Chapter 2818 - 1039: Edge Type One
Hoo!
Crash!
Accompanied by the cracking sound of shattering glass and the splash of water hitting the ground, Zheng Qing gasped for breath, coughing violently, and stumbled forward two steps.
Then he felt his legs were weak.
Moreover, his sense of direction was a bit off—similar to the recoil felt after overusing magic power, or like the dizziness experienced after staying up several nights in an internet cafe, only to be greeted by the dazzling fireball overhead as soon as stepping out.
Internet cafe?
This somewhat distant term seemed like an anchor point, gradually gathering the scattered thoughts of the young wizard, allowing him to recall what he was doing before losing consciousness.
He was at the experimental base of that special project at Edge Academy.
Conducting an eligibility test.
The content of the test?
His mind was blank momentarily, unable to recall. He only remembered that the ceiling of the resonance room descended with dozens of things resembling the aerial roots of a banyan tree, sprouting suction cups like flower buds on top. These suction cups seemed to be conscious, swirling around him like snakes searching for prey, until they suddenly adhered to his body.
Back of the head, chest, shoulder blades, arms, wrists, waist, abdomen, crotch, legs, ankles, and finally, one largest suction cup directly lunged at his face like the facehugger from ’Alien’.
Then he lost consciousness.
Hoo! Hoo!
Zheng Qing struggled to activate his brain cells, recalling the process of the experiment. His first reaction was that he’d been conned again, and that dark-skinned guy was most likely a mole for the Crow.
Right, before losing consciousness, what did that black guy named Alex say?
Seemed like he was asking if he should take off the little snake hanging on his ear?
Little snake?
The warlock suddenly woke up, a feeling of joy surged from his heart—Indeed! The Little Green Snake! No, that green little dragon! Its status is very high! With it around, I shouldn’t encounter any real accidents...right?
He raised his arm, wanting to touch his ear to see if that fellow was still there.
Buzz!
The sharp, piercing sound of metal scraping against each other pricked his hearing, causing him to instinctively tilt his head. Then he saw his ’arm’ and ’hand’—to be precise, he saw a metallic shimmering arm and a ’claw’ with only three fingers.
Yes, in his sight, his hand had turned into a strange and creepy bird claw-like object: Rough palm, orange-peel-like back, sharp nails, and on the wrist were clearly etched the small words ’Duzem Alchemy Laboratory’.
...
...
"...Edge One activated normally, status normal, surveillance normal, the magic power circuit flows normally."
"...One’s eligibility matching ongoing, five percent, ten percent, fifteen percent, twenty percent...sixty percent, sixty-five percent, sixty-six percent, sixty-seven...resonance status stable!"
"...Testing eligible person’s physical functions: Excellent."
"...Magic power stability assessment of eligible person: Excellent."
"...Psychological state assessment of eligible person: Mild delirium and hallucination, does not affect cognition, deemed qualified."
The mechanical and indifferent voice echoed in a spacious hall, as a huge light screen hung from the ceiling to the ground. One side of the screen outlined a schematic diagram of a humanoid creature, with more than ten fine lines connecting key nodes of its body; the blank space on the other side was filled with countless observation data cascading down like waterfalls on the light screen.
Dozens of wizards in white robes hugged their respective notepads, picking out the parts they were responsible for from the waterfall-like data, concentrating on recording.
"...Eligible person’s neural link stable, no rejection reaction observed."
At the hall’s edge, there were more than a dozen wizards in black robes, although they were also holding notepads, compared to the tense and busy white-robes, the black robes were much more relaxed.
"Anyone who passes the ’matching degree’ test won’t show any rejection, what’s the point of checking this project...just wasting time?"
A black robe wizard shook his head, marking a tick under a certain entry on the notepad, shaking his head, muttering softly: "Moreover, even if there is rejection, there won’t be any risk, don’t each nerve ending reserve a unit of ’Fenwei Flower Injection’? Enough to ensure those eligible individuals can withdraw safely."
Another black robe shook his head.
"Wrong focus! We’re not worrying about rejection risk, but the risk behind rejection reaction." As he spoke, he turned and tapped a piece of parchment on the wall behind him.
It was a laboratory regulation sheet, highlighted with red letters—Please pay attention to signs of abnormal invasion infection! Report immediately after discovery!
——Abnormal performance includes: Shivering, slurred speech, troubled magic, muscle spasms, abnormal hunching, dramatic personality change, etc.
——Experimental safety, everyone’s responsibility!
These few red letters seemed like a whip, suddenly tightening the expressions of these black robe wizards. They simultaneously tightened their notepads and their gazes refocused on the light screen at the hall center and those white robe wizards.
...
...
"——As wizards transition from low-level to high-level, magic power undergoes a ’quantitative change’, consequently, the magic power quality of high-level wizards holds an overwhelming advantage over the magic power of low-level wizards...Reflected in reality, we can observe high-level wizards easily breaking the spells of low-level wizards, yet low-level wizards struggle to shatter the magic barriers of high-level wizards...We call this phenomenon ’abnormal invasion’...The erosion of those great beings from the Deeps of Starry Sky and the demon flesh’s erosion on wizards share a dimension of similarity with ’abnormal invasion’...Among our eligible candidates, there are low-level wizards, when wielding ’Edge One Type’, they are very prone to reverse erosion by the high-level magic power belonging to the test subject...This is also the focus of our initial work..."
Beyond the hall, in another room, Doctor Du Zemu was quickly explaining some magical details of the Edge Project to the other wizards present.
This room seemed adjacent to the hall with an entire wall appearing completely transparent, allowing a clear view of every corner of the hall. In one corner of the room stood a podium, behind which Doctor Du Zemu stood diagonally facing the numerous elder wizards orderly seated in the room—Among them were three vice-principals, four deans from the academy, and two deputy deans from Edge Academy.
Upon hearing Doctor Du Zemu’s explanation, a veteran wizard in the back row furrowed his brow and raised the feather pen in his hand.
"You mean the wizard’s magic power quality is inferior to that of the demonic magic power quality?" he asked with some displeasure.
"No, no, I don’t mean that."
Although he was resuming hosting large alchemical projects, Doctor Du Zemu was still not adept at interacting with people, especially around the prestigious wizards in this room, including several legends, so upon sudden questioning, he immediately became a bit flustered.