He is the leader of the Tantric sect in Chagdu.

Chapter 75 The Barista

18:00 PM

Downtown, Mana Transportation Terminal, Central Platform Plaza.

In a corner with very little foot traffic, the four characters "Andy's Coffee" are highlighted by the faint neon lights. The inconspicuous signboard seems to be afraid of being discovered, sitting on the edge of the platform plaza.

A young man dressed in black and red plaid casual clothes sat by the window, holding a cup of strong black coffee in one hand and resting his chin on his other hand. He stared blankly at the fading glow on the dome, his expression unfocused in his hazy eyes.

There were hardly any people in the shop to begin with. A middle-aged man took on the roles of both owner and employee, smiling as he saw off the customers in front of him. The small coffee shop became even quieter, as if the hustle and bustle of the platform square belonged to another world.

The boss, dressed in a suit, took off the brown work apron he was wearing and casually hung it on the back of a chair in the rest area. He then turned around, walked out of the store, and flipped the "Open for Business" sign hanging at the entrance.

After doing all this, he quietly walked to the young man's side, casually found a seat, and said softly, "Guest."

Ai blinked, her pupils refocusing.

"Sorry—" He looked up, stretched his stiff neck, smiled a little embarrassedly, and was about to continue speaking when the boss interrupted him in a very natural tone.

"Guests, inter-district transportation will be prohibited after nightfall. The last round of ticket sales for today will be in fifteen minutes."

The owner spoke in a calm tone, slowly and clearly, and the classical music playing in the small shop created an indescribable feeling—it was just pleasant to listen to.

"If the guests are planning to leave Mana today, they should probably be mindful of the time."

Ai blinked, took a sip of the now-cold coffee beside her, and glanced at the think tank.

It's six o'clock, and I've been sitting here for half an hour.

"Thank you." He thanked the shop manager sincerely, but didn't rush to leave, seemingly lost in thought.

The information about this coffee shop was obtained from Yeats before he left, and when Ai asked what was so special about it, the elf mysteriously told him, "You'll find out when you get there."

—It is indeed quite special.

"That's really rare."

Ai Yi swirled the exquisite cup in her hand, watching the amber coffee liquid flow at the bottom, and said in a sincere tone, "Boss, the beans you use here are better than the ones used at my workplace. You really put a lot of effort into it."

He smiled and said, "It's been a long time since I've tasted such a memorable flavor."

It's clearly not mass-produced, compressed industrial flavoring; it contains a secret ingredient—coffee beans from a plantation in Chili.

As a die-hard coffee enthusiast and a self-proclaimed high-class office worker with caffeine flowing in his veins, Ai Yi's taste buds, polluted by the industrial waste of the city, were finally recovering. He pursed his lips, muttering to himself, "No wonder Yeats recommended this place to me—"

—It turns out to be a treasure trove of team-building spots for the old hands at the foundation.

So this boss must be a senior figure who has lived in seclusion in the city?

He tilted his head, the word "senior" just barely escaping his lips, when he was interrupted by the uncle's next words.

"Making coffee, mixing drinks, playing music, painting—these are all similar things. In order to avoid being cut by things that are too heavy and too sharp, we start to find something to do. Anything will do, as long as it allows you to store those redundant thoughts and those residues that are not easy to digest."

This left Ai Yi completely confused, and the boss seemed unwilling to delve into the topic, quickly moving on to the next bag Ai Yi had placed aside, which contained the seafood she had packed for lunch.

He smiled and said, "Did you bring this for a friend?"

Although the question was meant to probe her identity, the lukewarm tone prevented her from being wary. Ai nodded: "Go find a friend."

He smiled and said, "I was promoted and transferred a while ago—so I haven't seen her for quite a while. I figured I wasn't too busy lately, so I went back for a visit."

"She has a big appetite."

The boss nodded, his face showing satisfaction and seriousness. He spoke in a teaching tone: "Eating, like the other behaviors I mentioned before, has the same wonderful use. Eating is the privilege of the living, and delicious food can also be our anchor point in this world—of course, it may be too early to tell you this now."

—I always felt like I was being taught a lot of profound things as a junior.

Ai tilted her head slightly, and the boss continued softly, "Are you a little nervous right now?"

Hearing this, the fox gave a wry smile.

—Can this really be noticed?

