He is the leader of the Tantric sect in Chagdu.

Chapter 73 [The Cleaner] "Mystic Module - Spirit Spine"

"Ding—Authentication successful."

"Welcome, Elaine, a registered user from 'Lolanda Hallownest,' your code is A160764. Your destination is: The White Tower, a permanent territory of the Trinity Foundation in the Great Gift Pool of World Wings."

"Your current login mode is: Online — Requesting access permission, allocating network channel —"

In the afternoon, at the Grand Gift Pool, White Tower, Fourth District, Ai Yi finally entered the "Online Lobby" openly, without resorting to sneaking in. The [Grand Gift Pool Special Edition Think Tank] lit up in his eyes—but the next instant, the panel was covered by a light screen from Xiao Bai as usual, blocking out external access and completely taking over his files:

++Name: Ellen++Mystic Level: Stage Zero - Qualified Individual++Mystic Essence: 10/10

++Nourishment: Grief (3/3)

++ Tendency: Lamp?, Ashes 3, Moths 3, Scales 2, Revelation 2, Dome 2

++Pathway: No Ability Section—

++Academic Categories: General Outline of Mysticism - Alchemy (Introduction), Ritual Studies (Introduction), Mystic Item Identification (Introduction), Ritual Implements Studies (Introduction)

Custom Knowledge: [Rose Alchemy - Section II of Dissolution, Section I of Extraction]

++Skills: [Deep Dive], [Insight], [Silence], [Birdsong], [Moth's Fantasy - Containment], [Camouflage], [Luring]

Custom skills: [Vibration Technique], [Dissecting the Slug's Sacrum]

++Ritual Vessel: Cycloidal Mistletoe (Already Symbiotic), Tranquility++Mystic Module: Gift of the White Beak (Eyeball/Organ)

++Mysterious Items: [Feather Scale], [Bone of Old Eden]

++Miscellaneous items: Omitted————

"Little White, where did I get these extra criteria from?"

After glancing at her own screen, Ai tilted her head and said quietly, "Why didn't you tell me—"

The door opened with an unfriendly tone: "Get lost. How am I supposed to notify you in the Lost Secret History? I even had to use the Red Dragon's passage myself, and it took me ages to squeeze in. I'm too lazy to fix the text, so here's a data-saving version for you to make do with."

—The Great Apocalypse is the prelude to extinction; you will witness the harbinger of the end—this is the truth of revelation.

—The dome collapsed and was rebuilt; the finite is the remnant of the "boundless"—this is the principle of the seal.

"You have incorporated the secret knowledge into your vessel, making it part of your red liquid: you tilt two horizontal lines toward the direction of the narrow, topped area, and two horizontal lines toward the direction of the great horn sound."

"What about the scales?" These three words came out out of habit, but Ai regretted it the moment she opened her mouth.

"You were so overwhelmed by that kiss that you didn't even realize it, why are you even asking?"

"Okay—" The fox shook its head, feeling inexplicably guilty, but quickly looked away.

"But why can't I feel any change?" He sounded a little insecure, clenching his fist weakly. "Still a weakling."

"Having received so many principles at once, we can't let you lose control again, can we? The split vessel has already stored these principles behind your other 'mask.' You'll feel the change when you play 'Lord.' As for a deeper control over these powers, wait until they sprout or tilt before thinking about it."

The door is like an annoying old man: "Young people shouldn't aim too high!"

"Nonsense." She retorted habitually, as the message "Network channel allocation complete" flashed before her eyes. Ai watched the crowd around her flicker for a few moments, and the blurred background gradually solidified.

Finally, the ground beneath my feet became tangible. "Your current connection point is: M31—0ms latency, good signal. Welcome to the White Tower! We wish you a successful ascent!"

Standing in the center of that familiar, pristine white temple, Ai looked around: as the login hall, countless images appeared around him every second—most of these colleagues were unfamiliar faces, some resembling humans, some not, and all sorts of strange shapes and forms.

This situation arises when there is too much freedom in character customization.

Without anyone familiar by her side, Ai wandered around aimlessly for a while, quickly getting a little lost. Finally, she remembered to ask the think tank, "How do I get to the Construction Department in the Fourth District?"

"White Tower Community Map unlocked for you. Beacon lit—follow the directions to the warp area."

As the foundation's main activity area in the Grand Pool, the White Tower is far larger and more complex than it appears on the surface.

The distances within Red Pool defy common sense. The fragmented spatial structure divides each area into independent parts, with transfers between them achieved through the "hyperconnection" of the think tank network. This mode of transportation, made possible by the think tank's magical power, is only valid within the foundation's area.

