Chapter 81 : Chapter 81

Chapter 81: Word Games? Useless. I’ve Got Surveillance Footage

Wang Longcheng had just led everyone out of the command centre.

when they saw Li Mu in the distance, mounted on a tall warhorse.

In his hand, he carried a bundle made from his cloak.

Something round inside the bundle was still thumping and bulging.

Although Li Mu did not seem badly injured, his body was covered in bits of multicolored crystal debris, his combat uniform was torn in several places, and blood was splattered all over him.

It was hard to tell whether it was his blood or the monsters’ blood.

When he reached them, he swung down from the saddle.

Li Mu directly brought the cloak bundle before Wang Longcheng.

“Your subordinate, Li Mu, acting under Commander Wang Longcheng’s orders, has completed the mission!”

Liao Feng was instantly annoyed off to the side.

So this little brat had been saving all his scheming for this?

He had sneaked back to the city just to place the thing directly into Wang Longcheng’s hands.

He was afraid someone else might steal his superior’s credit, was he?

That little brat had definitely set his sights on Wang Longcheng’s daughter.

The more Liao Feng thought about it, the sourer he felt.

Wang Longcheng had truly struck gold with this one.

Wang Longcheng himself was deeply moved as well.

From that brief flicker of Li Mu’s signal before it disappeared again, it had been obvious that Li Mu had transformed, crushed the Return Stone, and then turned back into a bird.

Wang Longcheng had already guessed what he was thinking.

Li Mu clearly understood that bringing back the Mother Crystal was a heaven-sent merit.

If he had returned openly and directly, then the Commander-in-Chief and the others would certainly have gone to the teleportation gate to receive him.

At that point, the moment Li Mu arrived, he would have had to hand the Mother Crystal over to the highest-ranking leader present.

He had plainly been afraid that, by then, the credit might no longer fall to Wang Longcheng.

So he had gone out of his way to bring the thing straight to Wang Longcheng first.

Wang Longcheng smiled inwardly. The boy really did have a head on his shoulders.

Though his thinking was admittedly a bit naïve.

Merit was merit. Wang Longcheng was no soft target in this military district.

Even if the commander-in-chief had gone in person to greet Li Mu, it would not have meant more credit for him.

Even so, Li Mu’s loyalty toward him was enough to make others envious.

Wang Longcheng smiled faintly and stepped forward, giving Li Mu a heavy pat on the shoulder.

His first concern was naturally:

“You’re not hurt, are you?”

“I’m fine,” Li Mu said with a grin.

Inside that mountain tunnel, he really had gone through a brutal fight.

But with the Safe-Haven Method drawn, a drink of liquor in him, and his combat power fully unleashed, the double recovery boosts of Returnspring and Replenishment from the Inferior Heavenly Immortal Art had kept his True Qi consumption completely sustainable.

By the time Li Mu burst out of the mountaintop, he still had half his True Qi left.

“Good!”

Wang Longcheng smiled approvingly.

Wang Yinhuan, meanwhile, finally let out a long breath of relief.

Li Mu had protected her the entire way. If he had really died in that swarm of monsters,

she truly would not have been able to accept it.

She had never expected him to be so powerful, or that he would know such a strange martial technique as turning into a great bird.

The moment that thought crossed her mind, Wang Yinhuan could not help recalling the scene of Li Mu holding her as they rode the horse together.

Her lovely face began heating up again without her even noticing.

For the first time, she felt that a man could be this different from all others.

Li Mu was handsome, powerful, steady, and mysterious.

That incomparable sense of security— she had never experienced it from anyone else.

Li Mu opened the cloak in his hands and revealed the Mother Crystal before Wang Longcheng.

The Living Crystal Mother Crystal shone like a crystal heart.

With each pulse, waves of energy spilled outward.

“Let me see it!”

The middle-aged female researcher hurried forward

and reached out as if to snatch the Mother Crystal.

Wang Longcheng immediately shot her a cold sideways glance.

The female researcher froze on the spot, too frightened to take another step.

“My apologies.”

“The Mother Crystal is precious. From this moment on, it enters special-level supervision!"

“No one is permitted to touch it without authorization!”

“Step back!”

Wang Longcheng barked coldly.

Liao Feng also immediately contacted the commander-in-chief.

An item like the mother crystal of a living crystal vein had to be placed under special-level supervision the moment it was secured.

Under special-level supervision, every martial artist of the profound rank or above in the military district had to report their whereabouts.

At least one-third of all Profound Rank experts had to remain behind to guard the military district and were not permitted to leave.

This was done for two reasons. First, it was to guard against the extremely unlikely possibility that a powerful monster might force its way into the military district to seize the Mother Crystal.

Second, it was to prevent members of the Heaven Society from coveting such a top-tier resource.

The three people from the research institute were instantly furious.

Jiang Linlin in particular glared bitterly at Wang Yinhuan.

Her face alternated between green and white.

Today, Wang Yinhuan had truly slapped her across the face and swollen her pride.

Staring at the Mother Crystal, she wished with all her heart that she had been the one to discover it.

Very soon, the commander-in-chief and the others arrived.

They gave enthusiastic praise to everyone present, especially Wang Yinhuan and Li Mu.

They also stated that they would personally petition the higher authorities for merit on Li Mu’s behalf.

Wang Longcheng had long since secured the full recording from the Command Room, precisely so it could be used in applying for merit for Li Mu.

After that, Commander-in-Chief Liang Huajun personally initiated the Special-Level Supervision meeting

and placed the living crystal into a secure containment chamber.

Living crystals possessed life attributes and could not be stored inside storage space.

Otherwise, Li Mu would not have needed to carry it all the way back by hand.

