Shearing the Sheep

Li Aoz acted very low-key. With his extremely high Charm, he easily played the role of a sunny, considerate, and gentle person—a stereotype of Frostplate men. A strong female culture inevitably fosters effeminate and unaggressive men.

When Nordly spoke Common, she had a bit of a Frostplate accent. Li Aoz prescribed the right remedy, deliberately chatting with her in his spare time.

Relying on his high Charm, Nordly would basically respond. Li Aoz immediately showed the characteristics of a Frostplate man, casually dropping phrases like, 'How awesome your bro Aoz is'.

Li Aoz's judgment was correct.

In a poor and remote place like the Outland, there definitely wouldn't be many educated people. Nordly looked tall and strong, but in reality, her education level was at most a bachelor's degree.

People in the Outland couldn't even take care of their survival, so naturally, they couldn't receive education. After chatting with Li Aoz for a while, she inadvertently revealed her identity as a Frostplate person.

People from the same hometown always have something to talk about. Nordly herself didn't even notice that after getting to know Li Aoz, she didn't bother him as much.

Li Aoz was also very tactful. Although he knew that ZX-101 was one of his goals, he always avoided mentioning ZX-102's room, which was Nurse Chief Nordly's sore spot.

Over time, coupled with Li Aoz's cooperation with the training, Nordly's favorability towards Li Aoz was ground up to 20 points—already at indifferent.

Assistant Physician Anna would also come to do some check-ups with Li Aoz from time to time, drawing some blood for testing, taking an indicator, and then taking an X-ray.

He was called away by the psychologist Eleni at least every afternoon. This gentle and lovely big sister would patiently chat with him about the past. At first, Li Aoz deliberately acted 'restrained', 'impatient', and 'nervous', but then he slowly opened up and began to cooperate with the doctor's treatment and consultation.

In the evening, Li Aoz was able to quietly manipulate Gravity alone in the isolation ward and start training. He was already familiar with this Aura, but his [Agility] attribute was not high enough, making it a bit difficult to practice.

"What a magical power."

Li Aoz threw the spoon towards the palm of his hand, and with a thought, the spoon floated 10 centimeters above his palm. He raised his hand and gently flicked it, and the spoon quickly flipped, making a circular motion until his Aura value returned to zero, and a slight throbbing came from his brain. Only then did the spoon lose its Gravity and fall into his palm.

Li Aoz enjoyed this repetitive game.

As a humanitarian aid organization, Nethermark's isolation ward naturally did not have surveillance cameras installed. However, the monitoring bracelet on his hand constantly sent his personal physical condition and information to the doctors.

This was more useful than simple monitoring. Through his heart rate, brainwave frequency, pulse, and body temperature, the doctors could easily deduce his mental and physiological condition. Was he exercising? Was he psychologically stressed? Did he have good dreams or nightmares? – All of these could be inferred.

However, these doctors overlooked one point: on Azure Planet, only the Four Nations had the ability to detect traces of Aura usage, and Gravity's performance ability was known for being low-key and invisible.

It could be said that unless Li Aoz explained it himself, no one would know that he had mastered the Omega-class top-tier Aura.

Li Aoz ate and drank as he pleased, had people to chat with, had someone to accompany him, and the doctors kept a close eye on his physiological condition. He also had enough time to exercise every day—except that his personal freedom was restricted a bit too much, there were almost no major problems.

These doctors would collect various samples from him. At first, it was just drawing blood and collecting some fallen hair. Then, they began to collect excrement. Later, they simply fed him various drugs and then had him produce excrement under surveillance to observe his condition.

Although Li Aoz appeared a bit resistant, he didn't really care in his heart. While the doctors were concentrating on observing him like observing a white mouse, Li Aoz was also observing them.

Sometimes, he would just casually ask about the purpose of the experiment, and then show hesitation and hesitation, so that the other party would take the initiative to make some explanations. Comparing the content of the conversation with the Professor at the beginning, the differences and doubts suddenly increased.

"13 days."

