Cuckoo Street.
The Special Affairs Bureau was an exceptionally low-profile department, and the prominence of its office location was always directly proportional to its level of public awareness.
As the sun was about to set, Zhao Bainiao entered the inconspicuous building covered in ivy through a side door.
Although most of his colleagues worked in the underground areas, there were always people on duty upstairs to avoid arousing suspicion from passersby due to the building’s apparent emptiness.
A colleague from the logistics department, who was organizing documents, noticed a shadow cast over her head.
She looked up and, with a tone of surprise, said, “Team Leader Zhao? Weren’t you on field duty today? I thought you’d go straight home.”
With the increasing number of incidents in the city, leaving work on time had become a luxury for Special Affairs Bureau employees.
Zhao Bainiao wiped the sweat from his forehead and replied briefly, “Something came up.”
Then he asked, “Is Minister Ji in his office?”
The colleague silently sympathized with the leader who was about to be burdened with extra work for a second before kindly suggesting, “Yes, I recommend taking the elevator on the right.”
Zhao Bainiao nodded.
The elevator leading underground had no windows, and the cabin was a stifling silver-gray.
As the elevator descended, Zhao Bainiao occasionally felt as if he were being swallowed by the earth.
The elevator stopped at the tenth basement level.
Most investigators worked on the fifth basement level and above, so the surroundings were quiet.
When Zhao Bainiao stepped out of the elevator, faint red lights projected from both the ceiling and the walls.
A cold mechanical voice announced, “Identity verification complete.”
Zhao Bainiao walked purposefully toward the archives room, maneuvering around bookshelves that acted like screens, and successfully found Ji Zizai sitting inside, sipping coffee.
Ji Zizai sat on an old chair that matched the color of the surrounding piles of books, with a stack of yellowed, stapled documents by his side.
-The Special Affairs Bureau had more than one archives room, and the one on the tenth basement level was the old one.
It was filled with outdated materials of little value, yet no one was sure whether they should be destroyed.
It was rarely visited, but Ji Zizai often spent his free time there.
Ji Zizai set down his coffee cup and asked, “What happened?”
Zhao Bainiao replied, “Today, I visited a survivor from the Nest Park and gathered some information.”
Ji Zizai asked, “Was that person Xu Dengming?”
Zhao Bainiao answered, “Yes.”
He had always known that Ji Zizai had a good memory, but he hadn’t expected him to even remember the name of an ordinary resident from the outer city.
Ji Zizai stood up and said, “Let’s discuss this back in the office.”
Fu Shouzhong, who was waiting in the minister’s office, opened the door for the leader who had been summoned by Zhao Bainiao.
He then, as usual, brewed a cup of coffee for each of the two who were working overtime.
Zhao Bainiao assessed the strength of the drink in his cup and felt somewhat relieved that the head of the investigation department was a seasoned ability user with excellent physical health.
He didn’t have to worry too much about him becoming a frequent visitor to the medical department due to excessive caffeine intake.
Thirty minutes later.
Ji Zizai turned off the voice recorder, pondered for a moment, and suddenly asked, “Are you sure there was no reaction on the test paper?”
Zhao Bainiao confirmed, “Yes.”
He then added, “Should we try again with a test paper that has a broader detection range? Although most awakeners’ abilities fall into those few categories, it’s possible that Xu Dengming’s ability is too rare, which is why it didn’t register.”
Ji Zizai replied, “The paper you took was already the highest range available.”
Zhao Bainiao expressed some regret, “In that case, it seems Xu Dengming likely has the potential but hasn’t awakened yet.”
The test papers produced by the Craftsmen’s Association are always reliable.
If even they can’t detect anything, it’s unlikely that Xu Dengming has awakened a never-before-seen ability, right?
Ji Zizai’s gaze subtly shifted.
-Many people possess the potential for awakening.
Some smoothly become ability users, while others remain stuck at this stage for life.
Ji Zizai: “When you visited her, did you tell her about the classification of abilities?”
Work discipline and the gap in strength helped Zhao Bainiao maintain workplace etiquette:
” Bureau’s requirement is not to disclose /B-level classified information without authorization?”
Ji Zizai: “Oh, so did you accidentally let slip about the classification of abilities?”
Zhao Bainiao:”….”
He thought, although the Special Affairs Bureau of this city isn’t large, its internal employees always seem to have rich and tumultuous work experiences, which is clearly related to the temperament of their superiors.
Ji Zizai slightly restrained his expression, leaned back, and fell into his chair, saying, “I think the chances of her awakening are quite high. The next time you visit the hospital, you can reveal some of the classification standards to her.”
With the superior’s approval, Zhao Bainiao naturally agreed: “Yes.”
He then added, “The content she mentioned in the recording………..”
Ji Zizai: “What do you think?”
Zhao Bainiao: “I agree with Xu Dengming’s analysis of the instance. There are indeed two factions within Nest Park.”
Ji Zizai lowered his eyes, gently twirling the pen in his hand said:
“Judging from the way participants are absorbed and the subsequent nurturing style, both factions within the instance possess deceptive powers, and they are constantly at odds with each other… The creator of the instance should be a ‘False Disciple’ .”
When he uttered the words “False Disciple,” Ji Zizai’s relaxed and casual demeanor turned into the surface of an early winter lake, with a thin layer of transparent ice covering it, exuding a slight chill.
