Death Notice Book 6: Chapter 36: Space-Time Converter

The research room behind the hatch was full of dust, giving off a broken and decayed feeling. This research room had a strange shape. Its floor was an arc-shaped strip, which was clearly different from the spacious layouts of most research rooms.

Also, unlike most important areas in the Domination War zone, this place wasn’t messy at all. It seemed the Apostles or researchers who were originally here had taken good care of the devices and equipment when they retreated. Most of the equipment in the research room was covered with canvas, and some facilities even had reinforcement devices.

While Qin Lun was still observing the research room, the Holy City Orphan was running wildly inside, tearing off the canvas covers from the equipment.

“As expected, he’s been here before. His parents probably worked here, but I don’t know if they left the Holy City with the Apostles of the Celestial Wheel!” Qin Lun watched the Little Mute’s actions, his eyes flickering with thought.

However, the young man knew it was most likely that the mute child’s parents had already died. After all, if they were still alive, they wouldn’t have left the Little Mute alone.

As the Little Mute swept all the canvas covers to the floor, the original appearance of the entire research room was revealed to Qin Lun.

“What is this thing? A test wind tunnel? A teleportation device? Or a magnetic acceleration track?”

When this research room, which looked like a submarine cabin, was fully exposed, Qin Lun couldn’t help showing a trace of surprise on his face. In the center of this research room was an artificial tunnel over ten meters long and about two meters high. It looked a bit like a wind tunnel for testing aircraft, and also a bit like magnetic acceleration equipment used in high-energy physics.

The strangest thing was that the surface of this steel tunnel was densely engraved with law runes, and it was easy to tell this was the work of many High-Rank Apostles.

Qin Lun felt extremely strange inside, and his facial expression became even more varied. Given his usual luck, this was just too unscientific!

“Ee-ya, ee-ya!” Seeing Qin Lun standing there dazed by himself quickly angered the other person in the research room. The Little Mute wasn’t happy. He puffed out his cheeks and made sounds for the first time.

“Oh…” Qin Lun came back to his senses and looked at the Little Mute. “You want me to help you start this device? Can this thing even be activated?”

Qin Lun walked closer to the control panel where the mute was standing, looking slightly puzzled. There was a hand-shaped touchscreen there. He carefully placed his palm on the touchscreen, planning to take the Little Mute and retreat from here immediately if anything seemed wrong.

Unexpectedly, the moment he touched the screen, the Death Notice immediately went haywire. Notification messages from the Shattered Starry Sky poured down like a flood, most of which were actually warning messages in red font.

“Apostle 70053, you have discovered the Space-Time Converter…”

“Apostle 70053, you have received a temporary employment task from the Shattered Starry Sky… Destroy the Space-Time Converter. Task reward: After this Metropolis Domination War ends, your mission evaluation will be raised by one level…”

“Apostle 70053, the temporary employment task must be completed within ten minutes. The countdown has started…”

Space-Time Converter?! Qin Lun’s body froze in place. He let the Little Mute anxiously tug his sleeve, the light in his pupils flickering bright and dim. After he read through the Shattered Starry Sky’s notification messages one by one, he also understood what the so-called “Space-Time Converter” actually was.

This tunnel device, which resembled a particle accelerator, couldn’t actually convert the current space-time into another space-time. It also couldn’t send any person or any thing into another space-time. For Apostles, it was completely meaningless.

However, in a certain sense, this machine really did play a role in space-time conversion.

To explain this, it involved the formation process of Apostles. How did ordinary humans like Qin Lun convert into Apostles? First, the Apostles leaped from their original world into the Shattered Starry Sky. But the opposition between the two world laws caused wonderful changes in their bodies and Souls.

Souls that couldn’t adapt to space-time travel would perish, leaving behind only bodies acting on biological instinct. Remaining Soul Power would form Soul Power Crystals within the bodies. Souls that could adapt to space-time travel would gain the recognition of the Shattered Starry Sky’s laws, combine with a Law Body to become Probationary Apostles, and form an Apostle Covenant with the Shattered Starry Sky.

In other words, the formation of Apostles was essentially due to the impact of two different World Laws, or rather, a side effect occurring during the conversion process between two different space-times.

The device in front of Qin Lun was originally a high-tech product from another space-time. Its original name was “Space-Time Travel Instrument.” In its own world, this instrument was just an experimental device built based on scientific fantasy. Besides being something to look at, it couldn’t be used at all.

The reason was that world itself didn’t possess the laws for space-time leap. No matter how advanced the technology was, this thing could never be used.

