Fate's Choice: Livestream at the Start Summoning Billions of Ravens

Rome, 6,400 kilometers away.

Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows of the luxury suite, the afternoon sun in Rome cast the outline of the stone pine tree canopy onto the carpet. Jiang Ming, holding a glass of red wine, leaned against the armrest of the sofa, a system notification floating on the holographic panel in front of him.

[Emotional Value Income: +5217680. Source: The system captured the complex emotional fluctuations of more than 30 high-ranking officials during the entire inquiry meeting of the Ninth Bureau.]

Emotional type distribution: Alertness 34%, Curiosity 27%, Stress 22%, Awe 17%.

Jiang Ming looked at the number and gently swirled his wine glass.

"They can even exploit the tension and curiosity of those in the interrogation room."

He took a sip of wine, tasting the astringency of tannins on his tongue.

"Returning Crow, that's a pretty good codename."

He put down his wine glass, swiped his finger across the holographic panel, and opened the artifact crafting interface.

Two conceptual blueprint documents were neatly arranged in the center of the screen, their name fields glowing faintly.

The first item, the Torch of Prometheus, is in a state of having been cast and delivered.

The second item is the first deck of the ark. Its condition is that it has been cast and delivered.

He shifted his gaze to the blank area below the blueprint list and created a new folder.

No name was typed; only a cursor remained blinking.

.....

Sixty-eight meters underground in Xianyang, the air temperature inside the dark red metal passage is a constant seventeen degrees Celsius. There is no wind, no sound, only the bronze gears on both sides of the wall meshing and running at a speed of about one revolution per minute, emitting an extremely fine grinding sound.

Zhou Dazhuang squatted in the middle of the passage, his right palm facing up, placed flat on his knee, allowing the high-definition camera above his head to transmit the details of the branding back to the ground control room in real time.

Academician Qi's voice came through the walkie-talkie.

"Pull your palm close to the maximum magnification, and don't move your fingers."

Zhou Dazhuang spread his five fingers to their maximum angle, and the tiger tally brand on his palm gleamed with a dark reddish-gold light in the dim environment of the passage, looking exactly like the ancient bronze seal embedded in his skin.

But it's different from before.

"Academician Qi, the lines have changed."

Zhou Dazhuang stared at his palm, his voice tinged with confusion.

"There's something new around the outside."

The six screens in the control room simultaneously switched to the camera's 50x magnified view.

Academician Qi pushed up his reading glasses and leaned forward until he was almost touching the screen.

The core pattern of the brand remains unchanged; the mountain and moon motifs are still clear, and every arc is exactly the same as the original tiger tally unearthed at the Qinling base.

However, an extremely shallow and fine engraving appeared around the core pattern, which looked like a new design that someone had burned under the skin with a branding iron that was thinner than a hair.

Seven separate stars.

Each one is about two millimeters in size, scattered and unevenly spaced, forming an irregular semi-circle.

Academician Qi's fingers, which were holding his glasses, tightened slightly.

When did it appear?

Zhou Dazhuang thought for a moment.

"It appeared after the second resonance. It happened when the temperature in my palm rose to 43 degrees Celsius. I saw these small marks after the temperature dropped."

"Not before?"

"No, I check it three times a day. Before, it was completely clean except for the tiger tally."

Academician Qi turned around and gave instructions to his three assistants.

"Bring over a precision surveying instrument; I need millimeter-level coordinates for seven stars."

The tripod on the surveying instrument was aimed at Zhou Dazhuang's palm, and the laser scanned it four times before importing the data into the modeling system.

The three assistants began the coordinate conversion.

This process took four hours.

For four hours, Zhou Dazhuang squatted in the passageway with his right hand raised and never lowered. His posture changed from squatting to sitting cross-legged, and then from sitting cross-legged to half-lying down. When his arm ached so much, he used his left hand to support his right wrist.

He did not complain.

The walkie-talkie rang at the three-hour and forty-minute mark.

Academician Qi's voice was different from usual. Normally, he speaks with a steady rhythm and even, regular intervals between each word, almost like a metronome. But this time, there were irregular pauses between words.

"Zhou Dazhuang, put your hands down first and move them around to improve blood circulation."

