Chapter 33: A Human Is Less Than A Dog (I)
A door of metal barred the treasury at the basement of the Law Enforcement building. It was high security. Liu Long waited for the slightly disheveled Yun Yao to walk over before he opened the door.
Li Hao nodded at the team doctor. Not knowing how to address her, he opted for a small smile. The doctor was very important to the team. Although Li Hao found her to be a kind soul, he kept Liu Yan’s warning in mind.
It wasn’t that he defaulted to trusting Liu Yan, but that her trepidation seemed very real. The doctor was plainly not someone to offend if she could inspire reservation in the brazen woman.
“Not bad!” Yun Yao suddenly looked at an eager Li Hao.
The young man blinked. You talking to me?
Liu Long also looked at the team doctor with surprise. What was not bad?
Yun Yao didn’t say much in the team, but her status was very high. She was talking strangely today.
“Nothing much!” Yun Yao shook her head with a smile. “I can tell from how Li Hao looks that he trained well when he went home yesterday.”
She changed the topic with a simple line, but Li Hao’s mind raced furiously. Trained well?
He did indeed train well after absorbing a significant amount of mysterious power. However, he’d also confirmed that all of the energy around him had dissipated. Some lingered inside his body—there was nothing for it as he couldn’t possibly digest everything.
Could the girl see what was in his body?
That was the only likelihood!
Her role was apparently that of extracting mysterious power from supernaturals. How did Yun Yao withdraw energy that most people couldn’t see?
Liu Long opened the treasury door amid the young man’s pondering.
……
This was a treasury made of pure metal! There wasn’t even an air vent to break up the walls.
The floor was metal; one could feel the weightiness of metal as one walked over it—it had to be thick. The Demon Hunters had certainly made a heavy investment and highly valued their vault.
It was modestly sized and very well organized. Divided into only three rooms, there was a separate door to each room. Mysterious power was placed in the third.
Liu Long didn’t say anything about the first two rooms or open the doors for Li Hao to take a look. He walked straight to the third room, making way for Yun Yao to take out a key. Li Hao was shocked by its tiny sparkle of starlight. This… is a supernatural item?!
The key was a supernatural object??
Despite the starlight being faint, it was still starlight and ergo mysterious power. That made it a supernatural object, right? The Demon Hunters definitely valued this energy!
Click.
Starlight wavered when the key turned. The captain might not be able to see it, but Li Hao could. It was through ripples of starlight that the door opened.
“We spent a fortune to create a vault that can store mysterious power!” Liu Long declared with detached pride. “Even supernaturals can’t easily access it without the key!”
Li Hao nodded, impressed. “Amazing!”
As for what was amazing about it… Well, if a supernatural really made their way here, would it matter if they had the key or not? The treasury was good against thieves and not much else.
First to come into view beyond the metal door was a massive glass cover—a very complicated glass cover mechanism!
It occupied half of the room; Li Hao’s eyes darted around when he saw… starlight! He saw starry radiance the moment he saw the cover, a radiance different from everything he’d seen before.
What he’d come in contact with thus far stemmed from Stellaris—true cosmic illumination that shimmered with the frosty presence of the stars. What he saw now seemed to contain other things.
There were several areas within the glass cover. One portion burned with fiery brilliance, another contained thunder and lightning, and yet another was interspersed with black fog. The last area was similar to the starlight that he usually saw. It was pure radiance without anything else mixed in. It also felt slightly scattered.
Liu Long also stared at it, infatuation in his eyes. He seemed to see it too in this moment!
Indeed, the team captain sighed, “This is mysterious power, can you see it?”
Li Hao’s heart shook! Can you see it? Have they found me out? Liu Long knows I can see it…
The young man quickly calmed himself down. No, that shouldn’t be the case. As he surmised, the man continued, “This is all thanks to Yun Yao. Mysterious power is unseen under normal conditions, but she can capture the power and confine it inside ice crystal covers. She knows special methods to force its true appearance into visibility so we can see it!”
Li Hao looked at Yun Yao with surprise. So she was the reason why all of them could see the starry radiance? What kind of ability was this? Liu Long had said before that ordinary people, sometimes even supernaturals, couldn’t see mysterious power.
The target of his scrutiny was calm and smiled faintly back at him. “Brother Liu praises me too much, this is just a small trick! Mysterious power is simply a type of energy—energy can’t always be seen, but it exists on a fundamental level. All I need to do is dye it if I want to make it visible to the naked eye.”
Dye energy?
Li Hao understood the words, but not the theory.
Yun Yao chuckled when she realized that the young man was curious. “The dyeing process isn’t too complicated and there’s more than one way to achieve the effect. The actual hard part is preventing mysterious power from dissipating! Thankfully, we have the ice crystal covers and strictly speaking, credit for that goes to Professor Yuan Shuo!”
Li Hao paused, then realized what she was saying. “My teacher… created these covers?”
“Yes!” Yun Yao seemed to hold Yuan Shuo in high regard—anyone who dabbled in research and experimentation knew of Yuan Shuo, particularly if the subject matter had to do with the supernatural.
“Your teacher’s discovery of ice crystals in an ancient ruin drew no attention until the professor found that their greatest use was to isolate mysterious energy, thereby preventing its dissolution!” the team doctor waxed eloquent with appreciation. “The development of the supernatural domain might have stagnated for many more years without the unearthing of ice crystals. With them, the Night Watchers are able to store mysterious energy and direct it into the body, bestowing more people with the qualification to become otherwordly!”
