Chapter 973: The Unimaginable Clues
Translator: Sean88888 Editor: Elkassar1
What Sheyan had brought out was the ordinary-looking metal nut which hid a huge secret.
Sheyan placed the metal nut in the aluminum alloy drawer beside him and applied for analysis and appraisal with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. A buzzing sound arose in the room, like the sound made by a microwave oven. Sheyan closed his eyes and waited patiently for the result.
About five minutes after the buzz, the sound slowly subsided, and a series of reports immediately appeared on the holographic projection in front of Sheyan.
[Analysis and appraisal fees: 2,000 utility points.]
[The results of analysis and appraisal are as follows:-]
[Composition: Carbon ferroalloy containing 0.9% carbon. Nothing out of the ordinary detected.]
[Design concept: very common.]
[Application: very common]
[Processing technology: very common.]
[Special feature(s): not found.]
Sheyan was naturally shocked when he saw the report. There's no way he would believe that the metal nut was so ordinary. This should not be the result!
"Something must have gone wrong somewhere."
Sheyan pondered for a while and applied for further appraisal, but this time the cost of appraisal rose to 4,000 utility points. He accepted. The results were the same. Sheyan wouldn't give up and stubbornly continued to apply for appraisals. After the appraisal fee rose to 12,000 utility points, Sheyan finally received this notification:
[Suspicious point: After a 1000x magnification, the letters "S.O.S" could be seen inscribed on the seventh thread of the nut. Who would have sent out such a hasty distress signal in such a way?]
Sheyan almost cursed out loud when he read the notification. Who could have imagined that the nut was just acting as a way of transmitting information like a piece of paper? Who could have thought that it must be magnified by a thousand times before such a bizzare clue could be found?
Sheyan was utterly confused by the mystery surrounding the nut. Even though he was good at deduction, it was impossible to infer any useful information from an ordinary nut and a very common SOS message that could only be seen after the nut was magnified a thousand times. The only clue he had was that the nut was from the the Terminator world. It was an impossible task!
Fortunately, Sheyan received another notification:
[It has been confirmed that this nut was originally made in the Terminator world, and that it contains a strong power of destiny, so you will be able to pay a certain amount of fee to enter the Terminator world to explore its mysteries. You can apply for it when you are able to enter the next world.]
Sheyan keyed-in his query: "I wish to enter the world with my party. I would also like to know of any consequences from changing the world I enter, or any relevant information."
The reply was:
[Individual intrusion will cost 5,000 utility points. We have identified your party to be a small high-level Silver party, so a party intrusion will cost 15,000 utility points and 3 achievement points. After you get into the Terminator world, you will explore it the same way you would in a normal entry. However, you will not randomly draw the Terminator world in the next three adventures after this one, nor can you enter the Terminator world via an intrusion in the meantime. There is a certain cooldown period between two intrusion attempts.]
Next, Sheyan learned that the next world he would enter was the world of Harry Potter.... To be honest, that was the world he was most reluctant to touch right now due to the ring on his hand. Therefore, he chose the Terminator world without hesitation.
After much discussion with his teammates, Sheyan was ready to choose his final Golden Side Mission reward. He ruled out the medicine that could directly upgrade a contestant to a Growth Hunter, and the low 20% chance eventually led Sheyan to give up on the Tearstone Solution, which was the most valuable item in the auction house. He was never one to place his faith on luck.
In the end, Sheyan chose the 'Puppet of Photography' because he was someone who lacked effective attacking methods. The item would enrich the tactics he could use on offence. The main negative aspect of the device was the aggro drawn after a failure in taking a photo, but Party Ace with their dual-MT configuration could turn this disadvantage into an advantage.
As the saying goes, it may be difficult to do a good job, but it is quite simple to mess something up. For example, if they were fighting a powerful storyline BOSS and Reef was having difficulty hanging on, Sheyan could take a failure of a photo on purpose and get the boss to attack him instead, so that Reef could take a breather. In addition, Sheyan had a lot of passive abilities such as his diseases and 'Corrosynthesis' that could cause continuous damage to a successful photograph.....
