From star abyss

Atquis Ziegler lowered his head. He lingered outside Minister Balcomon's door for half an hour, hesitating whether to go in or not.

During this period, he kept looking at the student file information in his hand and kept muttering: "How to deal with it?"

If other people saw this scene, I'm afraid they would be greatly surprised: the dignified White Candle Star's head of the College Committee, an agency directly under the Ministry of Education, Professor Atquez, would actually hold a student's information in his hand, and still Consider showing it to the Minister of Education.

As a purely educational planet, the highest administrative body of White Candle Star is not the Master Council, but the Ministry of Education directly appointed by the Supreme Council of the Crystal Tower. The then Minister of Education, Balkomon Pahlavi Basit, was truly the number one man, the man with the highest power on the planet.

"How should I report this? No matter how you look at it, it is too suspicious. Such a mistake at this time is likely to anger the minister. But if it is ignored like this, if something goes wrong in the future, the entire civilization may be Everyone will be affected.”

In the eyes of outsiders, at the age of only 78, Professor Atquez has served as the chief of the college committee, overseeing the alliance of 16 colleges and universities, and is responsible for adjusting student sources and planning resource allocation for each college. He is already considered a high-power bureaucrat with a bright future. scenery.

But even so, Atquisi still had ten thousand thoughts when he thought of dealing with Minister Balcomon.

Because this minister had just returned from the experience of the second level of star abyss - Jingyuan. He had already suffered the curse of floating and had a weird personality.

Some people rumored that he was once the biological flesh and blood of a certain elder mage in the Supreme Council. He was supposed to stay on his home planet, but because of the floating curse, he suffered distrust and rejection, and was afraid of his strength, so he was placed there. On the educational planet at the rear, talents will not be wasted and there will be no worries about problems.

Atkizi has never been to the Star Abyss. As a young man who has just entered the Yota (Ι, ninth Greek letter) level, he does not intend to dive too early to break through the shackles, and the Minister of Education has truly returned from the battlefield. The Kappa order (Κ, the tenth Greek letter), as long as he is willing, this planet will disappear in an instant.

Unfortunately, he didn't know whether the information he wanted to submit would affect or irritate the minister.

This is not an easy job. Contact with people like the minister requires great psychological pressure.

After much hesitation, out of his basic qualities as a technocrat, Atquis decided to knock on the door.

Dude, dunk, dunk.

"Come in."

A calm middle-aged man's voice sounded. Atkes straightened his formal mage robe and immediately opened the door and came in.

As soon as he entered the door, the first thing he saw was not a desk, but an oil painting hanging high on the wall. The style of the painting was exquisite and gorgeous, but the content was extremely messy and abstract - an icy blizzard disembowelled an obese woman, a baby Transformed into a giant, standing on the ground, bursting out of the belly, holding the umbilical cord with his hands, using it as a whip to whip out the flames and smoke. Countless mantises were riding humans as big as spaceships, shooting popcorn towards the soles of the baby's feet. The beer bottle cap tore open the green wound, and gold coins and cereal gurgled out.

Atkizi could understand every element in the picture, but when put together, he could only feel physical discomfort and terror. He seemed to be able to understand the meaning of the picture, but the overly abstract expression and abundant emotions completely overwhelmed his reason.

"Chief Atquis, there is no need to forcefully interpret the content of the painting."

The middle-aged man's voice sounded again, and Atkizi woke up as if from a dream. He did not dare to look at the picture again, but turned to look at the middle-aged man behind the maple table, and said respectfully:

"Minister Balcomon, I'm sorry to interrupt your work."

"It's okay, I don't have any work today."

Balcomon is a stern-looking strong man. He has a bald head, a clean shaven beard, inverted triangular eyes, and a bear-like physique. He does not look like a mage at all, but a warrior like a warrior. , but this is not the most eye-catching.

When Atquis first saw Balcomon, he was attracted by his temperament - it was a strange temperament. When the light hit Balcomon's body, it was faintly distorted, even though he knew that he was a soldier. His figure is upright and he sits upright, but from Atkis's perspective, Balcomon is not upright in any way. His facial features and nose always give people a weird look like a spiral, constantly twisting and rotating. .

Balcomon noticed Atkis's hesitation and weirdness, and casually explained:

"That painting is a specialty brought from the Star Abyss. Fortunately, it was not confiscated by the Narrative Level."

The implication is that he is like this all because of Xingyuan.

"Sit down. This is not a narrative level place. You don't need to stand to talk to your superiors."

When he talked about the narrative level, his tone involuntarily became heavier, and dissatisfaction and anger flashed across his eyes.

So Atkizi hurriedly struck while the iron was hot: "Narrative-level civilizations are the overlords of the universe. They are used to being domineering, and they feel that the entire universe must revolve around them."

"Humph, I have seen Hercules, the general of the [Emperor of Heroes], who is arrogant, short-sighted and arrogant. In the star abyss, if they hadn't formed a group and shared the curse, they would still be on their own now. You may not be as good as me."

