Translator: ThatLazyPotato
Translation Checker: Rin
Editor: DragonFae
Bai Chunian pressed on the communicator, squatted on the floor, and scratched his head. “Aiyo, you guys should check what’s around you and what you guys can do first.”
Puppet Master leaned over lightly. “What’s the matter?”
Bai Chunian took out the back-up communicator from his backpack and gave it to Puppet Master. “I guess there are several types of tests. Experimental subjects taking the combat assault path will go to the military test area. The brainy type experimental subjects go to the intelligence test area. There’s probably a support test area, a command test area, and many more different types. When the observation deck downstairs has a researcher watching, the experimental subjects will be sent to the appropriate test area according to their type. Right now no one is controlling the lift, so they sent us to random areas.”
“Eris and Rimbaud are combat assault experimental subjects, so they had been sent to the combat assault area. Invisible Stalker’s type should have been sent to the intelligence test area.”
He pulled out the map and spread it out on the floor, his fingertip circled the test area. “This here is the test area, which is stacked vertically on top of each other, hence I overlooked the functional distribution.”
Professor Lin Deng only noted down the words “Test Area” without explaining it in detail.
Puppet Master looked at the communicator Bai Chunian gave. Actually, he could communicate with Eris, because he had installed a mini communicator into his ear before. However, he still put on the communicator, thinking that Bai Chunian was really testing their true intentions every chance he got, but he won’t be easily fooled.
Puppet Master went beside the lift, and took a look at the already locked lift door. Inside was already engulfed in the flames of the incinerator, going back the same way they came from wasn’t an option.
He returned to the military test area’s entrance. The entrance was tightly sealed with a silver seal. He lightly swept off the dust on the surface, and took out his eyepiece from the pocket of his leather apron, and confirmed that the material used was a type of artificial material.
Bai Chunian put away the map and stood next to Puppet Master, rubbing the wall blocking the entrance. His palm swept across the surface, and as he got to the center, a row of small laser numbers appeared. “Current punch strength: 0 kg. Average punch strength: 0. Punch count: 0.”
“A device that measures punch strength. You probably need to break through the wall with sheer force to pass.” Bai Chunian drew a breath, poured power into his left hand, and quickly punched the wall.
There was a muffled thump sound, and the small laser numbers began to change—
“Current punch strength: 586 kg. Average punch strength: 586. Punch Count: 1.”
The white number turned red, and it flashed an error alert.
Bai Chunian shook his wrist; he had already used 80% of his strength on that punch.
Puppet Master slightly raised a brow. Was over half a ton of punch strength still considered substandard?
Indeed, in addition to some of the experimental subjects cultivated by the Institute’s headquarters, the experimental subjects that could be selected to headquarters were top elites selected from major training bases. All indicators must be terrifyingly powerful.
Bai Chunian started to deviate. He placed his fingers on the surface, used his Bone Armor ability, and tried to penetrate the wall.
Yet the wall did not move at all.
Puppet Master put on his eyepiece and looked around. He slowly said, “This is artificial carbon nitride material, β-C3N4 structure. The hardness of the crystal exceeds that of diamond, so your Bone Armor is probably not hard enough. It seems that it can only be broken with your bare hands.”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
Bai Chunian flicked his numb wrist again, and studied the wall. “I’m not a combat assault-type experimental subject. How about you try? Aren’t you an A3?
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“You guys in the IOA should have already investigated that already.”
“We have investigated your identity, you’re a redback spider alpha. However, I’ll still be surprised whenever I remember. After all, Rimbaud is an experimental subject, so I keep thinking that other dominators are too.”
Bai Chunian engrossed himself in thinking of what other methods were there to break through the wall.
“No, the common point of dominators is that their abilities are given by nature, with no human intervention.” Puppet Master said.
When they were quietly thinking about other ways, they heard various violent banging, clanging, and rattling sounds coming from upstairs.
Bai Chunian raised his head toward the ceiling, and pressed on the communicator. “Wife, are you guys breaking down the door?”
Rimbaud was a little breathless as he said, “Yeah.”
Eris’ voice also came through the communicator, “What is this? Another door rises up as soon as we break down one. It’s never ending.”
“There’s definitely a question for yours, carefully find it.” Bai Chunian sat down. “We might as well find a breakthrough on their end first.”
