Chapter Fifty-Nine: The Strange and Extraordinary Secret

The moment the contract was sealed, a heavy metal hammer appeared in Bu Zhaozhao’s hand. Its surface was mottled with crimson rust, as if it had lain untouched for years, or perhaps had been soaked in blood. She swung the hammer. With a resonant clang, the phonograph shattered into fragments and parts, ricocheting around the entire bunker. The scattering shards rang with metallic vibrations before gradually settling into silence.

Watching the phonograph’s destruction, Chen Qing felt much calmer. He turned to Bu Zhaozhao and asked, “Now that we’ve made our contract, should I come here to find you in the future?”

She shook her head. “What for? There’s nothing else left in this place. The only valuable anomaly is already in your pocket.” She pointed, and Chen Qing drew out the piece of Tysoe flesh from where she indicated.

“D-grade anomaly—Tysoe’s Blessing. You can use it as a material. Once you leave, you’ll be able to learn more about it.” Seeing that Bu Zhaozhao was unwilling to say much more, Chen Qing didn’t press her, but turned to other questions. “What about the evolution chain of Foundation anomalies that they mentioned—was that real?”

She regarded Chen Qing, nodding calmly. “I was the former chief researcher. All the Foundation’s information converged on me, while the lower ranks rarely shared intel. Do you understand what I mean?”

Chen Qing frowned. “If they knew you were here... they wouldn’t have sent just a handful of people, and they wouldn’t have publicized it.”

“Someone stepped in to shield me.” She waved her hand, unwilling to pursue the topic, but it was obvious Chen Qing had guessed at the part she hadn’t spoken. As a former chief researcher, it was only natural she’d have loyal followers. If someone else had entered, they’d likely have run into her subordinates instead.

“You know everything that happens in the Backrooms?” he asked.

She nodded and gestured around the bunker. “From here, I can observe the whole picture. This place is an anomaly in itself.” Her tone shifted as she pointed to his chest. “As for you, I can’t help maintain the current strength of your traits. But I can find promising evolutionary paths for your anomalous items. What do you think?”

Chen Qing frowned, confused. “What do you mean, you can’t help maintain their strength?”

“You don’t know?” She nodded, then explained, “Any extraordinary item used in the Backrooms will gradually weaken. It’s a slow process, but most will drop by a grade. Try out those two anomalies you snatched—you’ll see. For example, the block—normally, it should generate a 7x7 sealed space. Now... it can probably only form a barrier wall.”

Chen Qing seemed to understand. “You don’t know much about traits?”

She shook her head. “Not really. The Church of Divine Grace has done the most research, but other organizations and researchers haven’t participated much. Among investigators, very few outside the church possess traits, and even then, they’re usually unstable and risky. Rather than help them control their traits, it’s more practical to kill them and try to extract an anomaly from the remains.”

Chen Qing caught a key word. “Extract? You can actually create anomalies artificially?!”

She gave a languid laugh. “Not really. ‘Extract’ just means taking the bizarre infection inside an investigator—the extraordinary trait that possesses them—and turning it into a controllable entity. To put it bluntly, we just know how to better use the Backrooms and investigators.”

He clicked his tongue. This woman’s methods embodied the Foundation’s ruthlessness.

“So, in other words, all five major organizations each have their own areas of expertise—and they don’t interfere with one another, right?”

She nodded with a smile. “Yes.”

“What are the specialties of the Dao Court and the Alliance?”

“You’re not asking about the Club?”

“They stay neutral, so I assume they dabble in everything.”

Bu Zhaozhao made a sound of agreement, but her tone turned serious. “Yes. But precisely because of their neutrality, they’re probably the organization closest to researching ‘apotheosis.’”

“Apotheosis?”

“Sequences. Have you heard of them? A set of terms describing ascension from lower to higher ranks.”

Chen Qing nodded.

“You’ve heard that anomalies have directed ascension sequences, right?”

He nodded again.

“With the Foundation’s ascension formulas, an anomaly can be continually upgraded. Do you know what happens when an anomaly reaches its apex?”

