Chapter 145: Engrossed in Base-Building, the Doctor Loses Track of the World

Last night was destined to be an unforgettable one for Roy.

He would likely never again experience the sheer terror of being dragged out of his dormitory in the dead of night, paraded all the way to the Rhodes Island Command Center, and having the legendary Ghost of Babel tightly grip his hands.

“How could I have buried such a talent as you?” the hooded figure had murmured, his voice dripping with an unsettling, heavy sincerity.

“I’m not, I didn’t!” Roy had stammered, his usual slick composure shattering into pieces.

Unfortunately, his feeble struggles had absolutely no effect.

From the Doctor’s perspective, this was highly amusing. Back when Roy was at his most arrogant, he was the type of elite assassin who would openly storm a Reunion Movement stronghold just to kidnap the operators he wanted. Now, stripped of his Armorless Union backing, his refusal was so weak he couldn’t even look the Doctor in the eye. Squatting next to the desk, organizing combat records, and muttering, “Doctor, I have failed your trust”—this kind of microscopic resistance was laughable.

It was just playing hard to get. How was this any different from a heroine shouting, “Husband, save me!” to the blonde guy in an NTR doujinshi?

In game terms, the Doctor had simply used the one-click auto-fill function for combat records, dumping enough EXP into Roy to instantly max out his level. But from Roy’s perspective, the psychological pressure was suffocating.

The Doctor, a man who had previously looked at everyone in Kazimierz as a total waste of oxygen and could never be bothered to explain a single thought, had suddenly changed his attitude. He was now patiently, almost gently, breaking down the tactical logic of senior Rhodes Island operators bit by bit.

The Doctor tapped the translucent tactical board, the cold glow of the screen illuminating the lower half of his mask. He casually picked up a light-gold square video disc and slotted it in. The terminal let out a low mechanical hum, and a moment later, the display flared to life.

“Look at this. ‘Collapse Sonic Marker’—it sounds complicated, but it’s actually quite simple,” the Doctor explained, his tone measured and precise. “Imagine sticking a label on a target in a pitch-black room, one that continuously emits echoes at a highly specific frequency. Our sensors don’t rely on the naked eye; instead, they capture these ‘echoes’ to lock onto a position. We owe a great deal to our bat-trait operators for their contributions to this system.”

In the video playback, a Liberi operator was nimbly jumping and dodging through absolute darkness. An exoskeleton-like device clamped to their spine connected their tactical backpack directly to their torso.

The video paused. The Doctor’s pale finger tapped the metallic device frozen on the screen, a faint trace of pride bleeding into his voice.

“The ‘Neural Synchronization Calibration’ system. Also known as the MSC chain. To ensure the absolute efficiency of my command transmission, the port can be worn externally or wired directly into the spinal nerves. The latter establishes a far more stable signal link and reduces latency to zero. You might feel a slight sense of disorientation upon your first connection—similar to the momentary dizziness of turning your head too quickly—but this is entirely normal. I will handle the computational load of these devices for you.”

Roy didn’t know what that meant, and Roy absolutely did not want to know.

Ordinary Rhodes Island operators didn’t have these horrifying spinal implants, right? Why was the Ghost of Babel teaching this highly classified, borderline-illegal tech to an outsider like him?

Was this something he was even allowed to hear?

What if the Doctor suddenly sobered up from his manic state, realized he had shared state secrets, and decided to silence him permanently?

Roy had already tried his absolute best to remain an obscure, invisible background character on the landship. Every report he organized and submitted was deliberately filled with trash intelligence. What exactly had piqued the interest of this mysterious, calculating mastermind?

Could he still apply for retirement?

Roy had joined Rhodes Island on a whim, partially because circumstances forced his hand, but mostly because he wanted a clean ticket out of the Armorless Union. He never intended to dive headfirst into the hidden crises of Rhodes Island, which were shaping up to be infinitely more brutal than the corporate bloodbaths back in Kazimierz!

How was this any different from the feeling of reading Pretending to be an Evil God in the Loen Restrooms, finding the cosmic horror too depressing, and switching to I am NOT a Zuowangdao Cultivator! only to suffer even more psychological damage?

“Roy. Did you learn it?” the Doctor’s voice cut through the silence, cold and expectant.

“Thank you for your explanation…” Roy swallowed hard, forcing a stiff nod. “It was extremely clear.”

