Match Value (Revised)

Luo Ruzhuo tried taking a step forward.

The world spun before her eyes, and the mosaic shifted rapidly. In the end, the lake where she had started appeared before her again.

She was back.

A sentinel's mental domain not only had a boundary; crossing it would even send someone back to the starting point.

She didn't know how it worked, but Luo Ruzhuo's curiosity had been satisfied.

She looked up at the sky. There were far fewer clouds of contamination overhead.

It was about time.

She stroked the red-crowned crane's head as a reward for carrying her around. "Thank you. Goodbye, little crane. I'm leaving now."

When she returned to her body, Luo Ruzhuo opened her eyes and couldn't help frowning deeply.

At some point, she had fallen into Lin Sheng's arms.

His face was bright red, right down to his earlobes. He had a pink flush all over, and he seemed about to faint.

Luo Ruzhuo, however, straightened up and quickly put some distance between them, absorbed in her own thoughts.

Was it because of that bout of dizziness just now?

My movements inside a mental domain... seem to affect my body in reality.

Luo Ruzhuo made a firm note of that precaution.

She wasn't worried that Lin Sheng would harm her. Besides the round-the-clock surveillance in the purification room, every sentinel was screened for dangerous items before entering. Even if this sentinel broke free of his restraints, Luo Ruzhuo's mental barrier would still be there.

If an attacker struck, the only one who would get hurt was the attacker.

Seeing that the young man was red as a crab from head to toe, she came back to herself and offered him a few words of reassurance.

"Sorry, I stayed in there a little longer than I meant to. My Mental Entity isn't fully developed, so President Fang said this is the only way I can purify contamination for now."

With that, she got up and removed everything he had been cuffed, tied, and fitted with. "Are you feeling numb? You can stand up and move around now."

"No, I'm not..." The young man stood up and hurriedly said, "I didn't feel any discomfort, and I wasn't offended... Thank you so much for treating me, Miss Luo! I feel much better now."

He wasn't just being polite. In fact, Luo Ruzhuo had only been inside for about an hour, but Lin Sheng had felt the irritation in his mind gradually subside, replaced by clarity and pleasure.

Before coming, he had read the notice Luo Ruzhuo's purification room issued to sentinels and knew that she didn't yet have a Mental Entity. Without one, she could achieve such a remarkable purification effect!

To be honest, Lin Sheng was surprised too.

He turned it over in his mind and thought of the only possible explanation.

"That's good, then." Luo Ruzhuo smiled.

She didn't care what Lin Sheng thought; she was only being polite.

Luo Ruzhuo picked up the optical computer scanner and scanned him, then checked the latest updated information.

Name: Lin Sheng

Mental Entity: red-crowned crane

Sex: male sentinel

Rank: A-rank

Contamination level: 80%

Squad: First District · Firmament Squad

His contamination level had only dropped by 10%, less than it had with the black-footed cat, but considering the difference in rank, Luo Ruzhuo nodded, already quite satisfied with herself.

Luo Ruzhuo was only slightly satisfied with herself, completely unaware of the turmoil in someone else's heart.

The last time Lin Sheng underwent purification, his guide had been the same rank as him, an A-rank with a sheep for a Mental Entity. Guides whose Mental Entities were small herbivores were generally gentle enough—but the higher a sentinel's rank, the thicker their mental barrier. Every time he received mental guidance, Lin Sheng's head felt as if someone were sawing through his mental barrier with a saw blade, and even his eyeballs hurt along with it.

That was only the beginning. After the pain, the rest of the purification felt as if something were crashing and clanging around inside his brain, wreaking havoc. More than pain, there was irritation and an urge to destroy.

The things beneath the guide's desk were there to guard against sentinels at this stage.

Finally, he had to endure another bout of saw-like pain before the purification was truly over. After all that, his contamination level had only dropped by 10%, which was already a significant result.

Compared with that, today's purification had felt like a spring breeze. It was the difference between heaven and hell.

The guess in Lin Sheng's mind was gradually confirmed.

