Dragon Raja: Lu Mingfei finds a Freylian

"Huffing and puffing—"

The muffled breathing behind the protective mask was particularly clear amidst the low hum of the ventilation system. A dozen pairs of eyes in the conference room stared at him through the mask's glass, their gazes a mixture of wariness, awe, and disdain.

Angers leaned back slightly against the high-quality leather chair, his long, slender fingers tapping lightly on the table. He took a deep breath, trying to maintain his smile.

"Gentlemen, could someone explain to me why everyone here is wearing protective suits, making me feel like some kind of deadly pathogen? Honestly, it's hurtful."

The meeting room was silent, except for the louder sound of heavy breathing.

Finally, the person sitting to Angers' left, wearing a researcher's label on his protective suit, spoke up: "Principal, from a biological taxonomy perspective, you and the pathogen do not belong to the same kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, or species. This analogy is not scientifically valid."

Angers' smile froze. He picked up the water glass in front of him, took a small sip, the movement breathtakingly slow. He put the glass down, the bottom making a crisp "click" as it hit the table.

"Interesting. Since I am not a pathogen, can anyone tell me what the purpose is of this group cosplaying as microbiology researchers?"

On the other side, the person labeled Researcher B mustered his courage, his voice trembling slightly: "Principal, it's mainly because your body odor is quite strong. In a confined space, this poses a significant challenge to our respiratory tract and olfactory nerves."

In an instant, a crack appeared in the carefully maintained facade of elegance on Angers' face. He almost gritted his teeth as he said, word by word, "Sir, this is Royal Oud perfume on me, a bottle costs over 600 euros. It's not body odor, it's art, it's the smell of money, it's the sedimentation of time!"

“But it smells like expired mothballs mixed with cheap oriental spices, plus a little bit of, well, rotten rose and leather,” Researcher B added in a low voice, then quickly shrank back under Angers’ cold gaze. “Of course, this is just the result of our equipment department’s analysis based on volatile organic compounds.”

“Equipment Department,” Angers uttered softly, as if he were chewing on a word with a complex meaning.

He suddenly felt that getting angry at these guys was an insult to his 130-plus years of life experience and self-cultivation. The root of the problem had never been these abnormal people in protective suits, but rather the place that had made them so abnormal: the Equipment Department of Kassel College.

If Kassel College is the frontline fortress of the hybrid races against the dragon civilization, then the Equipment Department is the most mysterious, incomprehensible, and crucial power core deep within this fortress. Located at the very depths of the college's underground labyrinth, its exact number of levels is classified, but it is generally acknowledged to be deep enough to render even the most advanced bunker-buster bombs futile.

The origins of the Armaments Department are unknown. Some say it was initially formed by a group of mad scientists ostracized by the mainstream scientific community, while others claim its founder was an alchemist who believed that explosions were art. In any case, it has now developed into an independent kingdom with hundreds of core members, an exorbitant budget, and where Angers often has to personally plead his case at the board of directors.

Upon entering the Equipment Department's jurisdiction, visitors are usually not greeted by guards, but rather by a series of security checks and explanations characteristic of the department. The air here is perpetually filled with a strange mixture of smells: the rosin of solder, ozone, strong coffee, the slightly acidic odor from piles of pizza boxes, and the pungent smell of various unidentified chemical reagents, occasionally punctuated by the sweet scent of nitroglycerin. Whenever this happens, veteran employees calmly don their gas masks, while newcomers may turn pale.

Angers himself was infected several times, but fortunately, the mixed-race people are physically strong enough.

The walls of the corridor are rarely a neat white; they are mostly covered with graffiti, complex and not necessarily correct mathematical formulas, and a certain professor who is often criticized by the people here. Well, it's Professor Schneider, because in the eyes of the equipment department, he always makes unreasonable demands on the safety of the equipment department's products.

Everywhere were charred marks from various explosions. The lighting system was intermittent, sometimes brightly lit, sometimes illuminated only by emergency lights and the light from computer screens, making the researchers look like underground miners.

The background noise here is a perpetual concerto: the roar of high-performance server fans, the hiss of 3D printers, the crackling of electric arc welding, the periodic exhaust of the liquid nitrogen cooling system, and the sudden small explosions from the corners followed by cheers or curses. Everyone is used to it, as if silence is the abnormal state.

The members of the Equipment Department were a mix of geniuses and madmen. Some were former star professors at MIT or Ivy League schools, dismissed for overly dangerous research topics or ideas that were too avant-garde. Others were self-taught hackers who once crippled the Pentagon's network system just to prove its firewall lacked aesthetic appeal. Still others were fervent weapons enthusiasts who abhorred the inefficiency and lack of creativity of conventional weapons.

