Chapter 47: Zuo Yu

The change happened imperceptibly; the first to realize something was wrong was Liu Ziyi.

She was floating in mid-air, pondering how to redefine a new set of Sandbox Rules; the first thing the new rules would violate was the principle of gravity. Once she succeeded, she would first hand this set of Sandbox Rules over to Du Zhengyi to use; his feedback was always the best. Besides him, who else would be willing to risk using new things? Who else was bolder than him? If not to him, to whom else could she give it?

However, her experimental progress was a bit slow at the moment; she was stuck again. She intended to go look at the latest research results from humans; they could always provide her with ideas. That old zombie Zuo Yu always forbade them from having anything to do with humans, terrified that humans would contaminate them all. But new human materials emerged one after another, and experimental methods were advancing by leaps and bounds; they had already started conducting experiments in space. Liu Ziyi was a bit jealous lately; she couldn't simulate the radiation conditions in space, and this kind of deficiency was like losing a hundred million credit points.

That said, her requirements for the stability of experimental conditions were just that high, so when the environmental parameters suddenly changed, she was furious.

She folded up her experimental Sandbox and jumped down to the ground with a thud. The landing was too hard, and her knees were slightly bruised.

"What's wrong, Ziyi?" The Feifei Nan behind her immediately crowded over.

She didn't speak; just a moment ago, she had thought it was Feifei Nan who had messed up and affected her.

The old zombie was patrolling back and forth, and as he walked to a place not far from her, he also looked over toward this side. She didn't like him very much; he was always too eager toward them, and she didn't want to give him a chance to catch them for a heart-to-heart talk.

But the old zombie still noticed that something was wrong with her; he walked over quickly and asked with concern, "What's wrong?"

"Shh—" Liu Ziyi said. She rolled her eyes to look at the ceiling, and a moment later, she turned her gaze back to examine Zuo Yu. She tilted her head and looked at her teacher and leader in bewilderment—could he not feel it at all?

A scream came from the distance; judging by the sound, it was a boy.

The experiments in the hall stopped one after another, and several Mages began to quickly and methodically add Guardian Barriers to the dangerous experiments they were currently conducting.

"What happened?" Zuo Yu asked sternly.

No one answered him.

The atmosphere was already completely different; a distinct kind of silence had occurred in the Qionglin, as if they had all previously been comforted and calmed in their hearts by warm, small sounds. That comfortable feeling had existed for so long that they had all forgotten the existence of that sound. But now, there was only a deathly silence in the Qionglin.

Liu Ziyi suddenly became happy; she knew what had happened. She hadn't expected Du Zhengyi to actually be capable of this. Zuo Yu was glaring at his surroundings, trying hard to figure out what exactly had happened. In fact, he should have been able to perceive it already, but he was too nervous and too rigid; he absolutely lacked the ability to think in that direction. Liu Ziyi had already seen the girl who had come with Du Zhengyi poking her head out from the corridor; she looked terribly nervous, carefully blending into the chaotic crowd of Mages.

She laughed and leaped into the air; Zuo Yu was already too busy to talk to her. She accelerated in mid-air and landed beside the girl. The pale little girl was given a big fright; she reached out and took the girl's cold hand. "Come with me."

She pulled the girl through the crowd; no one particularly noticed the two girls holding hands disappearing from the hall. Finally, a Mage was willing to tell Zuo Yu what had happened: "Teacher Zuo, the Qionglin's defense has disappeared; we are now completely exposed."

"What?" Zuo Yu was stunned. He found it hard to believe for a moment and immediately wanted to summon the defense to lock down this hall.

The Defense System, which stored the Magic Ability of generations of Qionglin Great Mages, remained silent and did not respond to his summons. He was bewildered; in an instant, various thoughts appeared in his mind one after another. He was frantically pondering what had happened—was it Mages from other continents trying to stir up trouble again, or had a new extremist criminal appeared who dared to attack the Qionglin? Did he need to summon Battle Mages? Thinking this way, he began to think about exactly how many Battle Mages were in the Qionglin at this moment, who the duty Mage was, and whether he should go notify Pei Shu first and let him make the decision.

After thinking through this, he suddenly realized that there was a Battle Mage right here, who had just spoken to him. His confidence suddenly returned; Du Zhengyi was right here, and things weren't too bad yet; he would definitely be able to help a lot.

Zuo Yu couldn't be bothered to pay attention to the Mages who kept asking him what to do; he strode across the hall, walked out of Laboratory No. 5, and entered the corridor of the Administrative Mage Office.

Du Zhengyi happened to be coming out of Pei Shu's office and looked up to see him. "Teacher Zuo."

"Were you looking for information in Pei Lao's room?" Zuo Yu was momentarily disappointed. "Did you go to the Library just now?"

"I did," Du Zhengyi said with a dark face. "There were a few people inside, but I didn't pay attention to see who they were. They turned off the Qionglin's defense."

"Yes," Zuo Yu said miserably. "Come with me to take a look."

He commanded. At the thought that the Qionglin was completely exposed and he didn't know what was going to happen, he was burning with anxiety and could no longer hold back, breaking into a run. The thirty-meter-long corridor seemed endless, and the Library was even more unbelievable; he ran until he was covered in sweat.

Du Zhengyi shixian-ed in front of him and arrived at the base of the Defense Crystal first, but he didn't say a word.

This was not a good sign; Zuo Yu truly began to despair. But afterward, when he thought about it, he had never in his life experienced the kind of despair he felt when he saw with his own eyes that the Defense Crystal had been stolen.

He stared blankly at the empty pedestal. "Wh... who... stole the Defense Crystal?"

"Indeed," Du Zhengyi said, still very calm. "No one could pass through the defense to get here; it must have been an inside job."

Zuo Yu's mind went blank.

"After getting the Crystal, they must have used space travel to leave from here," Du Zhengyi analyzed. "No one could carry a High-energy Crystal through the hall; everyone in Laboratory No. 5 would be able to sense the Crystal's energy; they wouldn't be able to carry it out."

"That's right," Zuo Yu muttered. He knew Du Zhengyi was right; the Crystal was indeed not here; he couldn't feel its existence.

"First, we should immediately check if anyone has left the Qionglin," Du Zhengyi said, raising his voice to call back his attention. "At the same time, search the entire building; if no one has left, they must have hidden the Crystal somewhere here."

"Yes, well said," Zuo Yu nodded.

More sounds came from behind; the people in the hall all surged in. Some had already seen that the Crystal was missing, and at the same time, several gasps rang out.

Zuo Yu turned back, demanding that all Battle Mages in the Qionglin assemble, and simultaneously summoned the supervisors of each floor.

Du Zhengyi slowly retreated to the back of the crowd; he walked through the corridor and returned to the hall of Laboratory No. 5. He couldn't find a trace of Guan Xinyue, but he saw Liu Ziyi; she was walking in from another door of the hall and nodded at him from afar.