[Red Director-General Huan Bao’er begins assembling the –Magic Hero Hall Special Action Team.-]
[Huan Bao’er invites me to join the Magic Hero Hall Special Action Team.]
Among the attendees, eighty percent chose to join.
Those who refused were immediately told they could return to their previous work and were given a day off to catch up on sleep.
–The treasure I’m about to apply for on your behalf can only be communicated with at midnight during the last few days of each month. That’s why I asked everyone to come at this hour.-
Huan Bao’er swept her gaze left and right: –Additionally, form your own groups for now. Everyone is free to join other people’s groups.-
Gong Huanwu said:
–Since none of you have ever built something like this, you have the next half month to refer to the materials and build freely according to your own ideas. After half a month, we’ll hold the first round of evaluation. The better groups will be retained, and the members of the other groups will merge into these groups.-
–So we only start building the actual Magic Hero Hall after half a month?-
–Yes, but the Chronos expansion state begins right after the meeting ends, so don’t wander out of the company’s east zone unless you have to.-
Everyone nodded to show understanding.
Huan Bao’er scanned the faces of the hundreds of participants one by one, as if committing every image to memory. Yang Zicang felt that gaze pause briefly on him.
–If there are no objections, I’ll start applying for the authorization to access that secret treasure for all of you.-
Everyone straightened their backs and looked toward the head of the long table.
Huan Bao’er put down her long crossed legs and sat up straight. Her gaze turned ethereal as she looked ahead, like a seasoned military officer.
A halo emerged on the woman’s chest, where a rosy light spot slowly moved, tracing a slowly rotating five-pointed star.
–A pentagon!-
The crowd stirred, all eyes fixed on the red five-pointed star within the small ring.
Yang Zicang took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. As expected, there truly is a pentagon above the quadrilateral—but what must be done to advance?
An invisible pressure permeated the air.
{I, the Lost Illusion Company, Red Executive Director of Starlight Illusion, Huan Bao’er, hereby petition the Lost Destiny.}
As her voice faded, an ancient wind seemed to sweep in from the far end of the hall.
Everyone raised their heads to look at the wall—it had turned transparent. The entire hall seemed to float among the clouds, as if one wall had vanished.
Gray-black, chaotic, thick blue, and ruddy red clouds interwove, rolled, and spread. A thin mist veiled part of the ground. Beams of light shot out from the clouds, turning into gauze-like ribbons that stretched endlessly, drifting down above the long table and rippling gently.
Huan Bao’er slowly turned her head sideways, her gaze fixed on the transparent wall that now revealed the clouds.
In the clouds, as if in a mirror, the image of the great hall appeared.
That same ancient and spacious hall also featured a long wooden table of such length, and such an assembly of people. Some stood, some sat; those at the near end turned around or twisted their heads to look this way.
But these people were merely reflections of the current attendees.
They wore the typical uniforms of eighteenth-century gentlemen and Knights of Honor, yet among them were also cowboys; and besides these, there seemed to be monks and friars draped in slanted robes.
Those were even older images—scenes similar to the present one that had once appeared in history.
They had been drawn forth by an unknown force and shown to everyone.
At the head of that long table inside, there was also an upright figure with a straight back. That refined and handsome gentleman turned his head as well, looking toward this side’s table.
The two sides were meeting each other’s gazes, but Yang Zicang knew that the other side was not looking at him.
What they beheld—he did not know if it was a still more ancient scene, one even closer to their own.
Huan Bao’er’s telepathic voice spread out, saying:
{I petition the Lost Fate: grant us, for this moment, the power to manifest the mind.}
The people in medieval attire turned their heads back and resumed their silent conversation.
The scene gradually faded.
As the words of the request fell, the ribbons that had drifted into the hall landed on everyone; the clear ribbons, like snowflakes, melted upon touch.
[I have obtained the power of –manifestation of the mind.–]
Light and clouds dissipate like a fading rainbow, and the hall returns to normal.
[The Power of Mental Manifestation—What is thought becomes what appears.]
[Current Position: No Position.]
The crowd is hushed, everyone sensing the newfound ability within the Moxel on their chest.
Low murmurs gradually rise. Some whisper among themselves; others turn and begin jotting notes in their meeting records.
