Forty Millenniums of Cultivation, page 671
After all three officers moved their paws to the jade badge, the quickly moving red spot on the shape of body slowed down gradually.
Eventually, it stopped… at the left ankle!
It was a rather unexpected location.
Normal infiltrators would never realize that they would even need to stick a blood vesicle to the ankle!
The officer of the Wolf Clan was smiling even more sunnily, but the brilliance in his eyes was slowly freezing into two icy cones as he stared at Li Yao's left foot. He said, "Please open your hands and wings, and do not touch your left foot. Then, lift your left foot real slow. My assistant will help you take off your shoe.
A storm of ice seemed to be spurting out of his eyes. His face grave, he opened his hands and wings and straightened his left foot without saying anything.
The other two officers of the Wolf Clan took off his boot and sock and brought over a hollow syringe. The first officer of the Wolf Clan was going to do it himself.
The officer was holding the syringe in one hand and a cotton swab in the other. He wiped Li Yao's ankle for a moment and smiled at him.
Then, he pierced the syringe into the ankle as quickly as a lightning, not in the location where he had just wiped but half an inch next to it!
"Do excuse me. My hand slipped."
The officer apologized in the sincerest way before he sent the drop of blood that he had collected into the test equipment.
Li Yao was breathing fast and raising his feathers again. This time, more than forty feathers were standing up, indicating that he was about to burst into fury!
His bodyguard was rubbing his fists, too, and gritting his teeth so hard that sparks were spluttering out.
The three officers of the Wolf Clan smiled at them while their paws were placed right next to their sabers, their fingers slightly bouncing.
All the soldiers nearby held their breath, too. Even the air seemed to be pumped away.
Beep!
"The blood sample is identical to the archive. Test passed. Confirmed identity: Level-1 Specialist Jin Zhenyi, silver-blood, of the Feather Clan!"
The officer's face remained absolutely unchanged. He smiled warmly and bowed to Li Yao. "Sorry for wasting so much of your time, Master Jin. Please proceed!"
"Hehe!"
Li Yao flapped his wings and turned around to the lift angrily.
But he was greatly relieved deep down in his heart.
Jin Xinyue and he had deduced that the security checks would definitely upgrade at the critical moment of the Red Tide Plan.
Therefore, not only did he conceal a drop of Jin Zhenyi's blood below his fingerprint membrane, he had also preserved more than ten drops of Jin Zhenyi's blood inside his body with special dissolvable capsules!
Inside Li Yao's body, there was still a mental devil.
That was a great master in the manipulation of blood. It was quite easy to send the 'blood capsules' to any part of the body with the constriction and expansion of the veins.
The officer of the Wolf Clan's trick was indeed very smart, and his control over his micro-expression was perfect. However, his fluffy tail betrayed him without him knowing.
Li Yao keenly sensed that he was up to something else when his tail shivered unnaturally. Since Li Yao was on full alert, his trick certainly failed to fool Li Yao, who had calculated the real position that the syringe was piercing into within the moment and delivered Jin Zhenyi's blood to the place in time.
Therefore, after all the trouble, the guard still only collected Jin Zhenyi's own blood. Naturally, the test was passed!
There were more than ten similar drops of blood inside Li Yao's body in case he encountered unexpected tests again.
"The Claw Clan is always nitpicking the Feather Clan!"
The lift slightly shivered before it quickly sank deep underground, but the bodyguard still had not calmed down. "The Claw Clan and the Insect Clan have led the Blood Demon Sector for a thousand years. They are already used to call the shots about everything. The Feather Clan and the Sea Clan are but vassals in their eyes!
"This is the first time that someone from the Feather Clan has become the commander-in-chief of the coalition army. Those son of b*tches are so disappointed that they always looking for trouble!"
Li Yao sniffed. He flapped his wings and slowly constricted them while the tips of his wings surpassed his shoulder and covered his ears.
It was a signal that he was in an awful mood and preferred silence.
The bodyguard quickly shut his mouth. The two of them remained quiet while the lift brought them to the working area that was thousands of meters below the ground.
For confidentiality and security reasons, every unit corresponded to a different workplace. Most of the workplaces were not connected to each other.
For Li Yao, it was more convenient for him to lurk in the deepest darkness quietly.
As it turned out, it was not until the lift sank to the bottom that a narrow, long pathway showed up in front of them.
As the bronze gate covered in glamorous stripes slowly opened at the end of the pathway, deafening soundwaves blew out. Together with the overwhelming heat and the intense radiation, Li Yao confirmed effortlessly that it was the stabilization room at the bottom level of the enormous magical equipment system.
With a gloomy face, Li Yao strode into the room. His braincells were more active than ever, and an astronomical amount of information was ready!
It was a shocking gamble. He did not know the first thing about the situation inside the stabilization room. What problems would there be? What kind of colleagues would he met? How should he address them? What was his job exactly?
It was both agitating and thrilling!
Li Yao felt that his heart was pounding.
A bald member of the Feather Clan who looked like an owl walked close and greeted to him in a smile. However, the information expressed by his short and silly wings was definitely not friendly.
