Ye Mo's palm was pressed against the Vibranium fragment; the temperature had indeed risen, it wasn't an illusion. He stood at the entrance of the rift valley, and a wisp of extremely thin, dark golden light, as thin as a mosquito's leg, floated out from a crack in the ground thirty meters to his right, twisting and turning as it burrowed into the earth. He blinked, trying to see more clearly, but his vision suddenly went black— his Microscopic Perception) had been severed again.
This broken ability is like an old-fashioned radio, the signal is intermittent and there's static. He leaned against the rock wall to catch his breath, the Steel Bone in his left arm was still smoking, and every movement felt like a dull saw was pulling back and forth inside. The battle just now had taken too much to handle, and now he could barely stand up, let alone maintain any high-precision perception.
"Didn't they say it could absorb the residual effects of Mutants abilities at the scene?" he muttered to himself, patting his head with his right hand as if booting up a system. "This place is full of energy fields of Aether, flying everywhere. Doesn't that count as a 'scene'? Don't play dead, you're letting me down now!"
He closed his eyes and tried to ram his consciousness into the " Gene Spiral Tower " in his brain. No response. He tried again. Still no movement. The third time, he practically poured all his energy into it, and a throbbing pain shot through his brain, almost causing him to kneel down on the spot.
Just as he was about to give up, a cold, mechanical voice suddenly rang in his mind:
"Unknown high-dimensional energy resonance detected, meeting the X-Gene resonance threshold. Passive tracking protocol initiated."
Ye Mo froze, then opened his eyes. "You're finally awake?"
The voice ignored him and continued broadcasting, "Target energy characteristics: unstable quantum fluid, carrying a weak gravitational deflection effect, with a fractal diffusion trajectory. Suggested tracking direction: 12 degrees south of southeast, initial distance approximately 1.7 kilometers, with a clear increasing trend in energy density."
The moment he finished speaking, a pale blue light path appeared deep within his consciousness, like an arrow on a mobile phone navigation app, clearly pointing towards the depths of the valley. It wasn't a guess, nor a vague sense; it was a direct map.
"Holy crap... that's amazing?" Ye Mo looked down at the Vibranium fragment in his hand, then looked up towards the southeast. The dark gold thread was still moving, and its trajectory perfectly matched the blue line in his mind.
He grinned, wincing in pain, "You really aren't a piece of trash."
He took a step forward, bracing himself against the rock Steel Bone. His left leg made a soft "click" sound, like a loose screw. He gritted his teeth and didn't stop, continuing to walk. One step, two steps, three steps... With each step, the metallic scraping sound became more pronounced, sounding like an old man dragging a broken tin bucket to a market.
"If you don't screw me over," he muttered as he walked, "I'll burn incense for you every day and treat you like an ancestor. But if you dare to mess with me, once I get inside the system, I'll change your interface to a black and white screen and replace all the buttons with 404 error pages."
No sooner had I finished speaking than a notification sounded in my brain, "The current environmental magnetic field is disordered. It is recommended to shorten the perception interval to avoid neural overload."
"You're quite considerate?" Ye Mo rolled her eyes. "Fine, whatever you say."
He slowed his pace, no longer forcibly maintaining his Microscopic Perception, but instead adjusting his direction step by step based on the system prompts. When he reached a steep slope, the ground cracked open into a deep trench nearly two meters wide, dark and murky, its destination unknown. He crouched down and reached out to probe the wind direction—a faint airflow surged upwards, carrying a metallic rusty smell and... a certain indescribable sweet and fishy odor.
He frowned. "This tastes wrong."
Just then, an update popped up in my head. "Particle deposition traces detected, located 0.8 meters to the left of the bottom of the crack, continuously emitting low-frequency resonant signals."
Ye Mo narrowed his eyes. "You're really hiding something?"
He looked around, grabbed a piece of gravel, and threw it into the ditch. The sound of the stone hitting the bottom was unusually muffled, unlike the sound of ordinary rocks colliding. He then pulled out a short piece of broken cable, wrapped one end around his wrist, and swung the other end down to hook onto a protruding rock on the opposite side, using it as a makeshift rope.
"I'm really going all out today," he muttered, then rolled over and slid down.
The Steel Bone joints creaked, and the descent was faster than expected. He quickly grabbed the cable to slow down. Upon landing, his foot slipped, and he almost fell flat on his face, but luckily he managed to grab the rock face in time. Looking up, he saw that the crack above his head had shrunk to a thin line, and almost no light could get in.
He took out a Vibranium fragment from his pocket and held it up to his eyes. This time, a very faint blue light emanated from the surface of the fragment, not from heat or reflection, but as if it had been activated by something.
"The system?" he asked.
"Non-active interaction mode." The prompt tone is cold and impersonal. "This is a byproduct of energy resonance and requires no response."
Ye Mo curled his lip. "Stop pretending to be aloof, you're just an AI voice pack."
He followed the directions, the ground becoming increasingly wet and slippery underfoot. After walking about fifty meters, the passage suddenly narrowed, and regular engravings appeared on the rock walls on both sides, as if they had been carved by hand. He stopped and reached out to touch the patterns—a trace of energy remained in the grooves, causing a slight tingling sensation when his fingertips touched them.
"This is... a rune array?"