Balcomon muttered:

"Not to mention the people of [Annihilation Temple], they are a group of missionary lunatics. They have been searching for something called spiritual maggots. For it, many people died and several went crazy. There is also [Joint Enterprise] Compared with the bad ones, none of these Red King people are really good."

Atkizi's eyelids twitched and he suggested cautiously:

"It's not good to make irresponsible remarks about gods. What's more, he is also the main god who holds the path of [Looters]."

"No need to worry, the people from [Annihilation Temple] and [Emperor of Heroes] are scolding them together. I have never seen anyone cheating my teammates like this. I will never cooperate with them again."

Balcomon didn't care:

"What's more, Red King has betrayed Xingyuan. Furthermore, he doesn't even notice little people like us. Feel free to scold - by the way, you came to me not just to discuss Xingyuan, right?" ?”

Since it was Balcomon who took the initiative to ask why he was here, Atkizi felt a little more relieved, and he said the wording he had thought of:

"Minister Balcomon, our White Candle Star has admitted a special student in the magic qualification examination held today."

"Oh, how special is he? He actually allowed our youngest college committee chief to teleport to me to discuss this issue in person."

Atkizi's previous greetings made Balcomon feel relaxed. This serious soldier even teased Atkizi:

"Come on, tell me, you didn't recruit a hairless rat into the university, did you? In fact, it's not impossible. The Crystal Tower is a very open civilization. For non-human races and demi-human creatures, as long as it is not biochemical reproduction, Pretenders, or man-eating monsters with bad intentions, even silicon-based creatures and atmospheric creatures, we are happy to accept them to join - this is also a manifestation of our interstellar influence."

Balcomon also told a cold joke:

"Although we are not in line with interstellar civilization."

"It's good that you think so, but I'm afraid that something unexpected will happen and you will have to bear the responsibility."

At this time, Atkizi also said half-heartedly, with a worried attitude:

"Minister Balcomon, this student only took 5 minutes to take the exam."

"five minutes?"

Balcomon was surprised:

"I didn't expect that there is such a genius in the abyss? If I remember correctly, after the exam reform 20 years ago, the number of questions has increased by 40%. In five days, for a mortal (gamma level) , those who can finish it are already very good, but it actually took him five minutes? Has he become a transcendent?"

"We initially suspected that he was cheating, or using magic or technological means. We found that everything was normal, there were no traces of plug-ins in the background, and the magic fluctuations were very stable, ruling out the possibility of cheating."

Atquis explained:

"After all, you can cheat on objective questions, but you cannot cheat on subjective questions. No matter how a person avoids it, he cannot change that he is a person affected by subjective emotions. His words will reveal the author's own thoughts and soul. You Through the works, you can see the author's position, knowledge, education, and even emotional status and physical experience - after our testing, he did not cheat."

"Then this is a good thing. Our planet has produced such a genius - quickly contact the Supreme Council and drag this young man into the 'Crystal Palace'. He will be our focus in the future."

Balcomon became happy, and a strange and crooked smile bloomed on his face, which was distorted by the invisible force. It was extremely ghostly and horrifying, and made Atkizi feel extremely uncomfortable in his heart.

"So, you came to me just to tell me: Minister, we found a treasure? Is that so?"

"There is something wrong with this. You will know it at a glance."

He suppressed his physical and psychological discomfort and submitted the student's information.

Balcomon took the neat paper, and Atkis immediately noticed that wherever his fingers passed, the words were twisted unnaturally, as if light would be bent by gravity, and a steel wire would be entangled in circles. .

"My name is Leos. Well, it's just an ordinary name. If I throw a stone, I can hit an unlucky guy with the same name as the gods and angels, whether it's Red, Arthur, or Levi." Tan…”

“People are always so creatively sterile.”

Atkizi touched his nose:

"Most parents have certain wishes for their children, and many of them will name their children after great people. Of course, there will also be some who deliberately give their children bad names."

"You're right, it's easy to make a living with a bad name."

Balcomon smiled knowingly, as if he remembered something happy:

"My father originally planned to name me 'Archimund' - it is said to be the name of a certain great demon, hoping that I will not be invaded by demons in the future - I am going too far, let me look at this Leoz's name. Grades, objective questions, full marks, experimental questions, full marks, subjective questions, full marks, composition..."

The more Balcomon looked, the weirder his expression became. His face, already distorted by the irresistible invisible force, became even more distorted.

He spread out the document and read every line carefully, his eyes were serious and cold, his brows were knitted together, and the veins on his ferocious bald head were protruding like earthworms, making him look hideous and terrifying.

Balcomon put his hands on the table and stood up slowly. He took the report and walked around the office. He first came to the bookcase, shaking his head back and forth and frowning. Then, as if Atquis didn't exist, he simply sat on the sofa, scratching his ears and head, holding his chin, and his faces were almost crowded together.

After a while, he put his hands behind his back and walked to the window, looking at the white candle star surrounded by the white atmosphere outside the earth's orbit.