Insert Page Four Cage
The descending elevator came to a halt.
I didn’t step through the opened front door but turned around and scanned my ID card to activate the back door leading to the barn.
My destination was the still-under-construction Deep Research Institute.
Passing through a narrow passage, I arrived at the barn. The cold barn had some puddles of water I couldn’t tell where they came from. Looking up at the opaque roof, I guessed it might have leaked during the rain earlier that day.
Stepping on a teleportation stone slab at one corner of the barn, I pushed a half-used magic power battery into the console.
“Buzz—”
I frowned.
The overflow of magic power from the teleportation spell array caused tinnitus. Although I had been studying magic for a short time and relied on learning abilities to supplement my knowledge, my body’s magic capacity was still too small. Fortunately, being in an overcharged state for a short period wouldn’t cause serious side effects.
If there were more efficient spell arrays, this phenomenon wouldn’t occur.
The light curtain rising around the stone slab covered my vision. After a dazzling flash, the scenery changed, and I successfully reached the outpost laboratory of the Deep Research Institute.
The magic power battery retreated from the console, with almost all its liquid magic depleted. With such little remaining power, it couldn’t sustain the energy needed for the return trip. I pulled out the battery to bring it to the power generation room for replenishment later.
At two hundred meters underground, the sudden change in atmospheric pressure made me feel uncomfortable. Long-term living underground could indeed make one shorter.
Pushing open the heavy hatch door, which creaked with friction, I noticed that the outpost had deformed due to compression from the rock layers when it sank, making the door difficult to open.
Thanks to Professor Shí’s efforts, the scenery here changed daily. The third and fourth chambers had already sunk, unlike the small outpost. With preset teleportation coordinates, precise arrival at designated locations was possible. Paths and lighting were set up, along with neat ventilation ducts and reserved interfaces.
Thus, the Deep Research Institute was starting to take shape.
“However, it’s still too crude and lacks any aesthetics. There’s no greenery… Hmm, would general plants even grow here?”
“Oh, Sister Zǐ! Are you here to collect something?”
Noticing the movement at the hatch door, Bā Hé peeked out from the third chamber and waved at me.
She appeared as a mature-looking eighteen-year-old girl but was actually a thirteen- or fourteen-year-old girl (or boy) inside. In the research institute, she was like a mascot, adored by everyone.
But she wasn’t just pretty; she was also fascinated by spell research and had unique talents. She insisted on calling herself and other researchers “witches.”
Actually, calling them “witches” wasn’t bad, though people weren’t particularly fond of it.
Driven by her childlike curiosity, she loved the Deep Research Institute and often visited. This frequently worried Director Kē.
“Have you guys finished that ‘thing’?” I asked.
What I needed should be completed in this laboratory.
She gave herself a thumbs-up and boasted, “With me, the witch, of course it’s done! But the actual effect might not be ideal… Are you sure you want to use this to catch someone? Who are you going to catch?”
“There’s a spell master wandering outside. I need to capture her and extract some knowledge. It will greatly benefit us.”
Bā Hé’s talent lay in integrating existing spells.
Independent spells were her building blocks. By combining them, she could achieve various functions. Her mind worked quickly, sometimes finding solutions faster than I did.
In contrast, her magical talent and learning ability were average, so Director Kē often tutored her.
She asked, “A wild witch? Stronger than Boss and Sister Lingmeng?”
“Yes, probably quite a bit stronger.”
This wasn’t a lie. Lingmeng lacked knowledge of spells.
“Oh, that must be tough!”
I patted Bā Hé’s beret and walked into the laboratory.
Compared to the cave, this lab was much brighter. The third chamber was larger than the outpost, at least thirty to forty square meters. This was the maximum size that could be secretly constructed in the large barn unless a two-story chamber was dropped in one go.
Besides Bā Hé, there were three other white-coated researchers in the lab. One sighed and complained, “Saying we need to make a portable magic barrier? That’s too much to ask!”
“Miss Xin Zi, Bā Hé said you guys finished it?”
Xin Zi, a former enforcer under Boss, had been severely injured in another battle. Senior Sister gave him a second chance by allowing him to work as a researcher here.
Several former bodyguards of Boss had restarted their lives as females, but few had both the talent and willingness to become researchers. Most stayed under Boss, while a few chose to explore the world with a fresh perspective.
“Finished… Is this really finished?”
Xin Zi held his chin and stepped aside, revealing six red-and-white warning cones behind him — fewer than I expected.
