CH 183

"Can this little fellow even maintain a place so big and so many plants?" asked Zhang Bao'er in astonishment.

"You, look for the port on this triangular droid and try to hack into its database," Li Yizhi ordered Baron Sisse directly while ignoring Zhang Bao'er.

"Yes," Baron Sisse replied respectfully before picking up the small triangular droid to study it.

The small triangular droid before him looked like a thick sandwich. One side of its body was installed with three wheels, allowing it to move around. Although it had been tied up by Li Yizhi with ropes, its wheels kept trembling, as though it was still struggling to get free.

Soon, Baron Sisse found the port from the droid's seemingly seamless body. The port was a tiny square hole, and one would only be able to access it with the corresponding device. Of course, at the end of the 21st century, ports like this wouldn't pose much trouble. Baron Sisse took out a cable from his morph-capable suit. A tiny probe reached out from the tip of the cable and slowly entered the port.

The nanobot at the top of the probe started working. In accordance with the shape of the port, it adjusted the shape of the probe. In a few minutes, a connection was formed with the triangular droid's database.

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Baron Sisse rapidly analyzed the code within the droid. Countless symbols denoting the computing language used were flashing rapidly on his visor. Unlike what we knew, the computing language was written with the characters of Eternal.

The baron spent a long time connecting to the database and analyzing the code in it. Everyone waited while breathing softly, afraid to disturb the baron from his work. Even Li Yizhi was waiting silently, her gaze focused on the numerous symbols flashing on the baron's visor, seemingly trying to look for the secret of these symbols.

"I've fully aligned myself with the programming of this droid. I am accessing its main control system," said the baron while still working on the droid.

Everyone grew excited and waited impatiently for what he was going to do next.

"We are within one of the buildings. All the buildings here are a similar size," the baron narrated his first finding.

"Each building is similar in size? But this room is so big we can't see the end of it. If each room is the same size, are you telling me that the space within the building is actually a different dimension?" asked Old Du doubtfully.

"No. Each room is filled with different components and equipment. Nothing we see here is real. Rather, they're all illusions created by the program using the equipment here," said the baron.

"What? Are you saying that the many holes left on me by that man-eating flower are illusions? They feel so real! And my head is really still hurting!" questioned Zhang Bao'er.

"That is called sensory illusion. If you're killed in one such illusion, you'll really die. Only by leaving this place will you be able to return to the real world," said the baron, causing everyone to break out in cold sweat.

What was scary about this world wasn't the illusions. Rather, it was that you had to treat the illusions as real even after being aware that they were fake. That would continue to nibble on one's nerves until one broke down from pressure.

"I have good news. This droid's database has the diagram of the planet's core in it," said Baron Sisse in excitement.

The depressed mood was immediately swept away. After all, if we could find the program that produced lightning, there would be hope that we could complete our mission.

"The program in this room is in charge of oxygen production. If we shut this program down, we could theoretically kill everyone on Cloudcast," said Baron Sisse.

"No, that'll take too many lives. There is no need to create such a slaughter. In any case, the lion-faced beasts are all dormant in their tanks. Even without oxygen, they will survive," I said.

"If we want to destroy Lightning with lightning, we need to produce lightning bolts. To do that, we need water vapor to start forming clouds. Then, we need to electrify these clouds before making Lightning the receptor of the created lightning bolt," said Baron Sisse, detailing the steps required for our plan.

"To destroy Lightning, we need to produce electrical power reaching tens of millions of volts. Any weaker than that and the ship would be able to easily redirect the electrical flow into the ground. Only powerful enough lightning can penetrate the ship's lightning protection equipment," reminded Li Yizhi.

"To create a lightning bolt that powerful, the cloud must be something formed from the vapor of the entire planet. For our next move, we need to look for the room with the vapor production program," said Baron Sisse.

"There are hundreds of these rooms around. Sure, you know how to produce lightning, but how do we know which room to go to?" asked Zhang Bao'er.

