Chapter 18

He paused, his tone laden with a strong warning.

"Your 'abnormality' was classified by Mitra Academy as a problem with the brain when awakening Aberrant Arts; if your identity is exposed... we won't bother reclaiming a worthless defective product, understand?"

So the player's identity is that of an undercover agent sent by the Dome to Mitra Academy?

Yang Yixie had paid attention to the game's background setting, for example, the Dome is set up as a high-tech company; although a newcomer, it dares to directly challenge the old-power Church.

Before Yang Yixie could open the chat box to reply, the outlet on one side of the instrument spat out a paper report.

Bai Mu Yun picked up the report, his strange horizontal pupil easily taking in all the data.

When his gaze fell on the "Mutation Index" column, his brow twitched slightly, revealing a hint of surprise.

"The Mutation Value is actually this low?"

He muttered to himself, his tone quite surprised.

"20 is the threshold; once it exceeds twenty, negative effects from mutation will appear."

He originally guessed that the kid's brain issue might stem from excessively high Mutation Value, but now it seems not necessarily.

However, since the higher-ups went to great lengths to send this kid all the way to Mitra Academy for testing, perhaps they have some means to suppress his Mutation Value.

He tossed the report casually into a nearby box, then took out a sealed sheet of medicine from the metal box's slot and threw it at Ying Duo as if discarding trash.

"Take it."

【You obtained: Unknown Medicine】

"If you feel your body exhibiting uncontrolled mutation tendencies, or the value spikes abnormally, swallow one of these; it can temporarily suppress the rioting mutation factors."

"Your current identity is a Mitra Academy student; this identity is valuable and cannot be easily discarded due to mutation out of control."

After finishing those remarks, his gaze inevitably fell again on Ying Duo's fluorescence-green hair, which could be called visual pollution; his brows knit tightly, and the disdain he had suppressed surged back up.

As a former...

No, rather, he is a designer who has always had obsessive aesthetic demands; this disastrous hair color is practically challenging Bai Mu Yun's tolerance limit.

Especially after knowing that Ying Duo still has self-awareness and is not completely unable to communicate.

Is this a hair color that can be produced by conventional means?

"And your hair..."

After discussing the matter, Bai Mu Yun finally couldn't help but speak; his tone of contempt almost condensed into substance.

"I've seen experimental failures that grew feathers, scales, or even secreted mucus, but this is the first time I've seen someone able to 'mutate' into this... fluorescence-green."

He took a deep breath, afraid that even another glance at Ying Duo would inflict critical damage to his eyes from that color.

"When you awakened Aberrant Arts, did the gods dig out your entire sense of aesthetics as payment?"

Putting it that way, Ying Duo's brain issue seems explainable as well.

The perpetually expressionless Ying Duo, upon hearing Bai Mu Yun so disparage his hair color, seemed to trigger some strange defense mechanism; he immediately retorted in his flat tone:

"This is trend; you don't understand."

"Trend?"

Bai Mu Yun sounded as if he'd heard a huge joke, gave a cold snort, but having no interest in arguing aesthetics with a "defective product" who has a brain problem, he immediately coldly cut off this meaningless conversation.

"Enough, I have no time to appreciate your 'trend'."

He stood up; his tall figure blocked part of the azure light, casting an oppressive shadow, and his warm, curled ram horns now seemed even more threatening.

"You haven't really used Aberrant Arts since awakening, have you? Come with me to the testing field."

"I need to know what ability you exchanged your aesthetics for, rather than watching you stand there with a ridiculous green mop, polluting my eyes here."

Bai Mu Yun turned and walked straight to a wall inside the private room that looked quite ordinary; his fingers lightly touched a sequence on an inconspicuous decorative relief.

【Click—click—】

Accompanied by a few very faint mechanical transmission sounds, a part of the wall slid inward silently, revealing a narrow downward passage.

But deep in the passage, there is brighter cold-white lighting than the dim private room.

"Follow." Bai Mu Yun commanded without looking back, leading the way downward.

Ying Duo hesitated not at all, directly following Bai Mu Yun's steps.

This passage isn't very long; at its end is a basement not too large in scale but with excellent, complete equipment.

The surrounding walls are reinforced with alloy metal plates; one side of the basement holds various rune instruments and energy-projected screens, while the other side has a simple weapon rack holding several different standard firearms and cold weapons.

At the room's center is a specially demarcated training area, with fine scorch marks left previously on the floor and walls.

Bai Mu Yun walked straight to the weapon rack, arms crossed leaning on the metal table of the training field, his nonhuman gold horizontal pupils locking onto Ying Duo once again.

"Speak, 'defective product'."

He got straight to the point, his tone carrying the coldness of business.

"What is your awakened Aberrant Art? I need to know its specific manifestation and application range; demonstrate it for me."

Ying Duo remained standing where he was; upon entering the basement just now, he had noticed the pile of discarded parts and basic material boxes in the corner, and he immediately pointed his hand toward that side.

"I need materials." The boy's reply came somewhat delayed; he stood there blank for a couple of seconds before speaking.

Bai Mu Yun jerked his chin toward that side, indicating he could do as he pleased.

Ying Duo didn't wait for his response; he walked over and rummaged through the heap that looked like trash, quickly stowing all reusable parts into his backpack.

Bai Mu Yun vaguely sensed something off, but he only saw Ying Duo pull out a few discarded parts from the trash heap.

Of course, these are the genuine formula for making that earlier simple explosive device.

Aberrant Species Cores are indeed useful, able to substitute many parts, but their drop rate is a bit low.

Now that the parts are complete, he can naturally produce a more proper explosive device.

Under Bai Mu Yun's gaze, Ying Duo's carefully selected trash was pulled by fluorescence-green energy lines, slowly moving toward where they should be.

During the movement, the fluorescence-green energy wrapped around them, performing preliminary processing; they only need to be assembled together.

In less than ten seconds, a rough, simple little iron box was successfully refitted.

It even kept emitting a faint beep-beep, and one end had a crude Hong Se An Niao.

Bai Mu Yun's eyebrows furrowed again; this time it wasn't from disgust at someone's hair, but because they recognized the true nature of this little iron box.

"So this is the explosive device you used in the assessment before?"

Just by its appearance it's hard to imagine, yet this little gadget turned out to be the mastermind behind the Dao Zhi Mi Te La entrance exam chaos.

"You used this... handmade junk to blow up the exam hall?"

Ying Duo lifted the still beep-beeping dangerous item onto his hand and calmly gave his answer.

"With this kind of handmade junk, a few more and this place could be blown up as well."