Raising all of humanity: Starting with a backyard pool world

Chapter 86 [Prison Laboratory]

Inside the shed, light squeezed through the gaps in the wooden stakes, casting dappled shadows on the ground.

Outside the door, the shadows of tribal warriors crisscrossed and the rhythmic footsteps of patrols echoed.

This is a prison.

"We really messed things up." In the corner, Li Yao hugged her knees, buried her head, and sobbed silently.

"That soldier's leg...it's because of me...it's because of us..."

The thought of the young soldier groaning in agony on the ground, and the leg that had turned to ashes in the pale flames, made her tremble.

The consequences were so realistic that for the first time she began to doubt whether this was really a game.

"This isn't your fault," Wang Xuan said, rubbing his temples in frustration.

"It was me, it was me who suggested demonstrating that damned power." He looked at the [Seed of Chaos] in his hand.

This thing is like a hot potato.

"Stop talking." Chen Kai remained relatively calm, leaning against the wooden stake, carefully wiping the stone spear in his hand with a piece of animal hide.

"Will crying and self-blame let us out?" Chen Kai raised his head, his gaze sweeping over his dejected companions.

"Can you make that NPC with the broken leg grow a new leg?" His question was direct and somewhat cruel.

Li Yao's crying stopped abruptly.

"Blaming yourself is useless now." Chen Kai leaned the stone spear against the wall and stood up. "That guy named Kahn, the way he looked at us, he really wanted to kill us."

"We are now prisoners, and in their eyes, a plague."

He paused, then said, word by word, "We must find a way to prove that we are valuable."

His words immediately jolted everyone out of their negative emotions.

Yes, self-pity is completely useless.

They need to find a way to break this deadlock.

"But how do we prove it?" Wang Xuan gave a wry smile, shaking the crystal in his hand. "Use this thing? Kahn looks at it like it's a bomb that could flatten the entire tribe."

"No." Wang Xuan suddenly stopped.

No, you're wrong.

"This is our only key!" He looked at the other three, his frustration and regret gone.

"Our previous approach was completely wrong!"

"We treat it as a skill, inputting a command and expecting it to produce a result; just like pressing a remote control to turn on the TV."

Wang Xuan stood up and paced around in the cramped space.

"But that time it got out of control...didn't you notice? It had no temperature, couldn't be extinguished with water, and could spread on its own like a living thing! This doesn't conform to any known phenomenon of combustion!"

"This is neither a program malfunction nor a mistake on our part!"

"This is... it using its own set of logic to interpret the concept of combustion that we've given!"

He opened his hand, looked at the crystal, and his eyes became burning.

"What we've touched is a more fundamental, completely incomprehensible source code of this world!"

"We're not in jail! We're locked up in a lab!"

These crazy words, however, swept away the gloom in the shack.

Dr. Ai Jia, who had been silent all along, pushed up her glasses.

The eyes behind the lenses lit up, shining with a pure, research-oriented light.

"I agree with Wang Xuan's conclusion."

"This crystal may not be an energy source, but more like a concept translator."

"It responds not to precise instructions, but to vague concepts."

"When you talk to it about burning, in its logic, it might understand it as a process of a substance rapidly transforming into a more stable state. So what it presents is a pale flame and nihilistic ashes that we cannot comprehend."

Ai Jia walked up to Wang Xuan and took the crystal.

"We must conduct the experiment again to verify my hypothesis. This time, we need to be more systematic and make sure we can control it."

"We need to figure out what its language is."

The division of labor within the team naturally followed.

Ai Jia was the project leader, Wang Xuan was responsible for theory and conjecture, and Chen Kai was responsible for safety and operations.

Li Yao looked up blankly at the three energetic people.

She felt like she couldn't be of much help.

"Let's begin." Aija looked around. "Treat this place as our laboratory."

She found a broken ceramic bowl, and Chen Kai poured some water into it from his water bag.

"First experiment." Aijia suspended the crystal above the ceramic bowl. "Objective: to verify the controllability of the concept."

"Let's start with a simple concept," she said, looking at Wang Xuan.

