Academic gathering with a lich-Chapter 563 - 516: Perfect and Flawless

The sky was like a lightless expanse of land, its profound blackness speaking of silence. In this quiet darkness, a self-luminous gem was embedded within the interlayer of heaven and earth fused as one, so extraordinary that it didn’t seem to belong to this world, so extraordinary that it brought about the aesthetic of a miracle. The Spotlight Crystals, as if retaining the remnant warmth of the sun, covered the pyramid’s surface with aquamarine hues, crystal clear and giving the illusion that one could see right through it at a glance.

A small shadow moved about on this crystalline mound; the spotlight device entered standby mode, and the crystals bent down so that stepping on them wouldn’t cause tripping, like the relaxing scales of a slumbering dragon. However, this was hardly influential on Nia’s spider-like crawling.

Exclamations of wonder from Shiny and the others came through Lyle’s earpiece, their raucous voices shattering the tension inside him. He held Snowball in his hand, and the large screen in that room displayed a scene as spectacular as the one before his own eyes. The pyramid’s outer walls shimmered like a lake’s surface at sunset.

"The ventilation shaft should be about twenty meters above your head, Lyle."

The indifferent voice of SS returned Lyle to calmness. He lifted his head, looking up through the gaps between Nia’s tendrils towards the dazzling lights above, endless and stretching all the way to the lightless night sky, making Lyle feel like he was lost in a labyrinth of light.

"I’m not sure I can find it; these confusing gleams are making me dizzy, it feels like looking for a grain of white sugar in a pile of diamonds."

The laughter of SS rang in his ear, a sort of helpless self-deprecating laugh. "It’s not as difficult as you think. All you need to do is find that one flaw. Remember? My abilities are far inferior to the Executor models. Even with all my efforts to conceal it, the ventilation shaft I designed stands out like a stain on a masterpiece."

Guided by these clues, Lyle indeed found an entrance—a spot where the light dimmed slightly, a square door of ivory white nestled among the Spotlight Crystals. It wasn’t as crude as described by SS, but it appeared somewhat mundane and dull amidst perfection.

"I’ve found it, SS."

"Good, now place Snowball on it."

Approaching the tightly sealed incline, Lyle held Snowball close. The little robot extended its claws, fitting perfectly into the barely perceptible clover-shaped indentation at the center, then spun in Lyle’s hands like a top, and the door sprung open revealing an endless tube faintly glowing in its depths.

"Wait a moment, I’ll connect Snowball to the pyramid’s internal network first."

"Won’t we be detected?"

"We might have been before, but now the computational power of the Mechanical God is obviously declining. If it could find us, it wouldn’t let the question about the 23 different ways to cook fried rice that I posted hang in the waiting queue without an answer."

Twenty-three methods of making fried rice? 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

"You’re using the Mechanical God of your Sect to solve this kind of problem?" Lyle was quite surprised; it was like... asking Mr. Raymond, whose combat power was off the charts, to give cooking lessons.

"What else? No matter how small, a problem is still a problem. And Executor 10001 has even used the Mechanical God to download ’Devil’s Advocate’, ’A Thousand Sophistries’, ’Law, My Toy’, as well as how to help a fool pass their driving test, and how to shift blame in a car accident."

No wonder the computational power of the Mechanical God was declining.

Lyle thought as he stepped into the ventilation shaft.

The first step was beyond Lyle’s expectations, the ventilation shaft didn’t feel like a thin layer of tin, nor was there the sound of a ventilation fan or an empty echo. The metal walls were solid, but the whole thing shook, like a swaying boat or like the bobbing carriages of a train. In any case, it felt unsafe, like a tottering square iron coffin.

With the door closed behind him, Lyle felt as though he had crawled into a trap.

"SS! Why is your ventilation shaft moving? Magnetic levitation? It’s just a tunnel for air circulation!"