"Yes."

He didn't deny it. "I was thinking, if a person undergoes a huge change and becomes a completely different individual, how should he face his former friends?"

The boss narrowed his eyes: "That's because you're thinking about your future together," indicating that your friend is particularly important to you—to the point that she influences most of your personality. Do you see her as a friend? A partner? Family? Or something deeper?

Ai Yi remained silent for a moment.

—The initial companion, the former witness.

"Now I know just how powerful the First Encounter Kill is."

The fox sighed softly, "Actually, the tickets have already been bought. It's the last stop on the inter-regional train—I've been wondering whether to tell her about the changes that have happened to me during this extra time. If I tell her the truth, what excuse should I use? If I hide it, how long can I keep it a secret?"

It was rare for a mysterious older man, who was much older than him and whom he had never met before, to be his confidant. Ai Yi poured out his troubles to him.

"Are you afraid that you two will drift apart?" the boss asked.

Ai imagined the scene for a moment and said with a wry smile, "Perhaps this is inevitable."

"Have a little more confidence in yourself."

They didn't even know each other's identities or names, but the boss in front of them had reached a strange understanding with Ai Yi, one speaking and the other listening attentively.

"The initial fulcrum is incredibly simple—perhaps just a person, an event, an idea. You might question its strength because of its simplicity, but that's unreasonable—because it's your initial seed, the source of your desires—"

"The thing called desire, though still in its infancy, is waiting to sprout and grow until it is lush and verdant. If one day you feel you have gone too far and become lost, come back here for a cup of coffee."

He smiled and pointed to the coffee in front of Ai, wiping the water stains on the table with the corner of his handkerchief: "This cup is on you—the rest can wait until you've sprouted—if you succeed, remember to thank that elf. That guy shamelessly asked me to teach you something, saying that this way we'll be acquaintances."

"Thank you for your hard work, senior."

Finally, Ai finished her last sip of coffee and rolled her eyes.

"How about a think tank?"

Satisfied with having gained the barista's friend, Ai turned and left silently.

Fifteen minutes before the last inter-district train departed, Ai Yi wasn't in a hurry at all—after showing her ID card with a star on it to the station, she didn't need to queue at all and directly entered the station from the back under the pretext of "official business".

The foundation members—they could practically walk with impunity anywhere in the lower town, since there weren't many respectable factions around.

Without a direct conflict of interest, the giant consortium of Origin City would not make things difficult for the mysterious authority over a mere "privilege".

Before setting off, Ai Yi made a special trip back to his dorm, carefully bringing several different outfits. After entering the station, he casually went into a restroom and came out two minutes later.

She transformed into a gray fox wearing a black jacket, with her hair loose and reaching her shoulders. Her hair was longer than it had been half a month ago, and it was troublesome to comb, so she simply didn't tie it in a ponytail. If it weren't for this men's clothing, she might have looked more like a girl.

Originally, I wanted to go on a business trip with Eileen's face, but then I thought that I've become a little famous in the Countermeasures Bureau recently, and it wouldn't be good if my colleagues caught me—so I'll transform in advance, since no one will recognize me anyway.

He carried out this operation without Sherlock and Virtin's knowledge, since his return to the North River District was mainly to try to complete the Sprouting Ceremony and, incidentally, to see if he could handle a mission.

Neither of these things is suitable for them to know.

Following the flow of people into the train platform, as expected, after seeing my own appearance, I was met with many aggressive gazes from all around, and several men were clearly pushing their way in.

Ai frowned, annoyed by her own "Ringing Technique" that kept triggering alarms, and regretted not switching to Lot form to attack.

"Little White—could you get me a temporary identity?"

"1"

Having received a response, he silently hung the ID card in the most conspicuous position on his chest—the effect was remarkable, creating a two-meter-wide vacuum zone around him.

In the Mana district—this stuff works better than elsewhere.

—I didn't want to be so high-profile—after all, I'm still at the top of the Nest City's blacklist.

However, Ai wasn't worried about anyone recognizing "Grey" here. Big shots of that level certainly wouldn't squeeze into business class like she did, so she easily made her way through the crowd to her seat.

He slumped onto his padded backrest: "So tired—" Ai Yi realized that he hadn't done anything productive today, but he was still very tired, both physically and mentally.