Li Zhengzhi, a specialist of rune arrays in the Feather Clan, also a teacher in the Thousand Feathers Institute. His research field overlaps with Jin Zhenyi's, and he has huge contradictions with Jin Zhenyi in academics. The two of them have had multiple public arguments and are in a rather bad relationship right now!
At this moment, the files of the specialists of the Feather Clan that Jin Xinyue collected a few days ago proved to be helpful. Li Yao instantly recognized the owl.
He greeted back coldly and retreated most of his feathers, but he concentrated four feathers on the tip of his wings and shook them slightly toward the stranger.
It was a gesture of provocation.
However, it was more befitting for Jin Zhenyi's character and the tension between the two specialists.
As he expected, Li Zhengzhi grinned and left, not talking to Li Yao anymore. He did not notice that his old nemesis was actually a counterfeit.
Li Yao took every second to observe the stabilization room.
The stabilization room was approximately the size of a football field, and it was almost a hundred meters tall. But the dome collapsed toward the middle like a giant pan that was sitting on the top of their heads.
Li Yao assumed that it was the bottom of the bloody lake on the ground.
They were right below the lake's center.
On the 'dome', thousands of rune arrays had been carved. Complicated tubes dangled down from the rune arrays like an iron forest growing in the sky. The 'vines' that were actually tubes spread out and disappeared into the wall and below the floor.
Around the 'dome', a gargantuan gyro-shaped cooling tower had been installed in every direction. Surrounded by countless tubes, they were rotating quickly at a speed of more than 6,000 rpm.
The deafening noises were mostly generated by the four cooling towers.
Got it now.
Li Yao glanced around and ascertained that it was a classic stabilization system based on heat transformation.
Chapter 1017: Sabotage Plan |
At first, the noises, vibrations, and additional light would be transformed into heat when the runes on the dome were running.
Then, the four cooling towers would carry the heat away.
What flowed in the interconnected tubes was all cooling liquid. When it passed the cooling tower, the cooling liquid would absorb tremendous heat and be vaporized into steam, which was then transmitted deeper underground through other tubes.
Li Yao estimated that an underground river would be down there to transform the steam into cooling liquid for recycle purposes again.
Through such a way of circulation, the redundant heat was consumed to the largest extent, and the stability of the Eye of Blood Demon above would be ensured.
However, what if the cooling towers were all blown up?
Li Yao thought quickly. Based on everything he had observed, he deduced the rune arrays and the structure of magical equipment in the core unit above him. By his preliminary estimation, the core unit of the Eye of Blood Demon—the main teleportation array—should be several hundred meters right about his head.
There are more than twenty workers in the entire stabilization room, but they are all non-combatants.
Six bodyguards and sentinels are here. But they are in the level of demon general at best. As long as I calculate the route of attack well in advance, I will be able to finish every one of them in two seconds.
Defense rune arrays have been deployed outside the cooling towers, but I doubt they can withstand a full-strength strike from me!
The real tricky question is that, even if the four cooling towers are blown up, the core unit's temperature will only soar, and it is not necessarily enough to destroy the entire system.
The core unit must have backup cooling and stabilizing approaches.
Li Yao thought quickly. Rolling his eyes, he came up with a solution.
When the three satellites align, and the tidal force is strongest, the temperature of the core unit will certainly be at the highest point, and the cooling towers will have to be functioning at the highest efficiency to bring it down.
If I blow up the four cooling towers at the same time, the temperature of the core unit will instantly soar to an unbearable level. Perhaps it will be somewhere between three thousand degrees to four thousand, like a furnace of scorching molten steel.
Naturally, the core unit must be made of the most heat-proof and pressure-proof materials. Perhaps, it has also been added with the cores of the demon beasts of the fire class. Several seconds will definitely be far from enough to burn through the core unit.
In the meantime, after three seconds at most, the backup stabilization system will be activated and cool the core unit in time. During the entire process, there is even no need to halt the teleportation arrays. Even though a large batch of soldiers is being teleported during the accident, they will not be hurt at all!
But what if I insert a few crystal bombs into the core unit during the several seconds?
The core unit was only several hundred kilometers from the stabilization room. They were connected to each other through various kinds of tubes, which were certainly not impregnable.
With the drill of mystic rays and the formidable, upgraded version of the Cell Obliteration Cannon, it was not entirely impossible for Li Yao to blast a hole of hundreds of meters in the broken underground.
What Li Yao planned to insert into the core unit were powerful ice bombs, in which blue icy crystals that had been compressed to the minimum had been stored.
When an object turned into its liquid form from the solid form or from its liquid from into its gaseous form, its volume would expand exponentially.
The blue icy crystals that Li Yao utilized, when turning from solid icy crystals into cold mist, would expand thousands of times in size.
When the blue icy crystals in an extremely low temperature got in touch with the core unit that was thousands of degrees in temperature, their size would certain grow by more than a thousand times in only 0.01 seconds. What would happen next?
It was like throwing an enormous ice block into scorching furnace; it was going to be an out-and-out disaster.
