I have brought Lu Chen. Where do I collect the one million?

Lu Chen logged in to observe several planets in succession, and the conditions were basically the same. Among the slaves he tracked in the database, the one who had undergone the most brainwashing had been through it seven times and was transferred across seven planets. Relying on industrious hands and a yearning for freedom, this person had earned seventy thousand spiritual stones for the masters.

One must know that this formidable individual was below the tenth tier of cultivation, relying purely on brute force, yet his earning capacity surpassed that of Lu Chen, who was at the same tier. Eventually, after the eighth brainwashing, the individual suffered irreversible neurasthenia, was diagnosed with mad cow disease, and was executed.

The natural environments of these planets were breathtaking, each more picturesque and magnificent than the last, resembling paradise. However, the methods of enslavement grew increasingly sophisticated. From a distance, they looked like paradise; up close, they were hell.

Lu Chen's intuitive feeling was that enslaving humanoids here was even more cruel than the Balches enslaving human female slaves. The human female slaves kept by the Balch family were plump and well-fed, living in a perpetual dream from day to day without having to labor; they only needed to provide superior genes. Moreover, their total population numbered only in the tens of thousands. The Balch family's primary targets of exploitation were carefully selected insectoids, but insectoids possessed no liberal thoughts, and the selection direction was scientific and highly organized.

In contrast, the humanoid slaves of the Fang Corporation totaled over ten billion, dedicating their entire lives to the corporation generation after generation until death released them. The Fang Corporation even cleverly established a small, struggling goal of freedom for the humanoids; once the slaves achieved this goal, the corporation shattered it with their own hands and continued the brainwashing to keep them enslaved.

In Lu Chen's view, the thing humans excelled at most was exploiting others, followed secondarily by technology. Exploitation was a human instinct, while technology was merely a flash of inspiration. Technology could stagnate, but the methods of exploitation would always progress, even becoming technologized.

From the bloody conquests of the pioneering era, to the establishment of order and the cultivation of humanoids during the Old Federation era, and further to the granting of human rights to humanoids in the early Imperial era, human regimes appeared increasingly civilized on the surface. However, the essence of human exploitation of humans never changed.

A thousand years ago, after the Empire established the Three-Tier Alliance, adopted a pacification policy, and banned the enslavement of humanoids, covert and professional slave corporations like the Fang Corporation sprang up everywhere in the universe like bamboo shoots after a spring rain, providing considerable tax revenue for the Empire.

Beyond that, after the Empire banned certain experiments that violated human ethics, those laboratories were transferred to these covert slave corporations to continue their research, becoming even more unbridled. The laboratories undertaken by the Fang Corporation were humanoid atavism laboratories originating from the Interstellar Shepherds.

After the Zuo'an Nebula incident, the Interstellar Shepherds, ranked among the Three Thousand Stellar Calamities, had already been taken over and disbanded by the Empire's Silver Rose Mecha Special Operations Brigade.

Lu Chen quickly discovered that the shareholders behind the Fang Corporation were mostly lords hailing from the Empire. The Interstellar Shepherds Adventure Group was also a national team secretly funded and organized by these lords. This led Lu Chen to suspect that the Federation's Balch family and the June Flower Adventure Group they supported likely also possessed Imperial backgrounds.

This explained why the Balch family possessed advanced neural network servers and a developed stellar-insect shipbuilding industry. After all, the humanoids of the New Federation had never cared for technology or laboratories. Who would bother with technology when they could make a living through cultivation talent?

The Empire also maintained year-round public opinion offensives, promoting the uselessness of technology, the collapse of the Empire, the rise of the Federation, the evil of centralization, and the independence and freedom of all races, thereby numbing the people of the Federation. In the past, there had also been the slogan "there is strength in numbers," but later, finding out that numbers genuinely brought strength, they stopped promoting that slogan.

The star systems controlled by the New Federation covered only half the territory of the Empire, yet the total population already exceeded the combined population of the Imperial core domain, the Second-Tier Alliance, and the Third-Tier Alliance. Throughout the entire New Federation, only a few stellar domains in the Federation headquarters paid attention to scientific education; the rest of the independent star domains were anti-science civilizations where religion reigned supreme. If every independent star domain in the New Federation possessed the technological level of the Sangu Gu stellar system, the Empire would have been overthrown long ago.

