Chapter 272: A Long-Term Plan

Chapter 272: A Long-Term Plan

“Alright. Whether it’s deception or something else, it has nothing to do with me. In the future… forget it.” Qin waved her hand helplessly. Saying she wouldn’t let this woman come here in the future was impossible. Stopping her? Under certain conditions, this woman truly could do whatever she wanted.

“Hey, the future is a matter for the future. I quite like this place too. I definitely won’t let it become a battlefield.” Dan Marina smiled. At this point, she had already gotten everything she wanted. Saying some nice things in front of the ‘victim’ didn’t cost anything, so why not say them? She wouldn’t suffer any loss, and it would make Qin feel a bit better.

How much better?

Well, something was better than nothing, right?

“Aren’t you planning to leave yet?” Seeing Dan Marina showed no intention of leaving, Qin asked with a slight frown.

“I was just chatting earlier. I haven’t had enough fun yet.”

“…Pay the bill first,” Qin said, her tone rather displeased.

“Wow~ Did I really sleep for this long?” After waking up again, Zheng Yichen pulled out his watch to check the time and let out an exaggerated sound. Tsk. He thought he had only overslept a bit, but he had actually slept straight through to the next day. Was sleeping really the best way to relieve stress when feeling down?

Alcohol? Well, Zheng Yichen had tried Otherworld alcohol. The taste wasn’t bad, but he didn’t really like drinking it. “Huh? Where’s Loli?”

He looked around. Not finding Loris, Zheng Yichen stood up, stretched his body lazily, and rubbed his head. Probably because his mood had recovered, thinking back on his behavior from the day before yesterday now felt a bit silly.

But wasn’t that just how people were? Spending every day feeling foolish about yesterday’s self? Sitting on the ground, he rested his chin on his hand and thought. Hmm… Overall, this situation needed to be addressed somehow. He would ask Dan Marina and Loris how to handle it later.

Digging around in his Personal Space for a while, Zheng Yichen pulled out that cut crystal. It had dense, orderly cut marks. If it weren’t for the layer of Mana binding the outer layer, a slight shake would make it completely fall apart.

There was also a layer of special power inside insulating those divided areas, preventing them from recombining and returning to normal after being pieced together. There was no doubt about the strength of this thing anymore. Loris had taken almost a month to successfully cut it. If it were anyone else, Zheng Yichen felt that except for Irene, the Creator, anyone with insufficient strength probably couldn’t cut this thing in a lifetime.

“Hmm…” Arriving at his Laboratory, Zheng Yichen noted down the order for reassembling the cut crystal pieces. He then immediately took out some materials he had prepared earlier. Upon close observation, each cut crystal piece, except for the one divided proportionally, had a slender, needle-like extra extension. These extensions primarily converged at the ‘core’ point of the crystal. That core point was pre-set by Zheng Yichen as a processing center.

As for the outer layer, as long as the inner layer was handled properly, the outer parts could be left to restore themselves. After all, the energy within the crystal could be extracted quite easily.

“Hmm, it seems like it will take quite a long time.” Zheng Yichen picked up a piece of crystal and looked at it. This thing could be considered Epic-grade material. Working with it wouldn’t be something solved in a short time, even by being serious for a few days. Loris had taken a long time to process it, and Zheng Yichen also needed a long time for the subsequent fabrication.

Looking at the Alchemy blueprint he designed, he let out a small sigh. He decided not to neglect food and sleep for research anymore. Checking the time punctually, he closed his Pocket Watch, stuffed the workbench holding these crystals into his Personal Space, and left his Laboratory.

“Finished?” In the main living room of the Underground Base, Loris asked, looking at Zheng Yichen who had arrived.

“Ah~ Not yet. This isn’t something that can be settled in a short while. Let’s take it slowly.” Zheng Yichen said. According to his design plan, as long as he could fabricate that pre-designed Power Crystal, it would absolutely be an Epic-grade Magic Stone. “I have some questions I want to ask you.”

Zheng Yichen told Loris about his earlier thoughts. Loris listened very seriously and then shook her head slightly. “Your situation is different from mine, so my experience isn’t suitable for you.”