"We need to look for two rooms, the vapor producer and the lightning producer. Only by working these two rooms together will we be able to achieve our goal," said Baron Sisse.

"Even looking for one room is difficult. Looking for two is basically a dream," said Zhang Bao'er as he grew slightly dispirited.

"We can locate the two doors through the order of elements. There is a corresponding table of elements in this droid's database. From the order of the elements, I can see that the rooms here are also ordered in a certain pattern," said Baron Sisse.

"Table of elements? Is it something similar to the periodic table on Blue?" asked Zhang Bao'er curiously.

"I'm not sure of the order of Blue's periodic table. However, the scientists of Eternal do arrange the elements in a certain order," said Baron Sisse.

"What is the order? Will we be able to locate the doors we need with it?" I asked the most important question after seeing that Zhang Bao'er was about to utter even more nonsense.

"We still won't be able to locate the doors with a 100-percent accuracy, but we can reduce the scope of our search," said Baron Sisse.

"How much smaller can we make the scope?" I asked.

"I have an accuracy rate of 20 percent," said Baron Sisse.

An accuracy rate of 20 percent meant that we could reduce the search to only 10 doors. Compared with the 999 doors here, this new number sounded much more optimistic. Once again, we regained our confidence.

"That is still too much. How did you come up with your 20 percent, Baron?" asked Li Yizhi.

"I combined Eternal's table of elements with the table in the droid's database to create a new table following the order of elements. For example, the oxygen in the air, the oxygen in water, and the oxygen in living beings are all related. Based on the relationships between these elements, I have constructed the most optimal table to point out the most likely doors holding what we need to produce lightning," explained Baron Sisse.

"Your calculation is too extensive and coarse. Give me the probability you get from the first step of your calculation. I will perform the second step and refine the calculation," ordered Li Yizhi.

Zhang Bao'er was unhappy with Li Yizhi's arrogant attitude, but he was stopped by Old Du before he could speak. Regardless of whether Li Yizhi was right or wrong, Baron Sisse started seriously calculating the probability of the locations holding what we needed to produce lightning. Meanwhile, Master Crystal walked up to me and pulled me to the side.

"Canyue, do you feel that this Li Yizhi is completely different from everyone else?" whispered Master Crystal.

"Yes, she is insanely beautiful and stands out from the rest. What a surprise, Master. Your eyes are good enough that you even notice these details!" I said.

"What stupid thoughts are you thinking? I merely feel that her physiology is weird, giving off a sensation I can't quite put into words," said Master Crystal furiously.

"Master, she is a female Blueling. She is similar to Xingxing and Kelly. Her body composition is different from people like me," I replied, giving yet another answer that made Master Crystal feel like coughing blood.

"You must be deliberately acting stupid. I mean that the way her body functions is weird. She suffers no oxygen toxicity even in an environment of pure oxygen. Also, her body seems to be immune to all sorts of external substances, allowing her to freely move around in this forest. I checked before. A majority of the plants created by the program here are actually poisonous," said Master Crystal.

"Maybe her body lacks oxygen due to her long stasis? Maybe as a special explorer sent out of Blue, she had received some special training?" I speculated.

"All those are guesses. I suggest you scan her with your laser probe and see if there's anything out of place," said Master Crystal.

"Master, she's a woman. That is improper," I refused. I was professional enough to not abuse my tools that way.

"I'll be honest. I already scanned her. I discovered something odd, but I don't know Blueling bodies well. Therefore, I need you to perform a scan as well," said Master Crystal.

"What? You already performed a scan? What did you discover?" I asked in astonishment.

"Her body's makeup is similar to a Blueling, but her body temperature is lower than 20 degrees. That isn't normal body temperature for you Bluelings, is it?" asked Master Crystal.

"What? Only 20 degrees? That's not possible," I said in disbelief.

"Canyue. I already found the 10 doors with the highest probability of holding what we need," interrupted Baron Sisse while we were still conversing.