132: Chapter 133 Six Hours Later, My Dad Will Become a God

[the seventh divine remnant: Heart]

[Current host: Lin Shoushan]

[Resurrection progress: 92%]

[Estimated complete awakening: Within six hours]

A blood-red prompt hung above the academy.

No one spoke.

Lin Jin stared at the words [Current host]. His right hand was still bleeding from the wound, yet he seemed unable to feel the pain.

Six hours.

In six hours, the person kneeling in the basement level repairing the giant gate might still have his father's face, possess his father's memories, and even use his father's tone to call him a brat.

But that person would no longer be Lin Shoushan.

Chen Ye turned pale.

"Go to the Archives Tower now."

"There's still time."

Gu Changye shook his head abruptly.

"There isn't."

"The Archives Tower is already sealed, and Inspector Han Su's temporary permissions have been exhausted."

"A frontal assault on the Department of Education would take at least four hours."

"And then finding our way from the seventh floor to the basement level—"

"He won't hold out that long."

Lin Jin looked up at the green evacuation door.

"Go through the White Tower."

Thirteen had just been dragged out from the door, his body still too weak to even stand, but upon hearing this, he grabbed Lin Jin's sleeve.

"You can't force it open."

"Why?"

"The evacuation passage is only 11% restored right now."

Thirteen gasped for air, pointing to the flickering names inside the door.

"If you force the passage to expand, it isn't spiritual energy that gets consumed."

"It's the remaining integrity of those in the waiting area."

"For every minute the door is opened, someone will lose a part of themselves."

Chen Ye's expression changed.

"Use the people inside to pave the way for us?"

Thirteen nodded.

"The emergency energy of the White Tower right now is them."

Behind the green door, Luo Wensheng's remaining right hand moved slightly in the ice.

She didn't speak.

But it was as if she were proving that Thirteen wasn't lying.

Lin Jin looked deep into the door gap.

Su Yan was there.

He Zhibai.

Ye Guizhou.

And seven others on the list he hadn't yet identified.

To save his father, he couldn't use them as filler.

Just as Lin Jin was about to withdraw his gaze, Luo Wensheng's fingers suddenly traced rapidly on the ice surface.

Stroke after stroke.

[Don't take the evacuation door.]

[Take the maintenance shaft.]

Lin Jin's eyes narrowed.

"What maintenance shaft?"

Luo Wensheng's writing became increasingly urgent.

[Not on the original tower blueprints.]

[Added later by Lin Shoushan.]

[Doesn't connect to White Tower energy.]

[Only connects to mechanical shafts.]

Thirteen looked up abruptly.

"I've seen it."

"Eighteen years ago, when Lin Shoushan dismantled the candidate numbers, he didn't use the main entrance of the White Tower."

"He went out through a very narrow black pipe."

Chen Ye asked instinctively:

"How narrow?"

Thirteen looked at his shoulders.

"You might have to leave your shield behind."

Chen Ye immediately hugged his shield tight.

"That's not happening."

Zhou Heng said coldly:

"You could stay behind instead."

"That's even less happening."

Lin Jin walked toward the blue original design blueprints.

On the entire diagram, the evacuation passage, barrier-breaking routes, and protection nodes were all clearly marked.

Only the area below the central maintenance console had been repeatedly painted black.

It wasn't covered up later;

it was something Lin Shoushan had erased himself.

Lin Jin pressed the blood-stained nut onto the blueprint.

The crescent notch on the inner ring of the nut rotated slowly, finally aligning with a scrapped drilling machine in the corner of the F-Class Repairman training room.

That drilling machine had been out of use for over a decade.

Dust had accumulated on the base.

Qin Shanhe walked over and kicked away the piles of waste next to it.

Beneath the drilling machine, an old-fashioned dial was revealed.

No professional certification.

No permission prompt.

Not even a spiritual energy interface.

Only a handwritten label covered in rust.

[Use during power outages.]

Seeing these four words, Chen Ye suddenly smiled.

"This is like Lin Shoushan."

Lin Jin gripped the dial.

It didn't turn.

There were two keyholes in the center of the dial.

One was in the shape of a hexagonal nut.

The other looked like the jaws of a wrench.

The blood-stained nut could open the first one.

The second one required a tool.