He gave her a very formal salute, placing his right fist just below his heart. Luo Ruzhuo vaguely remembered that this was an interstellar gesture meaning, "I show you my sincerity."

"Miss Luo, might I have the honor of adding your contact information?"

Luo Ruzhuo was puzzled. "Is adding your guide's contact information after purification some kind of mandatory requirement for you?"

"No." The young man's lips moved as he considered his wording, then he said tactfully, "Did President Fang not tell you? Effective purification without contact between Mental Entities is only possible between sentinels and guides with a high match value."

"Wait, what does match value mean?" Luo Ruzhuo frowned, realizing the gaps in her understanding of this world caused by the unequal information she had received so far.

Fang Yingbai had left quite a few pitfalls for her during training.

After Lin Sheng gave her a brief explanation, Luo Ruzhuo more or less understood. It was something like mental compatibility: sentinels and guides with high match values could easily pass through each other's mental barriers and enter their mental domains, and it made purifying contamination even easier.

Between sentinels and guides with low match values, however, their Mental Entities repelled each other and might not even be able to penetrate the other's mental barrier. Forcing a purification could cause the sentinel's mental domain to collapse or the guide's mental power to backlash.

Luo Ruzhuo had just come to an understanding when she heard the young man say in a clear voice, "I want your contact information because-your very existence is precious."

Luo Ruzhuo: ...

She knew a harmonious doctor-patient relationship was hard to come by, but why did that sound so strange?

Probably only in this world could someone make "I want you to treat me" sound so flattering.

A second person was added to her optical computer's friends list. Luo Ruzhuo gave him a note in her standard format: red-crowned crane, followed by his name in parentheses, (Lin Sheng).

After declining the reluctant young man's offer to escort her back to her dorm, Luo Ruzhuo gathered her things and checked her optical computer. It was only three thirty—and she was already off work.

Luo Ruzhuo walked out of the purification room in an excellent mood, her eyes curving with her smile.

Then she knocked on the door of the purification room next door-

Anna had no sentinels scheduled that afternoon. She had stayed in the purification room simply so she could meet up with Luo Ruzhuo and embark on their grand undertaking of pounding the pavement.

Before the planet beneath their feet had become a frontline war zone in Zone A, Anna told Luo Ruzhuo, it had been known by a name she knew well: Seona.

Anna was a local guide, born and raised. When she mentioned the name, her eyes held a tender nostalgia.

Seona was the third planet in the Jana Star System. Anna said that before the contamination outbreak, it had even ranked as a second-tier interstellar city.

Indeed, as Luo Ruzhuo took in the sights, she found that it lacked both the breathtaking level of technology in the Central District and the rough desolation of the frontier colony planets. Its buildings were arranged in pleasing layers, streams of hovercars crossed and stretched into the distance, and it struck an ideal balance between prosperity and comfort.

After getting out of the hovercar, Anna brought Luo Ruzhuo to a city landmark on Seona, the Sky City Shopping Center.

Three enormous, interlocking ellipsoids came into view. For all the talk of a city in the sky, it actually hovered only about thirty meters above the ground, roughly the height of a ten-story building before the apocalypse. Anna patted her chest and assured her that support pillars with transparent coatings held it up from below, so they definitely wouldn't fall!

The exterior seemed to be covered in dynamic holographic screens, currently displaying a deep-sea theme. Whales swam across the glass and jellyfish drifted slowly by, creating a beauty all its own.

Anna knew her way around and led Luo Ruzhuo into a gravity pod.

After three seconds of dizziness, the doors opened again, and they had arrived.

It was even bigger inside than Luo Ruzhuo had expected. The open atrium was several dozen meters high, and the ceiling was another dynamic holographic screen displaying two planets, one large and one small. A giant holographic projection floated in the middle: the hem of a model's dress turned into shooting stars, and nebulae filled the space beneath her feet as she walked.

Luo Ruzhuo was quite interested in the dress the model wore, but she had only started work a few days ago. All she had was the double overtime pay she had been advanced during training-ten thousand a day, with a week's pay advanced for living expenses, seventy thousand star coins in total.