By the time Roy staggered out of the Doctor’s office, the sky outside the landship was already bright. He had been forced to endure an entire night of top-tier, high-pressure, one-on-one tutoring. Dazed and hollow-eyed, he shuffled back toward the staff dormitory. He moved back-to-back with a passing Rhodes Island operator, instinctively using standard tactical clearing maneuvers out of sheer paranoia, only to freeze.

Młynar was sitting on a cheap plastic stool right in front of Roy’s door, calmly reading a morning newspaper.

It was over. His peaceful retirement life was completely dead.

Both men had pulled all-nighters, but while Roy was a hollow shell filled with sorrow, the Doctor was still practically vibrating with energy.

Having one-click Elite 2’d his new assassin, the Doctor hadn’t realized at all that it was already the next day. Holding a warm carton of vanilla-flavored pack-beast milk that Amiya had thoughtfully prepared, he was currently single-handedly renovating the infrastructure of the Great Knight Territory. Through the terminal, he was remotely commanding field operators to run heavy electrical cables—not the cheap Kazimierz kind that would short out after eighty meters—striving to spread actual light across the entire lower district.

His mastery over Originium manifested in many ways, the most basic of which was raw energy transmission.

The Originium smelting technology of the little creatures of Terra was painfully primitive, limited to the most basic calcination and electrolysis. Not only did their methods create toxic Originium dust that polluted the air, but their energy utilization rate was abysmally low. The only reason Terra had developed to its current industrial level was because the raw materials themselves were inherently overpowered. The calorific value of the Previous Civilization’s creations was so ridiculously high that just burning them casually was enough to power massive heavy mobile cities.

However, the Originium that passed through the Doctor’s hands was manipulated at such an active state that it melted directly into a pure data stream. Zero attenuation. Zero need for messy chemical reactions. It was pure, clean thermal energy produced by data flowing through circuits. In terms of both stability and consumption, it was an absolute meta-breaker for this primitive land.

For a mere lighting system, there was no need to build a dedicated power plant. While establishing the new transforming charity organization in the lower district, he simply routed the wires and solved the city’s power crisis along the way.

“Doctor,” Amiya said softly.

She was sitting across from his desk, resting her chin on one hand. Her bright, expressive eyes were tightly following the direction of his sliding fingers across the holographic map, watching with extreme focus. “Will this allow the entire mobile city to keep its lights on all night?”

Clearly, the little life assistant’s attitude was perfect, but her theoretical foundation in electrical engineering was absolute zero.

The Doctor smiled slightly, adjusting the holographic layers on the projection. “This glowing web here is the power grid that lights up the city. That chaotic scribble over there is the math homework that Ifrit didn’t finish.”

It was painfully clear that Amiya was also a mathematically illiterate little rabbit.

He couldn’t really blame her. Ifrit’s guardian was Silence, a highly responsible, genius science-minded researcher. Amiya’s guardians, on the other hand…

One was a Sarkaz who made flowers bloom with Originium Arts. One was an ancient lynx who had lived for tens of thousands of years and refused to speak in anything but cryptic riddles. And the last one was him—a man currently capable of making the entire galaxy burn. With generations of pure liberal arts and philosophy majors passing the torch to her, the fact that Amiya could even use L’Hôpital’s rule to solve basic functions meant she was already unbelievably smart!

Amiya’s face flushed a deep shade of red. She quickly touched the tip of her nose, looking away. “Uh, sorry… Doctor, it seems I’ve caused you trouble again.”

She had snuck into the office to gently pressure the Doctor into finishing his work quickly so he could rest, not to distract him into coaxing her like a child. She wasn’t a child anymore!

“It’s not a bother, Amiya,” the Doctor replied smoothly, his eyes never leaving the terminal. “Could you pull a tissue for me?”

This time, Amiya reacted with lightning speed. Desperate to prove her usefulness, she stood up, snatched an entire fresh pack of tissues from the long table behind her, and placed the whole thing squarely into his palm.

“Great job!” the Doctor praised instantly.

Amiya froze, her long ears drooping slightly as she stared at the pack of tissues.

‘This… do you really have to praise me for something this simple?’

[Rhodes’s Note: “Pretending to be an Evil God in the Loen Restrooms” and “I am NOT a Zuowangdao Cultivator!” are parodies of popular Chinese web novels (Lord of the Mysteries and Dao of the Bizarre Immortal, respectively). Roy is comparing his situation to dropping one grimdark, high-mortality universe only to accidentally transmigrate into an even worse one.]

[Rhodes’s Note:

Enjoying the operation so far, Doctor?

(This daily grind literally pays the landship’s rent!