She looked at Chen Qing and spoke deliberately. “It becomes a god.”

“A god?” Chen Qing frowned, baffled.

“Yes. Because it’s beyond our comprehension, we can only call it godhood. When an anomaly reaches the top of its sequence, after consuming countless resources—and even the knowledge of the one conducting the ritual—the anomaly and its master become a god. And through the anomaly, they gain a measure of... power.”

“What kind of power?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. I was present at the experiment back then, and as a result, I forgot much of what happened. But what’s certain is that a fully ascended anomaly gains a portion of... the power of rules.”

“Like breathing? Or the law of how fire burns?”

She nodded. “Strange as it sounds, yes. Before that experiment, maybe combustion required nitrogen, but the anomaly and its master whimsically rewrote the law, making fire burn through oxygen. In the next instant, the world changed, and so did everyone’s perceptions.”

Chen Qing drew a sharp breath, his forehead aching.

“How many times did your experiments succeed?”

“At the Foundation’s height, at its most glorious, we consumed nearly half of humanity’s anomalies, and all knowledge related to that sequence. But it only worked once.”

Chen Qing nodded. Such a price could never be paid a second time. The demand for ascension would devour all related knowledge and materials. With such difficulty, it was certain that only one investigator could succeed in each sequence.

After a pause, he asked, “How did the investigator who mastered the god-anomaly prove himself to you?”

Bu Zhaozhao shook her head. “He didn’t need to prove anything. He was the one who nurtured that anomaly from the lowest level to the highest. Only he could control it. At the same time... he was the sanest person in the Foundation back then. We had no choice, and he didn’t need to prove himself.”

“Is an anomaly easier to control if you raise it yourself?”

“For the first master, yes.”

“What do you mean by ‘sanity’?”

She frowned, searching for the words. “It’s hard to describe. It represents your probability of losing control under extraordinary power; it sets how many anomalies you can use, and your upper limit. It’s a deeply personal metric. If your sanity can’t bear what you’re wielding, you’ll go mad, lose your sense of self, and ultimately fall to extraordinary influence. If you’re lucky, you’ll just become a mass of writhing tentacles.” She shrugged. “I once saw someone turn into a big glob of mucus, with a ferocious, corrosive nature. It devoured two of our containment rooms. We finally wrapped him up in aluminum foil.”

Chen Qing arched an eyebrow but, seeing her pat her ample chest, wisely didn’t ask how they’d managed it. That’s what expendable lab staff are for, after all.

“What about the other organizations? Do they have similar ascension methods?”

“Oh, they certainly do, but all related information is strictly confidential. If you really want to know...” She shrugged. “We once tried to bribe a high-ranking member of the Alliance. At that dinner, his head exploded more brilliantly than any firework.”

He nodded; it was just as he’d suspected. He looked at Bu Zhaozhao and asked, “What exactly are the powers of the Alliance and the Dao Court? You said each of the five organizations has its own specialty, but honestly... I haven’t seen anything unique. They’re still fighting with anomalies.”

“You’re missing the point, young man.” She gave Chen Qing a peculiar smile and continued, “That’s exactly what the Dao Court wants you to think. Most people wouldn’t know this, but you’re asking the right person—I dissected a Dao Court member thirteen years ago. Not counting the two centuries I spent unconscious.”

Chen Qing frowned, but curiosity got the better of him.

“The secret is in their bodies?”

“According to their members, it’s a... cultivation technique.” Bu Zhaozhao looked slightly disgusted. “Maybe they call it Daoism, I can’t remember. They cultivate using cores imbued with extraordinary power—some take the form of insects. It’s the most conservative and stubborn group among the five organizations.”

“Cultivation? Like the old traditions of Dongting or the Golden Core?”

She nodded. “They’ve rediscovered all those Daoist stages. Their extraordinary cores are symbiotic with them, influencing their will. The better their will fuses with the core, the faster their strength grows. If their sanity is strong enough, they can suppress the core’s influence indefinitely.”

“Where do the cores come from?”

Bu Zhaozhao shook her head. “No idea. That’s another closely guarded secret.”