Chapter 586 — The Online Meeting

In almost an instant, Mary realized that this man was the "master" her mentor had spoken of.

Though it was a round table at which no seat could be distinguished as head or foot, the man's presence was plainly unlike that of anyone else there.

Mary had not expected the "master" to look like this. She had imagined she would see a hideous, terrifying demon, or some existence even more indescribable. But whatever the truth of it, a "master" in human form at least put her much at ease. And just as she breathed a sigh of relief, the figure of the old mage Daniel appeared in this space as well, and he sat down in the seat beside Mary.

Daniel shot a glare at his somewhat dazed apprentice: "What are you standing there for?"

Only then did Mary come to her senses. She hastily scrambled to her feet and stammered out what her mentor had told her to say: "I... my name is Mary, no surname, and... and... learning makes me happy!"

The atmosphere seemed to turn slightly awkward, but Mary was too nervous to feel any change in it at all. She saw the figures seated around the round table all turn their eyes upon her — among them, astonishingly, a spirit being filled entirely with blue radiance. That "spirit being" regarded her with keen interest and emitted a buzzing voice: "This child is rather interesting."

A beautiful, elegant lady in a long red dress smiled at her: "You are a little nervous — relax."

A young lady with very large eyes, long brown hair, and an air of boundless energy wore a delighted smile: "Ah, so you are the Mary who solved all sixteen equations I set?! You are amazing! My name is Rebecca — say, did you really solve them all yourself?"

Mary was momentarily dumbstruck. She suddenly felt that... the way things were unfolding now seemed a little different from what she had imagined.

Gao Yang looked at this black-haired girl, a first-time visitor to the Origin Space, with a somewhat odd expression. He had seen her initial nervousness, even fear, and it left him not knowing whether to laugh or cry: "Mary, is it? Relax a little. Welcome to the Origin Laboratory."

"The Origin Laboratory?" Mary froze for a moment. She was about to ask what the Origin Laboratory was when it came back to her that her mentor seemed to have mentioned the name earlier, when he was adjusting her seat — mentioned it right when she was at her most nervous, which was why she had swallowed her question whole and now nodded with frantic haste. "Yes — yes, of course! I... I'm honored as well..."

Daniel's expression darkened. "Pathetic."

Mary ducked her head at once. "I'm sorry, Mentor."

"It's no matter. The child is gifted — gifted enough to offset these little flurries of hers," Gao Dai said. "And I am curious how you described this network conference to her, because she looks nervous to an abnormal degree."

"I told her only that you wished to see her," Daniel said, flat and precise. "The Origin Laboratory is strictly classified. Before the network connection, I told her almost nothing."

"...Cautious. But reasonable."

Knowing Daniel's style in the physical world, and the psychological shadow he cast over his apprentices, Gao Yang could guess perfectly well what had happened to this girl called Mary.

Never mind. Let them sort out their own problems.

Gao You shook his head faintly within, then set the newcomer Mary aside for the moment and turned to the real business of this network conference.

"First, I've brought some materials. Jenny, Kamael, Rebecca — activate your respective print output terminals and print the materials out in the physical world."

As he spoke, Gao Cen activated the Origin Laboratory's memory-transcription function. In the air above the round table, a dazzling flood of runes and lines sprang into projection almost instantly, breaking apart into one clean, lucid schematic after another.

"This is the elves' technical data. This part is their cooling rune array; this part is a schematic of a cooling system based on an oil coolant, employing an immersion heat exchanger; this is their anti-gravity array — incomplete, most likely, but serviceable as reference. There is also their method of shield projection and their approach to stacking multiple layers of runes..."

"Whoa!!" Rebecca stared wide-eyed at those intricate rune arrays and the exploded schematics of the devices, and could not help letting out an exaggerated gasp. "Ancestor Yan, your memory is terrifyingly good... You're a better thief than Amber!!"

"Hetty, remember to give her a beating once you're offline."

"Yes, Ancestor."