Mysteries: Arcana Wars

Scott Cartwright pushed up his glasses and took the hard drive from Bonois without saying anything.

More than a month after the tractor lost control, the Abraham family was finally willing to share data with the Church of Steam.

The data on this hard drive comes from the [Outpost] space station that had an accident a month ago.

Shortly after the explosion at the Harvest Church and the tractor loss of control, a huge and extraordinary accident occurred at the outpost space station, and all astronauts were killed.

"Ha, these Abrahams are finally willing to give us the data." Scott curled his lips.

Whether it was an artificial satellite accident or a space station accident, this was something that roaming industry companies were used to. There were too many uncertainties on the surface of the starry sky, some from the extraordinary and some from the ordinary. Fault reports of all sizes filled up the systems of various companies, and the most important thing they had to do was to classify the accidents.

Some minor problems that only temporarily affect the signal clarity are generally not dealt with. The rest must be distinguished whether they are caused by changes in the spiritual environment or by astral rays and physical changes.

Most importantly, the company needs to identify whether it was unlucky enough to encounter an accident or negligence, or whether it was subjected to an extraordinary attack by an unknown existence.

Ninety-nine percent of failures come from the former, and Abraham obviously thought the cause this time was the latter.

Scott was a little unhappy with the three-week review and decision-making time. As a huge technology company, Abraham had to process the data layer by layer to make sure there was nothing that the Steam Church could not hear.

In this era, [information] and [data] are like life to any organization.

Scott certainly understood this. Considering that Abraham publicly passed on some accident briefings to other space stations and technology groups as soon as he handed over the hard drive, Scott didn't plan to scold them today. He would save it for next time when he was unhappy.

"Don't look here." Bonois suddenly said.

"Yeah, it would be bad if it was contaminated." Scott stood up and quickly returned the hard drive to Bonova, as if it was a hot potato. "Let's go down, boss. Besides, today is a big day and we have big things to do."

He pushed out a small cart from somewhere in the church, on which was placed a huge instrument, and met his superior in a hidden corner of St. Hillran's Church.

Bonois and Scott stood together in the elevator of the pump sparks and slowly descended.

"Today is the big day to replace the [Void Smoke] container." Scott whistled and patted the instruments on the cart.

The "container" on the cart is currently just six separate pieces of extra-thick glass, fixed to a mechanical device.

Soon, these special glasses will be attached to the original old container, and combined into a completely sealed glass container under the huge force of the instrument. The old container has been eroded by the [Void Dust] to only a thin layer. The force from the mechanical arm will break the fragile glass like paper while piecing together the new container. The fragments of the old container will be completely swallowed by the strange black dust, completing their mission.

In fact, Scott had no idea what Void Dust was. Where it came from or what it was made of, Scott had no idea.

[Information] always contains hidden dangers and may even be poisonous or crazy. This is something that the Steam Church, which studies knowledge and technology, is all too familiar with. Therefore, [Information Classification] is one of the principles of the Steam Church's daily operations.

All members can only obtain the information that their sequence can bear, so as to avoid unnecessary pollution.

As a result, Scott, who was only at Sequence 3, could not get any information about [Void Dust]. He only knew that one day, Bonova brought [Void Dust] in a sealed glass container and ordered him to establish and preside over the Pump Spark Research Institute. Apart from a sparsely written document, nothing else was revealed.

Scott roughly knew the effective radius of the cloud of nothingness in the laboratory and its silencing effect on Extraordinary, and designed the entire underground laboratory according to this range.

The entire Steam Church believed that the miracle of the pump spark came from the blessing of the God of Steam and Machinery, but below Sequence Two, only Scott understood that it was just a lie, and the real core was this cloud of black smoke of unknown origin.

Is this God's gift? Scott asked, but Bonois would not respond or give Scott any suggestive [information].

But this made Scott firmly believe that the void smoke was definitely not a creation of the God of Steam and Machinery.

