Chapter 1 As a Person Familiar with the *** Setting

As someone relatively familiar with the *** setting, Feng Bujue immediately understood many things after hearing the broadcast.

First, there was "dim_sector." As Jue-ge knew… [sector] represented "a large facility with many special functions, usually used to house safes and Euclid-class ***"; while [dim] was an abbreviation for dimdimensional, a prefix indicating "the Foundation facility used to study and isolate *** items with special spatial abilities, such as the ability to jump and warp ordinary space."

From this keyword, two points could be discerned: first, the base must be very large; second, the base contained at least one *** project with spatial abilities.

Second, the phrase "multiple containment measures have failed and there are reports of casualties" was undoubtedly a very clear hint.

Clearly, in addition to ***-173, at least two other *** projects within the facility had gone out of control. The power outage that had just occurred was very likely caused by other projects going out of control. The chain reaction caused by this situation was unpredictable... Heaven knew how many *** projects' containment might fail due to that one second or so of power outage.

"As expected...it's very different from that game..." Feng Bujue muttered thoughtfully after running for a while in the corridor.

The "game" he was referring to was a fan-made game from more than forty years ago (relative to Jue-ge's time) called * ***-173*. Although the game was a sincere and commendable work, it was, after all, a small-budget project and relatively "streamlined" in various senses.

Whether it was environmental detail, map size, NPC count, *** quantity, overall difficulty, or plot... the *** world shaped by Thriller Paradise's "system" was clearly much larger and more complex.

"Phew...finally found it..." After running along the corridor for a full five minutes, Feng Bujue finally arrived at the stairwell.

Along the way, there had been more than a dozen forks in the corridor, with corresponding signs at each corner. There were also several arrows in the corridor indicating the direction of the stairs, so Jue-ge couldn't have gone the wrong way.

"Speaking of which, this base is ridiculously big..." Jue-ge gasped for breath as he walked to the electronic door of the stairwell. "From the laboratory where ***-173 was held to this stairwell... the straight-line distance is more than 360 meters. And the signs at the forks along the way indicate that... there's a space for containing a *** project at the end of each road. Calculating it this way... the area of this floor alone is conservatively estimated to be tens of thousands of square meters..."

While muttering, he pressed a red button next to the electronic door.

*Beep*—

After a beep, the door opened, revealing the stairwell behind it. The light in the stairwell was also red, completely consistent with the other areas.

At that moment, several researchers in white coats were running down the stairs from the floor above. As they passed Jue-ge, they only glanced at the armed D-class personnel with a look of panic, without saying anything more. It seemed that... there was something else that frightened them more than the armed criminal right in front of them.

"The emergency shelter is below, huh..." Feng Bujue made such a judgment from the direction these people were moving. "Well... that's right. Once some projects lose containment, they have to be dealt with by strategic nuclear strikes. It's meaningless to escape from the ground or the air; only by hiding underground is there a chance to survive."

Just as he was pondering, the electronic door behind him opened again. A second later, a researcher ran out of the door and rushed downstairs.

"Hey!" Seeing this, Feng Bujue immediately stepped forward, grabbed the man, and pointed the gun at him, asking, "Is the emergency shelter downstairs?"

"Y-yes... it is," the researcher replied nervously, staring at the gun.

"Where are the Anomalous projects in this base located?" Feng Bujue asked again.

"Uh..." The other party hesitated visibly.

*Tu-tu-tu*—

Feng Bujue raised his gun and fired several shots into the ceiling. Then, he pressed the gun against the man's chest: "I hope you understand... in the current situation, I have the guts, the ability, and the reason to do anything."

The researcher swallowed and glanced at the staircases leading to the upper and lower floors, confirming that no one was nearby for the time being. Then, he lowered his voice and said, "My clearance doesn't allow me to access Anomalous projects. I can't go to many areas in the base... What I can tell you is... there shouldn't be what you're looking for on the first, second, or fourth underground floors."

Before he could finish speaking, a strange sound of *zzt...zzt-zzt-zzt...* came from the other side of the electronic door.

The researcher immediately exclaimed in alarm, "It's coming! Run! Or you'll die too!"

Hearing this, Feng Bujue released the man and moved the gun away. The researcher ran down the stairs without looking back.

Jue-ge remained calmly standing in place and muttered, "Tch... what's there to be afraid of?" He looked at the closed electronic door behind him. "It can't open the door by itself."

Feng Bujue knew very well that the *zzt* sound was the sound of ***-173's body rubbing against the walls, but 173 didn't have the intelligence to "press switches."

"Let me see... where is this..." As he spoke, he moved his gaze to the sign next to the electronic door and saw the letters [B2]. "Oh... so this is the second underground floor..." As he spoke, his mind raced, and all the signs by the forks in the road earlier flashed through his mind. "Okay... this floor really does contain known *** projects. There are no Anomalous ones..."

