37: Chapter 9 Inside and Outside the Door

The metal door slid open silently, like the gullet of a great beast, revealing an interior of clinical light and frigid air that stood in stark contrast to the filth and blood of The Nest outside.

"Only those carrying the 'Token' may enter."

"Other... 'clutter', stays outside."

The distorted voice was cold and ruthless, directly categorizing Lei Kun and the heavily injured Ling Yue as 'clutter'.

Lin Feng gripped the cold metal Token, standing at the threshold with hesitating steps. He looked back out the door—Lei Kun was supporting the weak and wounded Ling Yue in the dim, filthy corridor. The veteran's eyes were as calm as an abyss, giving him a slight nod of both trust and urgency; Ling Yue's eyes were half-open, her face pale as paper, yet she struggled to give him a look that said, "Go, quickly."

He couldn't hesitate.

Lin Feng took a deep breath. It no longer carried the stench of decay from The Nest, but the strange scent of ozone and metal coolant from within the Workshop. He stepped across the threshold.

The moment he entered, the metal door behind him slid shut swiftly and silently, sealing perfectly as if it had never existed, completely severing the inside from the out. Finality.

Inside was a short, pristine, dust-free metal corridor. Soft light fell evenly from the ceiling, with no visible light source. The air circulation system emitted an extremely low hum.

>> Scanning... Environment Sterilization Field Active. Advanced Air Filtration. No Obvious Surveillance Devices Detected (Implied: Total Monitoring).

>> Warning: Neural Dampening Field Detected (Low Intensity). Purpose: Likely to Suppress Aggressive Intent or Unauthorized Data Extraction.

The scanning results from 'Source' showed that every inch of this place exuded high-tech precision and control, even featuring a field that suppressed nerves. Lin Feng felt his thinking slow slightly, and his emotions became easier to keep calm.

At the end of the corridor was another door, which slid open automatically.

The sight behind the door made Lin Feng's pupils contract slightly.

It was an incredibly spacious circular hall with an astonishingly high ceiling. Rather than a Workshop, it looked more like a cutting-edge laboratory or data center. Countless thick cables wrapped in silver sheaths hung from the dome, connecting to a massive spherical main terminal in the center where Data Streams refreshed like waterfalls. The surrounding walls were covered in giant wraparound screens; most were dark now, with only a few displaying complex molecular structures, energy flow simulations, and... real-time surveillance footage from across The Nest, one of which showed a static image of Lei Kun and Ling Yue in the corridor outside!

Various precision instruments, mechanical arms, and 3D projection generators that Lin Feng had never seen before were scattered throughout the space. Some were running automatically, emitting extremely faint mechanical sounds. The entire space was spotless and orderly, yet filled with a non-human, extremely rational coldness.

In the center of the hall, with his back to him, a figure sat in a hovering wheelchair, focused on operating the spherical main terminal. The person wore a featureless grey jumpsuit, and his greyish-white hair was cut extremely short. From the back, his frame appeared somewhat thin.

"Step closer, Lin Feng. Let me see exactly what kind of quality the host chosen by 'Source' possesses."

The distorted voice rang out again, but this time it didn't come from a loudspeaker; it came directly from the hovering wheelchair. The voice was still processed, but it had lost some of its previous absolute coldness, replaced by a hint of... inquisitive interest.

Lin Feng walked forward as instructed, his footsteps nearly silent on the polished floor. He noticed that the hovering wheelchair didn't seem to be a conventional means of transport; its structure was far more complex, integrated with many interfaces and sensors he couldn't understand.

When he was about five meters from the wheelchair, it slowly turned around.

Lin Feng saw the face of a middle-aged man. His features were ordinary, even somewhat bland, as if every distinguishing characteristic had been deliberately erased. But his eyes were exceptionally striking—they were not biological eyes, but a pair of extremely precise optical sensors with micro Data Streams flickering through them, glowing with a calm blue light. His expression showed no fluctuation as those electronic eyes scanned Lin Feng up and down, as if evaluating a piece of equipment.

