From the end of the world

Chapter 187 Discovering Chang'an
I described the wooden door I saw to the girl Lu Chan.

There was nothing much to say about the appearance of the wooden door. It was just an old yellowish wooden door with a rough surface, which seemed to have been in disrepair for a long time. There was also a loose-looking ball door handle hanging on the door. What was really strange was not the appearance of the wooden door, but the existence of the wooden door itself. She listened to my description, looked at me with a weird look, then walked forward to touch the wooden door, put her ear against it, and gently knocked on the wall.

"...There seems to be a dark room behind the wall." She said calmly, "I didn't expect that there would be such a hidden space in the supervisor's office. Maybe there is something very important hidden behind it.

"It's better not to break in through the wall directly, as that would definitely trigger the alarm. To open this dark room normally, we should operate some special hidden mechanism, or need a special password. I guess we should use the computer here.

"But that's just normal procedure. If it were you..."

When she finished speaking, she turned to look at me, her tense face seemingly unable to hold up any longer.

I simply grasped the handle of the wooden door, twisted it, pulled it, and opened this "door that requires a hidden mechanism to open."

"The password is correct, please pass."

The wooden door even made a mechanical sound, even though I didn't enter any password. It felt like I was using a cheat to cheat in a horror game, skipping all the puzzles and going straight to the next level.

"..." The girl Lu Chan said, "Let's go in."

She didn't seem to want to comment any more.

Behind the wooden door was a narrow passage, only wide enough for one person to pass through. There was no lighting inside, and it was pitch black. I summoned a small fireball with the Outer Path Impermanence Sword, and through the firelight I could roughly tell that it was a concrete passage. Because I didn't know if there were any traps inside to deal with intruders, I walked in first, and the girl Lu Chan followed closely behind.

The corridor was not long, and I soon reached the end, where there was another wooden door. I pushed the door open and walked into the space behind the wooden door.

This also looks like a cell, but the space is more than three times larger, and there is no entrance or exit other than the passage we entered. It is indeed a secret room. In the center of the room, there is a huge container.

I didn't know what to call this container for a moment. If I had to describe it, it was like a transparent glass vase that was magnified to a height of four meters, with two-thirds of the interior space occupied by water, and what was suspended in the water was not a bouquet of flowers, but a figure that looked very familiar to me.

Looking closely, I saw that the figure immersed in the water was none other than Chang'an, whom I had been looking for for a long time.

At this moment, he has his eyes closed, naked, with a sealed breathing mask on his face, needles and electrodes hanging on several parts of his torso. His posture floating in the water reminds people of the futuristic warriors in science fiction movies who are seriously injured and soaked in repair fluid for treatment.

Below the container is a metal base, from which a faint green fluorescence is emitted. Before I entered with the fireball, this was the only lighting in the room. An atmosphere of mysticism permeates the room.

Finally found Chang'an.

Seeing that he was not missing any limbs, I felt relieved for a while.

It seems that he is still in a coma. Although I don't know why he was caught here, I must find a way to get him out.

"Is that Zhu Changan?" asked the girl Lu Chan.

I nodded and moved closer to the container, and she followed.

However, before I got a few steps closer, I felt a strange force coming from nowhere acting on me.

This was the first time I felt this feeling. Although it was "force acting on oneself", this feeling was not that an external force was trying to manipulate me, but it was as if my muscles had their own will, and for some reason they were fighting against me, dragging this body in the opposite direction of my will.

I recalled the experience of learning about the "knee jerk reflex" in elementary school, and then trying to use props to hit my knees, and then using my will to fight against the reflex nerves of the body. In the past, as long as I was willing, I could suppress this reflex action to a certain extent. But now, the strength of this "reflex action" has been strengthened countless times, and the duration is endless. Caught off guard, I actually took two steps back involuntarily.

Is this a trap? But it seems harmless?

When I thought of this, I had a competitive mentality and tried to move my body forward. When I did this, my opponent's "reflexive action" unexpectedly retreated step by step. I moved very smoothly.

The girl Lu Chan was different. She seemed to be swept away by the mysterious power and retreated quickly to the back, and stopped at the entrance of the room. I noticed her unusual movement, stopped my steps, and looked over at her.

