Do You Have Any Opinion on Mechanical Cat Ears? (CAT EARS)
The damp soil was trampled underfoot as a villager hung a fishing net on the dilapidated wooden rack outside, taking the few scattered fish inside.
With an expressionless face, he glanced back—only to see a half-buried cow skull in the dirt, nothing suspicious. The villager turned away and entered the house.
A few seconds later, two cat ears suddenly popped out from the eye sockets of the cow skull. The ears twitched playfully left and right, lending an eerie yet adorable charm to the ghastly white bones. Then, a determined sound came from within the skull as a black furball of a cat strained and pushed with all its might—
Pop!
The partially buried cow skull burst free from the earth with bits of soil and rotting grass.
Heh! Mighty Three-Three!
[Mighty Three-Three.]
Ji Yiwei's experience chimed in approvingly.
System 2333: "..."
He could call himself that, but when Ji Yiwei said it, it suddenly made him furious!
Mighty Three-Three had already conducted a preliminary analysis of this world.
The theme of [The Great Lake] was [Sacrifice]. The host would arrive as part of an expedition team that would be staying in this lakeside region for seven days and enduring various strange occurrences. Surviving the final sacrificial ritual would mark as success.
In truth, if following Ji Yiwei's style, he'd likely dismantle the ritual outright, slay the final boss emerging from the lake, and leave in a blaze of glory. Completing side quests among the villagers and finishing related exploration progress would net massive amounts of points.
[That's right. That's how I'd do it.]
System 2333 had originally planned the same. This trip was mostly to verify some uncertain side quests. But while collecting soil samples, he unearthed fragments of earless clay figurines.
System 2333: "...?"
Puzzled, he checked his system panel—the world exploration progress bar displayed an odd value.
[0101]
The data was simple to interpret. The first number represented the host's current exploration progress. Since Ji Yiwei hadn't entered this world yet, it was naturally zero. System 2333 was confident Ji Yiwei would eventually max it out at a perfect hundred!
The latter number, however, indicated the total exploration progress obtained from preliminary world analysis. Now, that number...
Had become one hundred and one.
Here's a joke: a test scored out of a hundred has a full mark of one hundred and one.
System 2333 glanced at the earless figurine fragments, scratched his own ears, and began scanning them. After finishing, he found the unachieved total exploration progress had increased to one hundred and two.
Tail curled around the fragments, System 2333 fell into thought.
The Main System's database contained records on the pottery art of the lakeside village, yet none of the archived images featured such figurines.
This was too strange. The Main System's database was the foundation of all analysis and strategies—it had to be thorough and accurate. Otherwise, it was a grave failure.
[There's definitely something fishy here.]
Ji Yiwei's experience remarked.
System 2333 bristled with rage.
Ji Yiwei was the fishy one! The absolute greasy creep!
System 2333 couldn't restrain his wandering thoughts—having spent so much time around Ji Yiwei, the influence was inevitable. The more he pondered, the more convinced he became that [The Great Lake] held another main storyline, and those earless pottery figures were the key. But thinking this way meant he was questioning the Main System's database, challenging the very foundation and logic countless Cat-Ball systems followed in their work.
Then again, System 2333 reconsidered—heck, it wasn't the first time he'd broken the rules. Why listen to that big watermelon anyway? Overturn it all! Approach everything with fresh eyes and stay sharp!
[Three-Three is amazing!]
Ji Yiwei's experience had also turned him into an unconditional Three-Three fanboy—perhaps praising Three-Three was just an instinct for Ji Yiwei.
System 2333 made bold assumptions and reasonable conjectures.
...Was it possible that this information had been deliberately hidden by a bad leader?
What could this information possibly concern, that the big watermelon would go so far as to alter the database to conceal it?
With his chip overheating, System 2333 popped open his casing to cool down.
Unless...
The hidden depths of [The Great Lake] alluded to some kind of reality.
Next, the ox skull bounced and wandered around, active in every corner of the village at an astonishing speed, like a paparazzi... no, a cat-arazzi reporter.
Sure enough, it uncovered many suspicious details that were never mentioned in the database.
While receiving inexplicable low-frequency sound waves by the lakeside with his equipment, System 2333 became almost certain—some data in the repository had been hidden and distorted. The culprit could only be...
The Main System!
[That's enough, Three-Three.]
After watching System 2333 bustle about all night, Ji Yiwei's experience helped him evade villagers several times and offered suggestions on sampling methods. System 2333 had gathered everything he could, even creating a comparison table between the database and the newly acquired information. Now, it was time to pass the baton.
System 2333 would hand all of this over to Ji Yiwei.
Just as Ji Yiwei trusted his capabilities as a system, he trusted Ji Yiwei's abilities as a host unconditionally. The system's work was done—now it was up to Ji Yiwei to dismantle this world.
