.

She turned her wrist.

"What kind of craftsmanship is this..." she muttered in English in a low voice.

Then she lightly touched the surface of the wristband.

The silver-gray metal surface lit up with a pale blue glow—a holographic projection screen unfolded three centimeters above the wristband.

Victoria's pupils dilated slightly.

3D holographic projection.

A semi-transparent operating interface hovered above her wrist, featuring touch interaction, with faint tactile feedback when her fingertips slid across it.

The icon for the chat domain was lit up.

She clicked into it.

It could be used.

She exited and looked at the other icons—magic sea compass, Numerical Panel, Trading Realm, Enhancement Realm, Spatial Backpack—

All were gray.

She clicked the compass icon. No response.

She clicked the Numerical Panel again. No response.

Gray.

All gray.

Victoria's lips pursed slightly.

As expected.

But when actually poking at those gray icons and finding them unresponsive, her heart still felt a bit... blocked.

She withdrew her finger. She took a deep breath.

Blocked or not.

But speaking—it could be used.

She opened the World Echo channel of the Symphony Realm, saw the screen full of heated discussions among Yanhuang Survivors about the life ring, and her fingers hovered over the virtual keyboard for two seconds.

Then she typed a line of text.

[Victoria (Fog City): life ring activated. The technological feel is great. I hope more functions will be unlocked in the future. — From a Fog City Survivor who can finally speak normally.]

Send.

The moment she sent it, the corners of her mouth curved up.

Finally, she didn't have to live her days counting her speaking opportunities one by one.

—And at almost the same moment.

Across the entire Magic Sea, countless Survivors of foreign civilizations were experiencing almost the exact same mental journey as Victoria.

Fritz of the Teutonic Faction finished reading the announcement, was silent for thirty seconds, and then activated the life ring with an expressionless face.

The moment the wristband attached to his wrist, he subconsciously moved his fingers—an engineer's instinct made him immediately begin studying the material and craftsmanship of the device, rather than focusing on its functions.

Jack of the Kangaroo Camp laughed and slapped his thigh, a silver-gray metal band appearing on his bronze arm.

He didn't even test it, rushing straight into the Symphony Realm and posting: "G'day mate! Finally able to speak! Does anyone want to hear me talk about how to use coconut shells as bait?"

Igor of the Polar Bear Camp activated the life ring amidst the biting cold wind of the frigid sea.

The silver-gray metal band attached to his frozen, pale wrist, and the projection screen operated stably in the minus forty-degree temperature without any lag.

He revealed a rare smile.

Emily of the Gaul Faction leaned lazily against the cabin wall, the life ring worn on her slender wrist; she admired its appearance for a full half-minute before remembering to test its functions.

Solomon of the Hebrew Camp stared at the life ring for a long time.

He was not in a hurry to speak, but instead studied the material of the wristband over and over—then wrote dense lines of analysis in his alchemy notebook.

Without exception.

Every Survivor of a foreign civilization—whether out of reliance on the Fate Platform, awe of the Fate Master, or fear of the three words "not cute"—activated the life ring at the first opportunity.

And without exception, they exclaimed at the technological feel of the life ring and were excited about the unlocking of speaking permissions.

When they poked at those gray function icons, their moods were slightly depressed for a moment.

But the depression only lasted a few seconds.

Because they could now speak freely.

In the World Echo channel of the Symphony Realm, the density of posts from foreign civilization Survivors surged dozens of times in just over ten minutes.

Star-Spangled language, Teutonic language, Gaulish language, Polar Bear language, various languages—all turned into unified text under the translation of the Universal Text Book, interweaving with the posts of the 1.3 billion Yanhuang Survivors.

Noisy, enthusiastic, chaotic.

But when all these voices gathered together, the Symphony Realm of the entire Fate Platform presented an unprecedented scene—

Global Survivors, for the first time on the same platform, with nearly equal opportunities to speak, were engaging in communication in the true sense of the word.