Lu Chen wandered among the major planets of the Fang Corporation as if entering an uninhabited realm, capturing a vast amount of firsthand material and finding a mountain of evidence sufficient to nail the Fang Corporation to the pillar of shame. It was a pity that the shareholders behind the Fang Corporation were either individuals or held by proxy through capital companies, likely wrapped in multiple layers of corporate shells. Proving that this enslavement by the Fang Corporation was intentionally orchestrated by the Imperial government was currently impossible.

"Even if everyone knows what is going on at a glance, as long as there is no concrete evidence, the Empire's skin is thicker than the outer wall of the Pangu Corridor."

Lu Chen felt helpless. After all, the Empire possessed tens of thousands of tier-100 carrier fleets, thousands of tier-200 carrier fleets, and hundreds of tier-300 carrier fleets. The Empire had the capital to be thick-skinned.

It was worth mentioning that the White Dew possessed a tier-300 warp engine. The Adventurers Association had twenty-four such vessels, though currently only eighteen had been built, with six more under construction. It was said that the flagships of the Seven Sovereigns were all above tier-300. In the universe, power still spoke the loudest.

Lu Chen carefully analyzed the defense forces of the Fang Corporation. If not for the tier-80 Imperial fleet garrisoned on the outer periphery of the Fang stellar system, his abilities, along with those of Dragon Seeker III and Pauling Glen, could have easily leveled the Fang Corporation outright. Right now, he still needed some tactics.

The Fang Corporation's network firewall was highly advanced, operating as an independent distributed system where each planet possessed an internal local area network. These networks primarily functioned to record slave information and did not involve military affairs or secret laboratories. Lu Chen guessed that the secret laboratories of the Fang Corporation were likely related to the research on atavistic humanoids.

Lu Chen could see business dealings between the Fang Corporation and the Interstellar Shepherds Adventure Group in the databases of various planets. They even had business dealings with the Balch family!

"You sell some human slaves to me, and I sell some humanoid slaves to you; we both have a legal future."

Incredible!

This showed that as long as there was profit to be made, humans would not only enslave alien races, but their own kind as well.

Lu Chen wanted not only to crush the Fang Corporation but also to take a look at their laboratory and clear up a few lingering questions. For example, were the atavistic laboratories of the Fang Corporation related to Vincent? Were they related to Black Dragon, Wan Tun, and Tun Wan? And were they related to Ellie?

Thinking thus, Lu Chen immediately flew toward the headquarters of the Fang Corporation, the seventh planet.

...

The defense level of the seventh planet was much higher than that of the other ten planets. Most of the warships in the Kanglang Kingdom's tier-70 fleet cruised around the seventh planet, forming an airtight defense net.

Lu Chen piloted the Phantom Knight past the warships. It felt like he could be discovered at any moment, yet these warships simply could not detect him... It was extremely thrilling!

Beyond the fleet defenses, the radar and network defenses of the seventh planet were also extremely advanced. As Lu Chen approached the atmosphere of the seventh planet, he actually received a visitor registration prompt. It startled him, making him think he had been exposed...

Looking closely, it turned out to be a passive prompt received by the Phantom Knight's radar. Any response, deletion, cracking, or forgery would cause the planetary radar to lock onto the spaceship's position. Of course, this applied to ordinary stealth spaceships. In front of a top-tier hacker like Lu Chen, it was utterly useless.

Lu Chen casually shattered and deleted the registration prompt. The planetary radar showed no reaction at all. Lu Chen moved through it as if it were an uninhabited realm.

Next, the problem before Lu Chen was this: The development level of the seventh planet was too high, making it difficult to find a secluded, uninhabited area to park the Phantom Knight. Those talented humanoid slaves had all been transferred to the seventh planet to receive final training. Moreover, cultivating geniuses required space, and these humanoid slaves were widely dispersed. There were orc ranches in the mountain forests, merman ranches in the rivers, lakes, and seas, and even insectoid ranches in the deserts, alongside earth-type and water-type cultivation grounds.