Everyone's gaze fell toward the 002 Wrench sealed by the academy's formation patterns.

Teacher Xu Wenzhou stood before the formation, his face pale.

"It can open it."

"But whoever holds it and enters the maintenance shaft will be continuously induced by it."

"There are countless job connections in the shaft."

"It will keep asking you—do you want to cut them?"

Lin Jin walked toward the 002 Wrench.

Teacher Xu Wenzhou, however, blocked his path.

"You can't take it."

"The Maintenance Seat has already locked onto you."

"The moment you touch the 002 Wrench, they will directly mark the maintenance shaft as a recovery passage for The Seventh Seat."

"Then who takes it?"

"Me."

Teacher Xu Wenzhou extended his still-trembling hand.

"Twenty years ago, I hid it in the F-Class Repairman training room."

"Now it's my turn to send it back where it belongs."

Lin Jin looked at him.

"That execution instruction is still affecting you."

"That's why you have to watch me."

Teacher Xu Wenzhou smiled, looking somewhat exhausted.

"If I aim in the wrong direction."

"Zhou Heng, cut off my hand first."

Zhou Heng didn't hold back.

"Fine."

Chen Ye muttered quietly:

"You agreed to that way too quickly."

Zhou Heng glanced at him.

"You want to do it instead?"

"Never mind, Teacher Xu's hand is more suitable."

Qin Shanhe withdrew the academy's formation patterns.

The moment the 002 Wrench was released from the blockade, all job marks within the training room lit up simultaneously.

The jaws of the wrench opened and closed frantically.

When it swept past Qin Shanhe, it displayed:

[Can cut: Qin Shanhe and the Dean Seat]

When it swept past Shen Tingxue:

[Can cut: Shen Tingxue and the Ice Phoenix job]

When it swept past Zhou Heng:

[Can cut: Zhou Heng and the Zhou Family Thunder Spear inheritance]

When it swept past Chen Ye:

[Can cut: Chen Ye and the Protection Role]

Finally, it swept past Lin Jin.

The 002 Wrench paused for a full three seconds.

[Can cut: Lin Jin and Lin Shoushan's father-son relationship]

Teacher Xu Wenzhou's arm sank abruptly.

The wrench was lifted up, almost beyond his control.

Yet, Lin Jin stood where he was, not dodging.

"Teacher Xu."

Veins bulged on Teacher Xu Wenzhou's forehead.

"I know!"

"That's not a job!"

He pressed his hands down hard, slamming the 002 Wrench into the second keyhole.

"Father and son is not a job that should be defined by tools!"

Click!

Both keyholes turned simultaneously.

A low, rumbling sound of gears came from beneath the scrapped drilling machine.

Dust that had accumulated for eighteen years was shaken away to both sides.

A black vertical shaft, wide enough for only one person to pass through, slowly appeared before everyone.

There was no White Tower text on the shaft walls.

Only rough traces of manual welding.

At the very top, a line was engraved:

[Maintenance personnel do not use the main entrance.]

Just as Lin Jin was about to descend, Thirteen braced himself against the drilling machine and stood up.

"I'm going too."

Lin Jin glanced at him.

"You just obtained a body."

"That's exactly why I have to go."

Thirteen's legs were still shaking, but his eyes were fixed intently on the bottom of the shaft.

"I'm not going to save Lin Shoushan."

"I'm going to ask him."

"Why, between the two children, did he only take one away?"

The warehouse was silent for a moment.

Lin Jin didn't make excuses for his father.

He simply extended his hand.

Thirteen looked at that hand, hesitated for a moment, and finally took it.

Lin Jin pulled him to the shaft entrance.

"Then ask him to his face."

Gu Changye stepped forward.

"I'll take the Processing Bureau people down with you."

Qin Shanhe stopped him.

"You stay."

"The Six Seats are still above the academy."

He looked up at the six black chairs.

"Someone has to make them think Lin Jin is still here."

Chen Ye was taken aback.

"How do we trick them?"

Qin Shanhe picked up the broken F-Class Repairman badge from the ground.

"The academy has thousands of student files."

"I'll create a fake activity record for Lin Jin for them."

Gu Changye frowned.

"File deception won't hold the Maintenance Seat for long."