Li Aoz used a spoon to carve a new mark on the bed. Ordinary people might feel depressed or even collapse in the face of this closed environment and repeated monitoring, but Li Aoz felt no pressure at all.

Back in version 5.0, he was very unlucky. His live broadcast career had just started, and not only was there a requirement for the length of time, but he also caught up with the new version's wasteland reclamation.

Although the [Starcaller] could be said to be a solo profession, wasteland reclamation was an activity that only large guilds could organize. The pressure on Li Aoz to reclaim the wasteland alone was ten or even nine times that of ordinary players.

In order to make up for the live broadcast time and busy with wasteland reclamation, Li Aoz worked overtime for a full 12 days. The camera was never turned off, and he only left the game when he went to the toilet and ate. He managed to complete the wasteland reclamation task alone and get his live broadcast salary for the month.

If it weren't for cooperating with the psychologist Eleni's testing, and he would occasionally express 'I feel too bored alone' and 'If possible, I would still like to have more contact with people', Li Aoz felt that he could stay in Nethermark until the organization went bankrupt.

Not only that, but he also received 150 contribution points on a regular basis every day. Occasionally, when they drew his blood, or when he seemed a little down, he could even get an extra chicken leg for dinner.

Nethermark Humanitarian is indeed humanitarian. If it weren't for exercising and drawing blood and bone marrow every day, Li Aoz felt that he might have gained weight.

Adding up all kinds of scattered faction missions—as of today, Li Aoz had already received 2065 faction contribution points.

There were many inhumane human experiments, but it was rare for an experimental subject to fleece the experimental institution. Li Aoz even liked the life here a little bit.

"The [Esha Experiment Drug - Type VI] is priced at 2500 contribution points. I'm still a few points short of being able to exchange it."

He glanced at his attribute panel. Over the past few days, his [Constitution] and [Strength] had each increased by 2 points.

"Current attribute panel: Strength 6, Agility 5, Constitution 7, Charm 15, Willpower 8."

Li Aoz touched his chin. His attributes were actually not low compared to ordinary people. Ignoring Aura and Charm, non-supernatural athletes were only at this level.

The Esha Experiment Drug obtained from the Nethermark faction was bound to awaken Aura—whether or not he could awaken an Omega-class was another matter.

As long as it wasn't the lowest Alpha-class, Li Aoz could make it work.

"Actually, as a [Mutant], you don't need any equipment. [Gravity] Aura is also very strong, so why not... stir up some trouble?"

Grinding faction quests every day was getting a little boring for Li Aoz. He filed his nails, already planning to make contact with some plot characters tomorrow.

Ding-ding-ding-dang!

Just as he was pondering his words, suddenly, a light tapping sound came from the iron window of the isolation ward.

"Who's there?"

Li Aoz became alert. He immediately rolled out of bed, stuffed the pillow into the blanket, making it look like someone was sleeping. Then, he tiptoed over, pressed himself against the wall, and the light shining through the iron bars cast a blurry shadow on the ground, resembling a head.

Someone was leaning on the bars, looking inside? Li Aoz shifted his gaze upwards, but he didn't see anyone at the bars.

He remained silent, not saying a word. After a while, the shadow on the ground shook its head anxiously, and then knocked on the door again.

Clang...

The door panel trembled slightly, and then the figure disappeared without a trace.

Li Aoz was puzzled. Just as he was about to leave, he suddenly noticed something had fallen down outside the bars.

He bent down to pick it up and saw it was a prescription form that Doctor Eleni had given to a patient, but it had been scribbled on with random colors. Li Aoz used the faint light to barely make out the messy lines. After pondering for a while, he realized that the different colored strokes seemed random, but actually followed a pattern.

"If you follow this line, it's a circled circle, and in the square at the other end, there's the character 'urgent'—wait, this is Common Tongue, I can't use Yanxia's writing logic to understand it... so the actual meaning of these two characters is..."

Li Aoz gently tapped the back of the paper, his gaze solemn: "Run."