BXBX NOVEL Chapter 165: Return
Yet, as it turned out, by the time I finally managed to deal with the consequences of abusing my constitution, Chihiro had gathered a team not to raze that place to the ground… but to fill it with more receptors, circuit breakers of both automatic and manual types, and sensors capable of recording not only the events on the physical plane but also those happening on the spiritual level.
"We still have time, but it's always best to start before the deadline to iron out all the kinks," Chihiro continued with his offhanded lecture as the automatic driving system of the car raised the speed of our truck as we shot through the city's ringway toward the town's secondary industrial park.
"If all goes well, we should be done with remodeling in a matter of hours," Chihiro smirked as he gave me a glance, "all thanks to your idea to leave everything open just in case like that," he acknowledged my contribution before turning his eyes back down to the piece of paper he was covering with some sort of code.
"Let's say… six hours for mounting all the tech we're bringing, three more hours for a slow boot to check if they all work correctly, then two hours of stress tests to find all the minor faults…"
The man took a moment to calculate everything.
"That makes up to eleven hours of testing. Let's add two hours for anything that will come up in the process…" Chihiro continued before putting down his pen and closing his simple notebook, then raising his eyes back to me.
"Meaning, if all goes relatively well," he leaned his head to the side while the look in his eyes showed him steeling his resolve, "I should be able to get a go at it in thirteen hours. And with a bit more than two days left before my legal deadline…"
'Now that I think about it, I never really asked for the details about this time limit, did I?'
I already knew it had something to do with one's talent, something people in the spiritual world apparently valued over pretty much everything else. But what was the precise age one couldn't reach if they wanted to be considered talented and thus allowed to enter the spiritual world?
What were the deep reasons behind it? Did those reasons have something to do with how well one could cultivate? Maybe they were based on the idea that only those of a certain level should be allowed into the spiritual world to keep the purity of its Qi, something that would align pretty well with all the things my other self mentioned whenever discussing the matter of spiritual energy?
Or maybe it was purely a political play, aimed to eliminate as many candidates as possible just to create a sense of limited availability and urgency, thus raising the value of the achievement, which, in turn, would turn those who reached the tenth level of mortal cultivation in time into loyal subjects of whoever set this rule?
'If so, it would really be one hell of a policy to implement,' I thought with a heavy sigh just as our automated truck drove all the way to the factory's gate, only to stop for the guards to check and process it.
"And now that we're here, we shouldn't have anything else to worry about," Claire muttered, strangely silent ever since the event back at Chihiro's safe house.
Her words were not unfounded, though, given the apparent rising pressure from the other clans, something that Chihiro had already connected not only to the news about some people struggling to walk around our factory mere moments after the disaster… but also to the people who were alleged to be behind both my attempted kidnapping and the battle at the ancient forest.
This was also the reason why we brought over millions of esecs worth of scientific and cultivation measuring devices in a single truck, in a sense, putting all our eggs in one basket.
It was risky, given how any form of delay or accident would pretty much cripple our ability to improve the factory's design and the recording ability of the sensors inside. But on the other hand, this kind of equipment…
If anyone got their hands on it, they wouldn't need to be a genius to figure out that we were doing something unexpected. And from the type of measuring equipment they would steal in that case, they could quite easily figure out most of the aims behind our project, even if they failed to figure out the actual methods we used to achieve our goals.
That's why, the very moment the truck passed the inspection and drove past the now raised blockade, all three of us heaved a sigh of relief.
"Thirteen hours," Chihiro repeated his earlier words as the truck came to a stop again, just as it parked with its backside toward one of the few unblocked loading ramps. "It would be great if we can do it a bit faster, but I don't want you cutting any corners. Is that understood?"
As the man in charge of this factory, I merely nodded my head.
But as a man likely responsible for the success or failure of Chihiro's advancement, I gulped before properly bowing down, then looking up and giving Chihiro a look of determination and confidence.
"I will do my absolute best to make everything go as smoothly as possible!" I stood at attention, only missing a salute as I flexed my chest at the man.
"Good," Chihiro muttered before getting out of the passenger compartment of the truck and slamming his hand against the metal wall of its cargo hold. "Everyone! Get this truck unloaded! We don't have a single minute to waste!"
"Make sure to be as gentle with the equipment as you can," I followed up after the man as I turned toward the workers rushing to our side as soon as I got out of the car myself. "It's better to be slow but steady than fast yet careless!"
I took a deep breath as I calmed down a little and just… stood aside as the trusted workers of one of Chihiro's companies rushed to their tasks, most likely not even needing my reminder in the first place.
Still, I couldn't help but add one more thing.
"We've all seen what carelessness and lack of preparation can lead to, haven't we?"