Within a secret experimental base in Suroma.
In the central processing room, a bizarrely shaped supercomputer was running nonstop, with dozens of ultra-large screens over a hundred inches covering an entire wall, displaying complex streams of electronic data scrolling rapidly in real-time.
Over a thousand cables connected to this computer, each as thick as a bucket, extending through room conduits to various server-filled warehouse storage rooms, all providing computational power support for this machine.
Bruce and Dr. Haisen were currently standing at the metal table holding this supercomputer.
Dr. Haisen quickly tapped the keyboard, pulling up a set of data charts displayed on the center screen of the wall. With an excited expression, he pointed them out to Bruce. “Your Majesty, please look. This is the latest electronic simulation experiment data. Based on these results, our research has succeeded, and the process has been validated!”
Bruce, gripping his scepter with both hands, wore a calm expression. His temples were already half-white, and he was no longer an easily excited young man.
“What I see is just computer-simulated data,” Bruce said. “Only when we complete a human brain experiment, and I witness a human’s memory being fully digitized and transferred, will it truly be considered successful with the process validated.”
Dr. Haisen paused, then nodded. “Your Majesty is right. The lab is currently fully focused on energy scheduling and adjustments. We estimate that around the time the twenty-second Doomsday Rule is released, we can conduct the first human brain memory digitization experiment.”
“Mm, then continue.”
After saying this, Bruce left the laboratory and went to another secret location within the base.
This experimental base was already an absolute secret, and within this absolute secret place, there existed an absolute-secret-within-a-secret room.
This room was known only to Bruce himself, and those who built it were eliminated after completion.
Bruce passed several layers of complex identity verification, including voice print recognition and iris scanning, and finally manually deactivated a barrier created by his own barrier tools before entering the room.
This secret room was not large, with only one thing placed in the center.
A large, vertically positioned life-support pod.
The pod was filled with a pale green nutrient liquid. A youth who appeared to be around twenty years old, with several life-support tubes inserted into his body, was submerged in the liquid, his expression as calm as if he were sleeping.
Bruce walked up to the pod and gently placed a hand on the pod wall. His usually cold eyes held a trace of indescribable complexity.
“Hold on a little longer, my child.”
“Soon you’ll wake up.”
“When that time comes, I’ll give you everything.”
.......
After leaving the underground suburb, Scarface, fearing that Shadow and Adam might change their minds, quickly fled back to Suroma.
Only when he reached the New Covenant villa and sat on the living room sofa did he finally breathe a complete sigh of relief.
“Damn it, this trip nearly cost me my life...”
Even now, recalling it gave him lingering fear. At that moment, his life or death was entirely in Shadow’s whim.
Yes, Scarface knew that his ability to return alive had nothing to do with Adam. He could tell that Shadow was the one who could decide his fate between the two. If Shadow wanted to kill him, Adam absolutely couldn’t stop him.
But of course, he was also well aware that Shadow letting him go was not out of kindness.
“It seems the grudge between Haisen and Shadow is deep. Both hate each other enough to want to tear the other apart...”
He took out the Communication Scroll Guan Tong had given him and lifted his shirt.
Right in the center of his chest, there was a pattern of two overlapping white octagons.
Scarface couldn’t help but curse, “Now I’m completely pinned down!”
This was the mark Guan Tong had left on him, claiming that if he didn’t act as instructed, it would be activated to kill him.
In reality, it was just a Mental Stability Anchor totem, used by Guan Tong to scare Scarface into not pulling any tricks, and also to serve as a medium for the “Body Swap” ability at critical moments.
“I wonder when Han Qiu will come find me.” Scarface put his shirt back down and looked at the scroll in his hand. “He must know I’m back in Suroma. When he comes...”
Scarface had already made a decision. When Han Qiu came to him, he would use the Communication Scroll to inform Guan Tong.
He was doing this out of resentment toward Han Qiu for sending him on an errand without telling him the mission involved such enormous risk.
Also, there was his fear of Shadow and his greed for the reward.
Although he was trapped in the Shadow Domain during the battle with limited vision, the “Your Holiness” had made several followers self-immolate to act as human torches, illuminating part of the darkness.
If the darkness hadn’t been lit, it might have been better. But once it was, Scarface witnessed how Shadow easily killed “Your Holiness” multiple times and knew that if he replaced that cult leader, the result wouldn’t be any different.
Even if he went all-out with his “Three Beasts Transformation” ability, facing the pervasive, ever-changing, and razor-sharp Shadow would leave him helpless. Fighting would only lead to death.
And besides, no matter what, Scarface felt that based on Shadow’s past actions, doing things for him would likely get the promised reward.
Of course, Han Qiu had treated him well too, giving him a fake identity to stay in Suroma and gifting him a villa.
But in terms of raw power, Scarface had never seen Han Qiu fight.