However, during one of the Shattered Starry Sky’s space-time impacts on that universe, this thing got caught in a space-time turbulence and appeared on the Atlantis continent…

Atlantis deeply suffered from the problem of insufficient new Probationary Apostles. After they obtained this thing, they actually came up with a far-fetched idea. They wanted to use this instrument as an Apostle processing factory, artificially creating a space-time conversion field, and then having ordinary Atlanteans undergo Apostle conversion.

The most absurd thing was that they… succeeded!

This “Space-Time Travel Instrument” from the Other World, after being improved by a large group of Atlantean scientists, although unable to perform space-time travel, successfully simulated a space-time environment completely different from the Shattered Starry Sky.

Once a intelligent being from the Shattered Starry Sky entered this instrument and came out from the other end, he (she) would be treated by the Shattered Starry Sky as a visitor from another space-time, thus undergoing a Law Body conversion process.

Subjectively speaking, this was beneficial for the Shattered Starry Sky, as it gained more mercenaries. But the problem was, the Shattered Starry Sky was a collection of laws. How could it possibly allow this kind of artificial Apostle creation? To it, this was basically like a cancer cell on the Apostle Covenant law.

If this were any other Apostle City, such an instrument couldn’t exist at all. If any large team dared to hide this kind of instrument, the Shattered Starry Sky would pay some price, and countless Apostle teams would attack them together.

Unfortunately, Atlantis was a special case. They basically managed Apostles like soldiers. Under the melting pot of the Apostle legions, even if the Shattered Starry Sky issued tasks to destroy the instrument, nobody paid any attention to it.

Perhaps, this was also the main reason why the Shattered Starry Sky didn’t take measures to stop the large-scale internal strife and chaos among Apostles in the Atlantis Sacred City.

In the view of this law collection, the Atlantis civilization was simply a tumor within the Shattered Starry Sky. Since the Apostles inside often acted against the Apostle Covenant, it didn’t need to fulfill its protective obligations either.

After the Atlanteans successfully developed this Space-Time Converter, their joy was obvious. They even had a large group of High-Rank Apostles engrave countless law runes onto the Space-Time Converter, making it “disappear” from under the nose of the Shattered Starry Sky.

However, after a series of experiments, the Atlanteans fell from heaven straight into hell. It was true that they could make the Space-Time Converter simulate another space-time, but they never imagined the success rate of converting ordinary Atlanteans into Apostles would be so low—only about one in several hundred!

The Atlantean scientists worked day and night, trying to find ways to increase the success rate. Sadly, they ultimately reached a despairing conclusion. To become an Apostle, environmental and physical factors weren’t the key point. The key point lay in the Soul. Only special Souls that met the requirements for space-time travel had the potential to become Apostles.

In other words, even if the Atlantean scientists perfected the Space-Time Converter to the utmost, whether someone could become an Apostle still depended on that person’s own Soul, and the result couldn’t be predicted beforehand.

Calculating based on this conversion rate, even if all the over one million Atlanteans in the Holy City underwent conversion, it would only add a few thousand Probationary Apostles to the Holy City. It was also through the Space-Time Converter that the high-level officials of Atlantis realized their social system was fundamentally flawed. Their predicament was actually created by their own hands.

That the Holy City eventually erupted into the Doomsday War was, in one aspect, because the High-Rank Apostles of Atlantis had already despaired of the war’s prospects. That’s why they chose to abandon continuing to help Atlantis. Before the final judgment came, they split up the three major Apostle legions of the Holy City.

“Ee-ya!” While Qin Lun was still lost in thought, the Little Mute grew impatient. He stomped hard on the young man’s instep, finally making him snap out of it.

“You… knew what this thing was all along, right?!” Qin Lun said to the Little Mute with a bitter smile.

Seeing Qin Lun come back to his senses, the Little Mute immediately ran barefoot to the entrance of the Space-Time Converter, gesturing and miming for him to start the instrument.

Qin Lun took a deep breath, moved his hand away from the touchscreen, walked up to the Little Mute, and said seriously, “Believe me, entering the world of Apostles won’t make your life easier than it is now. At least, I don’t think it’s a good choice…”

The Little Mute looked quietly at Qin Lun, his large, clear black eyes looking especially resolute.

Qin Lun stared back at him, eye to eye, for a long time before finally sighing. “Alright, maybe I can’t persuade you. But I can choose not to start this instrument for you! With me here, at least you can survive safely!”

“Ee-ya ee-ya!” The Little Mute threw his big head back and glared angrily at Qin Lun. Seeing the young man turn his head away and ignore him, he finally fell silent. After a long while, the Little Mute tugged Qin Lun’s arm and slowly handed the doll he was holding in his arms to the young man.

“You… would rather give it up than stop this!” Qin Lun reared his head back as if punched hard. He stared dead at the tattered doll and murmured, “Fine. This is your fate. I respect your choice… Just don’t regret it. There’s no turning back on this path!”