Monitoring and managing these talented humanoid slaves required a very rigorous military surveillance system, which left Lu Chen with no idea where to park. Once a person and armor separated, the armor could no longer remain invisible and would quickly be detected by radar. If the person and armor stayed together, Lu Chen could not sneak into the Fang Corporation's headquarters base.

It was a dilemma. Lu Chen lingered on the planetary surface for a long time.

Until a large-scale sandstorm appeared in the desert, he immediately piloted the Phantom Knight charging into the center of the storm, burrowing two thousand miles deep underground into the desert. The nearby radar, affected by the sandstorm, was temporarily unable to monitor underground targets. However, if this lasted long and the sandstorm dissipated, the armor might still be discovered. He had to act swiftly!

Subsequently, clad in his battle armor, Lu Chen returned to the surface and flew invisibly to the location of the Fang Corporation's headquarters, Fang City.

Lu Chen dismissed his armor, dressed in modern cyan swordsman attire, and swaggered through the city for a few minutes. Soon, he discovered that every single citizen was a privileged ruling-class elite, stepping outside while leading several humanoid slaves fitted with collars. There were personal bodyguard slaves, various types of recreational slaves, and even mount slaves.

Clearly possessing high technology and more obedient, efficient robots, they still preferred taking slaves out shopping.

"Perhaps humans simply enjoy the joy brought by enslaving others..."

Lu Chen himself rather liked two-dimensional maids and the like. But the citizens of Fang City were clearly much more excessive. They even competed with each other regarding the endurance and loyalty of their slaves by abusing them. There were citizens walking the street with a group of cat-ear maidens, who served tea and water, massaged shoulders and hammered backs, fed them food and water, and carried out various humiliating acts the entire way...

Despicable!

Lu Chen also liked cat-ear maidens, but he only liked cat-ear maidens with free will.

"No, I must liberate these slaves!"

If he couldn't liberate the entire universe, couldn't he at least liberate this tiny Fang Corporation?

Thinking this, Lu Chen strode toward Fang Tower.

Fang Tower was a cylindrical, modern mega-structure piercing straight into the clouds, its peak invisible from the ground. Arriving before the tower entrance, Lu Chen looked up and saw neatly arranged vertical plaques with inscriptions such as:

Humanoid Genius Training Base.
Humanoid Protection Experimental Base.
Galaxy Animal Protection Demonstration Unit.

Lu Chen couldn't help but be amused.

The security measures of Fang Tower were of a very high level, requiring detailed registration information to enter. The entrance access control was a tier-100 passage formation, allowing only one person to enter at a time. If two people entered together, it would jam.

Lu Chen had no choice but to take out a worm drone and quietly slip it into the clothes of the person in front of him. After the other person entered the tower, the worm quietly flew out, easily hacking into the independent access control system. It opened the access control and let Lu Chen in alone. Afterward, Lu Chen deleted the video, radar, and information records of this passage. Except for the few people waiting behind Lu Chen who saw the access control mysteriously open once without anyone passing through, no trace was left behind.

No matter how advanced a defense system was, as long as it interacted with humans, loopholes would inevitably exist, because humans themselves were the biggest loophole, impossible to plug no matter what.

Thus, Lu Chen easily passed through the access control and swaggered into Fang Tower.

Upon entering, he found that the people inside the tower were far fewer than he had imagined. Because the Fang Corporation prohibited humanoid slaves from entering the tower, the number of company employees was not large, with various types of robots doing most of the work. Human leaders and employees mostly performed coordination, planning, and supervisory tasks. These employees possessed complete human bodies with very few mechanically modified organs, instantly revealing the upper-class style of the Imperial core domain.

Through the access control system, Lu Chen invaded the daily maintenance and security system of the entire tower, figuring out its structure. There was also a completely sealed underground fortress beneath the tower.

Unfortunately, it couldn't be opened. Clearly, the basement hid quite a few secrets.