***
Seventh Hospital, inside the ward.
Xu Dengming, who had received a system notification, began to check her backpack.
Of course, to others, it looked like Xu Dengming had suddenly given up on the idea of sleeping and was instead staring into space, perfectly aligning with the doctor’s assessment of mild psychological trauma.
Checking the items in the backpack didn’t require the user to physically operate it; just focusing on opening it would naturally reveal the contents.
Based on her previous experience, Xu Dengming knew that the rewards obtained after clearing an instance would mostly appear in the form of treasure chests.
Xu Dengming was right.
At this moment, her system backpack indeed contained a treasure chest with an exaggeratedly shiny design.
With a gentle mental click, the chest spewed out a total of one hundred and twenty colorless crystals.
-From the visual quality, the way the chest spewed out crystals was reminiscent of those early web games with poor art design, giving users a sense of suspicion that their rewards might have been unfairly deducted.
The system rewards weren’t limited to crystals; sometimes, they also dropped some items.
This time, after spitting out the crystals, the chest also produced a substance similar to “dead meat.”
Xu Dengming:”…..”
She lightly tapped her temple with her finger.
If she remembered correctly, wasn’t this item something she had placed in the system backpack herself?
The system’s act of giving back the user’s own stored items as rewards made Xu Dengming feel deeply unreliable.
However, after being extracted from the treasure chest, the once highly active “Dead Flesh,” which could severely harm Xu Dengming’s sanity, had significantly diminished in vigor.
It seemed to have lost its influence on the external world.
The “Dead Flesh” lay quietly in the backpack, appearing harmless and as docile as a piece of kitchen waste awaiting disposal.
Although the system ungraciously returned the items Xu Dengming had obtained on her own as rewards, the items that appeared as prizes now had additional features, allowing them to display their descriptions in the backpack.
[ [Unnamed]: A remnant of some existence, extremely dangerous, highly corrosive, capable of severely affecting the mental state of those who come into contact with it.]
For the system that had been forced offline, the phrase “extremely dangerous” was likely a heartfelt remark.
Of course, considering that ” [Unnamed]” was not a particularly specific name, Xu Dengming decided to continue referring to it as “Dead Flesh” in her mind.
Xu Dengming’s gaze swept over the description after the colon, then lingered on the word “corrosive.”
She recalled how other trainees in the park had gradually lost their sanity.
This afternoon, Xu Dengming learned something from Zhao Bainiao: special abilities also come in different types.
If the ability of “Dead Flesh” fell into one of those categories, it would undoubtedly belong to a type characterized by strong deception and inducement.
Xu Dengming still vividly remembered that in the park, if the trainees acted according to the rules, their sanity would decrease.
Additionally, during each transaction, Xu Dengming would also feel a distinct sense of dizziness.
Combining this with the description, she began to form a vague judgment about the power of “Dead Flesh.”
-This was a tool perfectly suited for the telecom fraud industry.
[System: [Unnamed] is an unconventional item. Users cannot equip it directly. It is recommended to use the white lottery pool.]
As Xu Dengming pondered the nature of “Dead Flesh,” a related system prompt popped up, bringing her a slightly surprising piece of news.
Xu Dengming had tried many times before to draw from the second lottery pool, but no matter what she did, the white lottery pool, which resembled a washing machine, always responded with “conditions not met.”
It wasn’t until she obtained this unconventional item from Nest Park that she finally crossed the threshold for drawing.
Opening the system interface, after more than a minute of research, Xu Dengming began to understand the operating mechanism of the white lottery pool.
The golden lottery pool was simple: users only needed to invest a suitable amount of colorless crystals to receive a prize.
The white lottery pool, however, was different.
To obtain a reward, users first had to invest some unconventional items.
Additionally, each draw required a certain amount of colorless crystals as a driving force.
The system kindly reminded her that different unconventional items would consume varying amounts of driving force.
If Xu Dengming wanted to invest “Dead Flesh” into the white lottery pool, she would need to pay thirty colorless crystals.
-Although colorless crystals couldn’t be exchanged for real-world currency, when Xu Dengming saw the number “thirty,” she still felt her wallet let out a hollow cry of despair.
She was poor in the real world, and she was equally poor in the virtual one.
The number of crystals in Xu Dengming’s possession wasn’t exactly abundant.
After the last lottery draw, her balance was 6 crystals, which gradually accumulated to 14.
Adding the recent 120 crystals, she now has a total of 134 crystals remaining.
Considering the necessity of experience packs and healing potions, Xu Dengming felt it was essential to perform another ten-draw in the golden lottery pool.
This would leave her with only 34 crystals available for use.
She couldn’t help but suspect that the system had calculated the valuation based on her remaining balance, ensuring that users were always teetering on the edge of needing to enter dungeons to gather more crystals.
Xu Dengming silently communicated with her system in her mind, “I want to bargain.”
The system remained unresponsive, as quiet as if it didn’t exist at all.
Xu Dengming sighed inwardly.
Now that the Nest Park dungeon had been destroyed, even the “dead flesh” had become safe.
There were fewer and fewer things that could influence the system…
Having no physical form was indeed the best self-protection for “The Unhatched Flame.”Â
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Tftc!