They share common characteristics: extremely high IQ and enigmatic EQ. They possess an almost obsessive thirst for scientific exploration and the unknown. They have a unique understanding of safety and reliability that differs drastically from conventional standards. They generally suffer from varying degrees of social anxiety and maladjustment to their environment.

According to Vice Principal Flamel, these are a bunch of chosen madmen who will live until the extinction of humanity.

Therefore, protective suits are their standard uniform and their social armor. They not only isolate them from external pollution but also provide a sense of psychological security, allowing them to immerse themselves in their own technological world.

They weren't targeting Angers specifically. In fact, they believed that any air that wasn't filtered multiple times was unclean, and any non-equipment department member could be a potential source of pollution, including the principal.

Chapter 320 The Madmen of the Equipment Department (Part 2)

Angers eventually gave up on debating his perfume taste with these guys in protective suits. It was like trying to explain the intricacies of calculus to a group of amateur mathematicians who firmly believed π=3—purely futile. He took a deep breath, trying to distinguish the €600 Royal Ebony in his nostrils from the disinfectant and ozone, only to furrow his brow more deeply.

My thoughts drifted back to the global apocalyptic movie craze of 2012 a few years ago. Who could have imagined that a Hollywood popcorn movie would have such a profound impact on the deepest infrastructure of Kassel College?

At that time, the members of the Equipment Department—a group of geniuses and madmen who were usually only interested in explosive yield, energy conduction, and code—unprecedentedly organized a collective movie screening. According to an eyewitness, an unfortunate administrator who was delivering coffee at the time, when the screen showed the Yellowstone volcano erupting, California sinking into the sea, and the ark struggling through the raging flood, the eyes of the Equipment Department members were not filled with fear, but with light.

That's a great idea, but we can do it even better.

After the movie ended, a grand-scale upgrade plan for the doomsday fortress was unanimously approved within the Equipment Department. Their original underground base was deemed too fragile to withstand a catastrophe of core shutdown or tectonic plate remodeling. Thus, after consuming a budget enough to give the head of finance three heart attacks and utilizing secret resources that even Angers might not fully understand, a new base named Watt Alheim was born.

The Equipment Department had an almost theological confidence in the defenses of Watt Alheim. They claimed that the underground palace's outer shell employed a multi-layered composite structure, incorporating high-density alloys, self-healing polymers, and special cement mixed with alchemical matrices, theoretically capable of withstanding direct strikes from all known nuclear weapons of any yield, and even continuous attacks from bunker-buster nuclear bombs.

It possesses an independent ecological cycle system, a fusion reactor for power, and sufficient material reserves to sustain it for over a century. In the words of the Minister of Equipment, Akadura, "Unless the Dragon King himself descends and unleashes a super-powerful incantation like the Shiva Dance, capable of rewriting the rules of the world and causing tectonic shifts, Watt Alheim is the safest refuge on this planet, bar none!"

On one occasion, while inspecting the old base, Angers half-jokingly suggested to Director Akadura, "It sounds like a perfect doomsday fortress. Have you considered digging an emergency tunnel under the principal's office? What if one day I happen to be working up there and encounter some, well, not-so-pleasant, large-scale disaster?"

He had expected to receive technical excuses such as the project being too difficult or would damage the stability of the existing structure, or at least a few perfunctory assurances.

However, Director Akadura, this genius with hair as messy as a bird's nest, glasses as thick as bottle bottoms, and a white coat stained with unidentified dirt year-round, looked at Angers with unusual seriousness and candor, adjusted his glasses, and answered with unwavering conviction:

"Mr. Principal, we cannot agree to this request. Based on our rigorous modeling and risk assessment, in a true apocalyptic disaster, your Principal's office above ground would be among the first to be destroyed, with a survival probability of less than 0.01%. Digging a tunnel would only increase the risk of exposure and infiltration to Watt Alheimr. Please understand that all members of our Equipment Department are the most important asset carrying the flame of human technological civilization; we are Noah after the apocalypse, and we must ensure our survival at all costs. As for you…"

He paused, then said, "Please rest in peace and sacrifice yourself heroically for the academy and for the future of the hybrid race! We will remember your achievements and, in the new era, tell our descendants the legendary story of you and Kassel College, with rich details and moving tales!"