Up to this point, although Lu Chen had received no risk-avoidance prompts, the treasure map showed nothing either. Evidently, his cheat system did not believe he could take away any valuable treasures from within the Fang stellar system. With two fleets garrisoned on the outer periphery, it was indeed difficult.

"No matter what, I must get into the basement to take a look."

He needed to go to the Fang Corporation's CEO office first. In the CEO office, there would definitely be switches, cryptographic keys, or something similar to open the basement.

Entering the CEO office was relatively simple. Lu Chen waited outside for a moment, closely trailing behind a pretty female secretary, and pushed open the door to the CEO office.

In the center of the office was a small conference table. There were actually seven people sitting around it in a meeting! Two others were participating via online video.

A total of nine people, and what they were discussing was precisely the Primitive Star Dome adventure group. The atmosphere in the conference room was somewhat austere.

Among the seven people in the office, the one in the lead was none other than the general manager of the Fang Corporation—a greasy-complexioned, bloated-featured martial spirit practitioner of the 66th tier who wore a suit and glasses, which failed to conceal his obese physique.

The strengths of the other attendees varied, but the lowest was at least tier-50. Their figures and appearances were not bad, but they all looked exceedingly greasy, every single one of them projecting the image of a fat-bellied ruler. Their cultivation foundations were not very stable, looking as though they had been piled up entirely through resources, severely lacking in actual combat training.

The other two video participants appeared to be even higher-ranking big shots. One was an elderly man with full white hair and a disdainful gaze. Lu Chen guessed he was a high-ranking member of the Fang Corporation's board of directors. The other was the commander-in-chief of the fleet currently garrisoned on the outer periphery of the Fang stellar system—a colonel hailing from the Imperial core domain.

This tier-80 Imperial fleet also had a name: the Hurricane Fleet. It was an ace fleet that had fought for many years in the latter half of the Pangu Route and was battle-hardened.

"It seems the Fang Corporation is somewhat more important than I previously imagined."

After entering, Lu Chen quietly took one of the seven cups of coffee held by the female secretary's tray. Then, he sat down in the general manager's executive chair and delightfully tasted the top-grade freshly ground coffee. Even the heat emanating from the coffee was invisible and imperceptible.

Lu Chen drank coffee on one hand and watched to see what brilliant insights these lords had on the other. Like the god of death, he watched silently without saying a word.

The general manager's deep eyes stared fixedly at the female secretary's chest, suddenly realizing that a cup of coffee was missing.

"Why are there only six cups of coffee?"

The female secretary looked blank and panicked, saying:
"I'm sorry, I clearly remembered..."

If it were anyone else, the general manager would have flown into a rage, but this female secretary was the apple of his eye. He only said with a cold face:
"No need to explain, you go outside first."

The female secretary hurriedly said:
"I'll go brew another cup right away."

The general manager gave the female secretary an ambiguous look, then straightened his face and said:
"No need, I'm not thirsty. Everyone, go ahead and drink."
*I'll drink coffee alone with the little secretary tonight.*

The other six people vaguely caught the subtext in the general manager's words.

The female secretary hurriedly pushed the door open and stepped out, closing it securely. Perhaps Lu Chen's perspective was too narrow, but having lived twice, he had yet to see a male boss who didn't fool around with his female secretary. 100% obedience paired with uniform temptation—which man could resist?

Lu Chen even found some unsightly videos and photos on the general manager's computer. A young and beautiful female secretary and a pig-like middle-aged man—a typical neon small-movie plot. Lu Chen thought to himself that only a quality man like him, who was passionate about adventure and possessed high morals, could remain unstained from the mud and never engage in ambiguity with female subordinates during work hours.

Before the conference table:

Lacking coffee, the general manager subconsciously wanted to smoke. Just as he unpacked the cigarette pack and looked up to see two stern faces on the video connection, he instantly lost his nerve. He hurriedly put away the cigarette pack, wore a gloomy expression, and asked his subordinates to his left and right:
"Where were we just now?"