"My first day after becoming a full-time employee was spent slacking off and running away."

Although it was sighing, the fox's expression showed no sign of remorse; instead, it wagged its tail slightly under the seat.

I'm invincible!

Soon, the train began to move slowly.

The once straight track began to twist and narrow as it descended. And just after passing through a tunnel, the space ahead suddenly collapsed.

The train emerged from the bottom of "Mana" and was suspended in the center of the world.

At the moment of scene change, instead of the darkness that comes with "entering the lower space", the whole world becomes clear.

As a result, Ai unconsciously squinted, her pupils shrinking into small circles as she slowly adjusted to the sudden increase in brightness around her.

An incredibly magnificent scene unfolded before her eyes: although the top of the nest had been built to an unknown extent, reaching a depth where even the view could no longer encompass the entire panorama—even from this high vantage point far above the ground, Ai could still vaguely see patches of withered, skeletal structures proliferating along the sides of the dome—

This curtain, which hangs down to the ground and covers the nest, separates the boundary that originally belonged to the sky. It is scarred as if it had blocked endless calamities, yet it remains so steadfast that it inspires awe and so magnificent that it makes one tremble.

—This is "Lower Town".

Ai sighed.

Even though it's just the "mere Lower City" that Miss Vivi mentioned, its size within the Nest is enormous—the Lower City is visually divided into six regions by the tracks that traverse the dome and the ground: besides "Mana," where the Foundation and the Giant Enterprise's branch offices are located, there are four other jurisdictions in the east, west, south, and north.

There are also remote suburbs forgotten on the fringes.

Mana is a special district in the lower city, known as the "passage to the upper city"—the place where Ai has been living since she was rescued by the rescue team two weeks ago.

The mysterious black technology placed this suspended city at a height that overlooks the entire city, close to the dome of the lower city.

The inter-regional trains were the ones he used to see every night after get off work when he was in Beihe District: light tracks erected in the air, which looked like a series of intersecting thin lines from the ground, appearing fragile and as if they were about to collapse.

Ai looked down at the entire lower town from the carriage, while the people of the lower town would also see the train when they looked up, each considering the other to be even smaller—a seemingly crazy romance born from the intense conflict between the small and the vast.

The train continued its descent, the bizarre and unchanging outlines of the giant buildings that flashed by.

Tired of the scene, Ai hugged the takeout box in his arms and shrank back into the seat. The adult seat was a bit too tall for his body, so his feet couldn't touch the floor. He might as well just curl up inside and use it as a bed.

—What attitude should we take towards Dudu?

He pondered for a moment, then began to lay out his tools.

"Dorai, Little White, please help me—"

"You come to me with this kind of thing?! I'm just a pretty awesome door, not a playboy—figure it out yourself."

"Where did the 'sea king' go?"

The fox pulled its tail out from under its rear end to get some air, retorting, "The one who flirted with Visser was Grey, and the one who was flirted with by Anda was Rhodes—what does that have to do with me, Ai?"

"Heh heh, you'll just stay hidden in your shell forever—"

The next second, Ai unilaterally cut off Xiaobai's output: "Let's talk about the serious business of the commission."

7

He remembered what the elf had mentioned about the basic configuration of the module when he said goodbye to Yeats.

In addition to five or six "basic preset arcane arts", this spine also provides a function: "correction" permission.

To put it simply, it means calling in reinforcements.

The think tank can also call for help, but it might be less efficient in areas outside the Foundation's direct jurisdiction. So, to ensure the survival rate of newbies, the researchers went to great lengths to integrate "calling for help" into the module as well.

If a life-threatening emergency occurs, one can exchange performance bonuses for life, the kind that supports loans.

besides----

Ai reached into her bag and found that the shoulder bag, which had been just the right size before, was now noticeably too big. Even at the smallest size, it was too loose—she had no choice but to make do with it.

He pulled out "Tranquility" from his pocket, followed by three silver bullets—the same type that Inspector Wei had used to shoot Mr. Grey before—a weakened version.

The light screen lit up in his eyes: "Origin Bullet (Pseudo)/Blue: Projecting the silver paper of the Origin of the Azure Sky, the dissolved and remade one-time mysterious bullet's silver content will lock onto the victim's vessel, rendering his red liquid powerless to flow—this is the principle of sealing."

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