Life Game In Other World
Chapter 484: The Desperate’s Gift (Big - for Monthly Pass)

Chapter 484: 484: The Desperate’s Gift (Big Chapter for Monthly Pass)

Kaye City Airport

At the VIP-exclusive arrival gate, Lina, who was holding a folder and had her hair in a high ponytail, glanced at the time on her wristband.

Not far in front of her, a huge airship descended slowly from the sky, its descent kicking up surging dust and steam that scattered in every direction.

When the airship finally settled, Lina quickly walked over, followed closely by a group of security personnel dressed in black suits.

The passenger gangway of the airship descended bit by bit until steady, and a somewhat weary Roger descended from the gangway, followed by a girl who appeared to be about fifteen or sixteen years old, looking somewhat constrained.

"Mr. Roger."

Lina promptly went up to greet him.

"Sorry, I got held up by something on the way to the airport, which caused a slight delay," Roger said to Lina with a smile.

"Your safe return is the best news," Lina responded with a smile, and as she spoke, she glanced at the girl standing behind Roger, "And this is..."

"A friend’s child," Roger turned sideways to introduce her, "Her name is Ennie."

"Mr. Vian mentioned this Miss Ennie," Lina realized, then turned towards Ennie, "Hello, little sister, my name is Lina, welcome to Kaye City."

"You... hello..."

Ennie responded to Lina’s greeting with some restraint.

"It’s her first time away from home, and she just had such a long airship ride; she’s a bit tired," Roger spoke up, easing Ennie’s embarrassment before asking, "Is Mr. Vian still awake?"

At this question, Lina’s attention was swiftly drawn back, "Mr. Vian has ’fallen asleep’ once more."

"I see."

Roger was obviously a bit disheartened.

Lina continued speaking as she led Roger and the girl towards the airport exit, "Mr. Danny Lowe is waiting for you at the Nolanka Group building."

The cold wind fluttered the strands of hair on her forehead.

She turned to look at Ennie, who was dressed thinly, and gestured to a security officer, "Bring this Miss Ennie a fur coat, please."

"Eh?"

Ennie, not quite understanding, looked up at hearing this.

Just as she was about to decline, Lina interrupted her with a smile, "It’s alright, consider it a welcome gift from your sister. We’ve recently bought a lot of these coats from Rock City. If you don’t like it, you can return it to me later. For now, wear it to keep warm."

Then Lina turned her head to look at Roger, "Did you bring luggage with you? We can have the robots carry it."

Upon hearing this question, Roger paused for a moment and shook his head, "No."

—

Limen City·Stars Pharma Building

Billowing white steam filled the space, as He Ao’s figure slowly climbed towards the top of the machinery.

The other researchers walked in front of the steps beneath him, and out of caution, he had activated Stealth this time.

Close to the top of the machine, a fine crack emitted streams of steam. He Ao leaned next to the crack and glimpsed through the swirling white vapor only to see intricately entwined pipes, unable to view the inside of the machinery.

Seems like I’ll have to find a way to get inside.

He Ao climbed to the top of the ladder and leapt onto the top of the machine.

The machine was about four or five stories tall, and its top was just over two meters from the ceiling’s pipes, with a dense array of thick pipes turning overhead and plunging straight into the machine.

He Ao walked to the edge of these pipes and observed them up close.

Many of the pipes had fine cracks at their interfaces with the machine, with white steam constantly seeping out.

However, these cracks weren’t large, measuring thirty to forty centimeters long, but less than the width of a finger, and the viewing angle was so poor that nothing could be seen through the cracks.

But He Ao also noticed that these cracked areas generally showed signs of severe corrosion.

These metals could not safely store the diluted gas from the Fountain of Youth; they would still corrode.

Considering the number of these cracks, the losses caused by the leaking steam must not have been significant enough to warrant a full-scale repair, so Stars Pharma left these cracks as they were.

He Ao maneuvered around pipes one after another.

The surrounding life force was so intense that He Ao could feel moisture condensing on his face and hands.

Living in such an environment for a long time, even if one had drunk from the Fountain of Youth, they might still be altered into some kind of monster by these forces.

If these cracks were left intentionally due to cost issues, then it was unlikely there would be a crack large enough to fit a person.

However, such large machines would typically have a passage leading to the interior for maintenance, and when He Ao had circled the machine just now, he hadn’t seen any relevant passages, so it was highly probable that the passage was on the top of the machine.

As he moved forward, he scanned around and finally discovered a circular maintenance hatch near the center of the machine.