The staff officer of the Seventh Planet Defense Fleet nearby smiled and said:
"The enemy leader Lu Chen publicly stated in his livestream that he was coming to our Fang Corporation. According to the leap cruising speed of the Leonine, we and the Union Corporation are only half a day's journey away, yet a full day has passed and not even a shadow of a person is in sight. That brat has probably gone to the Land of Night."

"Haha, after all, he's a young man. Who can resist the enchanting nightlife of the Land of Night?"

In an instant, the conference room overflowed with cheerful laughter.

This instantly hooked Lu Chen's curiosity. Was the Land of Night really that fun? They were all laughing as if they were about to float up to the heavens.

The meeting continued.

"I've read all the news about this brat; he is especially skilled at making feints, making a feint to the east while attacking the west. He says he's coming here on his lips, but secretly he's definitely gone elsewhere."

"Perhaps he's already been here, only to discover the Kanglang Fleet and fled back in terror... not to mention the Imperial fleet hidden on the outer periphery."

"Last time, Vincent's mecha-dragon fleet came over, and they still treated us with courtesy, paying money to buy some talented slaves. What kind of nobody is his Primitive Star Dome?"

Lu Chen was slightly startled. Vincent's mecha-dragon fleet had also been to the Fang Corporation? He hadn't seen any related news. The last time he saw news about Vincent was during the fierce battle with the shooter-class *Guernica* and the subsequent prisoner exchange.

Judging by the current situation, Vincent's operational range was in the Blizzard Route, and coming to the Fang Corporation was likely related to experiments, stopping by to buy some talented slaves and paying the toll for smooth business. After the Zuo'an Nebula incident, Vincent had visited the Fang Corporation before diverting from Imperial star space to the Blizzard Route to avoid crossing the Ice and Snow Great Wall. After all, they weren't a registered adventure group of the Association.

Someone else clamored:
"I actually hope they come over, so we can capture Lu Chen alive and thoroughly interrogate what kind of background the Primitive Star Dome has, and what kind of backing they have to be this arrogant all the way!"

"Judging from the Primitive Star Dome's adventures over the past three months, they are either the Crownless Nation or official moles of the Adventurers Association. If they dare to push their luck, it won't matter if we just kill them directly."

"Perhaps we are overthinking it; they might just be a small adventure group with some special abilities, much like that Chestnut adventure group ranked high among the Adventurers Association rookies, relying on opportunistic adventures and instantly collapsing the moment they encounter hard targets like the Three Swordsmen."
"The reason the Primitive Star Dome has been so smooth all the way is likely because no one took them seriously, allowing them to exploit loopholes through unorthodox methods. Having lucked into gains, they forgot whose family name they bear."

Ah, yes, yes, yes... Lu Chen thought to himself. Although this group of people were fat-bellied, their analysis made a certain amount of sense.

From the time Lu Chen entered the office until now, the two big shots participating via video had been wearing grim faces and had yet to express their opinions.

Before long, the commander-in-chief of the Imperial fleet, Colonel Horton, finally spoke.

"Hacker capability is no unorthodox method. The intelligence I obtained is that they just broke the Organic Night virus at the Union Corporation."

The general manager hurriedly explained:
"Colonel Horton, please rest assured. The distributed system used by the Fang Corporation has an independent defense system on each planet. Even this tower has completely separated monitoring, control, defense, and access control systems... If any single point is breached by the enemy, the headquarters will receive an alert."

The intelligence officer beside him added:
"Besides, the Union Corporation only excels at online training and is not a professional robotics company. Their offline robot training business has just started, and their control systems are riddled with loopholes. Therefore, the Organic Night virus easily breached the firewall of the Union servers. But it was also because their servers lacked standardized and stable algorithmic soil that the Organic Night virus had nowhere to hide, which allowed the opponent to accidentally crack it."

Lu Chen thought to himself that the servers controlling the robots at the Union Corporation lacked stable algorithmic soil, which had instead increased the difficulty of his cracking process.

The white-haired old man in the video finally could not listen any longer.

"Is this meeting here to belittle the enemy? The enemy is the attacking party, and you are the defending party. The enemy is in the dark, and you are in the light. Groundlessly belittling the enemy is the way to court death. Elevate the enemy from all aspects so that nothing can go wrong."