By rights, Ankang Pharmaceuticals had paid twenty million in compensation, so she shouldn't have been penniless. But Luo Ruzhuo could guess with her toes that the original owner of this body had still been a minor at the time, living with her uncle and aunt, and the money probably had never reached her hands. Later, once she decided to kill Phil Rice, she hadn't expected to come out alive, so naturally she hadn't kept any money on her.

Luo Ruzhuo sighed, her gaze passing over a line of small print in the corner of the advertising screen: prices started at three million star coins.

Luo Ruzhuo: I've never felt so poor.

Anna noticed her gaze and followed it, then couldn't help expressing the same sentiment.

The two wandered around the clothing section. There were things they could afford, but Luo Ruzhuo's tastes leaned toward the primitive, and she had no appreciation for interstellar fashion. After making a circuit, they finally stopped in front of a small accessories shop.

The shop seemed to offer custom-made pieces, with prices ranging from high to low. Even to a "primitive" like Luo Ruzhuo, they could be called beautiful and captivating. Anna was even more reluctant to leave. She had already set her heart on one piece and was about to take it to the checkout when an arrogant voice suddenly came from behind them.

"Take your dirty hands off it. That one is mine."

Luo Ruzhuo turned to look. The newcomer wore a white uniform much like theirs at the Black Tower. He was also a guide, a man with fairly delicate features. Unfortunately, his expression ruined them: his eyes were gloomy and the corners of his mouth turned down, as if he had come looking for trouble.

It was a custom-order shop, but this piece was a standalone item the shopkeeper had made for practice and put up for sale. The sign beside it said so as clearly as could be. How had it become his?

Anna replied politely, "Sir, this piece isn't a custom order. By rights, it's first come, first served."

Anna even offered an explanation. Luo Ruzhuo glanced over from the corner of her eye without joining in, then turned and took the accessory to the self-checkout robot for a scan. Sure enough, no reservation information appeared.

The interface showed only a checkout list.

The man panicked and came over to block Luo Ruzhuo and Anna at the counter. "I don't care whether anyone reserved it before. I've set my eye on it now, so it's reserved-do you know who I am?"

Luo Ruzhuo didn't stop what she was doing. She took out her ID card, preparing to pay for the bracelet for Anna. "Who are you?"

"I'm an S-rank guide from Northern Dipper District!" Seeing that she was about to tap checkout, the man swiftly reached out with his rude chicken claw to snatch it away. He tugged, but it didn't budge. Turning his head, he saw the girl looking perfectly at ease, her arm pinning his hand down.

She looked slender, but the man couldn't move despite his efforts.

Luo Ruzhuo held him down. "So what if you're an S-rank guide? Does that mean you can grab other people's things?"

The man was furious, two streams of hot air puffing from his nostrils. "You're guides from War Zone A, aren't you?" He had recognized their uniforms long ago. "Can you treat that fellow Xianzhu's contamination?"

"Ha, not a chance. Not at your ranks. If you could, War Zone A's Black Tower wouldn't have invited me over. Do you know what a real guide is? If you know what's good for you, let go, and I might even let you watch and learn during the purification!"

The man rattled on at length. It all boiled down to how capable he was, how he had been invited to treat a sentinel they couldn't, and how they should hurry up and suck up to him if they knew what was good for them.

Luo Ruzhuo was completely lost. She hadn't even figured out who Xianzhu was.

Anna couldn't bring herself to let Luo Ruzhuo pay, so she quietly scanned her own ID card while the man was talking. Then she leaned over to explain to Luo Ruzhuo, "Do you remember the sentinel brought into the special containment room at noon? Right, the one you soothed this afternoon was that red-crowned crane, wasn't it?"

"He's the red-crowned crane's captain."

Understanding dawned on Luo Ruzhuo, and she remembered. "Is he difficult to deal with?"

At noon, she had been busy going to the cafeteria to eat and really hadn't paid attention to what that group of sentinels had been worried about.

Anna nodded. "He's War Zone A's only double-S sentinel. His Mental Entity is the only legendary species currently known-

"A dragon."