She showed a surprised expression and blurted out: "This is... the power of restart?"

Is this actually the "reboot" of Doctor Silver Mask?
Hearing her say this, I stopped resisting the mysterious force acting on my body and let myself move under the drive of "reflex action". My body quickly retreated backwards according to the previous walking action as if time was flowing backwards, until I retreated to her side.

This phenomenon is completely consistent with what I have heard about "rebooting".

As I retreated, I looked around, while the girl Lu Chan looked vigilantly at the passage we came from. However, there was no sign of a third person except us, and no new figure appeared while clapping and announcing that we had fallen into his trap.

And apart from the emergence of this mysterious force, no further "enemy means" have befallen us.

It seems that the power of restarting just now was not activated by Dr. Silver Mask in real time in the dark, but was set up in this place as an automatic defense method. As for the reason, it is obvious that it is to prevent intruders from approaching the container.

But he probably didn't expect it, and even I didn't expect it - I seem to be able to directly resist the power of restart.

Is it because my power is so strong that I can burn through this space and time with just a little effort, so the "time restart" cannot easily manipulate me?
Or is it because of some other special reasons?
Although I had just intentionally pretended to be affected by the power of restart, the girl Lu Chan had obviously reacted. She said in disbelief, "You can resist the power of restart?"

"It seems so."

To reconfirm, I tried to move forward again, and the mysterious force acted on my body again. But this time I didn't let my body be manipulated, but moved forward against the mysterious force, feeling my body and consciousness.

This mysterious force seemed to be acting not only on my body, but also on my consciousness. However, as I consciously resisted this mysterious force, something in my consciousness was also vibrating slightly. It was the fragment of the divine seal. Like a beast provoked by an uninvited guest, the fragment of the divine seal seemed to release some invisible force, driving away the external mysterious force acting on my consciousness.

The fragments of the divine seal actually had this kind of reaction. Now I was completely sure that what I had come into contact with was the power of reboot of Doctor Silver Mask.

At the same time, I have figured it out.

No matter what the principle of the power of restart is, the source of this power must be the fragment of the divine seal in the heart of Dr. Silver Mask. Even if he can use it to affect other things at will, he cannot directly affect another fragment of the divine seal. I, who have stored the fragment of the divine seal in my consciousness, seem to be an exception.

My body, consciousness, and flame are identical. Since the fragments of the divine seal cannot affect my consciousness, they naturally cannot affect my body and flame.

Of course, this is the truth, but perhaps I haven't completely equated the body and consciousness at the instinctive level, so even though the consciousness has no effect, the body is still slightly affected. Fortunately, this is also a degree that can be overcome by my own willpower.

This is undoubtedly great news. Although it does not block the power of restart of Dr. Silver Mask, just knowing that he will not be manipulated by the power of restart is a big step forward.

I have thought about how to conquer the power of restart of Dr. Silver Mask in the past. Although this power can be said to be extremely unsolvable, that is for the experimental subjects who cannot leave this base, not for me. My original idea was to rely on the limitation that "the restart phenomenon is limited to the inside of the base" and use the fact that "I am an existence that spans the inside and outside of the base" to jump out of the dilemma of infinite reincarnation.

Now that I have made this discovery, not only can many steps be omitted, but it also allows me to see new possibilities.

But this alone is not enough. I am just not at the mercy of the power of restart, but Dr. Silver Mask can still be resurrected at will and reset this independent reality space countless times. The conditions for the strategy are still not sufficient.

The young girl Lu Chan seemed to be aware of something, and a hint of excitement appeared on her face, but she suppressed it for the time being and focused her attention on Chang'an. Looking at her, I couldn't help but think of that question again.

Why wouldn’t her memory be erased by Doctor Silver Mask’s “reboot”?

It's because there are fragments of the divine seal in my consciousness, so why is it for her?
"Zhuang Cheng, there seems to be something engraved on the base over there. Can you see it clearly?" she asked.

Hearing this, I took the fireball close to the metal base and looked down. There seemed to be some complicated runes and patterns engraved on the metal base, which might be some kind of formation. I couldn't tell the effect.

I manipulated the fireball to become larger and brighter, so that Lu Chan, the girl standing at the entrance, could also clearly see the mark on the metal base.

(End of this chapter)