The old man spoke very slowly, yet his words carried weight, and a single sentence rendered the entire venue pin-drop silent. The seven people before the conference table were too terrified to lift their heads.

Lu Chen took a look. This old man had great presence, and his strength was definitely above the tier-100 mark.

One had to admit that although the seven people in the conference room were a bit overconfident, this board executive and the Imperial fleet commander were quite prudent. This showed that even within an increasingly decadent Empire, truly powerful departments still required elites to take charge. Second and third generations could rarely be relied upon.

The intelligence officer hurriedly opened his wristband light screen, calling up the investigation data prepared in advance.

"According to intelligence provided by the Silver Rose Special Operations Brigade, the special abilities currently observed in the Primitive Star Dome are three:
First, Lu Chen's hacker capability.
Second, a internally modified stealth spaceship.
Third, the suddenly soaring combat power of Lu Chen himself."

Lu Chen was slightly startled. Had his strength been exposed this much already? Upon careful thought, he had never actively hidden anything either.

Judging from the intelligence provided by the intelligence officer:

The enemy's biggest problem was attributing his stealth capability to modifications made to the spaceship. The core of the problem was that no one knew of his All-Phenomena Resonance power, and thus could not imagine that he could cover the spaceship and armor with his own personal stealth capability.

As for the Goliath magic, these people didn't take it seriously, unaware that she was a high-tier blood demon... Perhaps the Union Corporation had perceived a hint of it, or perhaps the Union cultivation cabins simply could not record the detailed information of a blood demon. In short, the Empire still did not know the details of the blood demon.

Of course, most crucially, his system's risk-avoidance and treasure-seeking abilities were known to no one! This was his ultimate trump card.

The intelligence officer continued analyzing:

"First of all, the upper limit of Lu Chen's hacker capability was solving the outdated Organic Night virus. But in reality, he used an opportunistic method—constructing a new virus to wrap around the Organic Night, with its viral shell written beforehand. Strictly speaking, it was a third-rate stupid method, and even so, it took him five minutes to resolve it."

The people in the conference room nodded slightly, believing it to be true. This included the board old man and the fleet commander on the video connection. It was evident that not a single person present was an expert in spiritual-pattern hacking.

The intelligence officer actually described his clever-disguised-as-clumsy hacking method as a stupid method. The main reason it took him five minutes to resolve the virus was that the server algorithms controlling the robots at the Union Corporation were imperfect, compounded by the secretary-general frantically cutting off the network. Of course, it was not ruled out that this intelligence officer understood this and deliberately reported only the good news while concealing the bad.

"Secondly, regarding the Leonine's stealth capability, it was first reflected in the news of the Fog Sea Star Fishing Festival. Afterward, the Leonine barged alone into the Federation's Sangu Gu stellar system and withdrew completely unscathed. However, when the Leonine passed through the Yuri Pass, it cleared customs by disguising its identity as another adventure group. When visiting the Union Corporation, the Leonine didn't even dare to park within the atmosphere. Considering multiple pieces of information, the upper limit of the Leonine's stealth is roughly around the tier-80 mark. The possibility of breaking through outer defenses cannot be ruled out, but spaceship stealth is generally limited to radar and engine spiritual power. Once they try to do anything, they will inevitably have nowhere to hide amidst the dense optical, thermodynamic, and camera networks, let alone land on the seventh planet."

Lu Chen listened with great relish. The analysis itself was correct, but the subtext was wrong. He was not using spaceship stealth; rather, he could make himself invisible and extend that invisibility to cover the spaceship. Without the All-Phenomena Resonance power, he couldn't achieve it, and naturally, the opponent could not guess that he possessed personal bodily stealth.

Colonel Horton of the Imperial fleet furrowed his brow tightly. Clearly, he was somewhat worried that the Leonine might break through the defenses of the Imperial fleet. After all, his fleet was hidden on the outer periphery and deployed dispersedly; if there was stealth capability above tier-80, it really might be possible to break into the Fang stellar system. However, he expressed no opinion on this.