Standing within the area enveloped by a beam of white light shooting into the sky, Ai submitted an application for access to the think tank.

As he passed through in an instant, his vision began to distort—the familiar scene seemed to be "deep diving," but without the pain and suffocation of being crushed by water pressure. The [Singularity Technology·Macro-Intelligence Large Group Matrix] directly served as the beacon and route for this transfer, blocking out all interference from the pool liquid.

An unprecedented experience—moving through the Red Pool.

A blur of light appeared before Ai Yi's eyes, and after the bizarre ripples subsided, a completely new space came into view.

Construction Department, Mysterious Modular Research Group, Assembly Room.

A closed space, the walls seem to be made of some kind of high-density metal panels, the recessed elliptical ceiling, each arch polished to reflect light, giving people a sense of precision and stability—embedded transistors flicker with a faint blue light in the regular gaps, covering every corner and extending into the depths of this area.

"high tech----"

Upon first encountering this high-tech facility at the top of the city, Ai Yi was filled with awe. She opened the community map and followed the directions into the building, soon arriving at a closed metal door.

After a brief eye meeting the blinking eye in the center of the metal door, a "verification successful" light flashed, and the door was quickly opened.

"Is anyone here?" Ai called softly, cautiously stepping inside—afternoon is the time of year when the White Tower is least crowded, so the place was deserted, with only a few unfamiliar colleagues scattered around.

The fox was so afraid to breathe when surrounded by all sorts of high-end and sophisticated instruments. With the surrounding lights flickering peacefully like breathing, he arrived at the "Newcomer Reception Area" as indicated by the think tank and poked his head into the small room inside the door.

Unexpectedly, he saw an acquaintance here, and Ai was certain that he couldn't be mistaken.

Aside from that guy, there's absolutely no other elf who can have such a handsome face while also looking so颓废 (颓废 is a difficult word to translate directly, but it implies a state of listlessness, apathy, and lack of motivation).

"Yeats?"

Overjoyed, Ai Yi was about to go to greet him when she realized that the situation was not good—besides Ye Zhi, there was another old man with a distorted face in the room.

He was wearing a clean white research robe, and his gray hair was still neatly combed, showing that he was quite old. The scene in front of him: the two seemed to be arguing, and even though the old man's right eye had been replaced with a prosthetic eye, it still showed a strong anger.

He appeared to be a head shorter than Yeats, yet his imposing presence seemed to make the elf opposite him struggle to breathe.

"You're hopeless!"

When Ai peeked out to observe, the dispute seemed to be coming to an end. With one of them slamming their hand on the table, the impatient old man suddenly stood up and left the room.

As he passed by Ai Yi, the think tank thoughtfully added a "display title" with a flashing colored frame above the old man's head:

[Russell, Chief Technician of the Fourth Construction Department]

The old man walked away silently but quickly, and only then did Ai dare to enter the room.

Feeling he had witnessed something he shouldn't have, he awkwardly greeted Ye Zhi. The gloomy elf finally snapped out of it, his unfocused pupils refocusing as he looked at Ai Yi and replied with a wry smile, "Good morning."

"Actually, it's getting late." Still not forgetting to complain, Ai asked quietly, "Brother Ye, what's going on?"

"Tsk—" Ye Zhi sighed bitterly, leaning back in her chair and slumping weakly. "What could have happened? I'm going through puberty, and my father caught me and gave me a lecture."

Finally remembering that family scandals shouldn't be aired in public, the gloomy elf patted his face, forced himself to cheer up, and abruptly changed the subject: "What are you doing here?"

He quickly realized: "Oh right, you just got promoted today, right? You were picking up your equipment? — Tsk, what bad luck, someone you know saw you like this."

Ye Zhi sighed and seemed to have quickly forgotten what had just happened, her tone returning to its usual carefree tone: "Never mind, let's not talk about this. Wait a minute—at this hour, I need to go to the warehouse to see if there are any modules left."

Feeling bored, and finding that the warehouse here didn't seem to be any kind of restricted area, Ai followed Ye Zhi and came to a messy little warehouse.

As they chatted, and thinking there was no need to hide anything, Ai told Ye Zhi about her preparation for her first commission, hoping to get some experience from this unreliable senior.

"Normally there shouldn't be any problems. Any task that appears in the commission section is, in any case, under the foundation's control."

When this topic came up, Yeats seemed to perk up, and before he knew it, he had gone off on a tangent: "Someone suggested before that, in order to prevent talented mystical apprentices from dying suddenly for some stupid physical reason—the most effective solution we can think of is to have them wear full-body power armor when they go on missions."