While thinking, he started walking toward the floor below.

After stepping down dozens of steps and turning 180 degrees, he arrived at the electronic door of the third underground floor [B3].

However... there was no protruding red button next to the door here. Instead, there was a card reader.

"Hmm... should I wait and see..." Feng Bujue immediately thought. "If the people on this floor haven't all left yet, then I can just stand here for a while, and someone will open the door from the inside. Then I'll use my gun to force them to hand over their access card and enter this floor..."

As a result, he only waited for two seconds before abandoning the idea, because... in those two seconds, he heard a "beep" sound.

The sound came from above, indicating that the electronic door on the [B2] floor had been opened at that moment.

But... after the door opened, there was no other movement...

No footsteps, no breathing... nothing.

Feng Bujue quickly realized something. He suddenly turned around, his eyes widening.

In the same second, ***-173 had already appeared in front of him. The distance between them was less than a meter.

"Heh..." Seeing this scene when he turned around would have made a normal person jump in fright, but Feng Bujue could still smile. "If I had turned around half a second later, my neck would probably have been snapped..." Feng Bujue said casually, and while "staring" at ***-173, he walked around it, step by step, toward the floor above.

When he passed the corner of the stairs, even though he hadn't blinked, ***-173 still left his sight.

In that instant, Jue-ge turned his head and glared without hesitation. Sure enough... 173 had used a momentary movement to arrive directly behind him and was "stared" at by him again.

"Sigh... I don't know what's going on. Did everyone on B2 die? Why did it chase me all the way here?" Feng Bujue looked at the other party without blinking and reached behind him, feeling for the button on the electronic door.

After the door opened, he walked backward into the corridor of B2 until the electronic door automatically closed, blocking his view. Only then did he blink.

Next, he stood in place and waited for a while, listening carefully... This time, there was no sound at all from the other side of the door. The *zzt* sound was no longer heard.

"This guy..." Feng Bujue quickly came to a conclusion. "He must have accidentally touched the button while 'rubbing' against the wall."

He was right. 173 wouldn't actively "press" the electronic door switch. The opening of the door just now was a complete coincidence.

"In any case, it shouldn't be able to catch up to me again in a short time..." After a few more seconds, Feng Bujue left the electronic door and walked slowly toward the other end of the corridor. "I'll just wander around this floor for now."

His strategy and actions remained calm and rational throughout...

A sudden, unexpected situation like the one in the stairwell just now would have likely killed someone else, but he handled it methodically.

First, he didn't follow the conventional thinking of "going down." Instead, he chose to turn back.

Because he didn't know whether the door to B4 was opened with a button or a card reader. If that floor also required a card to enter, he would have to go down another floor, but the situation on B5 was equally unknown. He knew that... in the stairwell, every time he moved one floor, ***-173 would inevitably leave his sight once, and every time he let 173 leave his sight, the player would face a deadly threat. It was to minimize this risk that Jue-ge returned to B2.

Second, Feng Bujue had another reason for returning—he had already memorized all the "signs" by the forks on both sides of the 360-meter corridor. Therefore, he could be sure that, other than 173, there were no particularly threatening projects (if he didn't actively provoke them) on the B2 floor.

In summary, all of his actions were the result of calm consideration and weighing the pros and cons.

In the midst of the crisis, Feng Bujue displayed a composure that was astonishing to onlookers.

...

Three minutes later, Feng Bujue arrived at the B2 staff lounge.

Although it was a staff lounge, there was also a *** project here...

[Project Number: ***-294]

[Object Class: Euclid]

[Special Containment Procedures: No standard special containment procedures are recorded for Project ***-294. However, only personnel with a security clearance level of 2 or higher are permitted to interact with it. ***-294 is currently stored in the staff lounge on Level 2, guarded day and night by two guards with Level 3 security clearance. Interaction with it requires security clearance.]

[Description: Project ***-294 appears to be an ordinary coffee vending machine, the only significant difference being that it has a touchpad for input, with a key layout corresponding to the QWERTY keyboard (i.e., the standard keyboard we currently use).

After inserting a 50-cent coin into the coin slot, ***-294 will prompt the user to use the touchpad to enter the name of any liquid. After inputting, the machine will produce a standard 12-ounce paper cup and inject the specified liquid into it.]

[97 tests have been conducted... including drinks such as water, coffee, beer, and soda; non-consumable items such as sulfuric acid, windshield washer fluid, and engine oil; and substances that usually do not exist in liquid form, such as nitrogen, iron, and glass... all were successful. However, tests on solids such as diamonds have failed. ***-294 seems to only be able to output substances that can exist in liquid form.]