The reason for Zheng Yichen’s mental breakdown wasn’t just built-up pressure over time. More of it was due to his body issue. Zheng Yichen’s physical state was non-Human now, yet his Soul was a genuine Human one. Ignoring the distortion of his Dragon Body, his Soul essence remained Human. Such a Soul using an Outsider body for a long time, even if it could ignore the essential distortion, would inevitably be severely affected psychologically.

Normally, before the Soul of a Cursed Dragon became twisted, such phenomena would occur. Once one couldn’t hold onto their original heart, it would speed up the distortion process.

What worried Loris was whether Zheng Yichen, due to the appearance of this phenomenon, would no longer be able to ignore the Dragon Body’s distortion of his Soul, causing the essence of his own Soul to change. One must know that although the Soul was fragile, it was highly malleable. Otherwise, how could entities like Evil Spirits become uglier as they fell?

Souls affected by large amounts of negative energy would also undergo a series of ‘mutations,’ unless the Soul itself was very strong, capable of ignoring the changes brought by these negative energy influences, and even using them as its own power source.

“Don’t put too much pressure on yourself. And you don’t need to keep too many secrets from me.” After thinking for a moment, Loris said very seriously to Zheng Yichen.

“Pressure… Let’s treat it as motivation for progress for now. Secrets… How did you notice?” Zheng Yichen scratched his head. He did have a secret. The reason he hadn’t told her wasn’t to hide it and secretly cause trouble, but… he had other thoughts.

“I watch you every day, of course I can tell.”

“Cough, that’s tough.” Upon hearing Loris say that, Zheng Yichen felt somewhat frustrated. Being watched every day—if it were him in his Human state, Zheng Yichen would be happy. But it just so happened that it was now, with this Dragon Body. The pile of grievances in his heart was practically reaching the heavens.

Loris fell silent. She knew she had said the wrong thing just now…

“Take a look at this.” Zheng Yichen scratched his head and placed a sealed file folder in front of Loris.

“…” She silently looked at this several-meters-large file folder, then looked at Zheng Yichen with a faintly helpless expression. He clearly hadn’t prepared a version meant for Humans to read. The moment she reached out and grabbed the file folder, its volume rapidly shrank.

Forcibly compressing the volume of the file folder was similar to making an object larger. The difference was, with the former, if you made it larger, the expanded space needed to be filled with Mana. Therefore, even if it became very large, its weight wouldn’t increase much unless you additionally compressed the quality of the Mana. The latter involved compressing it; even if it shrank, the weight wouldn’t decrease…

Of course, this compression had limits. You couldn’t compress indefinitely. Everything had a compression limit. Once past that limit, even compressing a tiny bit more would cause Mana consumption to increase by tens or even hundreds of times.

—Black Moon Project.

“? You want to reach for the heavens?” Loris looked at Zheng Yichen with a rather puzzled expression.

“What do you think?”

“Let me take a look.” Loris opened the file folder and carefully read the contents inside. The first few pages contained some of Zheng Yichen’s ideas. The rest were preparations for his plan, but the content wasn’t much. It seemed to have been recently refined, not even reaching a framework stage. After all, according to the envisioned progress, Zheng Yichen’s plan was simply too grand; it couldn’t be completed within just a few years!

Overall, it was something that hadn’t even taken shape yet.

“Very imaginative. I’ll help you!” Loris put the plan she had read back into the file folder, handed it back to Zheng Yichen, and said. Her voice carried some complexity and a hard-to-suppress emotional fluctuation.

“Hey, I thought you’d say it’s a pipe dream. This is fine then.” Zheng Yichen grinned. When he came up with this plan, the reason he didn’t let Loris, the closest person to him, know about it was partly due to this worry. But now, having received affirmation, the pressure brought by such thoughts immediately vanished.

Watching Zheng Yichen leave rather enthusiastically, Loris gently touched her cheek. The feeling of being cared for… how long had it been since she experienced that? The main content of the Black Moon Project related to Witches. Zheng Yichen believed the Black Moon was a key root cause leading to Witch Berserk.

