Apocalyptic Era: Starting from picking up a Bishoujo
Chapter 197 - 188 Riot Plan 2

Chapter 197: 188 Riot Plan 2

The young girl Lu Chan revealed her own strategy.

Her strategy could be divided into two parts—

First, infiltrate the cells of all the imprisoned demon hunters and persuade them to join her rebellion plan.

I would provide the keys needed to open their cells. If she encountered researchers conducting experiments while entering the cells, Lu Chan would use the Instant Hypnosis Skill to make them forget her visit. If the researchers were as willful as the young researchers, she would put them to sleep.

This approach would give away our position if carried out for too long, so we also needed to be quick and decisive.

Second, place my "Fireflies" into the demon hunters’ Magic Seal Locks and the keyholes of their cells. At the start of the rebellion, I would use remote control to reshape the "Fireflies" into the form of keys and release all the demon hunters in one go.

Although this required me to simultaneously control over a hundred "Fireflies," I could actually do it in batches of ten without any issues. And because I wasn’t requiring each "Firefly" to perform different actions at the same time, even if I was forced to do so, it wouldn’t be much of a problem.

Just like how a normal person might find it awkward and difficult to do different actions with each hand simultaneously, whereas the opposite is easy, making all the Fireflies perform the same action was relatively manageable for my cognitive abilities.

Moreover, the infiltration operation was to be executed solely by Lu Chan on the outside. The reason was simple, in case she was discovered by Chen Long and the guards during the operation, only her exposure would have relatively minor consequences. As a substitute, I would remotely control the "Fireflies" to accompany her for assistance and handle tasks like route scouting and unlocking.

Due to experimental project confidentiality, only the management room had devices for monitoring the interior of all laboratories. As soon as Dr. Silver Mask returned to the management room, it would be necessary for me to urgently contact Lu Chan through the "Fireflies" to momentarily suspend the operation.

As for Dr. Silver Mask’s current whereabouts, according to Lu Chan, he had his own private laboratory within the base. Most of the time, he wasn’t in the management room but conducting his own research in his private lab.

After the rebellion started, I would use the "Fireflies" dispersed throughout the base to observe the course of the battle with Chen Long. At the same time, Lu Chan would also use a spell to synchronize her consciousness with mine, using my "Fireflies" perspective coupled with her own scouting ability to analyze the mana fluctuations of Chen Long, figuring out why he could use Great Success Rank powers inside the base.

Besides this, she also added numerous detailed matters. The plan itself was quite straightforward, the difficulty was in handling the many micro issues in the preliminary execution phase, and I admitted to myself that I wasn’t good with such intricate matters. After listening to her plan, I was in awe of her ability to weave together such a complete and practical scheme in a short amount of time.

I always had a feeling, Lu Chan (whether it was Lu Youxun, or the young girl Lu Chan), was far more meticulous than both Zhu Shi and myself. I used to think this quality stemmed from her profound schemes and intelligence work, but after seeing Lu Chan’s performance, I started to think it might be more because her mind was really sharp.

Unfortunately, although I didn’t dislike Lu Youxun, I found it very difficult to truly trust him. This was related to whether I understood his nature. Or to put it another way, the more I understood his past, the less I was able to trust the him of now.

Zhu Shi was different; to this day, it’s difficult for me to say I understand Zhu Shi, yet I always find myself involuntarily considering him someone I could trust.

"So, I should almost be leaving," said Lu Chan. "Please wait here patiently for me to return. You can continue investigating the documents over there, or you could report the situation here to your friends in the real world."

"Report the situation? Do you mean that I should go back to the real world first?" I asked, puzzled, "The signal connection between the base and the real world is not stable, and I can’t control the ’Fireflies’ from the side of the world here in the base."

"No, you should be able to connect to the real world from inside the base," she said. "If the signal connection is unstable, you can strengthen it. Your flame is your spirit, isn’t it? If your flame can be used to strengthen your body, then it should also be able to strengthen your connection with the outside world."

Is there really such a method? Thinking it over, it actually seemed feasible.

"Thank you, I will try to make contact with the outside world later," I said.

She nodded but did not move immediately, instead standing there, her expression one of hesitation.

After a moment, she added, "... and also, you need to be careful about that Lu Chan outside."

"Why?" I was surprised, "Are you suggesting that he’s plotting something?"