Yang Zicang and Zoro, both new to this, stand empty-handed.
–Everyone, from now until the end-of-year city ranking battle, just focus on this one task. Other materials can be accessed at the Special Action Group Command Room. Also, each group must involve members from two departments working together.–
The phantom of the Demon Hero Hall above flickers and dissolves, scattering into light particles that carry the competition city data within.
The meeting adjourns, and Huan Bao’er rises to leave.
Ba Haitao on the left turns to Yang Zicang, his face alight with an energetic smile:
–Zicang, from your First Action Department, you’re the only one joining this assignment, right?–
–There’s also Wang Dingshan.–
–Ah, in that case, want to join our group? We’re just short of someone from the Action Department.–
Yang Zicang glances over, as if sensing something, and sees several people at the far end of the long table nodding to him—these are Ba Haitao’s team members.
–The veterans of your First Action Group are the company’s pillars. Each of them clears more psionic fields in a month than all of us combined. The executives naturally wouldn’t pull them into this kind of grunt work.–
Yang Zicang thought for a moment—Wang Dingshan might enter Group One with his former teammates.
Just as he was pondering whether to decline or join, Jiao Ma had already scurried around the table with her laptop.
She pointed a slender, scallion-white finger at the youth and said,
–Yang Zicang, I order you to return to the team!-
Yang Zicang lowered his head. Ba Haitao laughed heartily, –Team Leader Jiao, you’re quick to snatch people away.-
–Snatch? He was always my team member, humph.-
Jiao Ma had grown up here—the Lost Illusion Company was like her home, and at that moment she exuded an air of ownership.
Ba Haitao clapped Yang Zicang on the shoulder.
–Zicang, you’d better go back to her team. Jiao Ma has several top cadres as her godparents. If you piss her off, you won’t have a good future.-
–Alright, Team Leader Jiao.-
Zoro looked at Jiao Ma. –Can I join your group?-
–Of course, I’m more than happy to have you! I accept all talented people into my Jiao-Jiao group without exception.-
She lifted her chin high, like a proud little peacock.
She seemed to be in a fantastic mood, completely different from the office worker she was in the team.
Jiao Ma laughed cheerfully.
–Tomorrow, I’ll be in the command room waiting for you to report.-
……
Back in the bedroom, Yang Zicang sat on the bed and closed his eyes.
[I, the humble quadrilateral, now begin to exercise the power of mental manifestation.]
A light glowed on his chest, and Yang Zicang felt an overwhelming sense of insignificance rising within him.
–……–
[By the great authority of mental manifestation, I can reconstruct the Demon Palace in the sea of spirit.]
[I begin the reconstruction.]
A gentle breeze passed by, and Yang Zicang opened his eyes.
He found himself silently appearing beneath the ancient and vast Demon Palace.
Yang Zicang first examined his own hands.
–Am I in my own sea of spirit now? Incredible. Things I never dared to imagine before now feel as natural as instinct.-
He looked up, but at the top of the colossal building, towering higher than a mountain, the pyramid was entirely invisible.
With a single thought, Moxel materialized the employee card of the first action group, which guided Yang Zicang’s psychic body to appear freely at the opposite end of this mountain-like palace.
As he quickly scanned the internal terrain, Yang Zicang understood why it could accommodate ten to twenty thousand people for simultaneous assessments—it had multiple distinct paths.
The paths sometimes crossed, sometimes closed off, but all eventually converged at the top.
The final showdown took place within that pyramid, where only the victor could ascend the Lotus Treasure Platform and claim its treasure.
The more intently Yang Zicang studied the immense palace, the greater the challenge seemed. The architectural plans alone would take an eternity to draft, yet they were to produce a palace of that scale within four or five months—though Huan Bao’er had assured them that everyone merely had to carry out deformation and assembly tasks within the psychic force field. His own action group was exactly the one handling that assembly.
But having a bunch of novices construct a massive palace in such a short time was already an extremely arduous task; adding the requirement that it also served as a test of their abilities made it even more so. Yang Zicang felt that the evaluation of this undertaking’s outcome was bound to be bleak.
At this moment, many people in the Lost Illusion Company were engaged in similar work.
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