Now that it had been fully secured, Li Mu no longer needed to worry about it.

For the moment, the fact that the Mother Crystal had been brought back to the military district was still classified.

The next step would be for professionals to move in and ensure its vitality was maintained.

After that, a location would be selected, a military-industrial enterprise would be established, and development and production would begin.

And those so-called professionals were specialists in energy studies from the research institute.

After Liang Huajun reported the matter to the research institute, three hours later, the institute’s experts and several of its leaders finally arrived.

Many of them had brought bedding with them, because for a long time to come, they would be living here.

Their task was to ensure that the mother crystal could continue absorbing energy properly and keep breeding living crystals.

Things like Portals could only operate inside the Abyss, and their construction and maintenance costs were extremely high.

On the surface, their range was very short.

So travel between cities on the surface still relied on airships.

Could two Abyss bases in different cities establish teleportation arrays to each other?

The answer was no.

Because they simply could not find each other.

Suppose Ironhand City and Linyuan City were two thousand kilometres apart.

Then, in theory, the Abyss entrances of those two cities should also be two thousand kilometers apart.

But once one entered the Abyss and began exploring from Ironhand City in the direction of Linyuan City, forget two thousand kilometers—even if one explored twenty thousand kilometers,

Linyuan City still could not be found.

It was as if the space within the Abyss and the space on the surface did not exist on the same level at all.

Up to this point, among Huaxia’s hundred-plus cities, not a single pair of cities had managed to find each other inside the Abyss.

So there was likewise no way for any two cities to achieve instant travel between them.

Long-distance teleportation on the surface, and contact between separate regions of the Abyss— these were the two great problems that generations of human space-type Martial Artists had been desperately trying to conquer.

When humanity entered the Abyss, it was like falling into a forest full of darkness and black fog.

Only by constantly exploring, driving away the fog, drawing maps, opening up resources, increasing military strength, and continuing onward could mankind hope to find the final answer.

Only then would humanity truly be able to stop.

As soon as the people from the research institute arrived, all four of the Pearl Military District’s highest leaders went out together to receive them.

That was because among the leaders sent this time were two old professors from the research institute, each decorated with more than forty academic medals.

Though their military rank was only on the same level as Liao Feng’s, if those medals were converted accordingly, even Liang Huajun, a Junior Tiger Marquis, would have to address them as seniors.

“Hahaha, Professor Tong, Professor He, long time no see!”

Liang Huajun strode quickly toward the research institute delegation and warmly greeted the two old professors.

Professor He and Professor Tong were both amiable, and after smiling and exchanging a few pleasantries, it was clear they had some prior acquaintance with him.

Liang Huajun then turned toward the middle-aged man in his fifties leading the research institute’s team.

“Commissioner Lu, thank you for personally leading the technical support team.”

Commissioner Lu smiled and clasped Liang Huajun’s hand.

“After all, this is the very first mother crystal of a living crystal vein in our Northern Frontier.”

“Its research value is immeasurable, so the institute attaches tremendous importance to it.”

“Professor He and Professor Tong both volunteered to come!”

After Commissioner Lu finished speaking, Professor He, who was already in his seventies, actually rubbed his hands together with a trace of excitement and laughed.

“That’s right. In the past, we only ever got to visit Living Crystal Mother Crystals at the Winter Frontline and in Lingyun Wanxiang City.”

“But they treasured them so dearly that we never even got the chance to touch them properly.”

“And now, at last, our Northern Frontier also has a Mother Crystal of its own.”

Professor He’s hand-rubbing made everyone smile knowingly.

At that point, Commissioner Lu looked toward the middle-aged man and woman from the research institute and said encouragingly, “You’ve worked hard as well.”

The female researcher immediately seized the chance, stepped forward, and said with a smile, “It was no hardship. The successful recovery of the Mother Crystal this time was entirely due to the Pearl Military District’s excellent command and combat execution!”

“We only carried out some survey work. Compared with the contributions of the Pearl Military District’s commanders and soldiers, our part was hardly worth mentioning.”

The male researcher beside her also nodded in agreement.

After the female researcher finished speaking, she looked toward Liang Huajun and the others with a smile full of expectation.

She absolutely could not let the institute’s leadership learn exactly how the Mother Crystal had been obtained.

Even if what they had done in this mission was not some capital offense, they had failed to detect the Mother Crystal, ordered the mission abandoned, and yet the other side had brought it back anyway.

If their superiors found out, they could forget about receiving even the slightest chance of promotion in the research institute in the future.

So she struck first.

She played a little word game.

What had really happened was that they had done some completely useless survey work.

But she phrased it instead as if they had handled the survey work while the Pearl Military District handled the fighting.

The way she said it made it sound as though the mission had only succeeded through the close cooperation of both sides.

The cleverness of her move lay in the fact that she first gave full credit to the Pearl Military District’s command and combat effort.

That look she gave Liang Huajun was her way of reminding them:

Enough, right?

I’ve already openly acknowledged your enormous achievement.

We only want to scrape off a little of the lesser credit.

You’re such a high-ranking commander—surely you’re not so petty as to expose us over that?

Jiang Linlin felt deeply uncomfortable inside, since she had not managed to claim the larger share of the credit.

Still, she could reluctantly accept this result.

After all, one could not be too greedy.

Liang Huajun only laughed softly and indeed said nothing.

But then Wang Longcheng spoke.

“I imagine the two professors are already eager beyond words, so we should head to the Mother Crystal as soon as possible.”

“I’ve also prepared the full video record of how the Mother Crystal was obtained.”

“That way, the professors can gain a more detailed and comprehensive understanding of it.”