Chapter 270

Xixi has already been in Weilan for almost four months.

Her current public identity is an assistant researcher at the Natural Empire's Medical Research Bureau, while her secret identity is that of a spy for the Holy Elven Empire.

As the top‑rank spy responsible solely to the Moon Goddess Duola, she specializes in gathering information about the Natural Empire, especially the local customs of Weilan.

As an assistant researcher, her work is simply to assist with various experiments in the lab.

For example, providing some control blood samples, or helping to debug various new magical devices and the like.

The workload is light, most of her time is free, and no one restricts her freedom, allowing her to drive the lightning car around Mondaniya at will.

The lightning car belongs to the lab, but the usage rights are hers, making it her personal vehicle.

That day.

Having received no orders from the Moon Goddess Majesty and having no proper work, Xixi once again felt utterly bored, so she took the lightning car out for another aimless drive around the city.

To be honest, this human city is still quite fun, at least at first it was very enjoyable.

But no matter how fun a city is, it can't withstand being toured every day.

The novelty soon wore off.

"No friends, the job is idle, life is really boring."

Actually, she faintly realizes in her heart that she is not really valued by His Majesty.

Although she has an outstanding appearance, even comparable to the Moon Goddess Majesty, her magical aptitude is low, her spellcasting aptitude is low, and her interpersonal skills are poor.

In short, her beauty has become her only asset.

"Ah, it turns out I am not the child of destiny, just an ordinary person."

Recently, feelings of loss, sorrow, and confusion have become frequent visitors in her mind.

While she was wandering aimlessly down the wide streets, enjoying the envious glances of ordinary human folk, the car's communication device rang.

"Miss Xixi, there is a very important urgent task; please return to the lab immediately."

"An important task? Oh, finally I have something to do."

Xixi's spirits lifted, and she hurried back to the Medical Research Bureau on the city's outskirts.

Upon arriving at the bureau and just stepping out of the car, a lab mage came up to her: "Please follow me right away, Miss Xixi."

Xixi quickened her steps, quite curious: "What is this important task?"

"There is a very important new drug experiment. The head of the experiment needs some control group, namely volunteers who will take a placebo."

"Because the task is urgent and we can't find enough volunteers right away, we need you to fill in."

The enthusiasm Xixi had just mustered vanished instantly: "Ah, I thought it was something big—how boring!"

After staying there for a few months, she has become familiar with the basic process of human drug development, known as a "large‑sample randomized double‑blind experiment."

Anyway, it's troublesome; just looking at it makes her feel tired, and she thinks these human mages are purely idle, inventing work for themselves when there's nothing to do.

But the treatment the bureau gives is quite good.

Although she is an assistant lab mage, there is something called a "foreign employee subsidy" that pays her 50,000 kla per month, with daily living expenses fully covered, so she has no complaints.

Although it's boring, the market occasionally offers new things that can give her surprises, making it far more interesting than her unchanging hometown.

Soon, she followed the secret passage and arrived at an underground laboratory.

"Huh~ this lab is really hidden; I don't think I've been here before."

"The Empire has many secret experiments, so naturally there are many secret labs."

"Miss, I'll bring you to this point; just keep going down the corridor, and at the end there will be a door—that's the lab entrance."

Although it's an underground corridor, it's very bright, so Xixi felt no fear and strode forward.

Soon she reached the doorway.

She lightly knocked on the door, and then a somewhat familiar voice came from inside: "Come in."

Upon entering, she found a spacious room with five beds, four of which had a person lying on each.

Each person had their eyes closed, breathing steadily, as if asleep.

There was still one empty bed left.

A lab mage wearing a white coat, a thick gauze mask leaving only his eyes visible, approached: "Miss Xixi, please lie on the empty bed."

Xixi lay down practicedly: "Mage, have we met before?"

"We've seen each other once or twice, but we've never spoken."

"Oh, no wonder I feel you're a bit familiar."

As they spoke, the lab mage handed over a cup of clear water and a white small pill: "This is the new drug to be tested, for treating malaria; its side effect is drowsiness."

Xixi hesitated briefly, then took and swallowed it, since she had done this many times before with no issues.

The pill was a bit bitter; she quickly gulped down some water, and then she knew nothing more.

"Ah, being carefree and clueless isn't bad either—at least there are no worries."

Luosen helped Xixi settle, laid her flat on the small bed, then took out his life‑tree branch and began the experiment.

In this experiment, Xixi is the primary subject.

Besides her, there are three legendary mages of the lesser Elves, and a human volunteer serving as the control group.

To avoid trouble, he kept the four Elves asleep the whole time.

To prevent them from dying midway, he cast various life‑sustaining spells on them.

Next, he carefully conducted various experiments on these Elves.

Time passed day by day.

On the fifth day, due to a mistake he rendered one of the lesser Elves foolish, damaging its soul beyond repair.

There was nothing to be done; it could only be disposed of.

On the fifteenth day, the second lesser Elf was also declared a total loss.

The two lower elves didn't die in vain, greatly deepening Luosen's understanding of elves.

"Upper and lower elves have no essential difference, only differing in degree of improvement."

The third lower elf endured for a long time, lasting a hundred days, allowing Luosen to fully understand elves.

The long experiment gave Luosen three very reliable conclusions.

The first conclusion is "Life Force Quality".

"The life force transformed from life branches has the same essence, with no strength difference, they don't conflict with each other, but there is a quality difference."

"Quality depends only on the life branch; the higher the quality, the finer the perception and control of life activities."

"Probably due to luck, my life branch has a slightly higher quality."

