Chapter Forty-Seven: Out of Control

Yuanzi held a clipboard in her arms, standing before Ye Chen.

A fleeting shyness crossed her face; she cleared her throat and said, “Take off all your outer clothes and climb down the ladder into the chamber!”

“What? All... all of them?” For once, a rare look of embarrassment appeared on Ye Chen’s face.

“What does it matter if you take them all off? You’re a grown man, don’t be so bashful,” Yuanzi replied, looking like someone who had seen it all. “No foreign objects are allowed inside the chamber. They’ll interfere with the accuracy of the test data.”

Ye Chen’s mouth twitched; at last, he understood why the two other young women downstairs had been making suggestive faces at Yuanzi.

So this was the spectacle they were waiting for.

Biting the bullet, Ye Chen stripped completely, vowing to himself that Ye Shanshan must never hear of this.

In Yuanzi’s eyes, a moment ago, Ye Chen had seemed like an awkward, lecherous fellow with little worldly experience. But when he calmly revealed his own abs—a body restrained yet brimming with explosive power—right before her, the young lady couldn’t help herself.

Her cheeks flushed red as she brazenly admired the sight.

Ye Chen climbed through the opening at the top of the chamber, slowly submerging himself in the liquid, and began to hold his breath.

Yuanzi tore her dazed gaze away, suddenly remembering something. She hurried forward, pulled down the lid at the top of the chamber, and a hose with a mask extended from its underside.

Yuanzi knocked on the outer wall of the chamber, pointed to the hose, then gestured to her mouth.

Ye Chen understood at once. He grabbed the hose mask, placed it over his mouth and nose, and then sat cross-legged, suspended in the center of the sphere.

Yuanzi patted her own flushed cheeks, her lips pursed with lingering excitement—the spectacle just now clung to her memory.

A little dizzy, she climbed down the ladder and began activating the device at the control panel, still sneaking glances into the chamber from time to time.

As the test began, the liquid inside the chamber grew steadily darker in color.

From a pale green, to a deep green, then to an inky hue, and finally, it turned pitch black, completely obscuring Ye Chen’s figure.

From the outside, the chamber now resembled a huge black sphere, as if filled with ink.

Meanwhile, submerged in the liquid, Ye Chen felt the pressure around his body mounting, gradually bearing down on him from head to toe.

First, it was just his muscles; then, his bones began to feel the crushing force, and eventually, even his internal organs seemed to be squeezed.

Even with a mask supplying fresh oxygen, a suffocating tightness seized his chest; his head started to buzz.

Time ticked by, and Ye Chen’s senses conjured a strange vision.

It was as if he were sinking from the blue sea surface, descending ever deeper toward the ocean floor.

At first, light from outside could still filter through his eyelids, but now, everything had turned utterly black.

The darkness inside the chamber grew more profound, while Yuanzi, standing beside it, was utterly stunned.

She had never encountered anything like this before.

The innate potential testing device was designed to operate automatically. Once the test mode was initiated, there was no need for manual intervention.

If the test subject reached the limits of human endurance, the device would automatically cut off the testing agent and begin gradual dilution—unless there was an emergency.

In the past, no one tested had lasted more than thirty seconds before the control panel signaled the end.

Many low-level Awakeners couldn’t even change the color of the liquid at all.

Based on Yuanzi’s experience, if the liquid turned deep green, that was already exceptional—it represented a D-rank.

As for the inky green of C-rank, she had never seen it herself, only heard about it from colleagues.

But today, she saw it with her own eyes.

And not just the inky green—she watched as the liquid turned black, the sign of B-rank.

The most shocking thing was, it didn’t stop there.

A color she had never even heard of began to appear in the chamber.

The liquid shifted from black to a blackish-red, then deepened to dark red, and finally seemed to be heading toward a vivid, blood-red hue.

Yuanzi was terrified. Her first thought was: Had she made a mistake?

Or was there a malfunction in the equipment, crushing the test subject inside the chamber? Was that red color Ye Chen’s own blood being squeezed from his body?

Trapped in the darkness, Ye Chen felt the crushing pressure intensify. He sensed a metallic taste welling at his mouth and nose, dispersing through the liquid.

He wanted to reach for his mask, or kick out and break free from the chamber—but he couldn’t.

The liquid around him seemed as solid as stone, locking him in place so that even the smallest movement was impossible.

At that moment, Ye Chen truly felt the threat of death.

It wasn’t long before the sphere turned a vivid, eerie red, as if the entire orb had become a massive, blood-crimson gemstone.

Yuanzi was so shaken she couldn’t utter a sound. Her eyes were wide with terror as she stared at the uncanny scene.

“Beep... beep... beep...”

Suddenly, the alarm sounded in the room, shrill and piercing; red lights flashed incessantly, throwing their glare over the scarlet sphere.

Yuanzi realized the gravity of the situation.

She frantically pounded the pause button on the control panel, her feet stamping anxiously, the room echoing with the urgent beat.

Yet the testing equipment showed no sign of stopping.

Tears welled in Yuanzi’s eyes, and she was on the verge of breaking down.

...

A few minutes earlier, on the top floor of the Transcendents’ Bureau, inside the Chief Director’s office.

The office was vast—over three hundred square meters, on par with a luxury apartment in the Inner City.

Yet for all its size, anyone entering would feel there was nowhere to plant their feet.

Papers littered the floor, crumpled into balls or tossed among spent cigarettes and empty packs, all mixed together.

One had to step carefully among the piles—not for any value in the papers themselves, but because empty drink bottles might be hidden beneath, waiting to send an unsuspecting visitor skidding.

Books, thick and thin, were stacked haphazardly along the walls like bricks at a construction site—a jumble of disorder.

This was enemy territory for anyone with obsessive cleanliness.

At the far end stood a desk, similarly piled with stacks of files, forming a barricade that completely obscured the view behind it, like the walls of a makeshift fortress.

Behind this fortress, wisps of blue smoke drifted upward, curling through the air.

The office was utterly silent, save for the quiet sounds from within the walls—the wet smack of a cigarette and the soft rustle of a pen gliding across paper.

Off to one side stood a sofa and coffee table, the only relatively tidy spot in the room.

Sitting in the middle of the sofa, clad in a white lab coat, lounged a woman in easy, languid comfort—the Chief Director of the Steel City’s Transcendents’ Bureau, You Ya.