Eris said, “What question? There’s nothing on the door beside a bunch of grids.”
Rimbaud added, “There are two pens, both capacitive pens. I’ve charged them both already.”
Bai Chunian stroked the solid wall in front of him, there wasn’t any grid on it. He took out his phone; it had no signal, so sending the question won’t work.
Puppet Master asked, “Can the pens be used to write on the door?”
Rimbaud tried it. “It can. It can be written in black electronic writing.”
There were actually two square grids in front of Rimbaud and Eris. They were displayed on two separate doors, like two chessboards.
After discovering that they could write with the capacitance pens, Eris took one of the pens and randomly drew on the grid, drawing a hanging stick figure, a stick figure committing senpuku, and a decapitated stick figure; in short, they were all stick figures.
Rimbaud earnestly wrote numbers on the grid, 1234567…writing them all over the grid.
Not long after, the grid flashed red, and a piece of paper spat out of the door inch by inch and fell to the ground and was picked up by Rimbaud.
On it wrote, “Report: Score: 2, Evaluation: D. Failed to pass this test.”
Rimbaud furrowed his brows. He discovered that Eris also received one, and it read, “Score:1. Evaluation: D. Failed to pass this test.”
Rimbaud laughed. “You rag doll with no brains.”
Eris rolled the report into a ball and threw it. “You just got one point higher than me. We both have a D, so you’re not any better. In any case, we both didn’t pass. It’s only because you wrote more than me that you got a higher score.”
Rimbaud folded his report and stuffed it in his backpack. “I’m only three points short from getting a perfect score, which is already a very good score.”
¤¤¤
“Forget it.” Puppet Master heard the discussion between the two through the communicator, and looked at Bai Chunian. “It’s better to find a way to solve the issue on our side.”
“Stand back.” Bai Chunian shook his wrist, and took half a step back, breathed deeply, and focused his power into the center of his fist. The brandy-flavored pheromone was instantly activated, and the veins of his smooth arms swelled. A white lion’s front paw transformed from the fingertips to the forearm to the upper arm, paused slightly in the air to accumulate power, and struck forward at an extremely fast speed.
Bang! The gust of wind brought with the punch lifted the hem of Puppet Master’s trench coat, and he calculated the strength power in his head.
A tingling sensation of over-exertion quickly spread from his knuckle to the entire arm. Bai Chunian had a pained expression on his face, the skin and flesh of his knuckle split open, and the dense white bone cracked with fine lines.
Bai Chunian held his left hand, clenched his teeth, and endured the pain before it eased and the wound started to heal. He lifted his head to look at the numbers starting to show on the wall.
“Current Punch Strength: 6794 kg. Average Punch Strength: 3691.5. Punch Count: 2.”
Almost seven tons, an impressive striking power. Puppet Master commented in his mind.
The revealed numbers turned green, and a small piece of paper spit out from a small crack on the side of the wall.
Puppet Master took the paper. “Mhm, it’s a report.”
The background of the paper looked like a certificate, on it printed, “Score: 78. Evaluation: A. Passing score on this test.”
The solid combat assault wall slowly rose.
Bai Chunian took the report from him and gave it a look-over, astonished and indignant. “I only got 78 points?” He raised his head and kicked the wall. “Come back down, I’ll try again.”
On the other side of the communicator, Eris suddenly interrupted, “Oh? The total points is 100?”
Rimbaud heard Bai Chunian talking to himself. He silently took out his own report from his backpack, crushed it into a ball, and ate it.
After the combat assault wall was raised, a hallway appeared. The two of them walked along the hallway for about thirty meters.
They had thought the test was over once they got to the other side of the wall, but contrary to their expectations, a row of cube blocks of various materials were neatly arranged in the second room. Words appeared on the electronic digital display on the wall—Crushing Force Test.
“…” Bai Chunian took a breath, then walked forward and knocked on the cubes. There were granites, stainless steel and cast iron, and also lead weight.
“Man…” Bai Chunian sat on the floor, lifted his collar drenched in sweat and shook it. He held the report and used it to fan himself. “I’ll rest for a bit.”
Not long after, Rimbaud’s voice suddenly became panic-stricken, “Randi, randi.”
“Fire…” Rimbaud’s breathing turned rapid. “The fire is spreading from the lift.”
