I’m Trapped in a Cube - Chapter 243

Chapter 243: Restart

Restart?

Mo Ling finally understood, though it was of no use to him.

The merman beside the clearing controlled components to touch the armor a few times. After several flashes of runic light, the armor returned to silence.

The constantly echoing sounds also gradually disappeared.

Then the dimmed armor began to glow again, with the runic inscriptions on it lighting up one after another.

Soon, the armor resumed operation. After the light on it pulsed once, smooth and clear merman language emanated from the armor.

“What happened to me?”

That was the researcher’s voice from before, now coming from inside the empty armor.

Before anyone could answer, the voice spoke again with understanding, “I see, you helped me restart, didn’t you? I checked the logs.”

“Yes, why did you experience confusion just now?” other mermen asked urgently.

“Is it a state mutation?”

The empty armor fell into thought after hearing Jeff’s question.

After a moment, an extremely certain voice came from inside the empty armor.

“Yes, I regained my body in a way that was considered not bearing any cost, so immortality was revoked.”

Mo Ling observed the armor, already having a general understanding of the mermen’s technology.

“They can even exist without depending on their bodies.”

“I somewhat underestimated their technological level.”

However, Mo Ling was still very surprised that the mermen didn’t need bodies at all, those components could exist as their bodies.

The recent test had the researcher use the same method as the previous Chali tribe members, except when the soul finally separated from the body, he had cheated.

He hadn’t let the soul return to heaven and earth, but had used some method to enter the armor, treating the armor as a new body, trying to use this method to escape the cost of losing his physical form.

But immortality wasn’t so simple to escape its price.

Briefly losing his body only brought brief immortality.

“Then continue, keep good records this time,” Jeff commanded, and the armor and surrounding mermen began experimenting again with very high efficiency.

“Understood.”

“This time I’ll slow down the return time, pay attention to recording.”

The armor thought for a moment, pointing to the nearby tree and explaining, “Just now my soul achieved immortality, but after I returned to the armor, immortality disappeared, so my state changed and the system couldn’t determine this phenomenon.”

But at this time, Jeff stopped him, “During the time you achieved immortality just now, did you feel the racial lock on you break?”

“Sorry, General, the time was too short, I couldn’t feel it,” he replied helplessly, shaking his head.

“This time I’ll slow down the return process, you all pay attention to recording.”

After the armor finished speaking, it quickly transformed into a tree, repeating the previous steps.

Because of the first experience, the speed was much faster.

The circling components in the sky also descended at this time, reforming into a completely new set of armor.

Then came the same operation as before.

Return, restart…

“How was it?” the surrounding mermen urgently asked the armor.

The armor shook its body, seeming somewhat uncomfortable.

“So free…”

Free?

The nearby companions looked at each other, “What does free mean?”

He thought for a moment and said, “I felt the barrier between myself and this world completely disappeared, like becoming a stream flowing into the ocean, but not constrained by the ocean, going wherever I wanted, free and unrestrained.”

What the armor described was actually the “wandering at ease” that the previous Chali tribe member had understood.

Could it be that by imitating the Chali tribe’s immortality method, they would also have the same feelings as the Chali tribe?

“What about the racial lock? Since you’re so free, did you feel the lock disappear?” his companion continued asking, following his words.

Hearing this question, the armor was silent for a long time, seemingly thinking very carefully about his recent feelings.

“That definitely wasn’t an illusion, it was true freedom, freedom that could even break free from the racial lock.”

At these words, the mermen couldn’t sit still and began asking him questions all at once.

“Not only origami, but all the previously forgotten skills!”

“I felt those once, disappeared skills reappear in my mind, like things I had always mastered, everything was completely natural.”

They obviously hadn’t expected that immortality was really the “key” to unlocking the racial lock.

Not only that, he also touched the armor’s face with his hand, and dazzling spots of light pulsed and flashed.

The armor seemed to see something and suddenly froze.

“Look at this!”

A video file was transmitted to the fish swarm’s channel.

This video was strange, not like real footage, but some kind of very elaborate synthetic video.

If not for those overly bizarre, anti-physical phenomena, this video would indeed be hard to distinguish from reality.

…

That was a young merman, sitting with his back to the screen in the evening sunset.

Waves gently lapped onto the beach, wetting the little merman’s ankles.

A gentle sea breeze blew past, caressing the little merman’s clothes.

These scenes were quite warm and normal, but the sky was filled with gods and demons in chaos.

A dragon fortress made of components was frantically crashing into a towering Immortal Wood, knocking huge wood chips from the Immortal Wood.

The wood chips fell from the sky like meteors, crashing into the sea surface and stirring up surging waves.

In the sky, a huge circling eel fish shuttled back and forth in the sunset. The color of the sunset gradually became dazzling, beginning to rise from the west, starting to reverse along its trajectory, and the sky gradually brightened.

In this apocalyptic scene, the little merman acted as if he saw nothing, continuing to fiddle with the toy in his hands.

No matter how the world turned upside down, it couldn’t affect the little merman’s play.

When the sun’s position changed, the little merman moved the toy in his hands to a different position so the sunlight could reach it.

At this time, the toy’s appearance was also displayed on the screen.

That was a piece of paper.

An ordinary piece of paper.

But the little merman looked at this paper with eyes full of stars, as if seeing something incredibly novel.

The little merman picked up the paper and began folding, flipping, then restoring…

Then, along the creases, he began equal-part folding, pinching corners, tucking gaps, adjusting curves…

He would stop to think from time to time, but his hand movements became faster and faster, even producing afterimages.

Finally, the little merman stopped.

He raised his hand, aligning the origami in his hand with the dragon fortress in the sky.

“Woo~ woo~ woo~”

The little merman happily imitated the dragon’s sounds, twisting the dragon origami in his hand to make their movements match.

He moved the dragon claws, and the giant dragon in the sky also swung out its claws, scratching deep claw marks on the Immortal Wood.

He swayed the origami’s body, and the dragon also followed with a divine dragon tail sweep, instantly breaking the Immortal Wood in front of it…

Looking at the content on the screen, all the surrounding mermen were dumbfounded.

“When I was immortal, I seemed to see this, but it was also somewhat different…” the armor looked at the scene and explained blankly.

A nearby companion suddenly looked at him and asked incredulously, “Dragon origami, did you learn it?”

“I did.” The armor raised its hand and flipped through the motions a few times with complete familiarity.

After only a few movements, his hand froze.

“I can?”

“I can…”

“I can!”