Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Just as Lin Sanjiu wanted to put her mask back on, Silvan interrupted. “This mask is one of the products of the Munitions Factory.”
It seemed that he still hadn’t realized the mask was imitated using the [Battle Item]. He gently pushed Lin Sanjiu’s arm down as he took the mask away. “It’s a miracle that you managed to slip into the factory with it. Now that Percival Levin has tightened his guard, this mask won’t get you anywhere.”
“This mask was produced by the Munitions Factory?” Lin Sanjiu asked, as she hadn’t known this at all. At a glance, the mask looked just like a piece of human skin. The only thing special about it was that no matter how meticulous she was, she would not be able to find the edge of the mask. It seemed like its edge had merged with the air, and when she had a second look, she felt dizzy, a phenomenon that occurred when there was a slight cognitive disorder in the human brain.
‘Just what kind of technology did they use to create such an item?’
“Pretty sick, right?” Looking at her expression, Silvan chuckled. “About 80% of the products manufactured in the Munitions Factory can be summed up in one sentence—know what is done, but not why it is done.”
She glanced at him questioningly and said, “What does that mean?”
“We know how to make them and we know what they can do, but we don’t know why they have this kind of effect.”
The golden-haired man rolled the mask up and nudged his chin toward the door. “Our products are mass-produced based on the characteristics we stumble upon after analyzing and dismantling countless Special Items. You know what? You’ve come to the right place. Here, follow me. I am going to show you around.”
“What? Hey, just hold on for a second.” Lin Sanjiu pitched her voice low and said as she followed after him. “Look, I would really love to follow you around and have a look at this place, but now is not the right timing. I need to get out of here fast!”
“I know. Don’t worry about that.”
Silvan turned his head around and offered her a grin. Several strands of golden hair glissaded down his face, looking like ribbons of sunlight that were shattered by the wind. He did not slacken his pace, leaving Lin Sanjiu no other choice but to quicken her steps too. He did not go through the door they entered from but instead led Lin Sanjiu down the corridor next to the door into the depth of the hall.
When Lin Sanjiu reached a column, she took cover behind it and peeked outside. There were shadows flitting about and muffled noises coming from the entrance. It occurred to her that all the evacuated people were queuing there.
“Come, this way.”
Just as she was about to open her mouth, she turned around and realized Silvan had disappeared into another door.
Lin Sanjiu stopped and hesitated.
Even though she was very certain that Silvan did not have any reason to be prejudicial to her, she also found that there was no reason for him to make an all-out effort to help her.
‘Is it because I am a woman?’
Troubled by her messy thoughts, she stepped into the room.
All the skepticism and doubts she had did not come true in the end. Bathing under the spray of spotlights, Silvan stood facing away from her with his head tilted up. Lin Sanjiu followed his gaze and looked skyward. Then, she was stunned.
By the time she came around to her senses, she realized there weren’t any concrete thoughts in her mind.
“What… what the hell is this?”
She found herself unable to peel her eyes away from the thing in front of her. As she stared fixedly at it, she walked forward and stopped next to Silvan.
There was a huge circular hole in the ceiling of this room that was about a hundred square meters wide. An intricately fashioned, multilayered metallic frame stood tall in the center of this massive room; its surface was highly burnished. A bouquet of multicolored tubes jutted out from its body into the hole above, and the most conspicuous part of this machine was none other than an inverted cone-shaped metal barrel that hung midair.
Even though Lin Sanjiu was very clear that it was not a Special Item, she could not dismiss the possibility of it being the result of the wisdom of human beings after going through a good deal of blood, sweat, and tears of melding together numerous Special Items.
The lofty machine gazed down on the two humans below, puffing bursts of faint steam into the air.
“I have an idea on how to get you out of here, but we need its help.”
Keeping his head held up, his Adam’s apple slid up and down as he spoke. “What you are seeing right now is one of the greatest inventions of the Munitions Factory. We call it the “Erudite”. This one in front of us is Erudite No. 4, and its other eleven brothers and sisters are distributed across the remaining eleven worlds.”
“What… what is its use?”
Lin Sanjiu ran her eyes across the elephantine machine over and over again as she marveled at the intricacy and ingenuity of its architectural design. She was snapped back to reality after a long while of staring at the machine, as an inner voice was shouting at her that there was a more serious problem awaiting her right now. “Oh yeah, what did you come up with?”
Hearing her question, Silvan lowered his head. His golden hair slid down his face and covered his cheeks as he kissed the mask in his hand. After that, he raised his head and returned the [Battle Item] to Lin Sanjiu. Smiling, he said, “I need you to put on my uniform.”