"No, I don’t know," she said. "I’ve told you before, I can only sporadically sync with the memories of that Lu Chan outside. The more he considers them secrets, the harder they are for me to access.

"He has many secrets in his heart that he cannot share with others, and perhaps amongst them, there is indeed what you might call a conspiracy, such as when he once tried to mislead your impression of Extraordinaryism."

"I wouldn’t say he has become a villain who stops at nothing—in contrast, although he abandoned me as a dream, he didn’t completely abandon his conscience. It’s just that this conscience, which used to extend toward everyone, now extends only toward demon hunters, especially those who stand face-to-face with him.

"The evidence lies in the past, when he knew that the Monster Incident might be related to the Human Bureau, yet he still worried about your and Zhu Shi’s safety, asking you not to try too hard to capture the monster alive. This was because he still cared about the lives of those he knew, even if he wanted revenge, he didn’t want to involve you in his own hatred.

"But when his new sense of justice conflicts with his conscience, he’ll eradicate his conscience without hesitation. And this is precisely where you need to be most cautious of him."

"Thank you for the warning, but..." I thought for a moment before asking, "Does there really exist a cause so great in this world that it requires the eradication of one’s conscience?"

"I don’t believe there is."

Having said that, she left the office with my ’Firefly.’

-

I was keeping an eye on the movements of the girl Lu Chan, while studying the connection between my body and the Luoshan Office.

Then, I took out the Outer Path Impermanence Sword, summoned a ball of flames, and tried to convert these flames back into spirit, in order to strengthen the signal connection that existed on the spiritual level.

Like how I used flames to heal my soul’s wounds in the past, now this method of using flames to strengthen the spiritual signal connection also carried a certain humor of ’robbing Peter to pay Paul.’ Only, I was increasingly feeling that this approach wasn’t as amusing as it sounded. ’Robbing Peter to pay Paul’ is a criticism based on the law of conservation of matter, but does consciousness truly need to adhere to the laws of the material world?

When using my superpower, I often feel that perhaps consciousness is a sort of perpetual motion machine. Even though consciousness itself isn’t eternally indestructible, at least during its existence, it seems like it can output its power without limit—the real restriction is merely the output power.

In very rare cases, I feel a slight weariness in my consciousness from a long time of driving superpower, but the appearance of this weariness is less because the power of consciousness is running low, and more because I believe I should be tired. Human consciousness develops in the process of understanding the material world, hence it can’t envision the infinity that doesn’t exist in the material world. And the more one realizes the limits, the more one is trapped within them.

So I decided not to think too much about it—perhaps it’s better to follow one’s instincts with superpower matters. Even though these instincts are also accumulated in the material world, they are very limited.

With the guidance of instinct, my flames transformed into a power of spiritual nature. Don’t overthink it, just like the feel of reconstructing flames into a body, reconstruct the flames into spirit. Then, try to amplify the strength of the signal connection. Like watching a spider silk swaying in the wind and intentionally mistaking it for four or five strands, then twisting these fragile strands into a thicker one in the world of imagination, and repeating the above steps...

After repeating this a few times, the strength of the spider silk seemed to rise to eighty percent of the normal level.

The signal from the other end, like the fine string of a cup-and-string telephone, passed along. I slowly closed my eyes, vaguely hearing the voices from that side.

"...Is everything going smoothly for him?"

"He hasn’t woken up for such a long time... could something unforeseen have happened?"

"Not waking up should indicate that nothing has happened over there..."

"Did his eyelids just move..."

At the beginning, I couldn’t distinguish who was speaking to whom, but gradually the voice of the conversation became clearer, and it seemed that Zhu Shi was speaking in the end.

It wasn’t long before the spiritual connection was enhanced to normal levels, and I felt as though my body was lying on a sofa in the Luoshan Office, even though I should have presently been standing on the floor of the manager’s room at the secret base of the Human Bureau. It was like experiencing an extremely vivid fantasy, but unable to distinguish which side was fantasy and which the reality. Of course, for me, both worlds were real.

The lying me opened my eyes.

At first, what came into view was a white ceiling with a hanging fluorescent light, and then a face peeked into my field of vision from the edge—it was Mazao’s face, looking at me with a mix of confusion and concern.

I sat up and looked around. This was the Luoshan Office, I was lying on the sofa. And Zhu Shi was standing next to me, while Lu Youxun was sitting on the opposite sofa.

All eyes were focused on me.