He shrugged. "To take down that thing, even a regular sniper rifle would be a stretch. You'd need an anti-machine gun, and for extra safety, you'd need an electromagnetic drive. That's the basic setup for a 'Cleanser.' Qualified players wearing it would have an off-the-charts level of safety."

"[The cleaner]?"

"The earliest form of the cleanup was the use of such units by the courts to establish their own violent apparatus. Later, everyone found that this method was indeed effective, so they all began to follow suit."

As he spoke, he sent a picture face-to-face to Ai Yi's think tank, "It looks like this."

(P.S.: He's a good buddy who costs 50 yuan.)

Yeats paced back to the assembly table, muttering, "The reason we haven't widely implemented this protective measure among the mystical apprentices is mainly because the learning cost of this suit of armor is a bit high—although this problem could be solved by implanting deep learning chips, data shows that people who have undergone intellectual and mind modification lose some of their adaptability to mystical powers. In order to maintain the apprentices' ceiling for advancement, the Foundation abandoned this method."

"But I think the guy in the picture could definitely kill me with one punch."

Ai looked at the picture of a miniature Gundam whose arm was thicker than his entire body, shuddered, and muttered, "In the past, I really couldn't understand how carbon-based life forms could fight against this thing."

"But it's still not enough in the face of certain mysterious forces," Yeats chuckled, his tone neither confirming nor denying.

"The Cleaners do have a huge advantage over those unorganized wild Tantric practitioners and qualified individuals, but the Great Pool of Ritual is not something that can be dealt with so easily —"

As he rummaged through the corner with his head down, an indistinct voice came from beside him, "The vibrations from the red liquid in the pool can cause the effects to leak out—and these vibrations can sometimes briefly break through the dome's barrier to the Grand Gift Pool, allowing some less friendly things to enter the nest."

—Compared to Tantric Buddhism, the foundation's focus has always been on the "pool"—for example, the Hume Tree and the think tank's computing power are mostly directed towards the Grand Pool.

"And most of the mysterious life forms and distortions in those pools are beyond the capabilities of the Cleaners. Although the Foundation has provided them with basic mystical resistance, just like blunt force is effective against heavy armor, invisible and all-pervasive mediums can still penetrate those armors and kill the people inside by sheer force."

"Then why not let—a professional combat-oriented mystical scholar—wear this armor?"

Ai imagined what Sherlock, that muscular middle-aged man, would look like in power armor, and frowned, feeling a sense of incongruity.

"Because that would be putting the cart before the horse."

Yeats answered without hesitation, "The biggest advantage of the Cleaners as violent units is that they are not picky about raw materials, the cost is low enough, and they are convenient enough to be used immediately. We can use a portion of death row inmates as free tools of war."

"Brainwash them, implant a chip in their brains, put it in an iron can, and they become a perfect 'cleaner'—pointing and shooting wherever they want, without having to consider protests from human rights organizations in the Nest City, since death row inmates have no human rights."

"However, because the quality of the 'pilots' is generally too low, these units can only be used to bully weaker opponents, not in high-level matches. Equipping the Mystic Scholar with this thing would not only have a limited impact on combat power, but would also require a lot of training time. It would be better to let people figure out how to advance in rank."

The slovenly elf finally looked up from the pile of clutter, holding a beautifully sealed crystal box in its hands—"Found it."

He looked at Ai, who was covered in dust and dirt: "Didn't you just ask why we didn't equip the occultists with power armor? There's another reason."

17

Yeats chuckled and said, "Because we have better ones."

He skillfully removed the seals, opened the box, and Ai Yi also moved her head over, their two heads meeting above each other: "Uh, what's this?"

Before me was an insect floating in the center of a pale green liquid tube, its form solidified like crystals.

—Is it an insect?

Ai tilted his head. From the insect's transparent outline, he could clearly see all its organs. The flesh and blood in its multi-segmented body were as clear and translucent as gemstones, which naturally reminded him of the unfinished "Little Glass".

Yeats's explanation soon rang in his ears: "Using technological means to manipulate and distribute mystical forces is the Foundation's forte."

"Our motto as researchers is: apprentices only need to think about how to climb the ranks; we'll figure out how to improve their combat effectiveness. You have to have everything those amateur apprentices outside don't!"

He sounded visibly excited: "Even if it's just a matter of piling on the best materials, the most prestigious mystical scholars coming out of the Foundation must be the most high-profile ones."

"That sounds amazing." Ai blinked. "It looks amazing too."

A light screen emanating from Xiaobai lit up before their eyes, floating above the crystal insect.

"Eleventh Generation - Multi-Interface Fully Compatible - Expandable Secret Module - Spirit Spine"