There was a circular handle fixed to the hatch, which seemed like it could be directly opened.

He Ao crouched next to the maintenance door, and around the edge of this circular door, he found a mechanical keyhole.

The keyhole was unusually plated with a layer of Mithril material, probably to prevent erosion by the power of the Fountain of Youth.

He Ao reached for the ring and pulled gently; despite a slight effort, the circular door didn’t budge.

He stood up straight, pondered for a moment, then stood up and sprinted to the edge of the machine, crouching down and pressing his hand upon it, invoking his Divine Sense in the palm of his hand.

As Divine Sense accumulated in his palm and touched the machine’s casing, a massive roar suddenly exploded within the machine, the pipes that were jutting into it started to shake, and countless white steam burst forth from the cracks in the pipes.

Just as he had expected, the machine contained a large amount of ’Qi,’ and even through the massive machine, that Qi could sense the presence of Divine Sense and react violently.

The roaring noise instantly drew the attention of the researchers below, who quickly converged towards the edge beneath where He Ao stood.

Meanwhile, He Ao dashed to the other edges, triggering a commotion with his Divine Sense in succession, and while everyone’s gaze was attracted to the sudden uproar, he returned to the center of the machine.

This time, he induced his Divine Sense to penetrate the machine again, causing a severe commotion at the center, but the researchers below were already distracted by the disturbances elsewhere.

He Ao, with his Divine Sense, mapped out the lock structure of the door, then drew out his short sword, cut through the locking tongues, and with one hand on the circular ring, he gently lifted it open with slight force, and the circular hatch was abruptly flipped open.

A vertical ladder leading downward appeared in He Ao’s view, completely obscured by white mist below, rendering the content beyond the ladder indistinct.

He Ao steadied himself on the ladder, closed the circular door, then quickly descended the ladder.

After descending about four or five meters, a vague steel platform appeared in He Ao’s view.

However, this did not seem to be the very bottom of the machine, because the ladder continued downward.

After a moment of thought, He Ao jumped onto the steel platform.

The entire platform was shrouded in flowing mist, and all he could see in his vision were some fine pipes, but He Ao distinctly felt that the mist was flowing in a certain direction.

He grasped his short sword in reverse and moved forward in the direction of the mist flow, with a hazy sense of ’Qi’ surrounding him, which was the Qi dispersed in the air.

After a moment of contemplation, he began to absorb the Qi from the air using the methods of Martial Arts practice.

Pete’s Martial Arts talent was not great, his body’s ’circuitry’ was blocked, and the energy normally absorbed could not flow through.

But what permeated the mist here was not the most basic energy but ’Qi’.

As He Ao breathed in and out, the Qi surged into his body without restraint. Although this Qi was different from what he had condensed himself, it quickly adapted to He Ao’s body and began to transform into a state he was familiar with.

Then He Ao began to guide them towards the blocked pathways.

Immense power collided within his body without care, bringing with it a wave of intense pain that radiated from the inside out. He Ao felt the previously closed pathways being torn open as the Qi began to flow through them.

At the same time, the quality of his body, which had ceased to change, began to slowly improve.

This was the energy dissipating from the Qi, altering his body.

However, this improvement in bodily quality was modest compared to He Ao’s current state, so he did not focus on enhancing his bodily quality but instead guided the Qi to move swiftly through his body.

Simultaneously, he continued to move deeper inward, where the further he went, the denser the surrounding dissipating Qi became.

He Ao directed the Qi that had entered his body to circulate within, then gathered it around the soles of his feet and the crown of his head.

Excruciating tearing pain came in waves from within his body, but his expression remained unchanged as he suppressed this pain and continued further in.

After just a few steps, neatly arranged ’glass containers’ emerged in his field of vision amid the fine mist.

These glass containers were cylindrical and over a person’s height, spaced about two meters apart from each other, organized in rows just like the bookshelves in a library.

He Ao glanced over, and within his line of sight, he could see more than a dozen containers, but clearly, more were hidden within the veil of mist.

Each container was enveloped by a thin conduit, filled with obfuscating white mist.

He Ao had a bad premonition. He approached one of the glass containers and looked inside. It was engulfed in white and he couldn’t see anything, except for the vague outline of a person.

While continuing to ’absorb’ Qi, He Ao moved along these containers and soon found one where the mist was not as thick.

He could also see clearly what was inside the container.

It was a ’person,’ a young ’person.’

He ’stood’ within the container, his body shrouded by the hazy fog, his chest cracked open, exposing the internal structure within the cover of mist.

