Li Aoz kept a low profile. With his exceptionally high Charm, he easily played the part of a sunny, considerate, gentle man—also the stereotype of Frostplate men. A culture dominated by strong women was bound to produce men who were softer and less aggressive.
When Nordly spoke the common tongue, she had a slight Frostplate accent. Li Aoz tailored his approach accordingly, deliberately striking up conversations with her whenever he had spare time.
Relying on his high Charm, Nordly would usually respond. Li Aoz immediately displayed the traits of a Frostplate man, casually tossing out lines like, "You wanna know if Aoz Ge's got what it takes?"
Li Aoz's judgment had been correct.
A harsh backwater like the Outland could hardly produce anyone educated. Nordly looked tall, burly, and powerful, but her education was at least at the undergraduate level.
People in the Outland could barely keep themselves alive, so naturally they had no chance to get an education. After chatting on and off with Li Aoz for half the day, Nordly inadvertently revealed that she was from Frostplate.
People from the same hometown always had plenty to talk about. Nordly herself did not notice that, after getting to know Li Aoz a little better, she no longer gave him such a hard time.
Li Aoz was tactful as well. Although he knew ZX-101 was one of his targets, he never mentioned the sore spot that was the ZX-102 room to Head Nurse Nordly.
With all that, plus Li Aoz's cooperation during training, Nordly's Favorability toward him had gradually been ground up to 20 after a few days—already at the Indifferent level.
Assistant Physician Anna would occasionally come by to examine Li Aoz, draw blood for testing, have him take an indicator agent, and then give him an X-ray.
Every afternoon, psychologist Eleni would summon him away for at least a while. This gentle, lovely older woman patiently talked with him about his past. At first, Li Aoz deliberately acted "reserved," "impatient," and "nervous," but he gradually opened up and began cooperating fully with the physician's treatment and counseling.
At night, Li Aoz would quietly manipulate gravity by himself in the isolation ward as training. He was already familiar with this Aoneng, but his Dexterity was not high enough, making practice somewhat strenuous.
"What a miraculous power."
Li Aoz tossed his spoon toward his palm. With a thought, it floated ten centimeters above his hand. He raised his other hand and gave it a gentle flick, and the spoon rapidly spun in circles. Only when his Aura Value hit zero and a faint stabbing ache reached his brain did the spoon lose its gravitational support and fall into his palm.
Li Aoz never grew tired of this repetitive game.
As a humanitarian relief organization, Nethermark Humanity naturally had no surveillance cameras in its isolation wards. In exchange, however, the monitoring bracelet on his wrist constantly transmitted his personal physical condition and data to the physicians.
This was even more useful than simple surveillance. From his heart rate, brainwave frequency, pulse, and body temperature, the physicians could easily infer his mental and physical state. Was he exercising? Was he psychologically tense? Had he had a pleasant dream or a nightmare?—all of it could be deduced.
However, those physicians had overlooked one thing: on Azure Planet, only the Four Nations had the capability to detect traces of Aoneng use, and gravity was known for being subtle and invisible in its manifestations.
It could be said that unless Li Aoz personally explained it, no one would know that he had mastered an Omega-class top-tier Aoneng.
Li Aoz ate and drank as he pleased. He had people to talk to and people to keep him company, while doctors closely monitored his physical condition. He even had ample time to exercise every day—other than his personal freedom being severely restricted, there was hardly any problem.
These physicians collected all kinds of samples from him. At first, they only drew blood and gathered fallen hairs. Later, they started taking away his excrement. Eventually, they simply fed him various drugs, then had him produce excrement under observation to monitor his condition.
Although Li Aoz showed some resistance, he did not really care inside. While the physicians watched him with rapt attention as though he were a lab rat, Li Aoz was observing them just as closely.
Sometimes, he would casually ask about the purpose of the experiments, then act conflicted and hesitant, prompting them to explain things on their own. Comparing their words with what the professor had said before, discrepancies and suspicious points immediately multiplied.