Wang Xuan stroked his chin, his eyes gleaming with excitement: "Try... hardness?"

"Can."

Ai Jia nodded, closed her eyes, and imitated Wang Xuan's previous actions, probing a weak spiritual force into the crystal while simultaneously constructing the concept of hardness in her mind.

Their idea was simple: to make water harder.

hum-

The crystal glowed faintly, emitting a dim halo.

The water in the earthenware bowl remained unchanged.

"Failed?" Wang Xuan frowned.

"No, wait a minute," Chen Kai suddenly said.

He stretched out his finger and gently touched the surface of the water.

When you touch it with your fingertips, it feels like solidified glue, and it's also very resilient.

With increased force, the water surface caved in, but did not break open.

When he withdrew his finger, the surface of the water slowly returned to its calm state.

"It didn't freeze." Aijia opened her eyes and began to analyze, "It simply understood the concept of hardness and, within the framework of water, twisted the way this concept was realized to its extreme!"

"Success!" Wang Xuan shouted. "Next! Next! Try... making a leaf forget that it is a leaf!"

This concept is far too far-fetched.

"It's too abstract, it's easy to get out of control," Ai Jia immediately rejected. "We must start with the simple and gradually move to the complex."

She picked up a dead leaf from the ground.

"This time, we're giving it a negative connotation: withering."

The same process.

When the concept of withering touches the crystal.

The withered leaf in my hand lost its color, its edges curled up, and finally turned into a small clump of black powder finer than dust.

The experiment was a success!

Inspired, Wang Xuan immediately looked at Chen Kai:

"From a combat perspective! What if we don't directly destroy them, but instead instill a sense of vulnerability in the target? Make the enemy's armor as fragile as a cookie!"

This is more useful than any sharp spear.

"Again!" Wang Xuan grew increasingly excited. "Try cutting! No need for a knife, just define a line in space to be cut!"

"This is too dangerous," Ai Jia warily stopped him. "The definition of space could lead to unpredictable consequences. Our experiment must be conducted safely."

"Let's try this!" Wang Xuan thought of another idea, "Speed ​​it up! Let this drop of water evaporate faster on its own!"

This time, Ai Jia hesitated for a moment, then agreed.

The water in the earthenware bowl began to boil violently in a way that defied the laws of physics.

Without being heated, the water itself began to consume itself, turning into thick white mist.

"It works!" But just as Wang Xuan was about to cheer, something suddenly went wrong!

Even after the evaporation process is complete, the concept of acceleration conveyed by the crystal does not cease.

It is looking for the next target that can be accelerated.

The dim light spread to the wooden table legs below.

"Crack, crack, crack—" The solid wood transformed at an extremely fast speed.

It dries out, rots, and even grows fungal spots, eventually turning into a pile of debris.

"Oh no! It's out of control!" Ai Jia's expression changed, and she tried to sever the mental connection.

But that out-of-control chaotic power had already rushed towards the wooden stake walls of the cage!

"Stop it!" Chen Kai's expression changed. He didn't want to be killed by Kahn, who rushed in from outside, while he was destroying the house.

Wang Xuan panicked; he hadn't expected this at all.

"Stop! Stop it now!"

Li Yao, sitting in the corner, watched the decaying darkness engulfing the wooden wall, her fear overwhelmed by an even stronger emotion... She wanted to live; she longed for stability.

She didn't want to go back to lying in a hospital bed. She longed to run and breathe, and hoped that the world that had given her a new life could continue to exist!

The will to live erupted, fighting against the decay.

"No!"

"Stop!"

When that power touched Li Yao's pure life will, it boiled and struggled for a while, before reluctantly retreating little by little back into the crystal.

Only the hole in the wall testifies to what had just happened.

Wang Xuan, Ai Jia, and Chen Kai stared blankly at Li Yao, as if they were meeting her for the first time.

Li Yao looked at her hands and fell into thought.

original……

I am not a burden.

Ai Jia was the first to react. She quickly walked up to Li Yao and took off her glasses.

"I see."

"The other side of chaos is rebirth."