It took Li Ming a great deal of effort to subdue Raiden. He hadn't expected Raiden to care so much about this sort of thing. Wasn't America supposed to be really open-minded? They even had over fifty gender categories, didn't they?
But Raiden had clearly been holding this in for a long time, which was why he wouldn't let it go. The three of them later went to a nearby park, mainly to avoid the people from the convenience store.
"So you want to start an Extraterrestrial Civilization Research club?" Raiden considered it for a moment. "Indeed, a club like that has never appeared at the California Institute of Technology."
"Yeah, so..." Li Ming looked at Raiden expectantly. They weren't from the same school, but surely getting one more person wouldn't be a problem, right?
Raiden ignored Li Ming's sparkling eyes and instead said to Himeko, "It's hard to say whether anyone would be interested in this. I'm sure Miss Himeko only came to us as potential club members after asking around, right?"
"Yes." Seeing Raiden's expression, Himeko became more serious as well.
"Then that settles it. It doesn't really matter whether you recruit people at school or not. This is just an interest of yours, so why not develop it into a forum instead?"
Raiden's assessment struck right at the heart of Himeko's club situation. Li Ming didn't know much about it, but seeing Himeko nod secretly, clearly persuaded, he knew that going to the school with Himeko to recruit members could be put aside for now.
Himeko rested her chin on her hand. "But creating and applying for a forum requires using a computer. I'm only a freshman, so I don't have a computer to work with. And I'm not very good at setting up or managing forums."
As she spoke, Himeko's gaze unconsciously drifted toward Li Ming. Li Ming immediately waved his hands. "Don't look at me. I don't have one either. I'm poor."
Raiden glanced at someone claiming to be poor, and a little anger rose in his heart again. But Li Ming really didn't have a computer—Raiden knew that. If Raiden hadn't planned to stay in the apartment for long periods, he probably wouldn't have bought that computer either. "In that case, Miss Himeko, there's no need for you to be in such a hurry. You can gather people with similar interests first. It would be better to create the club after you have five people."
After Raiden's analysis, Himeko's inexplicably soaring enthusiasm immediately dissipated. She trudged back toward the apartment. "All right, then. I'll contact you when the time comes."
Seeing that there was nothing else to do, Li Ming and Raiden both breathed a sigh of relief. Raiden glanced at Li Ming, raising a thick black eyebrow. "What are you going to do now?"
"Is something wrong?" Li Ming looked at him in confusion. Hadn't Raiden just been ready to fight him to the death? Why was he suddenly asking this?
Seeing Li Ming's foolish look, Raiden knew that Li Ming had already forgotten about Raiden saying he would take him around California over the next few days.
Although yesterday's plans had been interrupted by a paper his advisor suddenly assigned, it looked like Li Ming had still had quite a good time with Miss Himeko yesterday.
Wait, speaking of Miss Himeko...
Raiden suddenly felt that he had made a terrible decision. "Well, if you're busy, forget it. I'll head back first..."
Before Raiden could finish, Li Ming called out to Himeko, who had not gone far. "Himeko, want to go out and have fun?"
Then Li Ming eagerly pulled Himeko over, while Raiden was left behind by the two of them. Raiden covered his face. I want to run away, but I can't!
Unable to do anything else, he could only curse inwardly, Li Ming, you really deserve to die!
"Ah-choo! Who's cursing me?"
At Anti-Entropy Headquarters, inside the comprehensive training room.
Welt stood before two Type I Clones. Firearms and artillery materialized around him out of thin air, but Welt Yang did not attack immediately.
"Einstein, how long has it been?"
"Alliance Lord, it has been an hour. It is close to yesterday's timing. We can begin the experiment into the cause of the Type I Clones' loss of control."
Einstein watched the situation in the training room through the one-way glass. As the two Type I Clones continued making contact with the outside environment, the energy concentration gradually rose. After half an hour had passed, Einstein activated the two clones.
Red light flickered within the two clones' blue eyes. As they stepped forward, the steel floor beneath their feet began to deform.
Welt Yang looked at the two blue-haired, blue-eyed clones, who resembled a figure from his memories, without the slightest ripple in his heart. "MIG Laser Cannon, fire!"
At Welt's command, ten gunports aimed at the two clones. The icy cannon muzzles absorbed the surrounding energy, then blue lasers burst forth, mixed with faint electric currents.
The lasers swallowed the two clones.
As the lasers fired, the two clones reacted in time, digging their cores out of their own chests. Their voices were extremely stiff. "Pseudo Black Hole, one hundred percent power release!"
Two black holes fifteen meters across appeared in the training room, drawing everything else in the room toward them.