He said uncertainly, “We managed to hide the generator within these obstacles, but the barrier’s power has decreased. Blocking an entire floor is impossible. To ensure the flow of magic is interrupted, the range must be significantly reduced.”
I frowned and asked, “How small is the reduced range?”
Xin Zi looked at the design sketch on the workbench.
“The farthest effective distance between portable generators is twenty meters. We haven’t tested it yet, but we can try in the caves later.”
“That’s too close!” I was surprised.
The current magic barrier’s full power range was about a hundred meters. Miniaturizing it came at a great cost, which is why I wanted to catch the mysterious girl A to obtain the technology to inscribe spell arrays on small bracelets.
Lingmeng’s original plan was to use multiple barrier generators to seal off the entire floor and then capture the mysterious girl A in this prison.
However, the activation time of the barrier was thirty seconds. Although the released magic flow wasn’t intense, as a professional spell researcher, the mysterious girl A would definitely notice if she was nearby. A hundred meters allowed some maneuvering space, but with only twenty meters, the plan couldn’t be implemented.
Thirty seconds was too long, enough time for the mysterious girl A to repeatedly jump in and out of the barrier.
Bā Hé put her hands on her hips and said, “Sister Zǐ, don’t be disappointed so soon. Since I said it’s done, there must be a compensation plan that doesn’t affect your plan.”
“… How?” I asked.
Xin Zi smiled and took a step back, handing over the floor to Bā Hé. She tapped her little boots on the lab floor and dragged a warning cone from the back.
It looked quite heavy.
“Huff! Sister Zǐ, look at this!”
Bā Hé pointed at the red warning light on top of the cone. Inside the bulb, the barrier generator had replaced the original light, but the bulb itself was enclosed in a cage-like sphere, looking somewhat strange.
Not understanding her intention, I asked bluntly, “So, what is this?”
“Although we haven’t made anything this small before, Sister Zǐ must have seen this version. The original magic barrier looked like this.”
I vaguely understood her intention.
Like most products that undergo iterations, the current magic barrier was the result of several improvements. Initially, the institute didn’t have the technology to create a curtain-like barrier through directional radiation. The original barriers relied on mesh conductors, similar to grids or Faraday cages, except powered by magic.
Though less convenient than the current light curtain barriers, this mesh design had its advantages. All magic flowed within the conductor, with minimal leakage, making it harder to detect.
“So, you’ve added another layer of barrier outside the existing one.”
Bā Hé explained her design with a raised nose.
“Hehe, the power reduction also shortened the activation time to about ten seconds. This mesh barrier’s function is to hide the leaking magic before the inner barrier reaches its critical activation point, thus achieving an instant barrier opening effect!”
This was akin to a car’s launch control.
Seeing that I understood, Bā Hé continued, “But there’s only one chance. As the outer shell, the mesh barrier will melt due to overload and there won’t be time to replace it.”
“This isn’t a problem. This operation has no option for failure or retry.”
If it failed once, the mysterious girl A would be long gone.
Six barrier generators formed the vertices of an octahedral cage. The current challenge was how to keep the target inside for ten seconds to give the barrier time to activate.
The daytime combat strategy might need some adjustments.
As I pondered, a refreshing cool breeze blew in from the hatch door, clearing my mind.
“Oh! This is… ventilation!”
Excitedly, Bā Hé rushed out of the lab, like a dog excited by rain.
The deep lab’s ventilation equipment consumed a lot of magic power, so it couldn’t run continuously. To save power, it used intermittent ventilation.
“Youngster Zǐ, why don’t you come see Old Man?”
Professor Shí Huarong ran over from the power generation room, pushing a cart loaded with construction tools, all powered by magic.
She looked hot, wearing a dirty single-layer shirt even in winter. Her fair skin was stained with mud or rust, which was unfortunate.
I responded, “Good evening, Professor. Please take care of yourself.”
The professor waved dismissively and laughed, “Hey, I’ve been resting for two days. Now that Old Lin is back, I rushed back. Compared to that old video hall, working here is much more interesting.”
As Sister Ling Qing said, the professor was a workaholic.
Despite being alone in her previous life because of this, she hadn’t learned her lesson even after a second chance.
“Professor, once the new institute is finished, Boss will force you to take a vacation.”
Ignoring Miss Xin Zi’s complaint, the professor replied with a smile, “Once this is done, I can build an even deeper institute. Space is never enough. Plans for phase two and three can also be arranged.”
… Oh, this person is beyond help.