[It is worth mentioning that the machine will not respond to commands after being used approximately 50 times. However, after 90 minutes, "it" seems to replenish its stock on its own. Another interesting point is that many corrosive liquids that should corrode ordinary paper cups seem to have no effect on the cups dispensed by the machine.]

"Aha!" Jue-ge showed an excited smile when he saw the coffee machine.

However, he didn't rush to use the machine. The first thing he did was search the pockets of the corpses in the room.

After Feng Bujue returned to B2, he had already found many corpses in the corridor, and he treated them all equally. Whether they were researchers, security personnel, or D-class personnel, he searched them all thoroughly.

Although the items on these people were truly limited, gathering a few bits and pieces still yielded quite a few resources.

For example... a Level 3 access card, for example... 50-cent coins, and for example... pistols, pistol ammunition, submachine gun ammunition, walkie-talkies, and so on.

In short, they were all things that were better to take than leave behind...

"Okay, having something is better than nothing..." Feng Bujue walked to the front of the coffee machine and first counted how many 50-cent coins he had in his hand. "Three is fine too..."

In fact, he was already lucky to have found three such coins. D-class personnel usually had nothing on them, while the personal belongings of researchers and security personnel were stored in a storage room within the facility. Most of the people who brought "change" into the test area were careless and forgot to empty their pockets.

"So... the first cup..." Feng Bujue inserted a coin and, after seeing the prompt, quickly typed a sentence on the keyboard—[A cup of Woody].

Here, it must be explained that... the things that ***-294 can produce are not limited to human creations and may not even be limited to human knowledge.

For example, a Foundation agent named Joseph, joking with a friend, entered the command "A cup of Joe (Joseph's nickname)." Soon after confirming the selection, the agent became covered in sweat, complained of dizziness, and quickly collapsed...

After transferring him to the medical ward, the medical team extracted the contents of the cup dispensed by Project ***-294 and found that it was a mixture of blood, flesh, and other bodily fluids, with an unbearable stench. Most disturbingly, tests showed that the DNA sequence of the tissue sent by Project ***-294 was completely identical to Joseph's.

There are many such examples or experiments... Commands such as "A cup of music," "My life," and "Give me a surprise" have all been answered by this coffee machine, although some of the experimental results were not very good...

Feng Bujue was naturally well aware of all this, which is why he entered seemingly nonsensical content like "A cup of Woody."

*Buzz-buzz-buzz*—

After receiving Jue-ge's command, the coffee machine began to hum and tremble, shaking...

This process lasted for about twenty seconds. Then, the following sentence appeared on the input panel of ***-294: "Heh-heh-heh..."

"Tch... did it fail..." Feng Bujue showed an unhappy expression. "But shouldn't it display 'Out of Range' when it fails... What's with the 'Heh-heh-heh'..."

Disappointed, he still inserted a second coin and entered—[A liquid that can prevent ***-173 from moving even when not directly observed]

Some might ask why Jue-ge didn't simply enter "A liquid that can kill ***-173"? There was definitely a reason for this, because... he remembered that there was such a record in the relevant appendix of ***-294:

Appendix [***-294y]: Computer records on the *** public server show that a researcher once typed "Something that can destroy ***-682." Retrieved video recordings showed a bright, dazzling liquid flowing into the cup, its light intensity constantly increasing until the camera could no longer record. At the same time, all contact with the facility was also cut off. The subsequent investigation concluded that the site had been completely vaporized, with only a small cluster of trees surrounding ***-294 remaining at the ruins. ***-294 was then quickly transferred to another monitoring site and placed under the same management procedures. Information about the accident is only disclosed to O5-level personnel. Any further experiments involving ***-682 are prohibited, and violators will be demoted to D-class.

The above appendix is a bloody lesson...

Perhaps 173's hostility and intelligence towards humans were not as exaggerated as 682's, but its strength might not be worse than the latter. Feng Bujue estimated that... if he created a liquid similar to the one in that accident, even if it didn't evaporate the entire base, just evaporating a room... he wouldn't be able to withstand it. Therefore, he used a safer and more reliable method.

*Buzz-buzz-buzz*—

The machine quickly rang again. Before long, a paper cup fell from the machine, and a small cup of liquid was immediately injected into the paper cup.

"Whoa~ Success!" Feng Bujue picked up the cup and placed it on the table in the lounge. "Now it's much easier. I'll find 173 later and splash it in its face."

After putting down the cup, Jue-ge returned to the machine and inserted the third coin.

If the liquid specified by the second coin could not be generated, Feng Bujue's backup plan was... [A liquid that prevents my neck from being snapped] or [A liquid that allows me to never blink]. But now that he had obtained something that could suppress 173, he had another excellent opportunity to try.