The foreigner frowned, ignoring the ringing phone. He simply lit his cigarette, took a deep drag, then took the phone out of his pocket, glanced at it, and calmly put it back. It seemed he didn't want to answer the call; he wanted to finish his cigarette first.
As if knowing the foreigner wasn't going to answer the phone, the pleasant ringtone continued, stubbornly insisting on ringing no matter what. The foreigner ignored it, puffing out smoke. Both were testing their patience, but the phone kept ringing from beginning to end.
The foreigner finally lost his patience, angrily throwing down the half-burnt Camel cigarette and muttering, "Shit." Then he picked up the phone and yelled in English, "Connie, how many times have I told you not to disturb me when I'm thinking? You're interrupting my inspiration! Do you know how many detours this will cause me to take? Do you know that if every problem is interrupted like this, we'll have to spend at least several million dollars more on research funding?"
Ling Yun couldn't help but cover his mouth and chuckle. This foreign guy was quite interesting. He was clearly out smoking and relaxing, but he told others that he was thinking about problems. He seemed a bit sly. He just didn't know if the other party had been fooled by his bluffing words.
However, Connie on the phone was unimpressed by the foreigner's attitude and remained indifferent to his exasperation. Although it was through a phone, Ling Yun could still clearly hear the emotionless female voice coming from the receiver: "Dr. Black, I'm sorry to interrupt your smoking time again, but if you don't come back soon, we will not only have to spend tens of millions of dollars more, but other staff members may also lose their lives. This is much more serious than wasting your brain cells and losing hundreds of dollars."
"What happened? How come there's trouble as soon as I left?" Dr. Black was taken aback and dared not get angry with his female assistant anymore. As he spoke, he hurriedly took out his access card from the pocket of his white coat and lightly swiped it on the barrier. Instantly, the red dot in the Eye of Illusion, which had stopped flashing, started moving intensely again.
The female assistant's cold, indifferent voice reached Ling Yun's ears again: "This proves that the base needs you, Dr. Black, so your next rest time will be reduced from ten minutes to five minutes..."
Only after Dr. Black's figure disappeared into the barrier did Ling Yun reveal himself. He waited a moment longer without making a sound before stepping forward. He lightly swiped his index finger across the barrier's interface, inputting the copied access card data into the combination lock. The red dot that had just stopped flashed again, and the barrier quickly revealed a crack.
Ling Yun breathed a sigh of relief. Just as he had expected, there was no artificial intelligence involved in entering or leaving the barrier. Otherwise, he would not have been able to pass through based solely on his movements and physical characteristics. Although high-tech methods are becoming increasingly sophisticated, they inevitably bring in completely objective factors. As long as it conforms to logic and data, then it is real.
"Pupil vital signs verification complete, no abnormalities found..." A cold, ruthless synthesized electronic voice rang out above Lingyun.
Ling Yun smiled slightly, and his pupils suddenly changed from emerald green back to their original color.
"Hair vital signs verification complete, no abnormalities found..."
"Verification of vital signs of limbs completed, no abnormalities found..."
"Neural vital signs verification complete, no abnormalities found..."
……………
After verifying that almost all of Ling Yun's organs were up to standard, the synthesized electronic voice finally fell silent. Ling Yun hurriedly passed through the barrier, and a mechanical electronic voice suddenly greeted him from the other side: "Hello, Dr. Black, welcome back to the base." Ling Yun was startled, only then realizing that behind the barrier stood a robot whose body was flashing red and green light, and its nearly three-meter-wide steel body was covered with densely packed laser tubes!
When Lingyun looked at him, the robot nodded in acknowledgment. It didn't understand why Dr. Black had entered the barrier twice, but the machine's programming hadn't given it the ability to think in such a complex way. So the robot brazenly ignored this logical fallacy. Moreover, although the person in front of it was completely different from Dr. Black in both appearance and height, as long as all the vital signs matched, the robot was convinced that this was Dr. Black, and of course it waved to greet the question mark.
"Hello to you too." Ling Yun said meaningfully to the armed robot in English, then swaggered past it. A smug smile crept onto his lips.
While copying the data from Dr. Black's access card using his supernatural abilities, Ling Yun also learned about the various life characteristics that the barrier needed to verify. So, the Hand of God didn't sit idle. It took tiny samples of somatic cells from each of Dr. Black's life characteristics. Microscopic perception played a huge role, and Ling Yun easily obtained the corresponding genetic data. Next, when verifying life characteristics, he only needed to convert the genes of the corresponding parts of his own body. As long as the gene molecular sequence was the same, the verification of the barrier could not be different.