Before he could examine it closely, another notification sounded in his mind, "A region of enhanced particle activity has been detected. A brief accumulation of particles is observed 37 meters ahead, with an estimated duration of no more than 4 minutes."
"It even has a countdown function?" Ye Mo's spirits lifted. "Okay, at least you're somewhat useful."
He quickened his pace, keeping his body low to avoid potential traps and mechanisms. The further he went, the thicker the air became, making it difficult to breathe. When he reached the 35-meter mark, he suddenly smelled a familiar odor—the same sweet, fishy smell as before, but stronger, like rotten honey mixed with burnt electrical wires.
He stopped and held his breath.
Around the corner ahead, there was a small puddle of dark golden liquid on the ground, no bigger than a coin, slowly wriggling and seeping into the crack as if it were alive. He crouched down, not daring to get too close, and only lightly touched the edge with a fragment of Vibranium.
"Buzz--"
A very slight tremor came from the fragment, and then the pool of liquid suddenly contracted, like a startled snail, and quickly retreated into the crevice of the rock.
"Holy crap?" Ye Mo jumped back a step. "This thing can dodge?"
The brain immediately updated. "Target confirmed to possess basic approach-avoidance response, suggesting it has formed a weak coupling with its local environment. Location marked; retrieval induction can be attempted later."
"You still want me to do research?" Ye Mo smiled wryly. "I can barely stand up right now, how can you expect me to do scientific research?"
But he still pulled a marker from his pocket—yes, a time traveler always carries a marker, the Tony had given him last time, saying it was "just in case you need to draw an escape route in the enemy base." He drew a crooked circle on the ground, marking the spot where the liquid disappeared.
"Okay, noted. I'll find someone to bring the equipment to collect the trash later."
He stood up and continued forward following the instructions. After walking another ten meters or so, the passage suddenly opened up, revealing a semi-collapsed circular hall. Several broken metal supports hung down from the ceiling, like the wreckage of some kind of equipment. The ground was covered with cracks, and a faint dark golden light shone through each crack, like blood flowing in the earth's veins.
He stood at the entrance without moving, letting the system scan him first.
"Multiple particle resonance sources detected, distributed in a network structure, with the center not locked. Warning: An unknown interference field exists in the current area, which may cause perception distortion."
"We have to go, even if it's distorted," Ye Mo gritted his teeth. "We can't just stand here and wait for it to fly back on its own."
He stepped into the hall, each step extra careful. When he reached the center, his foot suddenly gave way, and the ground sank slightly. He immediately stepped back, and heard a "click" as a stone door slowly closed behind him, blocking the exit.
"Damn it!" He turned around and rushed over, reaching out to push, but the door was already jammed.
"System! What's going on?"
"Trigged by no human intervention, it is presumably an automatic response from an ancient defense system."
"Why didn't you say so earlier?"
"No activation condition was detected previously."
Ye Mo rolled his eyes. "Are you really my biological mother? You only speak up when it matters."
He turned around and looked around. There were no other exits in the hall, only a few supports hanging down from the ceiling, one of which had half a circuit board attached to its end, flashing a faint red light.
He stared at the red light for two seconds, then suddenly realized something.
"Wait... this layout... why does it look so familiar?"
He retrieved a blueprint from his memory that he had seen before at Stark Labs—an energy diversion device from Hydra's early research base, with an almost identical structure.
"Could this be another old testing site?" he muttered. "Did Malekith manage to snag one?"
Just then, a notification sounded in my mind, "12 degrees south of southeast, distance reduced to 800 meters, energy signal strength increased by 37%. Tracking path effective."
Ye Mo breathed a sigh of relief, "Thank goodness you didn't go astray."
He stopped worrying about the stone gate and instead slowly circled the hall, following the directions indicated. When he reached the east corner, the golden light in the cracks in the ground became noticeably denser, and its flow direction was consistent, all pointing to the same underground node.
"Looks like the main road is here." He squatted down, cleared away the rubble with his hands, revealing a thin, long tube underneath. The material was unknown, but it felt warm to the touch.
"This thing can transmit energy?" he muttered.
The notification tone then added, "Signs of weak energy transmission detected, flowing in the same direction as the tracking path. We recommend extending your exploration along this route."
"Okay, whatever you say."
He stood up, stretched his shoulders, and his Steel Bone cracked a few times. Although he was exhausted, at least he had a clear direction. It wasn't just blind luck anymore; there were real clues to follow.
He walked to the wall, found a broken ventilation shaft, pried open the iron bars, and crawled inside. The pipe was narrow, and he could only crawl forward. After crawling for about twenty meters, a downward slope appeared ahead, with light at the bottom.
He crawled forward on the ground and peered out—below was a small underground chamber with sealed walls on all sides. In the center was a device that looked like a terminal, and the screen was still lit up, displaying a series of data streams.
Most importantly, next to the machine's input port was a familiar black chip—from the same source as the Vibranium shard, but larger, with runes engraved on its surface.
"Wow... how could I run into this?" Ye Mo's eyes lit up. "Isn't this a ready-made reader?"
As he was figuring out how to get down, the message in his head suddenly changed:
"Warning: High concentration of particle aggregation detected, distance reduced to 300 meters. Tracking is about to enter its final stage."
Ye Mo's heart skipped a beat.
He knew the real clue was just ahead.