The chief intelligence officer continued his analysis:

"Thirdly, regarding Lu Chen's suddenly soaring combat power, it is even less worth mentioning. Irrefutable evidence shows that Lu Chen himself is only at the 47th tier of cultivation. In real combat arena brawls, he single-handedly killed a 52nd-tier opponent using a single high-tier sword momentum. Meanwhile, in the Union Corporation's battle-armor combat platform, Lu Chen, clad in tier-60 armor, killed an opponent similarly clad in tier-60 armor with his bare hands in seconds. In both incidents, Lu Chen's instantaneous spiritual pressure surged by about eight tiers. And in the Union combat platform, his forced wearing of tier-60 armor resulted in obvious physical exhaustion, reaching his upper limit. Considering everything, the surge amplitude of his spiritual pressure will not exceed ten tiers; at most, he can achieve combat power equivalent to a 57th-tier cultivation."

Lu Chen felt a chill down his spine. The Silver Rose Special Operations Brigade had actually calculated the instantaneous spiritual pressure of his two battles!

The intelligence officer's analysis had no flaws. Solely relying on critical strike power, Lu Chen could indeed only surge his spiritual pressure by about ten tiers above his own cultivation. However, he also possessed all sorts of heaven-defying system assists, as well as the ability to forcibly power tier-60 armor; running amok in this office would not pose much of a problem, and there was nothing to worry about.

The old man looked thoughtful and nodded repeatedly.

"Mm, a surge in cultivation is not worth worrying about. What I worry about most is the combination of this child's stealth capability and hacker capability, which might enable a surprise raid plan we cannot anticipate."

Colonel Horton also followed the old man's lead and, based on overestimating the enemy, put forward a bold hypothesis.

"If the Leonine breaks through the outer defenses at this moment, hovers right above this tower, uses some special network to forcefully break through the core control system, obtains the underground cryptographic key, and exposes the former atavistic laboratory... What should we do?"

Lu Chen was startled inwardly. The atavistic laboratory was indeed right here in the basement of this tower!

Although the general manager felt such a thing was impossible to happen, he did not dare to argue or retort, looking honestly at the old man on the screen while waiting for instructions.

The old man wore a grim face:
"If that really happens, the Fang Corporation can only be destroyed, and perhaps this Imperial fleet is here to destroy you. At most, you upper management can only save your lives, while your property will probably be reduced to ashes, and your future official careers will also stop right here."

The general manager looked ugly, but mustered the courage to prop himself up with a retort:
"If the Leonine can break through to this place, wouldn't that be the responsibility of the Imperial fleet and the Kanglang Fleet?"

The old man nodded.
"What you say is correct, but the ones doing the experiments are you, and the ones taking the most money are also you. You have to bear it, keep your spirits up, and don't let things reach that point."

The seven people in the conference room instantly straightened their postures and spoke in unison:
"Understood, Chairman!"

The meeting concluded accordingly. The video connection closed.

The people before the conference table finally breathed a sigh of relief.
"The chairman is being overly cautious. What kind of fierce winds and waves haven't we seen? Besides, who invades Imperial property with an advanced warning?"
"Forget it, let's just stick to our posts and raise our vigilance. As long as we put up a good appearance, the board of directors can never pin the blame on us at any time."
"We are not nobodies without backgrounds either."

The general manager then leisurely lit a cigar and smiled:
"Perhaps a bounty of fifty thousand isn't enough; if we raise it to a million-credit bounty, they won't make it out of the Land of Night."

The six people burst into loud laughter, shook their heads, and left the office.

With a bang, the office door was closed.

With the cigar clamped between his lips, the general manager stretched lazily. He leisurely stood up, wanting to return to his desk, summon his secretary to relax, and make up for his coffee.

Just as he turned around, his pupils stalled and his expression froze.

He found himself facing an exceptionally handsome young man dressed in modern cyan swordsman attire, who was currently sitting at his executive desk.

The young man leisurely sipped the warm coffee and asked him calmly:
"I've brought Lu Chen. Where do I collect the one million?"

(End of chapter)