Because reference objects are limited, Luosen struggles to finely quantify the quality of his life branch. For now he can only simply assign the Truth Lord's life branch a quality of 1, and his own as 2.

That is to say, in hardware, Luosen is stronger than De Rui Tan.

The second conclusion is "Elves Are Imperfect".

Elves' bodies are better than mortals', an indisputable fact.

If we use the highest attainable legendary rank as the basis for bodily quality, mortals max at 7, elves at 12.

But according to Luosen's experimental results, human bodies have the potential to reach 19.

Truth Lord De Rui Tan, limited by life branch quality and his own abilities, can only make minor improvements to human bodies.

Quality 12 is already De Rui Tan's limit.

Therefore, he had to forge another path, creating various non-human races to gain greater enhancement potential.

But Luosen has already mastered Laifu's Life Transformation training.

If he had sufficient time and patience, he could even remodel molecule by molecule.

Of course, this isn't very realistic, because the workload is enormous, and it lacks practical meaning, since molecules are constantly changing.

In short, in software, Luosen far surpasses De Rui Tan.

The third conclusion: "Mortal life's soul must rely on elements to exist, and elements can only carry a soul of legendary rank 19."

That is to say, a mortal life composed of elements, or elemental life, can only reach the power of legendary rank 19.

But this does not mean the limit of life force is legendary rank 19.

Because not all life is composed of elements; for example, void life is purely a self-organized soul.

From this, it is possible that life exceeding legendary rank 19 exists in the void.

Moreover, although an elemental life's soul cannot break through legendary rank 19, it can also wield power exceeding legendary rank 19.

For example, the life branch.

Based on this, Luosen can gradually improve his own life quality up to legendary rank 19.

It may take a long time, perhaps ten years, perhaps twenty, but he will definitely be able to reach it.

Research nearly complete, Luosen turned his gaze back to the sleeping upper elf Xixi.

In terms of appearance alone, she is in no way inferior to Moon Goddess Duola, but her inner self is far behind.

And she was "born" like this, so her appearance was granted by the Creator.

"She's so beautiful, yet a hollow shell—what a waste."

"Never mind, I'll just modify you a bit, then you'll go back and be my secret agent."

With his current means, he can completely make it seamless.

Luosen activated Laifu's Life Transformation, beginning to fine-tune Xixi's internals.

Laifu works with extreme efficiency, but the workload is astonishingly large, so he spent a full month raising Xixi's life quality all at once to legendary rank 17.

This means that with a little cultivation she can break the ring barrier, reach the Ten Rings, and with the aid of the Legendary Crystal she can directly advance to legendary rank.

Others' ten years of effort are not worth her one night of effort.

After improving her quality, he also slightly reduced her brain's emotional area and strengthened the logical area, making her a bit smarter.

Finally, he left a highest-level control backdoor deep in her brain.

Thus, Xixi's brain now has two control backdoors.

The other one was left by De Rui Tan; Luosen could erase it, but he deliberately kept it to confuse De Rui Tan.

After doing all this, he raised his hand and placed it on Xixi's body, silently chanting: "Wake up."

"Hmm~"

Xixi woke up.

"How long have I slept?"

"About half an hour."

Luosen is completely unconcerned about slipping up, because he quietly altered Xixi's time memory.

Taking the opportunity as Xixi got up, he said, "Miss Xixi, I just received word from the Internal Affairs Department that Moon Majesty summons you back to the Holy Elf Empire."

"Perhaps you should leave right away."

Xixi rubbed her head, feeling a headache: "Your medicine's side effects are really strong."

"Indeed there are some side effects, but they'll wear off soon."

"Drink some water; it will ease the headache."

Luosen handed her a cup of clear water; she gulped it down cleanly, then sighed: "Ah~ I really don't want to return to that boring forest."

Luosen smiled faintly, speaking in a strange tone: "Miss Xixi, if you don't want others to dictate your fate, work hard at cultivation and boost your mana as much as possible."

Xixi stared for a moment, then nodded: "You're right, I really need to work hard at cultivation."

Luosen then gave her a decent-quality Legendary Crystal pendant: "This gift is for you; I hope you can use it someday."

Xixi certainly recognized it, a little surprised but more bittersweet: "I may never get to use this, but thank you."

After saying that, she stood up and left.

Luosen watched her leave, thinking to himself: 'Rest assured, you'll be able to use it within a year at most.'

He immediately left the Medical Research Bureau, returned to the underground laboratory of Swan Castle, and began to make the utmost use of the Life Tree Branch.

For example, improving his own life quality, for example, crafting the 'Life Tree' molecular synthesis magical device, producing elf fruits, forging legendary wigs.

While he was busily enjoying himself, many things also happened on the continent.

In the southwestern sea of the White Continent, the Radiant Empire's Fourth Expedition Fleet arrived near the Giant Dragon Archipelago of the Thus line: fengbao yang, engaging in fierce combat with the Elves.

The fleet commander was none other than Serakal, who had once served as the commander of the First Legion of the Shadow Guard.

Now, he is the naval marshal of the Fourth Expedition Fleet.

As for this, Serakal had no particular complaints, because the Shadow Guard was extremely dull and boring, far less exciting than being a naval marshal.

At this moment, he was ambitious and eager to expand territory for the empire.

The Natural Empire.

The first hydroelectric power plant was officially put into operation.

At the same time, at the center point of this hydroelectric power plant and two thermal power plants, the Sixth Underground Armaments Factory secretly commenced production.

It directly doubled the production capacity of all main combat weapons of the Natural Empire, raising an already astonishing capacity to a near-terrifying level.

(End of chapter)