**************
Not much happened after that. The others felt time pass by in the blink of an eye. Only Sheyan had a strange feeling in his heart.
As the first world he entered, the Terminator world held a special significance in Sheyan's heart. He thought back to the last time he entered that world, to his wariness and his panic. Now, he was leading a whole party of unbelievably powerful people into that same world. The strong contrast between the past and the present filled him with melancholy.
[Starting the process of entering a nightmare world...]
[Data matching initiated...]
[Pairing process initiated...]
[World selected...]
[Assimilating characters with the world...]
[Entering the world...]
[Judgment day is approaching the peaceful earth. The peaceful lives of humans will soon be destroyed.]
[Is it too late to change the destiny of mankind?]
[The war between machines and flesh, between survival and death!]
[Killing and protection, risk and wealth!]
[How many secrets are hidden behind the darkness?]
[Do not let your eyes be blinded by profit!]
[Set out for the sake of mankind!]
This time, after entering the light portal leading to the world, Sheyan did not lose consciousness. He was only temporarily blinded, then found himself sitting in an old Ford sedan.
Because the car was parked in a parking lot on a building, he could see the view of the city in the distance. A few strands of black smoke had risen on the west side of Los Angeles. Numerous helicopters were hovering aimlessly in the air like lost houseflies. Seeing such a scene, Sheyan immediately thought that maybe a fierce battle was currently taking place in Los Angeles!
But at that moment, Sheyan suddenly felt a slight numbness from the nightmare imprint, followed by a series of notifications in his ears:
[Sarah Connor has returned from her vacation and has landed at the Los Angeles International Airport.]
[The T-800 Terminator will enter this world through the time displacement sphere in ten minutes.]
[Warning: So far, seven contestants have triggered a Level II Regional Mission, causing Skynet to send multiple T-750 Terminators into the world ahead of schedule. The dispatched T-800 Terminator will also be in its complete form.]
[Warning: The destruction of four T-750 Terminators has raised the alarm of Skynet, so from this point on, Skynet will send Sarah Connor's exact location to the T-800 every half an hour.]
[Warning: The LAPD are heavily understaffed currently because of heavy losses sustained in previous fights. Before reinforcements arrive, they will shrink their protection perimeter and will concentrate on protecting a few key areas. In the meantime, the LAPD will be much less likely to send out police officers, and responses to emergency situations will become unusually slow. This will last for 12 hours.]
[Please decide whether to save Sarah Connor or kill her. Your choice will affect the direction of the main storyline mission.]
Seeing the notifications, Sheyan could not help feeling a bit emotional.
"Damn it! How could you give me a choice like this at this kind of time? " Sheyan frowned. "And the rest of the contestants were obviously here ahead of us. Could it be...."
************
On the other side of the city while Sheyan was spacing out....
Ougens was breathing heavily.
His beard was stained with blood and saliva, and he leaned hard against the pillar in the parking lot, feeling the hardness and coldness behind him. His lungs seemed to squeeze out the last breath they had. His strength was waning together with the blood spilling out from the three wounds he sustained.
The most serious injury was the one from a punch on his chest. At least five radial cracks appeared on his sternum. Two ribs were broken and had pierced into his lungs, causing pain with each breath he took. A feeling of suffocation slowly assaulted him.
The sound of gunfire in the distance had never stopped, occasionally accompanied by the sound of explosion. The emotionless T-800 Terminator (Arnold) was launching his assault without saying a word. It was worth mentioning that the injury on Ougens' chest was caused by a casual punch from the T-800. At that time, he was diligently blocking bullets for the Terminator.
Cold and heartless. These traits of the T-800 were on full display.
Ougens regretted taking part in this mess. It's true, the T-800's strength was overwhelmingly superior to the male and female protagonists, and it was now even more powerful than it was in the original plot. But in contrast, the contestants who chose to guard the male and female protagonists also had an overwhelming advantage in both quantity and quality compared with the contestants who chose to protect the T-800.
8 to 3.
That was Ougens' estimate. 8 enemies, 3 allies. He couldn't even confirm whether this was the final number, because there were still the possibilities of hidden enemies. When he thought about this, he could not help thinking of that person.