Chapter 470: Ruins 14

"Teacher Liu Li, you must make a decision now." Du Zhengyi stood before Liu Li, speaking with a seriousness and formality he had never used before. "I beg you, Luo Qi is not yet an adult. I request the Supreme Committee once more; we could have used a slower method, given Luo Qi time, and let time prove whether he is truly safe. I request a conservative approach. If Luo Qi still hasn't lost control now, it at least proves that even without an Anchor, he is still capable of self-restraint to a certain probability. Or at the very least, let me go in alone, let me serve a monitoring role inside."

Liu Li looked at him, hesitation written in her eyes.

Fan Ning stepped a few paces closer to them and said hesitantly, "But isn't the most important goal of this test to see if student Luo Qi is truly safe when he suddenly loses his Anchor? We must isolate you from Luo Qi. If you are in the Sandbox, even if you are only controlling the field, Luo Qi would still sense your presence, wouldn't he? Isn't that cheating?"

Du Zhengyi turned to him, cold fire burning in his eyes. "I am not dead yet."

"What?" Fan Ning was startled.

Du Zhengyi took a step forward. Fan Ning watched him in confusion, but the people around him reacted far more strongly, all silently retreating to a safer distance.

"I said, I am not dead yet." Du Zhengyi finished the sentence word by word, looking at the Old Mage before him with biting sarcasm. "I haven't died today, I can hold on tomorrow, and there won't be any major problems the day after. How do you know Luo Qi cannot grow steadily during the time I am still alive? You should know that although I will certainly die earlier than an old fellow like you, for his sake, I will still try my best to live a while longer. Do you not believe I can buy him time, or do you know exactly that my death date is within these next few days?"

"I..." Fan Ning froze. His eyes looked at Du Zhengyi in shock, but then uneasily looked away.

The young man took another step closer to the old man, looking at him irritably, his pupils slightly constricted. "I can tell, you aren't a bad person, and you don't really want to be here. Is forcing a child to his death really such an easy thing to get past? No matter the reason, don't do it. You people, I don't know what you really want, what you are trying to prove? Luo Qi's past record is clean; he has never done anything bad, never hurt anyone, and never even tried to take revenge on anyone who hurt him. The Lotus Burners once tied him to train tracks and tried to crush him with a train; they almost succeeded. When he told me about this, he didn't harbor any special hatred for those people; he kept saying he was grateful to the Mage who happened to pass by and save him. A child like him, as long as someone is even a little bit kind to him, he will keep it in his heart and talk about it repeatedly. When others are very bad to him, he takes it calmly; when others are a little good to him, he can't stand it, as if he doesn't deserve it. He shouldn't have placed the Anchor on me, but at that time he was just a terrified child, instinctively reaching out to the only person who had protected him. Is there anything wrong with that? Or have you all long since grown accustomed to a life of power and authority, and no longer know what it is like for those in a weak position? Or... do you only know power, so when you see someone who truly possesses absolute power, you are so scared that you want to find fault and crush him to death?"

"Zhengyi!" Liu Li called out.

"Teacher Liu," Du Zhengyi also shouted at her, "Luo Qi was sent out by you, he is your student; are you really going to disregard his life or death? You know what he is like; you have seen him more than others have. You have seen him when he is ordinary; are you not willing to give him a little more time? I agree to examine him, but I requested a conservative method from the Supreme Committee. Especially now that it is clearly already out of control! Let me go in and take a look, let me confirm that the Sandbox has not transformed into a testing ground for a High-level Combat Mage!"

The underground hall was silent; they stood in a standoff for a minute. At the very least, during this long period, no one raised an objection; even Fan Ning did not speak.

Liu Li turned around and said to the current Chief Experimental Mage, "Wei Zhen, open the Sandbox and let Du Zhengyi go in."

Du Zhengyi let out a sigh of relief.

Liu Li added, "For the sake of fairness, Xiang Qian, you go in as well."

Du Zhengyi had no objections. Xiang Qian was an older generation Mage, a friend of Liu Li, and also the only woman among the senior Combat Mages. He only now realized that the selection of Combat Mages standing here was quite intentional; one series, represented by Chi Yu, tended toward Fan Shi, while the other series, represented by Xiang Qian, tended toward Pei Shu and Liu Li. Especially Xiang Qian—she was almost retired; it was likely Liu Li had specifically arranged for her to enter. Female Mages were always more easily moved, more easily able to feel injustice, even if they were Combat Mages. He felt a little more confident in his heart.

He turned his head to look at the Experimental Mage; opening a Sandbox shouldn't take this long.

Liu Li was giving instructions to Xiang Qian, others were whispering, and Fan Ning was pacing back and forth in a dilemma. Everything was moving toward a hopeful side, but Du Zhengyi's heart sank.

"Mage Wei, the Sandbox won't open, will it?" Du Zhengyi raised his head and asked.

"It's... it's..." Wei Zhen had never thought he would have such a day of bad luck, where everything he touched broke and everything he did failed. He wiped away sweat. "I don't know... I don't know what's going on. It seems that after the Communication Magic failed, it triggered the Underlying Magic Protocol of the Sandbox. I... I don't know why there is an extra lock on the Sandbox."

Du Zhengyi walked over and pushed him aside, reaching out toward the Crystal. A wisp of golden light drifted out from the Crystal, touched his fingertip, and melted the gold into it. After a long while, he frowned and said, "I don't understand this protocol."

"It's... it's true!" Wei Zhen said, "For so many years, no one has ever directly and forcibly changed the Sandbox from inside the Sandbox; no one has ever fought the box itself directly. So... so I don't know what kind of protection measure this triggered in the Sandbox... After all, after all, we only use this Sandbox; we didn't create it ourselves..."

"Stop talking, I will use Underlying Magic to force it open," Du Zhengyi said in a low voice. The thing he feared most had finally happened.

"Underlying Magic?" Wei Zhen shuddered, turned his head, and whispered to Du Zhengyi, "That will consume a great deal of Magic power."

"There is no other way," Du Zhengyi said. "Stand further back."

"Zhengyi, stop." Liu Li finally discovered the abnormality here and also realized what Du Zhengyi was about to do. "Xiang Qian?"

The female Mage nodded and walked over without hesitation. "Let me try."

"Sorry, Mage Xiang is not very good at handling these kinds of accidents," Du Zhengyi said dryly.

"Right, only you are a Full-domain Combat Mage," Xiang Qian retorted. "Why don't you, this sledgehammer, step aside and let your aunt try her luck? What if I actually manage to open it?"

Du Zhengyi frowned; he didn't want to step aside, and he hated others getting in his way most of all. "Teacher Liu, I should be able to do it."

But unfortunately, he saw the Doctor's face. The Doctor had walked over at some point; he looked at Du Zhengyi and said in a voice Liu Li could definitely hear clearly, "I don't think you can, so you had better not."

"Xiang Qian." Liu Li, having received these words from the Doctor, no longer hesitated.

Xiang Qian unceremoniously pushed Du Zhengyi aside. "Stand aside, big nephew."

Du Zhengyi almost wanted to roll his eyes just like Luo Qi.

Just then, Fan Ning suddenly sighed and said, "Everyone, let me try."

Du Zhengyi looked at him in surprise.

"I am an Unsealing Expert, and also a Sandbox Domain Expert." The old Mage walked over, sighing again. "Let me see. Perhaps I have seen this Magic protocol before, or at least I can translate it. If I can't do it, then you can use force to break it. Mage Du, I don't know how you view me, but... anyway, things have reached this point, and there's no point in it. Just... let me help."