"I don't intend for it to hold for long."

Qin Shanhe pressed the broken half of the Dean's seal onto the badge.

"Six hours is impossible."

"But we can still fight for an hour."

He looked at Lin Jin.

"Bring your father back."

"After you get back, fix my Dean Seat."

Lin Jin nodded.

No wasted words.

Zhou Heng went down the shaft first to scout the path.

Shen Tingxue was second.

Lin Jin had Thirteen go in the middle, and Chen Ye followed at the back, holding his folded, shrunken shield.

Teacher Xu Wenzhou brought up the rear with the 002 Wrench.

The shaft cover closed slowly.

Before the last ray of light overhead disappeared, Lin Jin saw the six black chairs turn simultaneously toward the fake file Qin Shanhe had created.

The first seat had already cast down black light.

The academy didn't have much time.

They had even less.

The maintenance shaft was nearly vertical.

No elevator.

Only an iron ladder descending continuously.

Every ten meters on the shaft wall, there was a maintenance mark left by Lin Shoushan.

[Safe]

[Caution: Leakage]

[Structural looseness here]

The earliest handwriting was still young.

The further down they went, the more urgent the handwriting became.

By seventy meters, blood began to appear on the walls.

Thirteen touched a dried palm print and his body suddenly stiffened.

"He left this eighteen years ago."

"How do you know?"

"I remember."

Thirteen closed his eyes.

"After he threw the candidate number into the waiting area, he stood here for a long time."

"He kept saying sorry to the shaft entrance."

Lin Jin's steps paused for a moment.

Thirteen opened his eyes, his voice very soft.

"But he didn't come back."

"Eighteen years, not even once."

Lin Jin looked into the darkness below.

"Ask him that yourself."

Thirteen didn't speak again.

They continued downward.

When the depth exceeded seventy-nine meters, the Hand of Rules suddenly began to malfunction.

The prompts in their field of vision flickered like faulty lights.

However, the mechanical structures on the shaft walls became increasingly dense.

Gears, drive shafts, pressure valves.

All were the most common equipment.

Not a single place required professional permission.

It seemed that Lin Shoushan had long ago anticipated that the job system would one day take over the White Tower.

So, outside of all the rules, he had left a path that operated solely on manpower and tools.

A circular iron door soon appeared at the bottom of the shaft.

Behind the door, a heartbeat could be heard.

Thump.

The entire maintenance shaft shook along with it.

Thump.

The 002 Wrench struggled frantically in Teacher Xu Wenzhou's hand.

Thirteen's face turned pale, and the scar on his chest, left after the black chair was cut down, split open again.

"That's not Lin Shoushan's heartbeat."

"It's it."

Lin Jin inserted the blood-stained nut into the center of the iron door.

The real-time status immediately surfaced behind the door.

[the seventh divine remnant resurrection progress: 96%]

[Lin Shoushan body integrity: 14%]

[Remaining safe time: Forty-seven minutes]

It wasn't six hours.

The gods heart was accelerating its awakening.

Chen Ye's expression changed drastically.

"Why is there only forty-seven minutes left all of a sudden?"

Thirteen stared at the grey-gold light seeping through the door gap.

"Because it discovered we're here."

"It's eating Lin Shoushan ahead of schedule."

Lin Jin twisted the nut.

The iron door opened slowly.

The giant gate of the basement level appeared before everyone's eyes.

The silver threads had all snapped.

The floor was covered in twisted bolts.

Lin Shoushan was no longer kneeling to repair it.

He stood in the center of the giant gate.

The wounds on his body had all disappeared.

His graying hair had turned black again.

His tattered maintenance uniform had also transformed into a robe of pure white.

Only the old, blood-stained wrench remained in his hand.

He turned around slowly.

His left eye still belonged to Lin Shoushan.

His right eye, however, was a golden job wheel spinning continuously.

Lin Jin gripped his wrench.

"Dad."

Lin Shoushan's lips trembled.

He seemed to want to answer.

But what came out of his mouth was another grand, cold voice.

[The two Seventh candidates have arrived.]

[One complete body.]

[One independent identification core.]

[And my heart.]

He raised the wrench, pointing it at Lin Jin and Thirteen.

[Please decide—]

[Who will become my humanity.]