The testing facility was deep underground.
It was a spacious room with pure white walls. Machines of unknown purpose stood in the open area, and specialists in white lab coats moved between them, operating the equipment.
Ke Meng had brought three things to the Special Affairs Investigation Bureau: Big-Faced Cat, the gloves, and Big Fur Ball.
With the specialists' help, Ke Meng first put on the gloves to test their strength.
"This is a professional pressure scale. Please push against the plate with your hand so we can see how many jin of force you can exert," a young woman in a white lab coat said, puffing out her small chest.
Ke Meng was curious, too. Could these Mighty Gloves really exert force equal to twenty times his body weight, as Big-Faced Cat's information had claimed?
He pressed his right palm against the enormous scale, and changing numbers immediately appeared on its display.
The reading jumped from zero to 2,802 jin.
"Wow!" The young woman conducting the test was stunned, wondering whether she had misread it.
"Is there an extra zero in there?"
Captain Luo, who had accompanied Ke Meng, was shocked as well. Were these gloves really that terrifying?
Looking at Ke Meng's largely unchanged expression, Captain Luo could hardly imagine how he managed to stay so calm.
Come on, man, that's 2,802 jin, not 280!
That's 1.4 tonnes!
That's ridiculous.
Before coming here, Captain Luo had rewatched Ke Meng's review video twice, so he knew Ke Meng could lift the front of a car.
But Ke Meng had not tried lifting the car over his head. He had only raised its front to shoulder height, so Captain Luo still had no idea how terrifyingly powerful those worn-out gloves were.
Now that he saw the quantified results, he was immediately stunned.
"Are there no side effects to wearing those gloves?" Captain Luo asked curiously.
Items this powerful almost always came with side effects.
That made these special items difficult to use, each more bizarre than the last.
Items with excessively dangerous side effects were generally sealed away in storage. No one wanted to use them.
Sometimes, what stopped people from using them was precisely that their side effects were too dangerous-or so bizarre that they were impossible to accept.
For example, the little badge Captain Luo had used earlier was an item capable of burning dark powers.
However, anyone who used it would rapidly begin sweating as the water in their body evaporated.
If someone wore the little badge for too long, dehydration would turn them into a dried-out corpse.
The side effects of an item like that were still within acceptable limits.
As for the even stranger items, Captain Luo said no more. After all, Ke Meng was currently an external member.
"Side effects? I haven't noticed any yet." Hearing his question, Ke Meng shook his head.
"Side effects unknown." The researcher entered the word "unknown."
"If any side effects appear later, please report them to the bureau. We need to keep this data updated in real time for safety reasons."
"Sure." Ke Meng placed the gloves in a scanning area, and a highly detailed, lifelike 3D model of them appeared on one of the machines' screens.
Material composition: compounds of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen; elemental carbon... Weight: 180 g
"How are these things so light? This is getting a little absurd."
"They're special items, after all. They defy science."
Seeing such perfect results, the researchers all envied Ke Meng for owning something so wonderful.
Next, Ke Meng began testing the fur ball.
Rolling speed, jumping speed, reaction speed, hearing, sensitivity of smell...
The various tests were even more thorough than those Ke Meng had conducted, and they also gave him a fresh understanding of Tangyuan's combat capabilities.
When Tangyuan transformed on the testing floor, the fur ball grew to five meters tall. Golden fur lengthened, canine limbs stretched out, and Tangyuan finally looked like a dog.
A single swipe of Tangyuan's paw against the pressure scale produced a reading of 3,152 jin on the display.
That was even more outrageous than Ke Meng's gloves!
Could a canine really exert that much force, even one this enormous?
Captain Luo believed that even if a truck were placed in front of Tangyuan, the dog might well be able to overturn it.
The armed soldiers watched the testing area warily, their faces tense. If the giant dog hurt anyone, they would open fire.
After finishing Tangyuan's tests, the researchers began testing Big-Faced Cat.
"This cat of yours is really something."
Everyone looked at Big-Faced Cat strangely during the tests.
Because looking at this cat caused strange knowledge to appear in their minds.
Whenever something strange was nearby, corresponding strange knowledge would emerge in their minds.
No one present was a fool. The people at the Special Affairs Investigation Bureau knew that the cat's value far exceeded that of Tangyuan and the Mighty Gloves.
Knowledge was a treasure. With that knowledge, the nation could classify those strange things.
There was no denying that Big-Faced Cat's existence tempted Captain Luo.
However, Big-Faced Cat did not belong to them. The cat was Ke Meng's private property.
Captain Luo nodded. "For now, Big-Faced Cat will be assigned Level 1 clearance. Only Level-A Members may know about the cat."
"If the cat can also impart strange knowledge about Level 0 Objects, that clearance may be raised to Level 0. Mr. Ke, you are the original owner, so please be sure to keep the cat safe."
"Does that mean you're all Level-A Members, too?"
"I'm not a Level-A Member." Captain Luo shook his head. "Once the tests are finished, the testing staff and I will go to the bureau for targeted memory erasure. Our memories of Big-Faced Cat will be deleted."
"You own the cat, so you don't need to have the relevant memories erased. But please keep the cat safe, because something this precious can easily attract unwanted attention. Be especially wary of illegal organizations. If you run into trouble, ask the nation for help. We won't stand by and do nothing."
Hearing Captain Luo emphasize this so earnestly out of concern for him warmed Ke Meng's heart a little.
Of course, more than anything, it made him feel favorably toward the bureau.
Even when faced with something like this, they still insisted on upholding their rules. The bureau really had something going for it.
The bureau most likely possessed items even more outrageous than Big-Faced Cat—perhaps something capable of suppressing an entire continent. That would explain why they had the confidence to allow External Staff to own special items.
While he was here, Ke Meng also learned new terms such as Level 0 Objects and Level-A Members.
Of all the testing, Big-Faced Cat's had gone quickly. After all, the cat's function was to impart knowledge, so the process was not as complicated as Tangyuan's.
"The files for all three special items have been entered into the national classified archive. You can log in to our nation's investigation bureau website and enter your ID number to view your files."
"However, since you're External Staff, you can't view anyone else's files, only your own. Remember your ID number. You'll need it whenever you want to check your files." As Captain Luo spoke, he taught Ke Meng how to log in to the bureau's website.
With Captain Luo's help, Ke Meng logged in to the official website and entered the number Captain Luo had given him.
ID: 9713. Name: Ke Meng. Status: External Staff. Special items: "1-0528," "5-0678," "6-0064."
Ke Meng gazed at that line of numbers, lost in thought.
Four digits... did that mean the bureau had at least tens of thousands of special items?
I got hooked on reading novels today and couldn't stop, so I ran out of time to write. There'll only be one update today. I'll see if I can make up for it tomorrow.
Before you continue