100 Minutes of Mimicry Construction

"Pfft, hahahahahaha—!!!"

Sparkle crouched on the ground, looking at the Cat Cake's comically terrified expression, and could no longer hold back.

Pointing at him with one hand and clutching her stomach with the other, which held the fox mask she had just been wearing, she burst into laughter, rocking back and forth as tears flew from the corners of her eyes.

After quite a while, she finally managed to curb her exaggerated laughter, though her shoulders still shook slightly.

Wiping away her tears of laughter, she leaned close to Lin Feng, who had temporarily shut down from fright, her crimson eyes sparkling with delight at her successful prank.

"Little one, look at this!"

Smiling, she produced a fragment from somewhere as if by magic. It was about the size of a fingernail, with a strange metallic sheen and faint glimmers of flowing data. She held it between two slender fingers and waved it gently in front of Lin Feng's beady eyes.

"Hee-hee, little kitty~" Her voice was cloyingly sweet, yet carried a deadly temptation.

"You went to all that trouble sneaking around just now... Was this what you really wanted?"

Almost at the same instant, an electronic notification rang out with startling clarity in Lin Feng's sea of consciousness:

[Warning! Carrier of a highly concentrated, high-purity data stream of unknown origin detected!]

[Information stream quality and energy level far exceed those of a secondary node in the Master Control Zone! Assessment: Extremely rare!]

[Emergency time-limited mission issued: Obtain the metal data fragment in the Masked Fool's hand!]

[Mission reward: Upon successful absorption, the duration of this Mimicry Construction will be increased tenfold!]

A tenfold increase!

He currently had one minute of Mimicry Construction. If he completed the mission, he would get ten minutes!

Ten minutes might not seem like much, but it was plenty. At a critical moment, it might even save his life!

The pupils of Lin Feng's beady eyes—if they had pupils—instantly contracted, locking firmly onto the metal fragment right in front of him.

Reason told him that Sparkle wouldn't bring out something like this to lure him for no reason.

She definitely had some purpose in mind. Perhaps... she was cooking up some nasty scheme.

But!

Then again, what could be more important right now than becoming human again?

Probably nothing.

So what if she was an Emanator of the Aeon of Elation?!

Even if Aha himself appeared, he could forget about shaking Lin Feng's resolve now!

"Do you want it, little one~~?" Sparkle blinked her pretty eyes and waved the metal fragment in front of Lin Feng again.

"Whimper—rrr (Woman, I suspect you're playing with fire!)" Lin Feng did his best to puff out his nonexistent chest, twisting his Cat Cake body as he let out what he considered an extremely imposing growl, trying to display a hint of dignity.

Unfortunately, in Sparkle's eyes, his performance of standing firm against force was nothing more than a soft, chewy pastry doing its best to look cute. His puffed-up indignation only deepened the amusement in her eyes.

"All right, since you worked so hard on your 'performance,' I'll reward you with this~, besides, Director Sparkle has something even more fun, hee-hee—"

Sparkle raised a slender index finger to her lips and made a shushing gesture. "But remember, Director Sparkle has put in an 'important prop'~

"Next, the stage is yours. As for the script... just improvise. You can't let Director Sparkle down~~"

"Hahaha, Director Sparkle really is brilliant."

With that, she nodded to herself, placed the metal in front of Lin Feng, stuck out her tongue at him with a strange smile, then turned and left.

Lin Feng glanced at the metal on the ground and looked back at Sparkle, but she was already gone.

[Beginning absorption of rare data stream...]

[Rare data stream absorption complete. Current mimicry duration: 10 minutes]

[Mission complete. Reward obtained: 10x multiplier]

[Current Mimicry Construction duration: 100 minutes]

Lin Feng: !!!

Lin Feng: 100 minutes of Mimicry Construction! I'm ridiculously rich!

He hadn't expected such a surprise after absorbing the data stream from the metal. With these 100 minutes, he was much better equipped to keep himself safe.

Now, next...

Lin Feng turned his Cat Cake's beady eyes toward Peppy. His immediate priority was to find Peppy quickly!

If he lost the station master's beloved dog, a cake like him really wouldn't be able to explain himself. Would he have to transform on the spot to clear himself of suspicion?

That would be too much of a loss.

Elsewhere, Ruan Mei, who had just finished an experiment, found Asta.

"Station Master Asta, is that little one of mine still with you?"

Asta smiled. "Yes. It and Peppy are getting along quite... well."

She considered her choice of words, then personally led Ruan Mei to the edge of the Master Control Zone.

When the two arrived in the area, they saw the Cat Cake and Peppy playing in front of them. Asta patted her chest and breathed a long sigh of relief.

Nothing went wrong. It's fine. Ms. Ruan Mei probably won't say anything, right?

Asta secretly glanced at Ruan Mei and saw her watching the two little ones with a smile. Feeling as though a weight had been lifted from her heart, she turned her gaze back to them.

But one look was all it took... At that moment, she was at a loss.

A Cat Cake sat firmly in the middle, making short "whimper... whimper" sounds, as though issuing orders.

"Whimper, whimper... rrr! (Come on, Peppy, show them a trick!)"

"Woof, woof!" Peppy barked excitedly twice, pushed off with his hind legs, and deftly performed a series of backflips in the air.

After landing, he barked twice more and wagged his tail like a propeller.

The Cat Cake let out another timely "whimper," and a hint of approval seemed to flash in his beady eyes.

Watching her beloved dog display a "talent" she had never seen before, Asta couldn't stop the corners of her mouth from twitching.

Good grief, how long has it even been? And he's already trained Peppy like this!

Unsure what expression to make, she could only hold her forehead and silently marvel, Ms. Ruan Mei's creations... really are extraordinary...

Watching this scene that exceeded her design expectations, Ruan Mei showed no sign of reproach. Instead, an intrigued smile appeared on her face. "It seems they really are getting along well. They've developed... an interesting way of interacting."

Then she seemed to recall something and casually mentioned it:

"I heard that some novel settings have been added to Herta's Simulated Universe, and they've found a tester too.

"What a pity. Otherwise, we could have sent this little one in. We might have been able to collect more unique life-form data."

Hearing this, Asta recovered from the shock of Peppy's backflips and replied:

"You mean that Trailblazer from the Astral Express, don't you? They should be arriving at the space station soon."

"The Trailblazer again..." Ruan Mei repeated softly, her gaze returning to the Cat Cake, a thoughtful look in her eyes.

Lin Feng wasn't far away and heard everything Asta and Ruan Mei said.

The Trailblazer is coming?

Does that mean the Astral Express is coming too?

Putting that together with the "script" Sparkle had mentioned earlier, he suddenly felt a slight chill in his heart. Something bad always happened.