"You shouldn't slap the boxes like that; they're important instruments." Bonois's tone was calm, as if he was simply stating a fact.

"Come on, sir. Since the establishment of Pump Spark, I have been the one who replaced the container of [Void Smoke] every time. I even designed this instrument myself." Scott sneered, "If you really care about this kind of thing, you wouldn't let me be the director."

Bonois remained silent, his expression calm.

The elevator was still falling toward the center of the earth.

"Okay, okay, I have a very bold guess," Scott changed his posture and couldn't help laughing, "Today my dead-faced boss wanted to find something to talk about in the elevator to learn how to kill time."

Bonois remained calm, just turned his head slightly and looked eye to eye at the old man beside him who had a mocking face.

Of course, there will never be an answer to the question of nothingness.

"If you want me to start a conversation, then I'll ask a question that's hundreds of years old."

Scott shook his head and smiled, then raised his eyes and stared at Bonois.

"Why me?"

"You've always known that I'm not a big fan of the God of Steam and Machinery. I don't even like the church. Damn, those bastards are so annoying. They just keep talking about the church scriptures in front of me and urging me to submit monthly, quarterly, and annual reports."

He turned around and took out a handful of cigarettes from his pocket, took out one and put it between his lips. Smoking is prohibited in the elevator, but you can satisfy your craving.

"You are committed to social development to liberate social productivity and a better future for mankind. This is what the Lord advocates in the scriptures. Your goals and wishes are consistent with those of the Lord, so you are someone who can be used."

"You've always known that my loyalty is cheap. I've done a lot of things that the church can't see. No matter how you evaluate me, I'm a risk."

"So from the beginning I transferred you to my subordinate. You are directly responsible to me and you only need to report to me. This way I can directly control you."

"Then why is Pump Spark such an important project? Why is [Void Smoke] such an important thing."

"Because everything is put to good use." Bonois still tilted his head and looked at Scott, like a sculpture with only a moving mouth. "Here are basic scientists from various faiths and countries. Some of them joined the Pump Spark just to explore the material world. People like you are the best candidates to be in charge."

"Ha, why did it have to be me? I don't know what it means to honor a god, ours or theirs or whatever--"

“Do you like your current job?”

Scott was stunned. This question really caught him off guard. He even felt that the world had become a little absurd, just like seeing two fish fins grow out of the chopped firewood and fly away as feet, seeing two turbocharged engines grow out of the swung beheading knife and take off from Wuhu, and seeing two titanium alloy table knives grow out of the crushed strawberries and spiral into the sky.

Based on Scott's understanding of his old boss for more than three hundred years, he could never imagine that his old boss would actually ask this question.

"Well, to be honest, I love this lab."

Bonois finally turned his head gently and looked at the elevator door indifferently again.

"Honestly, Boss, I've followed you for three hundred years, and it's still really rare to see you take the initiative to interrupt other people's small talk."

Scott pushed up his glasses as they slid down.

"You are so rude to everyone, but you are more honest with me than with others," replied Bonois.

"You are the boss after all! To be honest, I like you. There are so many old-fashioned people in the church, each one is more disgusting than the other. You are more interesting."

"My father once said that I was the most boring one."

"No, no, no, no, my boss, people do change!" Scott raised a wrinkled finger and shook it seriously, "You are much less talkative than those old immortals, but in the three hundred years we have known each other, I think you have become more and more interesting."

"For the past three hundred years, I have tried to build your faith in the Lord and your fear of the gods. I failed, and now I have given up."

"Failure and giving up are basic operations in life, my boss."

"I'm not a human, I'm an angel."

Scott couldn't help but burst into a chuckle, and then hysterical laughter filled the entire bridge box.

The prompt sounded, and the elevator finally arrived at the research institute deep underground.

"My dear boss, do you know why I love this institute so much?"

Scott hummed a little tune and happily pushed the instrument out of the bridge box.

"The silenced extraordinary abilities, the blocked divine connection, the isolated island...

"Here, gods, humans, and angels—you and I are all scum!"