If they could solve the Black Moon issue, even if they couldn’t completely eliminate the possibility of Witch Berserk, they could greatly delay such occurrences. At the very least, those Witches who couldn’t fully control their power wouldn’t go Berserk due to the Black Moon’s influence… With the influence of Berserk reduced, no matter how much The Church targeted Witches, it wouldn’t be as extreme as before. At least not all Witches would be targeted.

Of course, the plan didn’t exclude the possibility of The Church stubbornly persisting against Witches. If that were truly the case, then the Sanctuary Church must have some problems. One must know, with the danger from Berserk reduced, Witches would effectively have a much lower threat level. The remaining threats would come from those evil, chaotic-type Witches.

Some neutral, orderly Witches would be like certain powerful individuals—perfectly normal to kill offenders if provoked. Of course, this was the second stage after the Black Moon Project. As for the first stage, it was enough for Zheng Yichen to strive for a long time. Regarding the Black Moon, many Witches had ideas before, including Loris herself. It was just that the ‘barrier’ layer in the sky was incredibly difficult to break through. Loris had tried before, but it still ended in failure!

The higher she tried to break through, the greater the pressure became. In the end, she couldn’t endure it. If there hadn’t been a trust crisis back then and all Witches had united to try, perhaps it might have been possible. But now the number of Witches was far fewer than before. Even if united, whether they could succeed was another matter. Most importantly, some Witches weren’t willing to do this.

They were doing fine. Their power didn’t show signs of being uncontrollable. They basically faced no risk of Berserk. Under such conditions, why take unknown risks to do this?

And… some Witches might even prevent such actions. Since the Black Moon could cause a Witch’s Power to go Berserk, some Witches speculated: once the Black Moon had problems, would they lose their power as a result?

Speaking of research level, Loris now knew she was inferior to Zheng Yichen. What she could do now was support him, help him remove any obstacles. That was the best repayment for him. As for why Zheng Yichen came up with this Black Moon Project, it was clearly for the people he cared about.

He wasn’t a Witch. No matter how much the Black Moon flared up, it wouldn’t affect him at all!

“What secret have you two been up to lately?” Returning to the Underground Base, Dan Marina crossed her arms, looking at Loris with an almost dumbfounded expression. She vaguely sensed that the relationship between Loris and Zheng Yichen now seemed to have grown closer. Hey, hey, hey, what about the chance to take advantage of the situation?

Gone just like that?

She hadn’t wanted to come here early to check on things, but at that time all entrances to the Underground Base were sealed. She couldn’t come!

“Nothing!” Loris said indifferently. The Black Moon Project hadn’t even taken shape yet, so there was no need to rush to find trustworthy collaborators. Dan Marina was a good choice. With her abilities assisting, Zheng Yichen could avoid many detours. But this matter was too important. It might involve all Witches. It wasn’t that she hadn’t stopped Zheng Yemen from causing trouble with this woman before—it was because those matters weren’t ‘important.’

Only this matter. She couldn’t gauge Dan Marina’s true thoughts. After all, the two hypotheses about the Black Moon were known to almost all Witches. Dan Marina knew even more than others. If she held an opposing attitude, she could easily and quietly create obstacles…

Back when she was restrained by the Sanctuary Church, she could still find ways to benefit from various subtle loopholes. Let alone now. The absoluteness of Contract punishment? Don’t be ridiculous. For others, such a claim might be somewhat reliable. Dan Marina? She had too many ways. Perhaps there was one that could allow her to pay a great price and escape punishment.

Loris wasn’t even sure if some Witch ‘Curses’ could be avoided by her through certain means. This woman’s mind was too hard to guess. Therefore, barring certain absolute conditions, Loris would never fully trust her. Even if a Contract was used to bind her… Contract? She had pried open the Sanctuary Church’s Contract. How reliable could other Contracts be?

“Then I’ll ask the Little Dragon.”

A flash of worry briefly passed through Loris’s eyes… If this woman sincerely tried to deceive Zheng Yichen, getting information out of him would be too easy. She might obtain the information she wanted at some inadvertent moment… Should she try to kill her?