Dimensional Hotel-Chapter 654 - 653: Tracking the Address, Seeking the Trail

In the management room of the core area, Luo Zheng stood on the control platform that Old Qiao once used to monitor the entire base. Her several mechanical limbs extended from her back, connecting to nearby terminal devices, while a multitude of ever-changing holographic projections hovered around her. Some displayed dizzying data and graphs, while others showed the current situation inside and outside the base.

"Old Qiao left a ’delivery location’ for trading with the Hidden Monastery, along with two secret lines for contacting the Hidden Monastery’s contact person," she lifted her head and looked at Yu Sheng, who was standing nearby with arms crossed. Her golden star-like eyes gleamed with the micro-light of data flow, "But I have reasons to doubt the accuracy of this information — knowing him, even if pushed into a desperate situation seeking a quick death, he would definitely find a way to set me a trap. Those two secret lines are likely ’warning routes’ pre-agreed with the Hidden Monastery. Once rashly activated, the contact on the other side will probably realize something has happened to Old Qiao."

Nearby terminal devices hummed. Luo had already connected herself to the fortress’s database, browsing through the vast sea of local logs and materials, while organizing her thoughts.

"As for that ’delivery location,’ the coordinates should be real. I found matching preset jump coordinates in the navigation system of a freighter shuttle docked inside the base. But heading directly there might alert them... Once I’ve sorted out the control system here, I plan to first launch a stealth deep-space probe to investigate the situation over there."

"Could that ’delivery location’ be close to the control planet of the Hidden Monastery?" Erin, curious, asked from atop a nearby terminal, "Would we find the Hidden Monastery’s base there?"

"If those zealots have even the least bit of caution, they wouldn’t," Luo glanced at the mischievous little dwarf beside her, "Such contact points must be far from their main base, and judging from Old Qiao’s descriptions, I don’t think there’s much ’trust’ between him and those Hidden Monastery Sect people. They must be wary of each other, which aligns with the ’rules’ here in the Dark Meteor Domain."

Erin drew out her tone: "Wow — so that’s how it is."

Who knows if she truly understood.

Luo subconsciously cast several glances at Erin, unable to hold back: "Also, you’re sitting on the equipment’s heat sink, isn’t it hot?"

Erin: "...Wow!"

The little puppet startled belatedly, jumping off the terminal in surprise, darting swiftly onto Yu Sheng’s shoulder.

Yu Sheng immediately felt one side of his shoulder warm up. He pressed the restless little figure shakily balancing on his shoulder, and thoughtfully began: "When I first connected my consciousness to this base, I seemed to ’see’ Old Qiao communicating with someone. Although I couldn’t hear clearly, it was likely someone from the Hidden Monastery. Can you find records of that?"

"Hold on... Corresponding communication logs found," Luo’s eyes flashed with light. As her immense processing power linked to the base database, her expression grew somewhat stiff, and even her speech seemed mechanical, "Communication contents have been erased, auto-executed by the system based on certain security protocols... Attempting to recover contact information, searching for more similar communication logs..."

As she spoke, the surrounding terminal devices buzzed loudly, and faint electric sparks danced over the surface of her mechanical limbs. In just a moment, visible heat began to rise from her head.

Erin was startled upon seeing this, shouting: "Hey sis, your heat sink is clogged too —"

Before the little puppet finished yelling, the living metal covering on Luo’s back suddenly wiggled, and numerous heat dissipation grilles opened spontaneously from the connection points of her mechanical limbs, releasing heat hotly.

"My heat sink is concealed," Luo’s eyes soon returned to normal, the mechanical vibe fading from her. She glanced at Erin, her gaze shifting to Yu Sheng, "I’ve found the communication records you mentioned. The content was thoroughly erased, but Old Qiao clearly didn’t anticipate his entire base privileges would be taken over — other traces remain in the system, including the forwarding node registration list."

Yu Sheng, unable to grasp the technical details, asked directly: "Can you use this to pinpoint the person he was contacting?"

After speaking, he added: "I see it done like that in movies. After making a call, the scientist on the other side goes tap-tap-tap on the screen, tracing along the wire to pin the person down..."

Luo’s expression became subtly intricate.

When dealing with the people from the travel agency, she often experienced the same helplessness as a late-stage Homo sapiens encountering her primate relatives in the tropical rainforest.