SS’s voice came through the channel, soothing Lyle’s emotions. In Snowball’s view, Nia had already braced herself against the four corners of the tube, ready to breach it physically if needed.

"It’s normal, Lyle! It’s not magnetic levitation but multi-point suspension. The ventilation shaft is a two-layer structure, the outer ring fixed, and the square inner duct able to shift slightly."

Lyle let out a sigh of relief, "Why go to such lengths?"

"For rotation."

A sense of foreboding struck Lyle’s heart, and he finally recognized the familiar sensation. It wasn’t like standing in a ventilation shaft, but the unsettled feeling of being inside an elongated drum washing machine.

The bad feeling in his mind turned into an alarm bell, and Lyle roared with suppressed anger.

"Are you mad? What need is there for a ventilation duct to rotate?!"

SS continued to calm Lyle down.

"Relax, Lyle, this was my very first design project. You should understand, for an enthusiast starting out, what it means to have their first experiment; I wanted it to be perfect. A ventilation shaft is for air circulation, and on top of that, I added a self-cleaning function. This world possesses magic, a miraculous force. This is the heart of the Mechanical Devine Sect, our bastion for researching magic. Can you imagine how much residue from numerous magical experiments might accumulate in this duct if it lacked a cleaning function? Without it, the longevity of this duct would be greatly compromised."

Lyle’s tension eased a bit.

"I still don’t understand why there needs to be a rotation function. Is there any dust that can’t be blown away by the wind?"

"Ordinary dust doesn’t require these features, but Lyle, this is a magic world."

"Magic world?"

"The cleaning function of this duct is designed to clear out dust elements and sludge monsters, which are byproducts of our experiments, constantly lurking in the ventilation ducts."

There are wild monsters in here?! I’m not the only one crawling through the ducts?!

Lyle looked at the dim path ahead as if staring into the intestines of a man-eating beast.

"Don’t worry, Lyle, the cleaning program was initiated twenty minutes ago, so those filthy creatures won’t pose a threat to you for an hour."

Lyle’s hanging heart had yet to settle.

"So what you’ll face are just some triggered cleaning mechanisms I left behind."

His eyebrows twitched, God knows what this perfect designer had installed inside.

"The high-speed rotation disorients the filthy creations, causing them to lose their grip, and then within a sealed environment, the powerful pump creates high pressure that compacts everything in the duct into a projectile air cannonball to be ejected."

"Hahaha," Lyle’s face broke into a cracked smile, "So I also have to be careful all the time, otherwise the pressure could squeeze and cannon me out?"

"...Actually, that’s not all; this passage is the culmination of my perfect work, so content-rich that I temporarily forgot some of the cleaning functions I added."

"..."

Luckily, Shiny wasn’t too egregious. These cleaning programs targeted only those mindless elements and slimes, with highly conspicuous labels for some of the triggered traps, allowing Shiny to quickly warn Lyle to watch his step.

"What’s this?"

"Laser passage trigger switch, used for breaking up rocks."

"And this?"

"Strong acid trigger, dissolves filth."

Lyle looked at a bundle of exposed cables at his feet, their severed ends flickering with a pale electric light.

"Faulty?"

"This was bitten open by a mutated giant rat. The high-voltage shock killed it quickly, and I didn’t repair this spot, letting it become a new cleaning feature."

"Perfect?"

"Hmm."

Halfway through the lateral duct, there was more fright than danger.

Lyle took a step when suddenly, a loud roar erupted from the end of the duct, accompanied by an exclamation from Shiny in Lyle’s earpiece.

"I’ve just remembered!"

"You remember now! What the hell is that thing!" Lyle had already turned around, sprinting at full speed.

"That is..."

A horde of spherical robots swarmed towards Lyle like locusts, flooding the duct with a sea of bodies, their central cameras flashing with dangerous red light, the tapping of their legs sounding like a torrential downpour, drowning out Shiny’s voice.

"Those are my cleaning guardians left in the ducts."

"The Snowball army!"