Even the paths of the lasers were faintly distorted.
But Welt Yang still easily found and shattered those two cores.
The Pseudo Black Holes dissipated before they could take effect.
"Alliance Lord, even with energy-level stacking, they only reached 150HW. They did not reach the 250HW released by yesterday's two clones, much less the 500HW breakthrough of the one that appeared in California."
"Yes, I can feel that. But why?"
Welt inspected the bodies of the two clones before him, twisted beyond recognition by the Pseudo Black Holes. After examining them, however, he found that the residual energy inside had not changed in level.
But the energy fluctuation he had sensed yesterday—especially last night—was something he would have thought impossible if he had not witnessed it with his own eyes.
A clone whose core was a chip, one that did not even possess a human body structure, had somehow mastered enormous Honkai Energy and wielded it with ease.
"Why exactly is this?" Welt used his power to dismantle the bodies before him layer by layer, yet he could not sense any area that had mutated from Honkai Energy contamination.
Unable to find anything, Welt could only give up studying the two test subjects further. He walked out and looked at Einstein, who stood at the door. "Have the two mutated Type I Clones from yesterday been transported here?"
"After processing, they were sent to Laboratory Three at headquarters. However, they were severely damaged. Also, most of the body of the one in California, which had lost its core, is missing. We cannot confirm who took it away, and an investigation is underway."
Hearing California, Welt paused. "Come to think of it, is that student named Li Ming all right? He seemed pretty badly injured yesterday."
Einstein simply handed the report in her hand to Welt Yang. "After yesterday, Li Ming went to a private hospital near the California Institute of Technology for an examination. This is his medical report."
Welt took the report and glanced at it. "There isn't a trace of anything except external injuries? Strange. I clearly remember that he came into close contact with the clone yesterday. At that distance, it should have been a lethal dose."
"Perhaps that hospital's equipment cannot detect whether Li Ming has been eroded by Honkai Energy. After all, it was only an X-ray. The bodily deterioration caused after Honkai Energy erodes a person requires more precise equipment to detect." Einstein was not particularly surprised. Cases where it was not detected immediately were not uncommon.
"Should we arrange another examination for Li Ming? According to the information obtained from Shenzhou, Li Ming was eroded the first time he came into contact with a clone, which indicates that he has no corresponding antibodies in his body." Einstein took out another report and handed it to Welt.
After looking it over, Welt made his decision. "All right. Help arrange it. By the way, has everything concerning yesterday been taken care of?"
The two walked all the way to the command room, where they saw Tesla wearing a command cap, her twin tails tied into low ponytails, standing there and issuing orders.
A tall robot filled the screen. It had a black-and-red color scheme, and the helmet on its head resembled a "V." If Li Ming and Himeko had seen it, they would have recognized it at once as the protagonist's Unit One from "Heavy Mech Alahato." Yet this Unit One had now been brought into reality by Anti-Entropy.
"There can't be any problem with the core and pressure device here. The armor position is off... Hmm, Ritsell, Alliance Lord, have you confirmed the clone issue?"
Seeing the two approach, Tesla shifted her attention away from the screen. At her words, Welt's expression turned bitter while Einstein remained as calm as ever. "No. But testing showed that after nearly half an hour of operation, Type I Clones can only reach 150HW and cannot break through 250HW. Those two clones were special."
"Speaking of that, I went to Laboratory Three earlier and took tissue samples from those two special clones. I detected strange residual bioelectricity and some unusual living tissue. At first, I thought it was a mutation caused by Honkai Energy erosion. But after I used a new Type I Clone chip to analyze that residual bioelectricity, well, take a look!"
Tesla opened another screen and played a segment of unusual bioelectric information.
"37°22'10"N... 122°02'26"W... absorb... obstruct... eliminate... devour... foreign species... food..."
"Now that's interesting, isn't it?"
"The content of the bioelectricity contains information. It could simply be an accident." Einstein still viewed it calmly.
Tesla knew Einstein did not believe her, so she opened the second recording. "This is a signal I intercepted from space when the Alliance Lord stopped the missile. Listen to this as well!"
"Avoid battle... plunder... destroy... ,,,&...%*...*"
The beginning was understandable, but the words gradually became blurry afterward. Welt and Einstein both looked at Tesla.
Tesla smiled, though her expression was somewhat grave. "This signal was intercepted from space. We are currently investigating exactly what sent it. It's possible that aliens really do exist!"
Although Tesla's tone was rather flippant, neither Welt Yang nor Einstein could laugh. An unknown extraterrestrial civilization, strange electronic signals, and clones going out of control—none of this seemed simple.
Before you continue