But she quickly adjusted her expression, after all, as a researcher, she was accustomed to interacting with those of lesser cultural sophistication. Moreover, the illiterate across from her was her boss—he didn’t understand science, but at least he respected science... well, sometimes what he did wasn’t quite respectful of science, but at least he respected scientists.

...maybe?

The more Luo thought about it, the more nuanced her feelings became, but she patiently began explaining: "Each faster-than-light communication array in the Dark Meteor Domain is camouflaged, even if the information from the relay node can be successfully restored, it would certainly be paired with several layers of false characteristics. Additionally, the Venerate Saints Monastery has its own set of communication facilities and sovereign broadcast devices; decrypting their internal encryption is..."

She suddenly stopped, looking up at Yu Sheng and Erin with their clear, bright eyes.

Hu Li’s eyes weren’t clear—her gaze seemed hungry.

Luna wasn’t listening at all—as a country maiden saintess with basic education consisting of sixteen years of farming in the countryside, spending all other times hacking away at barriers in the Cognitive Barrier, anything beyond basic arithmetic was beyond her academic ability (she ordinarily operated the Otherworld Inn purely by instinct).

Luo let out a long sigh.

"I can decrypt it, just give me some time."

Then she thought for a moment and decided to explain further without giving up: "In just a few days, I can reverse-engineer their real coordinates based on the signal patterns from those relay nodes; cross-calculating will help locate the hiding place of the Venerate Saints Monastery—as long as one effective address is found, the rest is easy."

"Well, that’s great!" Erin became excited, "Just in time, we can also arrange with Ironclad Expression. When we hit the bastard monastery, we’ll go as the vanguard and have Ironclad Expression gathering troops from behind..."

Yu Sheng caught something from Luo’s previous expression, feeling a bit apologetic and exceptionally sincere: "Well, you know, understand that the average cultural level here at the travel agency is indeed limited. Our most cultured person here (pointing at Hu Li) is still just waiting for meal time..."

Upon hearing the word meal, Hu Li’s ears perked up with a "ding," but upon noticing there’s no indication of a meal starting, she grunted softly and buried her head into a pile of tails.

"Next are the things Old Qiao left behind after his death—they not only include this base but also those trade lines, factories, shipyards, and security forces scattered across the Dark Meteor Domain," Luo said while browsing the asset list in the database, moving on to the next topic, "I plan to completely transform this Deep Rock Fortress, dismantling all those nauseating labs and exhibition halls inside. Of course, before that, we need to transfer it to Black Stone Station, since this location is too remote and deep into the Dark Meteor Domain—not a suitable place to establish a stronghold. This process might require your assistance, boss."

"As for those surrendering clone forces and the few local ships, leave them to Laine for reorganization and processing. He has experience with that. If everything goes smoothly, this part of the force can completely convert into my private troops, circumventing the Black Dot Group. 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

"Regarding the factories and trade lines... although I’d like to absorb them all, unfortunately, my current ’appetite’ is limited. Swallowing them whole might instead become a gigantic problem and easily catch excessive attention from the corporation—Old Qiao has many industries linked to other Black Dot project managers or special commissioners, some of whom I am also connected with, so I can’t overdo it.

"So the best approach is to directly hand over this part of the industry to the corporation for redistribution—after redistribution, I think I can legally acquire some of the assets, and it may even help repair my ’value rating’ within the Black Dot Group to some extent."

Luo stopped slowly at this point, revealing a thoughtful expression before continuing after a moment: "The commotion on the Gray Dwarf Star should already have alerted spies within the corporation to investigate. The news of Old Qiao’s death can be temporarily concealed, but my return likely has already reached the higher-ups—this is also an opportunity, although not entirely as expected, I can officially ’return’ now."

"There’s a problem here," Yu Sheng interrupted while listening and pondering, "once the Black Dot Group starts processing Old Qiao’s legacy, his death can’t be hidden—the Venerate Saints Monastery in the Dark Meteor Domain should be very well-informed, once they know something happened to Old Qiao, then many intelligence pieces we have about the monastery might become ineffective, at the very least they’ll be increasingly vigilant."

"So we must play this strategic delay," Luo said with utmost seriousness, "I will use various reports and document procedures to stall the corporate’s investigation into the Gray Dwarf Star and this ’internal conflict,’ delaying as much as possible the subsequent process initiated by the board of directors, so the information remains within the confidential level within the Black Dot Group. Meanwhile, we must find and infiltrate the monastery’s homeland before then—once we succeed, even with your means, boss, any reaction from the monastery will be in vain."