The Engineer. Or rather, one of his avatars.

"Your performance barely exceeded the minimum expectations," The Engineer spoke, his synthesized electronic voice devoid of ups and downs. "Exploiting medical system vulnerabilities—crude but effective. Data purging task—efficiency abnormally high, logic cannot be fully parsed. Dealing with Razor and the official dragnet—mostly luck, but your on-the-spot adaptation... still has potential."

In a few sentences, he summarized and critiqued Lin Feng's previous actions as if he had seen them with his own eyes.

"Ling Yue needs medical help, her arm..." Lin Feng didn't have time for surprise and immediately raised the most urgent need.

"Ling Yue's condition is under my monitoring," The Engineer interrupted, his tone unchanged. "Her value assessment is not yet complete; she will not die for the time being. Now, let us discuss your matters."

He maneuvered the wheelchair toward a screen that had suddenly lit up, which began rapidly scrolling through Lin Feng's physiological data, and even included energy fluctuation patterns from the few times he had used the 'Source' ability!

"Your ability, 'Source', is very interesting. It is not simple code writing; it is closer to... direct interference and rewriting of underlying rules. Inefficient, wasteful, yet possessing immense potential." The Engineer's electronic eyes locked onto Lin Feng. "Show me. Now. Target: Reverse-parse and simulate this structure."

A fragment of an extremely complex, dynamically changing energy shield model appeared on the screen. Its structure was exquisite, far surpassing any code Lin Feng had ever seen.

>> Task Received: Reverse Engineer & Simulate Unknown Shield Fragment.

>> Complexity: Extreme. Incomplete Data. Success Probability: <0.1%.

>> Warning: Attempting This May Cause Severe Cognitive Strain.

This was an almost impossible task, more like a stress test.

Lin Feng looked at the screen, then at The Engineer's expressionless face and cold electronic eyes. He knew this wasn't a request, but a trial. He took a deep breath, trying to ignore the discomfort from the neural dampening field and his inner tension, concentrating all his mental energy.

>> Accessing "Source" Core... Bypassing Neural Dampening (Partial)...

>> Initiating Deep Pattern Recognition... Attempting Adaptive Simulation...

He didn't try to fully understand every part of that fragment; it was beyond his current capabilities. He tried a different approach, concentrating the power of 'Source' on sensing the fragment's "state of existence" and "energy rhythm," then attempting to "draw" a similar "response" in his own way, rooted in his own understanding.

The blue characters in his vision leaped and combined in an unprecedented way, no longer just following instructions, but more like... a clumsy imitation and creation. He felt as if his brain were being torn apart; his nose grew hot, and a trickle of blood ran down.

A few seconds later, the air in front of him distorted slightly, and an extremely dim, flickering, and far more crudely structured weak energy field appeared out of thin air, lasting less than two seconds before collapsing.

He had failed. It didn't even reach a billionth of the original model's quality.

But the Data Stream speed within The Engineer's previously unfluctuating electronic eyes suddenly surged by an order of magnitude!

"Interesting..." The Engineer's voice for the first time carried an extremely faint tone that bordered on wonder. "Not imitation... but a crude reproduction through resonance? You cannot understand it, but the 'Source' within you... is attempting to 'dialogue' with it?"

He was silent for nearly ten seconds, seemingly engaged in rapid analysis and calculation.

Then, he looked at Lin Feng again, the blue light in his electronic eyes appearing even sharper.

"Your value needs to be reassessed," The Engineer said slowly. "Medical assistance for Ling Yue, I can provide. That veteran outside can also receive temporary sanctuary."

Lin Feng had just breathed a sigh of relief.

"However," The Engineer's tone shifted, "the price is that you need to complete a task for me. A task that only someone with your... 'trait' could possibly complete."

Just then, another screen nearby lit up, displaying a complex structural diagram—it appeared to be the entrance to an ancient facility located deep beneath the city, heavily sealed and protected by anomalous energy fields.

"I want you to go to the 'Abyss Library' and retrieve a forgotten 'initial protocol' fragment for me."

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