Under the guidance of Vermilion Bird, the other party quickly arrived. It was a Norther Sero, tall and muscular with thick fur, named Lucas. When he saw Li Ming, he appeared quite agitated, his face flushing red.
"Sir Li Ming... you’ve returned?"
The news of his return was still classified, and not many people at the base were aware of it. Li Ming smiled and nodded slightly.
"Let’s skip the pleasantries. This is an experimental mission. You might die. Or you might not." Li Ming spoke concisely, motioning for Lucas to sit down.
The man swallowed nervously. Though he had mentally prepared himself before coming, he still couldn’t help but feel somewhat uneasy now.
Li Ming didn’t waste any time, activating his ability again and selecting Lucas as his target.
The next moment, he returned to his body from that peculiar state, watching Lucas roll his eyes and freeze in place, seemingly lifeless.
Li Ming instructed Vermilion Bird to record Lucas’s physical data in detail, maintaining his calm demeanor throughout.
Until a certain moment, Lucas’s heart rate suddenly surged. He let out a roar, abruptly standing up, his mercenary instincts driving him to scan his surroundings warily.
Only then did Lucas recall his current situation. Touching his own body in astonishment, he muttered, "Nothing happened?"
"Describe in detail what just occurred," Li Ming said in a low voice as Lucas calmed down.
Lucas dared not delay. His expression slightly dazed, he began to describe, "I don’t know what happened just now. It felt like I was inside some sort of teleportation tunnel, flying upward, higher and higher. In the midst of dazzling light, I think I saw... something..."
"...It seemed like a gigantic palace, and then I heard something about ’eradication’ or something like that, and I lost consciousness."
Was it a case of soul projection?
Li Ming felt a surge of astonishment. It resembled the state he experienced during his descent into the Iron Throne Hall—his consciousness detaching and traveling somewhere in a peculiar manner. It likely wasn’t dangerous.
Lucas watched Li Ming lapse into silence, feeling increasingly anxious until Li Ming finally spoke:
"Alright, you can go now. I’ll assign you a special task and keep you here for a while. For the time being, you’re not allowed to leave the base."
"I’ll have someone deliver your compensation."
"Understood." Lucas nodded, inwardly excited. He vaguely guessed that his recent experience was undoubtedly connected to some kind of secret.
Unexpectedly, it turned out to be so easy. This time, he really felt he’d hit the jackpot.
After Lucas left, Li Ming eagerly began his next attempt.
This time, he targeted himself. As expected, he felt a sensation of detachment, as though an invisible force were tearing at his body, and his consciousness grew increasingly blurry.
Just as Lucas had described, he entered some sort of passageway. The surroundings were bizarre and kaleidoscopic, with various strange shapes and lines flashing rapidly before his eyes, making them impossible to discern.
Eventually, he saw a majestic metallic palace, resembling a dazzling interstellar fortress. It exuded an oppressive aura, as though it stood in the void itself, with no recognizable surroundings nearby.
The exterior of the structure was composed of immense metal plates, each shimmering with a cold brilliance, crisscrossed by countless energy pipelines with blue energy flows surging through them.
The main entrance was massive and grand, flanked by two colossal humanoid metal statues, their faces dignified and solemn.
The steps leading to the door were forged from some unknown type of metal, emanating a faint golden radiance. A layer of misty energy enveloped the surroundings, making the entire palace appear even more ethereal and mysterious.
Beneath it was a base constructed entirely of energy fields, with light rippling outward in waves.
Li Ming stared at it in a slight trance. What was this place? The Holy Castle?
Just as this thought emerged in his mind, a pair of incomparably radiant eyes suddenly appeared in the surrounding void. The pupils seemed to flow with vast streams of data, and a deep, solemn voice resonated.
"Not meeting requirements. Eradicate!"
In an instant, Li Ming felt a jolt of terror as an overwhelming force surged from all directions. His vision blacked out, and when he reflexively opened his eyes, he was already back in his room.
He couldn’t help but sit up, his heart beating faster, though he managed to compose himself and sit back down.
"What on earth is that place?" he pondered, countless questions swirling in his mind. "’Not meeting requirements’? What kind of requirements—bloodline, or... selection criteria?"
"No, it must be because my consciousness was what reached there. How could it possibly assess my physical body? Is it because I lack a certain mark?"
Li Ming’s thoughts started to fall into place. He quickly retrieved the purple Skull. The thing was still wailing, "Error, error..."
Li Ming ignored its cries, directly consuming metal energy to begin reconfiguration. The surface purple metal underwent a transformation, suddenly becoming radiant and gleaming.
Amidst the flashing light, the metal twisted and recombined, evolving in a manner beyond imagination. More pipelines extended outward, and mechanical limbs began to grow.
The initially stiff mechanical limbs soon transformed, becoming agile and powerful under the drive of the metal energy.
In no time, the limbs seamlessly embedded themselves into the Skull, creating a mechanical body approximately one meter tall—peculiar and eerie in appearance.
"Master..." it half-knelt on the ground, now utterly transformed.
Li Ming felt a twinge of pain in his heart. This single act had consumed seventy million units of metal energy. With the construct ratio reaching one-to-one, the total cost amounted to 140 million units.
While this creation’s true body possessed impressive combat ability, capable of contending with an S-level life form at 30% development, Li Ming couldn’t bring himself to deploy it. For now, it was essentially an ornament.