Master of Kaidan
Chapter 102 South District

Chapter 102: Chapter 102 South District

Infinite City is geographically a center-symmetric fractal structure, its core dominated by a sky-piercing tower known as the Tower of Babylon. Clustering around this tower is a modern community referred to as the residential area.

To the north, south, east, and west of the community lie four vast garbage dumps, each nearly as large as the city area itself. These four garbage dumps are the original material sources of Infinite City.

Today, the broad lands of Infinite City were transformed from the initial garbage dumps that ingested and digested trash from the Otherworld. The original residents of Infinite City were also born here.

Before arriving here, Feng Xue thought this was merely a somewhat larger dumpsite with more powerful individuals, but the moment he truly stepped into the South District, he realized how limited his imagination had been.

Unlike ordinary landfills, this place had no high walls or massive domes. Instead, it featured an extremely complex and exaggerated multi-layered structure. After passing through a certain barrier, one could see a colossal mountain formed seemingly from countless piles of trash mixing chaotic colors.

Around this "mountain," countless highways and bizarre buildings formed what seemed to be an unstable assortment of constructions. These structures took space utilization to a new level—despite the landfill area not being much larger than others, it housed dozens or even hundreds of times the population.

Between these buildings and highways, various vehicles moved back and forth, and occasionally, one could see large and small flying devices capable of vertical takeoff and hovering in mid-air. Had it not been for the map on his work badge indicating this place as the "Southern City Garbage Treatment Center," Feng Xue might have doubted whether he had bypassed the so-called Four Major Landfills and arrived in the legendary residential areas instead.

If ordinary landfills were comparable to third-tier villages and towns, then this landfill was undoubtedly a mega-populated city like Tokyo.

"This is really kind of punk..." Looking at the city that seemed to be built around a mountain, forming a "youthful version of a Dyson sphere," he couldn’t help but exclaim in awe.

Before entering the city, Feng Xue had stowed most of his phantasmal items in a "Sealed Golden Chest" and left it outside the city, wearing only a Scavenger Suit to fully embody the principle of keeping wealth hidden. However, he quickly realized he might have made a foolish decision, as once he walked onto the streets below, he noticed that everyone passing by carried one or two phantasmal items—only children seemed devoid of such marks...

Wait a minute!

Children?!

Feng Xue suddenly widened his eyes; this was his first time seeing children in Infinite City!

Even though, technically, naughty kids could also be considered the world’s garbage, he had never seen any children during his several Garbage Days.

If normal mortality rules applied, this disproportion was certainly abnormal. Either Infinite City sent only children to the Four Original Landfills, or...

These children were born in Infinite City.

Did Infinite City also possess the ability to reproduce?

Considering this, Feng Xue first thought about the feminization filter incident that had caused him some trouble, confirming that he surely still had such desires, before recalling Old Li mentioning something like "the landlord’s son experiencing life."

At the time, he had thought it was just a metaphor, but now it seemed it could indeed refer to the descendants of some bigwigs in the residential areas.

But that made sense, according to Old Li, Infinite City had been in existence for decades. It wasn’t just one or two generations—by the third generation, they’d probably be commonplace. As for why other landfills had no children—the mortality rate there pretty much explained it.

Shaking off these extraneous thoughts, Feng Xue walked and pondered whether he should retrieve his phantasmal items, but eventually decided to gather some information first.

Logically speaking, such a punk-style city shouldn’t lack Newbie Guides. Once he found them, everything should become much easier.

However, regrettably, since entering this landfill area, he hadn’t encountered anyone coming up to strike a conversation.

After a brief contemplation, he simply took out his work badge and dialed Old Li’s number.

"Hello, Feng, by my calculations you should have arrived in the South District by now, right? Hmm, maybe the West Mountain District?"

Old Li’s lazy voice transmitted from the work badge, making Feng Xue feel somewhat embarrassed for being seen through, but he still responded,

"This place isn’t quite what I expected. I thought I’d meet a few Newbie Guides as soon as I got here!"

"I was also wondering why you didn’t just ask someone locally. I thought you were trying to save on the information fee,"

Old Li joked with a murmur, but immediately seemed to recall something, reluctantly saying,

"Look, did you by any chance hide your phantasmal items and enter the city in a work outfit?"

"Um, is there something wrong with that?" Feng Xuexin felt he might have guessed some of it, as Old Li directly said,

"There’s some blame on me for this too, but even if I told you, you wouldn’t believe it unless you saw it with your own eyes, right? In short, the Four Major Landfills are different from the outer landfills; here, phantasmal items are a standard. If you don’t carry any, you’ll be seen as a poor ghost who charged into the Four Major Landfills without knowing anything, and even the Newbie Guides won’t bother doing business with you."

"Is it really that pragmatic? Hmm, like how in small villages flashy jewelry attracts thieves while in big cities wearing cheap clothes gets scorn?" Feng Xue genuinely hadn’t imagined the disparity between the so-called Four Major Landfills and ordinary landfills could be so vast. Yet, upon hearing this, Old Li just chuckled softly:

"You’re not wrong to think that, but the main reason is probably a sense of crisis. Ordinary landfills enforce strict controls on phantasmal items because the managers dispatched there are relatively poor and not very strong. If you possess one or two impressive phantasmal items, you might easily displace the current manager. Though the residential area would soon send someone stronger to reclaim the managerial authority, the person who lost their position likely wouldn’t land such a good gig again. As for being a manager in one of the Four Major Landfills, they are considered experts even in the residential areas, and the gap isn’t something that one or two phantasmal items can bridge."

At this point, Old Li’s tone suddenly changed, turning significantly more serious:

"Besides, phantasmal items in the Four Major Landfills represent not only financial power and strength but are also essential for survival. You may have noticed, the landfill you are in doesn’t have city walls, not because disasters won’t strike landfills, but because there are more disasters hidden within the garbage mountain than in the wilderness. If you don’t have phantasmal items for protection, you won’t even qualify to pick through the trash."