The white fog seeped into his body, allowing his chest to rise and fall ever so slightly.

He Ao engaged his Divine Sense and observed the body of the person inside the container.

His limbs didn’t show high energy levels; they barely seemed to reach Essence Refinement and Qi Transformation, entering E rank.

A Martial Artist of such level would only be able to condense their own ’Qi’ in the next phase, but for ordinary people, that required a lengthy period.

Clearly, the creator of the machine did not wish to wait that long.

This container had some sort of guidance device at both its top and bottom, channeling diluted Fountain of Youth fumes into the young ’person’s’ body to forcibly catalyze ’Qi,’ which then flowed into the pipes below.

He Ao activated his Super Memory, scrutinizing the container.

The young man’s body was still enveloped by a faintly thin Shadow, which was a Soul that was nearly dissipated. Every time the fumes completed a ’catalysis,’ this Shadow faded slightly more.

When a person died, their Soul would disperse quickly and then the body would deteriorate; that’s why Roger’s technology to maintain the vitality of a body without a Soul was so valuable.

But a body without a Soul, no matter how, could not muster the energy to operate and accumulate ’Qi.’

The state He Ao saw could only mean that the person in the container had been placed there while still alive.

At that moment, he should have died, but under the influence of the diluted Fountain of Youth mist, his body was kept in a near-death state, serving as a ’machine’ to manufacture ’Qi.’

However, this ’machine’ too had a limited lifespan. Once his Soul completely dissipated, the body would inevitably deteriorate, and then it might be time to ’replace’ the machine.

He Ao clenched the short sword in his hand, his face cold and stern.

All of a sudden, he felt that the name Life Elixir was a dark joke.

Indeed, it was an elixir concocted with ’life.’

He lifted his head and looked at the ’containers’ standing erect in the mist.

Under the perspective of Super Memory, he could see the souls within these containers dissipating until nothing remained.

And with his gaze, one after another, sorrowful moans of agony echoed in his ears.

They seemed to be prayers, yet also pleas.

The despair of having their bodies forcibly disrupted and placed into containers during their lifetime assaulted He Ao’s mind.

These fragmented souls were begging for the last silence, pleading for eternal slumber.

Sometimes, even death itself was a luxury.

He Ao, moved by this, took out the dome-shaped top hat that was stuffed in his arms, tearing it apart and using a short sword to cut out a crude shape of a mask.

Then he used the pure white blood from his coat as paint to color the mask, all colors except black.

In no time, a somewhat odd-looking cloth mask was created.

On the mask, there was only a black and white, eerie smiling face.

He Ao put on this mask.

At that moment, countless ’Qi’ in the vicinity became agitated, rushing madly into his body.

The Qi at his feet and the crown of his head rapidly converged, gathering together under the great pressure of Super Memory’s power.

From the ultimate Yin comes Yang, from the ultimate Yang comes Yin.

Three vortexes of Qi formed at both of his feet and the crown of his head, then these three vortexes rose and fell, gathering into two Qi vortexes at his navel and between his eyebrows.

Subsequently, these two vortexes expanded rapidly and then congregated at his chest, suddenly contracting.

With a thought, He Ao generated a new Divine Sense in his mind.

This was the first time he had coalesced a new Divine Sense, other than during his advancement to Qi Refinement and Spirit Transformation.

As the surrounding ’Qi’ continued to surge in, the two Qi vortexes at his brow and navel, which had become depleted due to the formation of the Divine Sense, once again expanded rapidly.

He Ao reached out, sensing the energy in the air.

He discovered that his affinity with the ’Qi’ in the void had become extremely high; the Qi that previously required active absorption was now naturally flowing into his body.

It seemed he had inadvertently constructed some sort of ’ritual.’

He glanced at the glass containers in the mist around him; this ’Qi’ originating from their lives was the only ’gift’ these despairing souls could offer.

He Ao withdrew his gaze and turned off Super Memory, walking towards the vertical staircase he had just descended.

The core of this machine was obviously on an even lower level.

——

"What the hell are you doing?"

Dark claws emerged from the depths of the mist, lifting the round door cover at their feet.

Two researchers stood shivering nearby.

Then two more claws extended out of thin air, piercing the chests of the two researchers, their white blood flowing down, "Unwanted life can be given to those in need."

A silver-haired man in a white lab coat and wearing white gloves stepped out of the mist.

He withdrew his claws, cast aside the two dead researchers, and without a moment’s hesitation, looked at the open round door cover and the vertical staircase beneath it, and jumped down.

A piercing alarm suddenly filled the entire hall.