Lin Sanjiu stared at the mask for several seconds before she reached out for it. She cleared her throat as surreptitiously as she could and said, “I don’t understand. Can you repeat that again?”
“Percival Levin must have deployed all his men throughout the entire Munitions Factory, and I am pretty sure they will be taking extra care to note those Special Items that could change a person’s appearance. But you know what?” Silvan paused. He lifted his hand and began unbuttoning one button at a time. Then, he took off his uniform. Lin Sanjiu attempted to take a peek, but unfortunately, since he wore a white shirt underneath, all she could see was his muscular chest that vaguely phased through the flimsy layer of fabric.
“Generally speaking, only the mission holder knows what the target looks like. If you are clothed in my uniform and put on some makeup, with me by your side, you can walk out of here publicly without any troubles.”
After that, he hurled his uniform into the metallic frame in front of him. There weren’t any bits of sluggishness in his movements. The air moved aside on its own so as not to obstruct his moving range and the uniform traveled in a perfect arc. It seemed as if he was the darling of the universe as everything would act according to his preferences.
Lin Sanjiu’s eyes followed the uniform as it fell perfectly into the inverted cone-shaped metal barrel. Before she could ask anything, Silvan chimed in. “Do you have an extra change of clothes?”
“Yes, I do.”
The grand prize had prepared a ton of living articles for her and that included clothing. After she handed several sets of clothing to him, she asked, “What do you want them for?”
“I’ll show you with the shirt first,” Silvan took over the shirts and put them all into the metal barrel. His emerald green eyes lit up like a child who had gotten some candies. “You might want to take a step back.”
‘What?’
While Lin Sanjiu was assailed by the question, a rumbling noise rang out from the metallic frame. She turned her head around to see that the shirts Silvan threw in just now were moving in a circular motion as the metal barrel began to devour them. As the metal barrel rotated faster and faster, it bleched out more steam into the air from its joints and shrouded half of the room in a blanket of white.
“Erudite is quite efficient. It’s just that it will create a lot of noise.” Silvan sighed. “Oh, look, it’s done.”
Beams of light illuminated through the hazy steam. Gyrating and intertwining, they eventually formed into a light screen in midair.
At every convergence point, texts, diagrams, and molecular structures took shape. There was even a stretch of a staggered pattern in midair. Lin Sanjiu felt it was familiar, and it took her several seconds before she found that it was actually the woven design of a fabric.
“It is an overkill to use Erudite to analyze a uniform, so the results are fewer,” Silvan explained as he paced towards Erudite, seemingly operating something. “…In the general run of things, if we were analyzing Special Items, it would yield more “perspectives”. Sometimes, it reaches a thousand.”
The “perspectives” Silvan was talking about was the convergence point when two light beams intersected.
“Each perspective represents the key constituent of this item. By selectively reconstructing and copying these perspectives, we can create a whole new item in a different way that will have various effects. I have never worked in the research and development department before, so that’s all I can tell you.”
When Silvan returned, Lin Sanjiu found there were two identical uniforms draped over his arm.
He lowered his head and picked one out. Handing it over to Lin Sanjiu, he grinned. “This is mine. You can have this one.”
Lin Sanjiu took over the uniform and draped it over her body; it felt heavy on her shoulders. A puff of faint fig fragrance wafted into her nose, and she could sense the residual heat that was gradually fading away. Even though Lin Sanjiu was considered tall for a woman, Silvan’s clothes were still too large for her. She tugged at the sleeves and tried to pull them closer.
“Would you mind waiting for me outside?”
When she lifted her head, she found that Silvan’s hand was on his belt. He nudged his chin at the door, and before he could finish his sentence, Lin Sanjiu bolted out of the room and closed the door.
Leaning against the door, she let out a long sigh.
Occasionally, the wind would bring the muffled noise from the distance into the hall. However, there was only silence in the building and she could even hear her own heartbeats and the flow of her blood. The swing stages waited patiently and quietly in the light, while the door and corridor merged with the shades.
While she was zoning out, the door behind her pushed open and she tripped.
After several minutes, Lin Sanjiu had put on the uniform of the security department. The silver lining was that since she had a tall stature, Silvan’s clothes did not look too out of shape on her body.
Silvan took away the visitor pass, crushed it, and threw it into Lin Sanjiu’s silver basket. He then pulled a pair of scissors out of nowhere and trimmed her hair, which looked like a bird’s nest. After that, he gave her a pair of spectacles.
When he went outside to dismiss the crowd, Lin Sanjiu took a look at her new look on the cycloptic machine. For a moment, she couldn’t recognize the person in the reflection.