Zhou Dazhuang swung his arms, clenching and unclenching his fists several times.

"Academician Qi, have you found out?"

There was silence for nearly five seconds on the other end of the walkie-talkie.

"We've found out."

Academician Qi's voice was a beat slow.

"The seven stars on your palm each correspond to a geographical coordinate."

Zhou Dazhuang blinked.

"What coordinates?"

In the control room, Academician Qi stood in front of the projection screen, which displayed a global map with seven red dots marked at their respective locations with millimeter-level precision.

"The first one, London, with a deviation of 1.2 kilometers, corresponds to the center of the force field of the sword in the stone."

His finger moved to the second spot of light.

"The second one, New York, with a deviation of 0.8 kilometers, corresponds to the current location of that coin, a rental house in Queens."

The third light appeared in North Africa.

"Cairo, deviation 0.3 km, National Museum Restoration Hall, location of Libra."

The fourth one is deep within the North Asian continent.

"Inside the Siberian Wall, 2.1 kilometers off track, a spark of winter."

The fifth is in Central Africa.

"Kolwezi mining area, Congo, deviation 1.7 kilometers, Prometheus's Torch activation point."

The sixth is in the South Asian Delta.

"Dhaka, Bangladesh, deviation 0.9 km, Ark deck coverage area."

Academician Qi's finger stopped on the seventh spot of light, which hung alone in the blue area in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

"The seventh one is the Mariana Trench."

His voice dropped by half a tone.

"The deviation is 3.4 kilometers, which highly overlaps with the location of the crystal cocoon."

On the other end of the walkie-talkie, Zhou Dazhuang sat cross-legged on the dark red metal floor, his expression slowly changing from confusion to a complex one that he himself couldn't quite describe.

"Academician Qi, do you mean these little marks on my hand indicate the locations of those magical artifacts?"

"To be precise, it is the real-time location of all known conceptual armaments worldwide."

Academician Qi took off his reading glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose; the frame made a slight metallic sound in his hand.

"Zhou Dazhuang, listen up."

He put his glasses back on.

"The tiger tally brand adds a global positioning system to the palm of your hand."

Zhou Dazhuang looked down at his right hand, where a crimson-gold light flowed between the seven stars, perfectly mirroring the movement of a miniature star map in his palm.

"Academician Qi."

His voice was a little dry.

"Can I turn this thing off?"

Academician Qi did not answer this question.

"Take another close look at those seven stars. Are there any differences in their brightness or frequency of movement?"

Zhou Dazhuang brought his palm close to his eyes, carefully examining it in the faint crimson-gold light of the passage.

After about twenty seconds, he spoke.

"Six of them are about right, flashing roughly every three seconds, with uniform brightness."

His gaze shifted to the lower right of his palm.

"But this is different."

He extended his left index finger and pointed towards the seventh star, but did not touch it.

"It blinks much faster, about once every half second, and it's brighter than the other six."

Academician Qi erected an index finger in the control room to instruct his assistants to record the information.

"How much exactly is 'every half a second'?"

Zhou Dazhuang stared at his palm and silently counted fifteen flashes, then compared the time with the average value to get a rough estimate.

"About once every 1.4 seconds."

Academician Qi's index finger stopped in mid-air.

1.4 seconds corresponds to a frequency of 0.71 Hz, but this number itself is not found in any known signal library.

Is its beating even?

Zhou Dazhuang watched for another thirty seconds.

"Uneven".

His brow furrowed.

"Two fast ones, one slow one, then two fast ones and one slow one again, and the cycle continues."

Academician Qi's breathing slowed slightly for a moment.

Two fast jumps plus one slow jump constitute a unit. If the entire unit is considered as one cycle, then the total time of the unit is approximately seven seconds.

The frequency corresponding to seven seconds is 0.14 Hz.

0.14 Hz.

After Funinga opened the crystal cocoon in the deep sea, the pulse doubled from 0.07 to 0.14 Hz, a figure that was highlighted in full red in the inter-departmental report three hours earlier.

Academician Qi sat back in his chair, rested his hands on his knees, and remained silent for a full ten seconds.

Then he picked up the phone and dialed Chen Jianguo's encrypted number.