Chapter 377: Entering the Underground Laboratory
Since she had made up her mind, Xu Zhi stopped dwelling on it.
To hell with whatever conspiracies, machinations, exploitation, or calculations were at play. She only did what she wanted to do. As for whether someone was plotting something or trying to gain an advantage, she didn’t particularly care. She only knew that if anything made her unhappy, she would just find an opportunity to kill them! If someone could use her to gain a profit while successfully keeping her in a good mood the entire time without triggering her wrath once, then Xu Zhi would consider them truly impressive.
After solidifying her plan, Xu Zhi ran toward the location of the underground laboratory. According to what the two guards had said, the entrance to the lab was right behind the guardhouse. It required the guards on the surface to verify with the guards inside the laboratory before the entrance could be opened. This wasn’t difficult for Xu Zhi.
The guards stationed on the surface were mostly Long-lived of the third or fourth tier, with only their leader being a Named. However, all of them combined were no match for Xu Zhi, especially now that she had all her thralls with her.
Yet, Xu Zhi didn’t kill them. Instead, she knocked them out along with the two guards she had brought back from the outside. This was a precaution in case there were devices below that monitored the guards’ vital signs.
As for when to kill them—for anyone implanted with a [Moth], their life and death hinged entirely on a single thought of Xu Zhi’s.
Afterward, she manipulated the Named guard to communicate with the underground staff and opened the passageway leading down.
Upon entering, they couldn’t immediately access the laboratory itself. The underground facility was quite vast, and without a map on the surface, its exact location remained unclear. However, it was certain that the entrance led directly to where the underground guards were stationed.
Once they were underground, disguise became impossible. Xu Zhi hadn’t brought any of the supplies mentioned during the communication, but she didn’t need to fake it anymore.
When the elevator doors opened downward, the guard stationed at the entrance didn’t even see Xu Zhi first. Instead, he saw a massive silver wolf that nearly occupied the entire elevator cabin. Before he could even cry out in shock, he plunged directly into the illusion constructed by the cat.
Both the quantity and the overall strength of the underground guards were a tier higher than those on the surface. Xu Zhi estimated that the bulk of the facility’s military force was concentrated here; the researchers inside the lab likely wouldn’t be as strong as these guards.
It made sense. If there were too many people on the surface, it would easily expose them.
These powerful guards did cause Xu Zhi a small amount of trouble, as she couldn’t simply kill them all. The various checkpoints of the underground laboratory required biometric authentication to pass through—some even requiring authentications from different guards. She had no choice but to deal with them while simultaneously using the [Moth] to erode their willpower.
If she had come down alone, it probably would have been a massive headache. Fortunately, having her thralls present made the task considerably easier.
She couldn’t allow these guards to die, nor could she let them completely lose their self-awareness and turn into mindless puppets. The biometric authentication inside the laboratory was exceptionally strict; even an excessively stiff tone of voice or a hint of nervousness would be flagged as a failure, which would trigger the alarms, drop the security locks, and activate the containment circuits.
As it happened, Xu Zhi’s [Moth] was highly unique. It didn’t turn people into mindless thralls devoid of thinking capacity; it completely preserved their self-awareness and memories, only twisting a specific aspect of their perception at its core.
Consequently, this didn’t interfere with the laboratory’s specialized biometric authentication at all. If the intruder today had been any other Extraordinary instead of Xu Zhi, they likely would have failed at this authentication stage.
In an Extraordinary society, surveillance cameras were incredibly fragile things; they were both easy to tamper with and easy to detect. Therefore, many vital locations used circuits rather than ordinary cameras as their means of surveillance.
This was clearly a much more powerful monitoring method than electronic equipment, yet it just happened to encounter Xu Zhi.
She only needed a single glance with her [Eye of Secrets] to completely comprehend the operational mechanics of those surveillance circuits. Then, with a minor adjustment using her [Authority], she could make the other side of the monitor display a scene of absolute peace and tranquility.
Coupled with the fact that she hadn’t killed the guards and had promptly stopped anyone who tried to reach for the alarm buttons with the help of her thralls, every other part of the laboratory remained completely oblivious to the fact that intruders had already broken in.
Through the underground guards who had already been brought under her control, Xu Zhi also learned more about the laboratory.
The reason this location had been chosen was twofold: first, to keep it hidden from public view; second, because this was the absolute limit for the other researchers, especially those lower-ranking ordinary researchers and the handful of normal humans.
Even with universal circuits reducing the influence of the Lost Lands, it couldn’t provide absolute isolation. Once they entered the mid-tier zone, many researchers would likely be unable to resist the temptation of the Lost Lands, and the experiments would naturally fail to proceed.
A general layout of the underground facility was also obtained from the guards. However, there was a secret zone that even the guards had no knowledge of, which was presumably where the core laboratory resided.
“When it comes to entering that area, we guards don’t have the clearance to go inside.”
“Furthermore, under normal circumstances, we can’t even walk over there. We’ll unconsciously bypass it. There should be some kind of circuit preventing anyone from intruding.”
As the guard spoke up to this point, a troubled expression surfaced on his face. “How are you going to get in?”
He had completely come to view Xu Zhi as someone far more important than his duties, and even his own self.
“You don’t need to worry about that.”
Whether it was a surveillance circuit, a containment circuit, or anything else—as long as it was a circuit, she had a way.
If anything, the fact that it was a circuit made things convenient for her.
Passing through layer after layer of biometric authentication checkpoints, Xu Zhi and her entourage even encountered researchers dressed in white lab coats along the way. However, these researchers were in a tearing hurry and paid absolutely no heed to Xu Zhi, who was flanked by the guards. They didn’t even spare her a second glance.
They merely assumed she was probably just another experimental subject.
This actually made Xu Zhi find the situation somewhat comical. The intruder had strolled right in front of these researchers in a grand and ostentatious manner, yet not a single person spared a word of concern.
Weren’t they relying a bit too much on extraordinary circuits?
Then again, [Pantheon Heavy Industries] seemed to have always been dedicated to the research of circuits, and she herself could see the dense, interwoven network of extraordinary circuits blanketing this entire underground research institute through her [Eye of Secrets]. If it weren’t for her, or if she lacked either the [Eye of Secrets] or [Authority], it would have been impossible for her to walk all the way here completely unscathed without being detected.
The defenses weren’t useless, but loopholes and vulnerabilities still existed.
Finally, the guards led Xu Zhi close to that specific zone that didn’t even exist on the map.
“The area ahead is it. Our biometric authentication can only take us this far.”
“Alright.” Xu Zhi nodded.
“Go back and act as if nothing happened. Just do whatever you usually do. If there’s any abnormal movement from the laboratory, sound the alarm immediately to let me know.”
The very guards who were supposed to protect the safety of the underground laboratory were turned into her own personal whistleblowers with a simple twist of her words.