Bai Chunian became energized again. He stood up vigilantly, and looked back at where they came from. He hurried back along the hallway toward the entrance and took a look—indeed, the flames had swallowed the lift. The hot temperature hit his face. The destruction device did not stop, but acted as a countdown. The flames chased slowly, ready to destroy the slow-moving experimental subjects at any moment.
This was a cruel competition, and at this moment, it felt no empathy.
“Let’s first help them break the door.” Bai Chunian was a bit pressed for time. He ran back quickly and sat on the floor; he knew Rimbaud was afraid of fire. Eris’ body was made of ceramic, so he would be fine, thus Puppet Master was not anxious.
Puppet Master did not delay though. He lightly asked, “Eris, carefully tell me what’s on the door, do not miss any details.”
Bai Chunian keenly raised his eyes and observed Puppet Master’s expression. He didn’t seem as calm as he looked.
Could it be that Eris’ new mechanical core was not fireproof? What non-fireproof material was suitable for the core, though?
He didn’t have time to dwell on it at the moment. Bai Chunian could only prioritize Rimbaud’s safety first. “Rimbaud, tell me how many cells are in a row, and how many are in a column.”
“Seven.” Rimbaud counted carefully. “It’s seven both vertically and horizontally.”
Eris answered, “There’a a really small number written outside the grid, 175.”
Rimbaud, “Same here.”
Bai Chuniam and Puppet Master both paused at the same time, then looked at each other.
“Forty-nine magic square.”
“Put the numbers 1 through 49 into the grid. The sum of the horizontal and vertical diagonals would then be 175.”
“Both grids can’t be the same.” Bai Chunian snapped his finger. “This is easy.”
However, they didn’t have paper or pen, so they could only calculate and fill it in their heads.
In the communicator, although Rimbaud didn’t ask for help, his breathing turned heavy. The temperature must have risen to a level that was causing him pain.
“Don’t be scared, I’ll recite and you’ll write it down. Let’s start from the first cell and continue horizontally.” Bai Chunian closed his eyes, and imagined the grid in his head. After filling in, he read the numbers in order from memory. “30, 39, 48, 1, 10, 19, and 28. Have you finished writing the first row? Then next row now. Don’t be afraid, listen to me, you won’t get burned.”
In actuality, it was not hard to fill in the forty-nine cells. You could fill it in from the middle according to the rules, but Bai Chunian needed to repeat it to Rimbaud, so he could only start from the first cell.
Puppet Master needed to fill in a different set of numbers. He sat down, closed his eyes, and pictured a grid in his head. The hands wearing half-length gloves made slight gestures in the air, reciting silently in sequence, “Eris, the first row—32, 41, 43, 3, 12, 21, 23…”
Rimbaud was the first to say, “It’s opened.”
Eris grabbed the two reports from the ground, and read out the words on it. “Score: 100. Evaluation: SSS. Passing score on this test. Damn it, what’s so great about such a boring question?”
He stuffed Rimbaud’s report toward him. Then looked at his own paper, and silently said, “Score: 100. Evaluation: SSS. Passing score on this test. Mhm, as expected of Knicks.”
Rimbaud squeezed into the open door just before the tip of fire was about to burn the tip of his tail, and crawled into the hallway. Eris followed closely, rolled through the entrance and ran deep into the hallway.
¤¤¤
After successfully helping them complete the first test, Bai Chunian breathed a sigh of relief.
Puppet Master lightly patted him on the shoulder, placing his hand on his shoulder. Bai Chunian opened his eyes, and slowly exhaled. “Luckily we made it in time, otherwise my wife would have been a goner. Why are you keeping your hand on my shoulder?”
“I’m not though.” Puppet Master was leaning over and using the eyepiece to observe the cubes on the ground that was used to test the crushing force, standing four to five meters away from Bai Chunian. “I have always been over here.”
Bai Chunian was stunned, then looked back at the hand on his shoulder.
A bloody severed hand was on his shoulder.
👽
Thank You for the new chapter (｡’▽’｡)♡
Did Puppet Master use his own heart as Eris’s new core?
I think so. I don’t remember if its mentioned in the previous chapters, but its implied in a later chapter. I’m assuming he gave a piece of it? Not sure how it works lol
Demn wut daaaaats better than wat i tot woooooh! my ship
heheheeheh ಡ ͜ ʖ ಡ