This is how I'm going to do it!
Li Yao licked his lips in eagerness, and his eyes almost turned into burning firewood.
He had detonated countless crystal bombs in his entire life, but this was definitely going to be the most splendid one!
"Master?"
While he was fantasizing, a few workers came over. A young man in the lead greeted him respectfully.
They had all learned the news that 'Jin Zhenyi' had suffered mental derangement. Naturally, they were here to show their care.
Li Yao's eyes suddenly shone as he recognized the young man.
In the database provided by Jin Xinyue, the profile of the young man was right there. His name was Wu Dawei, and he was the student that Jin Zhenyi thought most highly of in the Thousand Feathers Institute. He was essentially Jin Zhenyi's true disciple.
However, as for the few workers behind him, Li Yao was not able to tell their names.
Also, how were the jobs in the stabilization room divided, what duty did he have specifically, and what was he supposed to do next according to the schedule?
If he could not resolve the questions, he would be seen through in the next second.
The few bodyguards and sentinels were sitting in the corners of the stabilization room and staring at them on alert.
There was at least one day to go before the three satellites got into position. Right now, the tidal force that the Eye of Blood Demon absorbed was not strong enough. Even if Li Yao suppressed everybody right now and blew the icy bombs into the core unit, he would not be able to deal too much damage because the temperature of the core unit was not high enough. It was quite possible that the enemy would repair it quickly in the remaining one day.
Therefore, he had to work here under Jin Zhenyi's identity for an entire day!
Shua!
Li Yao immediately put on a gloomy face as he stared at his 'disciple' coldly.
Cold sweat popping out of Wu Dawei's forehead. He stammered, "Ma—Master, I'm told that you had a mental derangement in the morning. Do you feel better—"
"Cut the crap!"
Li Yao raised his feathers and quickly shivered them, as if he was more than infuriated by his disciple's poor performance. "Why have you triggered the 'Thousand Feet Mystic Ice Array' in the No. 4 rune array group to the maximum? Look. The mystic rays released are more than one inch long with blurred boundaries. It is a sign that the rune array is very unsteady right now!
"Yes, by doing that, the overall cooling efficiency will be improved by more than 3%, and there doesn't seem to be anything wrong.
"However, have you considered the possibility of an earthquake? The three satellites are about to align. The tidal force is going to be stronger than ever. The gravity environment here will be highly abnormal!
"Even if the odds of tectonic movement are only one thousandth, it is still possible that we will run into one!
"How did I teach you before? You must take the slightest unexpected factors into consideration! If you have made up your mind to exploit the potentials of the No. 4 rune array group, you should at least establish a simple safety circuit with the No. 6, No. 7, and No. 8 rune array groups! Should the No. 4 rune array group overload, the excessive energy would still be guided to the safety circuit!
"Four rune array groups are enough to neutralize the risk of one rune array group! Do I have to teach you such common sense to you in person?"
Wu Dawei blush and retreated his wings while Li Yao was berating him. He nodded quickly. "Understood. Understood. I'm on it."
Li Yao glared at all the other workers. "I am only late for half a day, and look at what you've done!"
Everybody looked at each other in bewilderment and reeled back slightly.
They all knew that Jin Zhenyi was rather bad-tempered. Now that he had just experience a minor mental derangement, he was apparently in an even worse mood.
Nobody was willing to talk to him anymore since he was apparently not very interested in talking.
With a gloomy face, Li Yao said coldly, "Give me your work log. I'm going to check how many more mistakes you have made from last night to right now!"
All the workers submitted their logs obediently before they were dismissed to their own stations by Li Yao.
Then, with the help of his disciple, he sat in Jin Zhenyi's place.
Naturally, Jin Zhenyi had his own log, but the work log had a password.
When he killed Jin Zhenyi, the time had been too limited for him to elicit the password from him!
Therefore, he could only read other workers' logs in such a way and infer the situation inside the stabilization room and Jin Zhenyi's duty.
Shua! Shua! Shua! Shua!
Li Yao stuck the jade chips to his forehead one after another.
The jade chips that the demon race utilized were almost identical to those of human beings, except that the information contained inside was transmitted through the resonance of brainwaves. Although the speed of transmission was relatively lower, it was more stable and reduced interference.
After reading the logs in more than ten jade chips, Li Yao smiled confidently.
He had basically understood the general structure of the stabilization room and everybody's jobs.
Jin Zhenyi and Li Zhengzhi were both specialists of rune arrays in the Feather Clan. They had a high expertise in the field of stabilization and compatibility. They were the director and the deputy director in the place.
The infrastructure of the Eye of Blood Demon had four independent stabilization plans. The two of them each was responsible for two.
Currently, the No. 1 plan was being operated. Jin Zhenyi was taking the lead, and Li Zhengzhi was his assistant.
If the No. 1 plan went wrong in certain accidents, the system would be immediately switched to the No. 2 plan, which Li Zhengzhi was in charge of.
On the other hand, if the leader had an accident, such as Jin Zhenyi's mental derangement in the morning, the other stabilization specialist would take over all the work in time as a substitute.