Angers' smile froze completely. He had lived for over 130 years, weathered countless storms, faced the first generation of the race, schemed against the elders of the Secret Society, and been questioned and impeached by the Board of Trustees. But never before had he been so choked speechless by such a sincere, so matter-of-fact abandonment. He looked at Akadura's face, a face etched with the words "We are stating objective facts," and anger surged to his head.

He reached out and patted Director Akadula's thin shoulder hard, again and again, until the man grimaced and his glasses were askew.

“Good! Good! What a peaceful sacrifice! What a wonderful way to tell my story!” Angers was almost gritting his teeth as he laughed. “Director Akadura, your plan is very thorough and your logic is very clear. However, my dear director, please allow me to raise a trivial question.”

He stopped patting, leaned closer, his sharp gaze seemingly piercing through the thick glasses: "Your equipment department, from you, the director, to the youngest intern, according to the personnel list I saw last time, has a total of 127 people, all of them male. I admire your determination to continue the flame of human civilization and technology, but... may I ask, without Eve, how do you plan to continue? Relying on asexual reproduction? Or hoping that your stored servers can automatically generate offspring?"

These words struck Director Akadula like a precise bolt of lightning.

The director, who had just been wearing a solemn expression of sacrificing his personal interests for the greater good, was now petrified. He opened his mouth, making a few meaningless gurgling sounds, and his eyes behind his thick glasses widened, filled with unprecedented confusion and panic.

He never incorporated this biological basis into his incredibly sophisticated post-apocalyptic survival model.

“I…we,” Director Akadula stammered, beads of sweat forming on his forehead. “We can clone…no, ethically and technically. We have a gene bank, but surrogate mothers…”

He was incoherent, caught in a huge dilemma between logic and reality. He clutched his head, squatted down, and began drawing complex symbols on the ground, muttering things like population collapse and gender imbalance.

Angers watched as the head of the equipment department plummeted from overflowing confidence to the brink of collapse, and his annoyance subsided considerably. He recalled that several brave and technically skilled female researchers had indeed applied to join the equipment department, only to be deterred either by the atmosphere where the group of nerdy guys completely ignored them during discussions, engrossed in their technical jargon, or by the small-scale directional blasting experiment that nearly ripped the lab ceiling off during the celebration of the new coffee machine's commissioning.

The pure Yang environment in the Equipment Department was, to some extent, something they created themselves.

“Alright, Akadura,” Angers sighed, his tone softening, “let’s not dwell on the Eve and the apple issue for now. Let’s get down to business. You called me back from Paris in such a hurry, even resorting to sensational coded language like ‘Death is watching you,’ surely not just so I could admire your new protective suits or discuss our doomsday population plan?”

He sat back down in his chair, crossed his legs, and said, “My recent itinerary is a vacation, to see fashion shows, visit some old friends, and breathe in the Parisian air. I hope you can come up with a convincing reason to interrupt my precious vacation.”

Angers lowered his head, gently brushing away non-existent dust from his suit sleeve, awaiting an answer. He was curious about what could possibly have made these madmen, who firmly believed that Watt Alheim was impregnable and that even the headmaster could be sacrificed at any moment, feel the urgent need to summon this old man back to oversee things, even invoking the name of Death.

Chapter 321 The Heart of War Drums

A silence fell over the conference room. A dozen pairs of eyes, hidden behind masks, looked at each other, exchanging silent messages, but no one was willing to be the first to break the deadlock.

Angers glanced around at the group of guys who had suddenly become reserved, clicked his tongue softly, leaned forward slightly, rested his elbows on the smooth conference table, and interlaced his fingers.

"Don't all be silent. Your uniform silence is kind of scary. People who know us will think we're in a meeting, and people who don't will think I've stumbled into some kind of collective mourning ceremony."

The joke didn't have the desired effect. The figures in the protective suits became even more stiff.

Finally, the man sitting next to Director Akadura, whose protective suit bore the tag "Deputy Director Karl," stirred. He took a deep breath, then coughed and cleared his throat.

“Principal,” Deputy Director Karl began, “let me report to you.”

He manipulated the control panel embedded in the table in front of him, and the holographic projector in the center of the conference room silently lit up, but did not project any image. He looked up at Angers through the glass mask: "Before I go into details, please listen to a recording. This is an audio signal that our academy's research vessel, Moniach, accidentally captured seven days ago while conducting routine hydrographic tasks in the waters near Japan."

He nodded, indicating his agreement.

Carl pressed the play button.

At first, there was a monotonous yet profound background sound: the sound of ocean waves. But this was not the gentle lapping of waves against the shore; rather, it was the heavy, slow, seemingly ancient surging sound from the depths of the ocean, carrying with it a vast and boundless loneliness capable of swallowing all other sounds. This sound immediately drew everyone's spirits into the dark and cold atmosphere of the deep sea.