"Thirteen days."
Li Aoz carved another mark into the bed with his spoon. Ordinary people might have felt depressed or even collapsed under such a sealed environment and repetitive monitoring, but Li Aoz felt no pressure at all.
Back in version 5.0, his luck had been terrible. His streaming career had only just begun, and not only did he have mandatory streaming hours to meet, but he had also run into the launch of a new version.
Starcallers could be considered solo professions, but pioneering new content was an activity only large guilds could organize. The pressure Li Aoz faced while pioneering alone was ten times, perhaps even nine times, that of ordinary players.
To make up his streaming hours while grinding through new content, Li Aoz had worked overtime for twelve straight days. He never turned off the camera, leaving the game only to use the bathroom or eat. He had forcefully completed the pioneering task alone and secured that month's base streaming salary.
If he had not needed to cooperate with psychologist Eleni's assessment, occasionally sighing things like, "Being alone feels so boring," and, "If possible, I'd still like more contact with people," Li Aoz felt he could stay at Nethermark until the organization went bankrupt.
What was more, he received 150 Contribution Points at fixed times every day. Occasionally, if they drew his blood or if he seemed a little down, he would even get an extra chicken drumstick with dinner.
Nethermark Humanity really was humanitarian. If not for exercising every day and having blood and bone marrow drawn, Li Aoz felt he might have gained weight.
Adding up the scattered faction tasks—by today, Li Aoz had received 2,065 faction Contribution Points.
There were plenty of inhumane human experiments, but experimental subjects fleecing the research institution were truly rare. Li Aoz was starting to like life here.
"The Esha Experiment Drug - Type VI costs 2,500 Contribution Points. I'm still a little short of enough to exchange for it."
He glanced at his attribute panel. Over the past few days, his Constitution and Strength had each increased by 2 points.
"My current attributes are: Strength 6, Dexterity 5, Constitution 7, Charm 15, Willpower 8."
Li Aoz stroked his chin. His attributes were actually already quite high compared to ordinary people. Ignoring Aoneng and Charm, even non-superhuman athletes were only around this level.
The Esha Experiment Drug obtained from the Nethermark faction would definitely awaken Aoneng—whether it could awaken Omega-class Aoneng was another matter.
As long as it was not the lowest-tier Alpha-class, Li Aoz could make plenty of use of it.
"Actually, as a Mutant, I don't need much equipment, and Gravity Aura is already strong. How about... stirring up some trouble?"
Grinding faction tasks every day had begun to bore Li Aoz. He filed his nails, already considering how to approach the plot characters tomorrow.
Clink, clink, clank!
Just as he was working out what to say, a series of light taps suddenly came from the iron-barred window of the isolation ward.
"Who's there?"
Li Aoz immediately became alert. He rolled out of bed, stuffed his pillow beneath the blanket to create the outline of someone sleeping, then quietly crawled over. Pressing himself against the wall, he used the light filtering through the iron bars to make a vague shadow on the floor that resembled a head.
Was someone peering in through the bars? Li Aoz raised his gaze, but he did not see anyone at the window.
He remained silent. After a while, the shadow on the floor anxiously shook its head, then knocked on the door again.
Clang...
The door trembled slightly, and the figure immediately vanished without a trace.
Li Aoz was puzzled. Just as he was about to leave, he suddenly caught sight of something falling down outside the bars.
He lowered his head and picked it up. It was a prescription slip Eleni had written for a patient, but someone had scribbled all kinds of messy colors across it. Using the faint light, Li Aoz barely made out the chaotic lines. After studying it for a while, he realized that the marks in different colors seemed disorderly, but actually followed a pattern.
"If I follow this line, there's a circled ring. At the other end, inside the box, there's a character meaning 'urgent'—wait, this is the common tongue. I can't interpret it using Yanxia writing logic... So the actual meaning of these two words is..."
Li Aoz lightly tapped the back of the paper, his expression grave. "Run."
Before you continue