Chapter 93: Heading to the Supernatural Containment Facility
That method was to write in the notebook, "I want to become someone who cannot be hypnotized by the notebook."
The notebook was actually pretty honest. As long as one wrote that phrase in it, it would really hypnotize the writer into becoming "someone who cannot be hypnotized by the notebook," thereby making them immune to its hypnotization. This method was basically bug abuse.
Moreover, the user had to write this line only once in the notebook, and it would remain effective for life. From then on, one could use the notebook however they wanted. Yu Xian was very curious about how many tests Qilin's researchers had run before they discovered this loophole.
At present, quite a few procrastinators in Qilin were using the notebook to force themselves to finish their work on time. Yu Xian felt that, for the time being, he probably had no use for the notebook, so he continued browsing the artifacts.
The browsing session lasted the entire night. He also realized that he was probably rather well-off. Even after he had gone through several hundred artifacts, not a single one tempted him. It was not that the artifacts were bad. Rather, his abilities were too strong and he did not really need an artifact.
At daybreak, Yu Xian abruptly realized something. "Wait. Why have I been scrolling downward this whole time?"
He had been browsing downward from the item numbered 34 since the browsing page had opened directly to that item's page. This was because it had recorded his previous activity, where he had checked out the information for No. 33, the Grand Blazing Inferno Heaven-Incinerating Blade.
Among the items before No. 33 were quite a few powerful ones. He quickly opened the page for artifact No. 32. Unfortunately, the page showed that the item could not be used. No solution had been found for its side effects.
The Grand Blazing Inferno Heaven-Incinerating Blade was also not allowed to be used under normal circumstances. If an ordinary human used it even once, it could burn away their entire lifetime in just a few minutes.
Yu Xian continued looking through the earlier entries: No. 31, No. 30, No. 29... Sure enough, the further up the list he went, the more abnormal the artifacts became. However, their side effects also became more terrifying, and for most of them, no solution had been found.
But when Yu Xian saw No. 20, his eyes lit up. No. 20, codename Bronze Divine Tree, was an extremely ancient artifact. At the tips of the divine tree's nine branches perched nine bronze birds. If anyone dripped their blood onto one of the bronze birds, it would transform into a Golden Crow and forever hang above their head. A single Golden Crow was equivalent to the sun at high noon.
An ordinary person exposed to the midday sun nonstop would die from heatstroke or dehydration pretty soon. Even among supernatural beings, few could withstand it. Having one Golden Crow following them around would be equivalent to facing two suns during the day and one at night. Even resting and sleeping would become a problem.
But none of that was a problem for Yu Xian! The more Yu Xian read about it, the more he felt that the Golden Crow suited him perfectly. If he had a sun shining on him at night, the time he needed to awaken his abilities would be greatly shortened.
The only problem now was that the Bronze Divine Tree was not within the range of artifacts he could apply to use. No solution had been found for its side effects. So, Qilin had forbidden people from applying for it.
Yu Xian thought for a moment, then simply called Xiao Cheng.
Because of Yu Xian's matter from the previous day, Xiao Cheng had stayed up late into the night and only gone to sleep after four. Now, at six, he had been woken up by Yu Xian's phone call. He was annoyed.
—Hello? You brat, don't you need sleep? It's only six...
Yu Xian immediately realized this and quickly apologized.
—All right, spit it out.
Yu Xian got straight to the point. "Deputy Director, I want to apply for the right to use artifact No. 20."
Xiao Cheng was silent for a moment
—Alright. Come over at noon. I'll take you to collect it. I'm hanging up.
Yu Xian had prepared a whole pile of excuses, but all of them were stuck in his throat. He agreed just like that?
Because of what had happened with Grand Blazing Inferno Heaven-Incinerating Blade, Yu Xian had thought Xiao Cheng would reject him again and do so in a way that left absolutely no room for discussion. However, Xiao Cheng had agreed with no fuss at all.
A thought flashed through Yu Xian's mind. Don't tell me Deputy Director Xiao has Appraisal too? No, that's not right. All the higher-ups might have it.
Even if it was not Appraisal, the big shots definitely had other means of checking his attributes. They could probably even obtain information far more comprehensive than what Appraisal could provide.
It was likely that the reason he alarmed everyone was not only his heaven-defying spatial bubbles but also his illogical growth speed. The last time they met, he had still been an Ant-rank weakling. Now, he was already a minor expert of the Serpent rank. Barely any time had passed. It was practically like seeing an infant who had not even been weaned one day, only to see him again the next as a yellow-haired punk riding a flashy scooter. The shock would be hard to describe.
***
When noon came around, Yu Xian teleported straight to Qilin's headquarters. He went to the third floor, knocked on the door, and entered Xiao Cheng's office.
The office was completely different from what Yu Xian had imagined. First, it was huge. Second, it was covered in countless pits and dents. Rather than an office, Yu Xian felt that it looked more like a battlefield. Xiao Cheng, meanwhile, was sitting at a small desk in the corner, working. He looked completely out of place against the surrounding environment.
When he heard Yu Xian arrive, he didn't even turn his head, his hands flying across the keyboard as he processed the documents on his computer. "Give me a moment!"
About two minutes later, he shut down the computer and stood up. "All right. Let's go."
They left the office and climbed the stairs. Following Xiao Cheng, Yu Xian could not help asking, "Deputy Director, why doesn't headquarters have elevators?"
Xiao Cheng chuckled. "Because headquarters doesn't need trash who need an elevator for even this little bit of stairs."
Everyone who could join Qilin was a supernatural being. Even the supernatural beings with the weakest physiques had physical qualities far beyond those of ordinary humans. If they could not even climb this many stairs, it would be a complete joke. Of course, there were other reasons as well, but Xiao Cheng was too lazy to explain.
Xiao Cheng saw Yu Xian create a bouncy bubble, sit on top of it, and leisurely float up the stairs. For some reason, he felt a sudden urge to smack the young man on the back of the head.
In the end, he took a deep breath and said, "Make one for me too."
"Oh." Yu Xian created another bouncy bubble.
The two of them sat on the bubbles and quickly floated upward, soon arriving at the fiftieth floor. There, Xiao Cheng stood up and led Yu Xian into a pitch-black room. Yu Xian followed him and discovered that even though he had night vision, the room was still completely dark.
They continued walking straight through the darkness. Gradually, his sense of space and time grew disordered, and he even felt his weight shift slightly.
Suddenly, the space ahead opened up, and a massive, sealed, all-metal base appeared before him. Yu Xian could not help looking back. The room behind him was still pitch-black.
Xiao Cheng's lips curved upward. "Stop looking. Let's go."
The next instant, Yu Xian created a bubble around himself. Immediately afterward, his eyes widened in disbelief.