And so, what could have been accomplished by a mere guard familiar with Dr. Black—a combination representing the pinnacle of civilization's technology and the strongest defensive techniques—was completely undetected, allowing Ling Yun to pass by with impunity, as if all the high-tech measures were nothing. It must be said, this is another extreme that arises from the pinnacle of technological development.
After passing through the barrier, Ling Yun found himself standing at the edge of a long passageway. The passageway looked very long, with fully enclosed automatic sensor doors every hundred meters. The passageway was completely sealed off, and the walls and ceiling were all made of an unknown special alloy material, emitting a soft silver-white light that illuminated the passageway as bright as day.
Chapter 367 Underground Base
The passageway was covered with pinhole cameras on the top and sides, and everyone who passed through the passageway was under close surveillance. However, this only made things difficult for ordinary people. Ling Yun once again disappeared and swaggered through the passageway. As a result, the surveillance footage only showed the automatic sensor doors opening and closing repeatedly.
The passageway was long and gradually descended. Ling Yun walked at a fast pace, covering several thousand meters in just a few minutes. He roughly estimated that he had also gone down tens of meters underground. However, the sensor doors seemed to be endless. After opening one door, he could see the next identical door hundreds of meters away.
Something's not right! After walking for another ten minutes or so, Ling Yun suddenly realized something was amiss. Even on foot, he had covered nearly ten thousand meters, and it was all going downwards. What kind of tunnel could be so long and deep? Did Dr. Blake have to traverse a passage at least ten kilometers long when he came out? And with his speed, even if he entered the barrier later, he should have caught up with Dr. Blake by now. Why was there no one else in the tunnel besides himself?
Ling Yun suddenly stopped in his tracks. He had only used a simple invisibility spell, without employing the Eye of Illusion. He had assumed this high-tech barrier was merely superficially enclosed and loosely constructed, and that passing through the passageway would lead him to his destination. Now it seemed that wasn't the case. The barrier had quite a few structural points; how could it only possess simple overlapping and identity verification functions? He had been careless. The young man thought to himself.
Hundreds of meters underground, in a brightly lit space, a pair of cold eyes were fixed on the surveillance screen inside the tunnel where Ling Yun was located. Although Ling Yun's figure was not visible on the screen, the eyes were still fixed on Ling Yun's position after he became invisible. An equally cold voice rang out: "Have test subjects number four, five, and six check the tunnel. It seems that there are outsiders with superpowers trapped in the rational number tunnel cabin. If they resist, kill them without mercy."
There was no response from behind, but as the cold words fell, several heavy footsteps sounded, followed by the sound of footsteps walking out of the brightly lit space and gradually disappearing into the distance.
His indifferent eyes continued to stare at the surveillance screen, a hint of doubt lingering in his voice as he muttered to himself: "Strange, am I seeing things? Or is there really someone here? How did he get in?"
In the deserted space, an extremely faint golden light flashed by. This was Ling Yun activating the Eye of Illusion while in stealth mode. The effect of the Eye of Illusion can be stacked on top of other supernatural arts. Therefore, while activating the Eye of Illusion, Ling Yun also activated the panoramic view. The Eye of Illusion can penetrate thick metal walls, and as long as it is within sight, Ling Yun can generate images of various angles and focal lengths in his mind.
However, Ling Yun was immediately taken aback. His Eye of Illusion could not penetrate the alloy walls of the passageway. All he could perceive was a blinding metallic color. This meant that the barrier was undergoing a subtle change. The alloy walls that appeared to be real had unknowingly become virtual walls. He was in an illusion where the barrier was transforming.
Suddenly, countless bright spots, like snowflakes, descended from the ceiling of the passageway, drifting and seemingly flying unintentionally towards Ling Yun. Ling Yun's pupils contracted; even with an optical microscope, the shapes of these bright spots were indistinct. The panoramic view quickly and clearly displayed in his mind the ferocious shapes resembling microorganisms and ants.
Strictly speaking, these bright spots are not real miniature ants, but rather have six antennae for gliding and turning in the air. Above the antennae is an oval-shaped, smooth body. The Eye of Illusion sees through the oval body and discovers that inside are densely packed micro-programs and electronic circuit boards. These tiny bright spots are actually super-miniature robotic ants.
Ling Yun didn't have time to marvel at these ultra-high-tech micro-ants. Although he didn't know what these micro-ants were for, seeing their aggressive and hostile approach, Ling Yun knew something was wrong. He flashed to the other side of the tunnel. Fortunately, the tunnel was quite spacious, and Ling Yun was able to dodge. However, these little creatures seemed to know where he was hiding. They turned around like moths and rushed towards him again, their speed increasing imperceptibly.
