Northwest Desert.
Daxia Nuclear Waste Storage Base.
Experts with graying hair, the base director, nuclear waste maintenance workers...
Every one of them wore anxious expressions, pacing nonstop, like ants on a hot pan.
"It’s been three hours!"
"He went down at one o’clock, and now it’s been a full three hours already!"
The director’s originally square face was now so scrunched up it was almost round.
"Xiaoliu!"
"I told you to call him, did he answer?"
He called over the new intern on base.
"N-no, nothing."
Xiaoliu’s voice was already hoarse.
God help him.
He’d been shouting ’Yu Jin’ into the pager for two full hours.
By the end...
He felt like he was about to turn into the shape of ’Yu Jin’ himself.
"Keep calling!"
The director issued the command.
"Okay!"
Xiaoliu braced himself and answered.
Ti ticked slowly by.
Another hour passed.
On the horizon of the Northwest Desert, the sky was gradually lighting up with a pale glow.
Six in the morning, dawn was breaking.
But Yu Jin...
Since he’d gone down the shaft, not a single sound had co out.
"No, dammit!"
"We can’t just let him fool around down there, this is going to go wrong!"
"Xiaoliu!"
"Get a hazmat suit, I’m going down to find him!"
The director shouted loudly.
But...
No sooner had he spoken—
Swoosh swoosh—
Two ard guards stepped in front of the director, guns ready.
"By order—"
"No one is allowed to interfere with Yu Jin’s mission without his permission!"
"If you want to go down the shaft, you need Yu Jin’s consent!"
The buzz-cut young man said each word with precision.
"..."
The director’s face turned as black as the bottom of a pot.
But he knew, arguing with these two was utterly pointless.
For them, obeying orders was their only job—anything else was like playing piano for a cow.
But still...
He couldn’t just stand by and watch Yu Jin go down the shaft and then just ’vanish’.
Even though he didn’t know Yu Jin’s true identity, any young man who could get an official letter personally signed by Yin Shanhai—if sothing happened to him on the director’s watch...
Cold sweat broke out all over the director’s forehead.
"No. This won’t do."
"Get clearance, I want a direct line to Elder Yin!"
As soon as the words left his mouth—
Tap tap—
A few middle-aged n in thick glasses and work clothes stumbled in.
"Ch-Chief Engineer Dou!"
"Ra-radiation..."
"The radiation is constantly dropping!"
...
...
Northwest Base.
Data Monitoring Room.
As a base burying one hundred thousand tons of nuclear waste, a critical job here is monitoring radiation data.
But right now?
Base director Dou Qingfeng stared at the big screen’s steadily falling graph, face blank with confusion.
The curve represented radiation intensity.
Dou Qingfeng had been at this base for a full twenty years.
He’d seen the radiation curve tick up slightly with every new load of waste buried, but he had never seen...
The radiation curve dropping!
Keep in mind—
Those highly radioactive elents have half-lives of tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of years!
By all reason—
A asly human lifespan of a hundred years couldn’t possibly see a radiation curve drop, let alone such a massive and ongoing drop...
"Yu-Yu Jin?"
"What did he do?"
"Did he move tens of thousands of tons of nuclear waste out of here?"
"No, that’s impossible!"
"Just one guy—even moving a single solid waste pillar would be impossible..."
Dou Qingfeng stared at the screen, more and more puzzled the longer he looked.
The scientific understanding and worldview he’d built over the years was being completely shattered at this mont.
After a long while—
He made up his mind.
"Go down the shaft—I have to go down!"
"I have to see what he’s doing in there!"
If before,
He was worried Yu Jin might et an accident, now he was honestly just desperate for an answer to this mystery.
After all—
He’d spent decades in the field of nuclear waste handling, and he simply couldn’t comprehend what he was witnessing.
If it weren’t for repeated verification, he would’ve assud the monitoring equipnt was just faulty.
Half an hour later—
Dou Qingfeng’s call request to Yin Shanhai was approved.
Five minutes later—
Beep beep—
The desk phone rang.
Dou Qingfeng picked up, gave a standard and sincere official greeting, then briefly but directly reported the base’s abnormal situation to Yin Shanhai.
On the other end, there was a long silence.
"Shaft entry denied."
"Give Yu Jin’s work full support."
Yin Shanhai left just those sixteen words for Dou Qingfeng, then hung up.
Dou Qingfeng stood there for a long ti, unable to regain his composure.
In that mont—
He found himself doubting reality.
This world...
Was it really the sa world he knew?
...
...
Ti continued to slip by.
Exactly noon.
Northwest Base.
Dou Qingfeng received so utterly joyous news.
"Yu Jin answered!"
But unfortunately—
Dou Qingfeng’s delight lasted just two short minutes.
"Uh..."
"Yu Jin wants us to keep lowering the shaft platform."
"He said he’s heading to the horizontal level one thousand ters underground."
Dou Qingfeng really wanted to ask Yu Jin what exactly he was doing down there, and how he was pulling off this radiation drop.
But—
He didn’t even get a chance to ask.
Because Yu Jin had already hung up the pager, and further calls just couldn’t get through anymore.
"Lower the shaft platform!"
"Target depth: one thousand ters!"
Dou Qingfeng took a deep breath and gave the order.
...
...
BOOM—
RUMBLE RUMBLE—
The platform’s winch roared into motion.
Yu Jin stood on the platform, eyes glazed.
It wasn’t that he was putting on airs or trying to dodge Dou Qingfeng’s calls.
It was just...
He was at his limit.
But it wasn’t the nuclear radiation he couldn’t bear.
For soone at Tier Eight, radiation was nothing.
What was truly breaking him was the Tier Eight Energy Crystal.
For the past eleven hours, he’d been purifying nuclear pollution nonstop—and popping crystals nonstop.
Yu Jin had no idea how many Tier Eight Crystals he’d scarfed down by now...
He was completely numb.
But—
With each new Crystal, that familiar, pounding, overpowering dizziness crashed over him anew.
"No, I can’t sleep!"
Yu Jin bit his tongue hard.
But even pain could no longer keep him awake.
"I still need to break through to Tier Nine, still need to purify Oumuamua before I cross..."
Yu Jin repeated it to himself over and over.
When the shaft platform ca to a stop—
He all but staggered off, his body moving on autopilot.
Then...
He repeated the previous protocol.
Split off a Physical Avatar, activate tal Manipulation to sense the elents, condense a tal Torrent, unfold a Space Black Hole...
And then—
CRUNCH—!
There had never been a mont—
When ’popping Crystals’ felt so agonizing and torturous.
This vertigo drilled right through the limits of the body, straight to the depths of his soul.
Even as a Tier Eight, Yu Jin couldn’t resist it at all.
"No, can’t sleep!"
As Yu Jin’s mind slipped under again, his vision about to be swallowed by darkness—
He grit his teeth, threw his hand into a fist—
And smashed it down hard between his legs.
"AHHH—!"
A shriek of anguish, raw and piercing, echoed from a thousand ters underground.
Just five minutes later—
Thanks to [Tier One Reproduction Attribute Ability: Cell Regeneration Lv1]—
The lost body part grew back, good as new.
But—
CRUNCH—!
Another Crystal down, and Yu Jin’s mind was slipping again.
"Fuck!"
Yu Jin cursed, and hit himself again...
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