The two had known each other for quite a while, but he still had no idea what ability or items Han Qiu possessed.
One was Shadow, who could easily kill him; the other was Han Qiu, whose financial strength was solid but whose martial power was unknown... If he could be a double agent and play both sides, that would be the best.
If he had to stab one in the back, Scarface would definitely choose Han Qiu, whose martial power was unclear. He felt this guy wasn’t necessarily that strong; he just relied on a clever mind and liked to scheme.
But still.
Scarface thought to himself that Shadow might be strong, but it depended on the comparison.
Compared to Han Qiu, he might win, but if compared to Bruce, the King of Suroma, the gap was enormous.
In his view, Shadow was strong but just one person, maybe with a few helpers, but could his helpers be as numerous as Bruce’s men?
“The Bright Moon and the Rules have turned both sides into mortal enemies. I can sell Han Qiu to Shadow first, then sell Shadow to Bruce. There’s also Adam, who is wanted by Suroma. Doing this should be the most profitable...”
Scarface felt that to Bruce, compared to being able to take down Shadow and Adam, the Ascension Coins he’d been cheated out of before didn’t matter much.
If he could pull this off, he thought that with such merit, he might even enter the halls of power and become a guest of honor in Suroma.
As for the mark Shadow had left on him, he thought that with Bruce’s power, getting someone to remove it shouldn’t be a big problem.
“Yes, that’s how I’ll do it!”
After some deep thought, Scarface finally came up with a plan he considered perfect.
But to his surprise, the first step of this perfect plan got stuck. Han Qiu never came looking for him.
He waited one day, two days, three days, five days... until the day of the new rule’s release, Han Qiu still hadn’t come.
Outside Pinglu City, at the canyon bottom.
Guan Tong had been back from Liruo’an for several days, but still hadn’t received a communication from Scarface.
The latter had sent him a message through the account “Shadow Himself” on Ascendant Home, saying that Han Qiu still hadn’t come to him, and he had no idea what was going on.
To Guan Tong, this was certainly not good news. It was possible that Han Qiu had already learned about what happened in the underground diocese.
If that was the case, the source of the information... Guan Tong speculated it was leaked by the cult’s behind-the-scenes manipulator, the “True Your Holiness.”
With his stand-in killed, this shadowy figure would definitely do something. Even if he never showed himself, he might find a way to pass the information to Han Qiu, his collaborator.
Once Han Qiu learned of this and found that Scarface had returned to Suroma, given his deep scheming, he would inevitably have a suspicion:
Why was Scarface able to come back alive?
If Han Qiu suspected that Scarface had defected, he naturally wouldn’t easily approach the latter until he investigated thoroughly.
Guan Tong had no real solution for this either. He and Adam simply couldn’t have anticipated beforehand that the “Your Holiness” was just a stand-in.
Now that he was back in Pinglu, Adam wasn’t with him. Instead, he had gone to investigate the identity of the “True Your Holiness.”
The investigation approach was to start with the stand-in pastor Iri. Adam similarly speculated that the True Your Holiness likely knew Iri, and probably lived near the church Iri belonged to.
This was related to the religious belief model in the Republic of Fahe. There weren’t many large cathedrals in all of Liruo’an, but each block had a small church, and the believers who went there were basically neighbors living in the same block.
Therefore, Adam planned to use what remained of his connections in Suroma to obtain the resident list of the block where that church was located, then conduct a targeted investigation to dig out the True Your Holiness.
As for Guan Tong, he was currently waiting for news from Scarface on one hand, and had another matter to attend to on the other.
That was to set up a brand-new website transaction system to truly leverage the power of the Impermanent Tax Authority and extract a large amount of Ascension Coins.
It wasn’t that he didn’t want to go to Suroma to settle scores with those responsible. It was that as time passed and he experienced more, he had become more mature and cautious than the younger self who had furiously blown up the Andai royal palace.
The enemies he faced now were far more powerful than those in Andai State. And those people knew he was still alive and would come for revenge, so they would definitely prepare various defenses and traps waiting for him.
Secondly, to prevent Shadow from losing control, he had to constantly suppress his anger. If he lost control, it might cause massive destruction and kill countless innocents, which wasn’t something he wanted to see.
So, he planned to make thorough preparations before going to Suroma.
For him, “preparation” meant reserving Mind Power. A lot, even a massive amount, of reserve Mind Power.
To that end, he needed to use the Impermanent Tax Authority to quickly earn Ascension Coins, then use all those Ascension Coins to purchase Flowable Mind Power to complete the reserve conversion.
“If I activate an online transaction system on the website, with the advantage of being unhackable, even with a 1/20 tax, users should only increase, not decrease...”
With this thought, Guan Tong formally edited a new announcement and published it using the Administrator account.