Ling Yun frowned. It wasn't surprising that the micro-ants could sense his cloaking; who knew what functions these high-tech gadgets possessed? But often, the smaller the creature, the greater the potential harm. And since they'd deployed these micro-ants, it seemed his intrusion into the Supernatural Abilities Bureau's barrier had been discovered. Therefore, his first priority was to leave immediately.
While dodging and weaving, he used his Eye of Illusion to investigate the main cause of the barrier's changes. His senses scanned the structural points of the barrier space like ripples on water. Before entering the passageway, Ling Yun had preemptively memorized the locations of all the structural points, which were now proving useful. High technology could hardly simulate such a realistic virtual illusion; only changes in the barrier could achieve this effect. And all changes in the barrier were inseparable from the command of the structural points. By simply finding the corresponding adjustments to the structural points, he could find a way out.
The structural points were constantly changing, and a massive amount of data cascaded down like a waterfall. This was the external manifestation of all the changes within the Supernatural Ability Bureau's barrier. Trying to find any clues about the closed-off changes within a tunnel was like finding a needle in a haystack. Fortunately, Ling Yun truly possessed the ability to find a needle in a haystack. His copying ability rapidly sifted through the sea of data for similar data, comparing it with the data on changes within the tunnel, and then piecing it together bit by bit.
It's like a jigsaw puzzle. At first, finding the corresponding piece among a lot of data is always the hardest part, but as more data is pieced together, the speed of copying superpowers gradually increases.
The number of bright spots inside the tunnel gradually increased, and the tiny ants filled the small space like snowflakes. The place where Ling Yun could hide was getting smaller and smaller. Although a single telekinetic silver light could destroy all of these tiny ants, Ling Yun kept moving. The appearance of the tiny ants meant that someone knew of his existence, and that someone was definitely observing this place. Therefore, he must not reveal himself unless absolutely necessary.
The micro-ants cannot see Lingyun's form, but they can find bioenergy by the heat emitted by the organism. As long as Lingyun's body temperature is slightly different from that of the alloy wall, even if the difference is only a few ten-thousandths, the ants can easily pick out the difference.
A golden light flashed again. At the crucial moment, the replication ability lived up to expectations, quickly detecting the phantom of a light gate appearing on the inner wall of the passageway. Meanwhile, all the sensor gates were distorted and superimposed in the space under the Eye of Illusion, forming an infinitely looping Maurice loop.
Ling Yun suddenly realized why he couldn't seem to reach the end; he was just going in circles. What appeared to be a passageway was actually a hidden entrance on a wall. This design prevented accidental infiltrators from sneaking into the Bureau of Supernatural Abilities. No wonder he couldn't see Dr. Black; he had already entered the actual barrier passage. It seemed the security here was indeed very tight.
With a nimble flash, Ling Yun swiftly entered the illusory portal. The moment he stepped inside, the entire passageway was filled with tiny, luminous ants. At that moment, the sensor door suddenly opened, and four expressionless, burly men entered. Surprisingly, all four men were the same height and appearance, as if cast from the same mold. Their bronze skin gleamed in the soft, snow-white light.
Having lost its original target, the micro-ants immediately discovered a new one and swarmed towards it like locusts. The moment they touched the strong man's skin, the micro-ants burrowed into the pores of his skin, then penetrated layer by layer, through the epidermis, dermis, and fat layer, all the way down, finally piercing the blood vessel wall and entering the strong man's bloodstream.
All of this happened in less than a second.
"Damn it!" the person in the room deep underground cursed angrily, followed by the rapid clatter of keys hitting a keyboard.
Just as the tiny ants were about to wreak havoc on the blood cells, they suddenly stopped all their movements. Then, they immediately returned along the same path and formed a fist-sized ball of light above the tunnel wall, which slowly seeped into the ceiling and disappeared.
The four burly men didn't move an inch, standing there indifferently, as if what had just happened hadn't happened at all. Their cold, ruthless gazes swept back and forth across the passageway, seemingly searching for something.
A moment later, the cold voice from the underground space echoed in the passageway: "Come back, all of you!" Upon hearing the command, the four burly men turned and left.
Ling Yun passed through the portal of light and traveled through solid metal. The feeling was strange; although he was surrounded by dark metal on all sides, he could move freely as if through space. It seemed to be a metal element technique from the Five Elements theory, but currently, Ling Yun only mastered three of the Five Elements: wind, earth, and water. He knew a little about fire, but was completely ignorant of metal.