System 2333 took one last look at the exploration progress bar.
[02.00%]
Then, he renamed the task world—
[The Voice of the Great Lake].
Having delayed too long, System 2333 began disengaging from this world to prepare for his return.
Perhaps because he'd uncovered something the Main System had tried to hide, a rebellious little flame flickered fiercely in System 2333's core.
After successfully floating out of the world, he suddenly had a wild idea—what if he explored further out?
Maybe there were other worlds he could slip into?
He only knew that under the Main System's rule, the distances between worlds weren't actually that vast—that's how he could sneak out at night to travel between them. The Main System's mini-worlds clustered together like a bunch of bubbles. But this time, System 2333 flew outward for what felt like an eternity, surrounded only by dark void.
He encountered no new worlds, which was strange.
Belatedly, System 2333 realized that the Great Lake must be an extremely remote fringe world. So what lay beyond the fringe worlds? What else was out there?
He sprinted forward at full speed, leaving a dazzling trail of light behind him, like a comet with a cat's head. 4399 had a fatherly heart—though he complained verbally, he still upgraded System 2333 with a hundred thousand horsepower. System 2333 flew incredibly fast, yet the black void stretched endlessly before him.
By the time he realized he needed to turn back, it was almost too late. With an unwilling "meow," System 2333 angrily surged forward one last time. It was this final burst that allowed him to glimpse a faint orange glow in the darkness.
Delighted, he floated closer and discovered the glow came from another large, sturdy protective net.
Unlike his own net, which was covered in Ji Yiwei's faces, or the Main System's net, which was full of watermelons, this one was entirely covered in—carrots.
System 2333: "..."
He didn’t like carrots.
However, a differently styled net likely meant this was the territory of another Infinite Space. The thought made System 2333’s cat ears puff out steam in excitement. As he stared at the net, a mischievous idea formed in his mind.
A slightly devious idea.
The Main System of this Infinite Space was clearly powerful—nothing like the weak watermelons. The net was tightly constructed, and even with all his strength, he could only barely pry off a few carrots.
The Carrot Net: "???"
Invaders usually came to seize worlds—who ever heard of someone stealing parts of the net?!
Give back the carrots!!!
To reclaim its carrots, the world began to move slowly.
Half of his plan was already a success. System 2333 felt his circuits thrumming with what seemed like a rapid "thump-thump-thump" heartbeat.
He accelerated back toward the vicinity of [The Great Lake].
With his heart pounding and paws trembling, he balanced the carrots on his head and began playing "Fruit Ninja," slicing a hole into the watermelon net.
The hole wasn’t very large, but strands of energy immediately started leaking out.
Capturing energy was every world’s instinct. The slowly moving world that was originally just chasing its carrots, now caught the scent of this enticing energy.
The world began to speed up.
System 2333 grabbed his telescope and observed. The orange glow in the dark void was now visible to the naked eye—and growing larger, closer.
For the carrots! For the energy!
It was working! He had successfully created a massive bug! At this rate, the two worlds might even collide!
When that happens, he might be able to use [The Great Lake] world to seek help from other Main Systems!
Of course, all of this hinged on one condition—
If the other Main Systems weren’t heartless capitalists.
System 2333 had a strange feeling.
The other Main Systems would help him. They would help all the cat-ball systems.
In a spacious, brightly lit hall.
Though the structure appeared technologically advanced, the decor was refreshingly natural, evoking images of grasslands or forests. Along the metallic walls, gleaming reliefs of carrots and little Bunnys sparkled.
A group of round, mechanical creatures were huddled together.
Their long, flexible mechanical ears covered with joints and hinges that allowed them to sway and flick with every movement. With those elongated ears, these chubby mechanical beings looked remarkably like narcissus bulbs or sprouting onions.
They were all facing a massive, colorful spinning wheel with their long ears twitching excitedly as they hopped up and down while shouting—
"Hit! Hit! Hit!"
"Gold! Gold! Gold!"
"One more pull! Just one more!"
"Wuuuuh, by the grace of the Main System, let me win! I’ve already dumped over seventy pulls into this!"
The wheel spun randomly, starting and stopping, eliciting either disappointed groans or ecstatic cheers from the mechanical creatures.
What a massive, collective gacha-pulling frenzy!
The wheel emitted a loud hum before erupting in a burst of gold and rainbow light.
The creatures below instantly erupted in cheers—it had landed! Finally, a gold-tier prize!
The name of the world, [Swamp Tale], slowly materialized. But before the lucky mechanical being who had pulled this high-tier, ultra-rare world could even celebrate, a loud—
"Clunk."
The wheel jammed.
Terrified of losing their precious prize, the creature immediately wrapped its long ears around its head in panic. Fortunately, after a brief stutter, the name [Swamp Tale] gradually faded away, replaced by a new title—
[The Great Lake].
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