“That’s right, the ice crystals were a very useful finding!” Liu Long nodded. “The Night Watchers were established roughly a dozen years prior to that and welcomed very few new members every year. Other than the Heaven Favored, they relied on their members personally passing on mysterious power to guide newcomers through metamorphosis! However, not only was this a dangerous process, but it came with a high cost. The organization didn’t take off until ice crystals were known to the world.”
Li Hao brimmed with indescribable pride; his teacher was really something! The development of the supernatural domain had much to do with the esteemed professor! The young man quickly thought of something else. “Then… why can’t my teacher make the crossover?”
“First, because his martial dao cultivation is immense. Second…” Liu Long smiled mysteriously. “Your teacher is not the kind sort either. He knows too much about the supernatural field and keeps many things to himself. There’s a portion of ancient ruins that he’s refrained from excavating or even divulging their whereabouts! Everyone guesses that your teacher must hold a few exclusive ruins in his keeping. Therefore… what place will there be for the Night Watchers if he becomes supernatural himself?
“Another key point is that with your teacher’s strength and the advantages he’s gained from the ruins, he’ll become one of the strongest Night Watchers once he ascends…”
Li Hao thought for a moment, then murmured, “So they’re afraid?”
“Yes, very!” Liu Long nodded, then quickly said, “But I somehow think that your teacher will be supernatural soon!”
“What makes you say that?” Li Hao thought of the answer as soon as he asked the question. “Does the chief mean that the Night Watchers have become much stronger, so they feel they can control my teacher even if he crosses over? As a result, they no longer fear him?”
“That’s right!” Liu Long nodded, smart! Only a slight pointer was needed!
The supernatural domain had appeared very late at just twenty years ago; Yuan Shuo was already a premier martial master then. With his strength and attainments in ancient civilization research, he might vault to the top of the field after he made the crossover.
The implications were terrifying!
Thus, the Night Watchers had taken certain precautions. Yuan Shuo was neither part of the government nor the shadier aspects of society, but he was also not exactly good inside and out. Someone who reached Sunderer of Hundreds in martial arts was fond of valor and ruthlessness. Killing or maiming others was bound to happen.
Under such circumstances, the Night Watchers would not dare let Yuan Shuo cross over too early, whether out of consideration for their own development or to suppress the professor. The timing was finally about right—they had their own powerhouses now that could corral a supernatural Yuan Shuo. Becoming Starlight twenty years later made the professor no threat whatsoever.
Li Hao thought for a moment and then asked, “I’m curious about one thing—did my teacher accept his fate so docilely? Does he work for the Night Watchers just like that, without protest?”
Liu Long looked at him and chuckled. “Remember that the Night Watchers represent the government! There are limits to one person’s strength no matter how strong they are. Not to mention, they aren’t just wholly taking without end. They also protect your teacher—it’s a two way street.”
“Protect?”
“Of course!” Liu Long laughed meaningfully. “Li Hao, do you think that a Sunderer of Hundreds doesn’t have a single rival to his name? That they’re all dead? Let me put it this way—Yuan Shuo is so biddable and rarely leaves the Institute due to this fact.
“He’s guarded by the Night Watchers whenever he ventures out partially because he’s made a lot of contributions to the supernatural domain, but also because he offended too many people back in the day. The school is a shelter for him.”
A shelter!
Li Hao had never considered the possibility. Although surprised, it seemed reasonable at the same time. Why else would his teacher go along with things, if not for the existence of enemies? Given his nature, he would’ve erupted in open hostility a long time ago with this treatment. How would he continue to perform tasks for an organization that continuously stood in the way of him becoming greater than what he was?
The young man looked around instead of asking further questions. “Chief, is this mysterious power all that we have? Are we keeping more elsewhere?”
Liu Long looked wordlessly at him, then quickly set his feelings aside. “You don’t understand. Although the energy here doesn’t occupy a large portion of space, it’s a lot! We have twelve cubes in the vault—one cube is one cubic meter! Mysterious power expands at a set density and is compressed only when it enters a human body or special objects. Twelve cubes is the total sum of our reserves!
“Ice crystals are also hard to come by—having so many crystal covers in here took a huge investment of resources. Such is the only vault we have for mysterious power!”
Total sum?
Li Hao blinked, then looked again. There was indeed a lot present, roughly twelve cubic meters worth. But was this all that the Demon Hunters possessed? It seemed strange no matter how he looked at it. The energy that he absorbed from the jade sword and what it emanated… was a lot too.
Was it a difference in quality? Was the energy here much higher quality?
“Then… how much am I being allotted, chief?”
“You’re a newbie and need to protect yourself, so I went against the grain and decided to give you two unattributed cubes! Unattributed mysterious power does not contain any other special quality, making it easier to absorb and safer!
“But there’s also a catch—it’s more likely for unattributed power to enhance the constitution. When a martial master’s strength rises, supernatural locks become harder to open and the crossover more difficult!” Liu Long gave a brief overview. “Danger rises almost exponentially if the attributed power is not a match for you. We will be hard pressed to save you since we are not supernaturals. You can choose for yourself if you want attributed or unattributed energy. It’s two cubes either way!”
The man suddenly smiled when he saw how unaffected the boy was. “Li Hao, how much are your monthly wages right now?”