In the background of the deep sound of ocean waves, a faint but unusually rhythmic drumbeat gradually blends in.

Boom, boom, boom.

The sound is deep and resonant, with steady intervals, carrying a primal and powerful vitality. It is not loud; one must hold their breath and concentrate to distinguish it clearly from the noise of the waves. But once caught, it is as if striking directly into the listener's chest, evoking a sense of resonance.

Angers' hands, which had been crossed, had unknowingly separated, and his right hand tapped lightly on the table, the rhythm subtly matching the distant sound of drums.

This sound is strange. It doesn't belong to any known marine life, nor does it resemble the sound of any human-made machinery. It's too regular, too heavy, too vibrant, as if it comes from a massive, sleeping creature.

He raised his hand and made a pause gesture.

Deputy Director Carl immediately stopped the playback. The sound of waves and the eerie drumming came to an abrupt halt.

"Play it again. Turn the volume up by 30%, filter out some of the background noise from the waves, and focus on the drum beats."

"Yes, Principal."

The sound rang out again. This time, thanks to technical processing, the drumbeats became clearer and more prominent.

Boom, boom, boom.

Steady and powerful. Each thud was like a heavy hammer blow, striking the silent conference room and the hearts of everyone present. Angers closed his eyes, focusing all his attention on his hearing. He cleared his mind of all distractions, simulating the deep sea in his mind, tracing the source and characteristics of the sound.

A few seconds later, he opened his eyes, his pupils slightly contracted.

This is not the sound of drums.

That's the sound of a heartbeat.

The sound of a living heart beating in the unimaginably huge, deep-sea environment under extreme pressure!

His right hand reached into the inner pocket of his suit jacket. There, close to his body, lay a folding knife with an antique design. His fingers tightened, gripping the hard handle; the cold touch calmed his boiling blood and racing thoughts slightly.

“A heartbeat, the heartbeat of a dragon,” Angers wasn’t asking a question, but stating a fact he had already confirmed.

Deputy Director Carl nodded, his expression behind the mask undoubtedly grave: "Yes, Principal. Our team has reached the same conclusion. After analysis, we have determined that the heartbeat originated from deep within the Japan Trench, at a depth of approximately eight thousand meters."

Eight thousand meters, a depth comparable to the Mariana Trench! That kind of high-pressure, dark, and cold forbidden zone on Earth that even deep-sea probes can hardly reach!

A dragon, or rather, a dragon-like life form, lies there, beyond the edge of human technology, in the deep ocean trench, sleeping and pulsating.

"Status?" Angers asked the most crucial question. For a dinosaur whose heartbeat could still be detected eight thousand meters below the surface, its status determined its threat level.

Karl breathed a sigh of relief, thankful that the principal had grasped the key point: "Fortunately, the target is still in the embryonic stage. Although the reaction is strong, it is relatively stable, with no signs of awakening or violent activity. With the current resources of our academy, we should be able to handle it if we act quickly."

“Embryo,” Angers murmured, his grip on the folding knife loosening slightly, but the wariness in his eyes remained undiminished.

A dinosaur embryo means it hasn't fully awakened and its power hasn't reached its peak, which is indeed fortunate. But the potential threat represented by a dinosaur embryo that can survive and develop at a depth of 8,000 meters is enough to send chills down the spine of anyone in the know.

"Incubation time?"

"It's difficult to make a precise judgment, Principal. The developmental cycle of dinosaur embryos is affected by too many unknown factors, including the environment, energy supply, and even their own genetic code. Our model gives a rough estimate of about a year. But this is very uncertain; it may be earlier or later. The hatching status is also impossible to predict accurately—whether it will hatch directly into a larva or require other conditions."

A year full of changes.

Angers took a deep breath and asked the last, and crucial, question: "Can you determine which generation it is? First generation? Second generation? Or third generation?"

For the Secret Society, the Dragon King's rank directly determines the scale of power required and the level of countermeasures. The first generation is a world-ending catastrophe requiring all-out effort; the second generation is a serious threat enough to overturn the regional balance; the third generation, while equally dangerous, is relatively easier to handle.

Deputy Director Carl shook his head. "It's uncertain, Principal. The deep-sea environment severely interferes with our detection accuracy. The heartbeat and biofield can only prove that its life level is extremely high and its potential is enormous, but we cannot accurately analyze its bloodline origin. The only additional information we can be certain of is..."

"Based on cross-analysis of environmental data collected simultaneously with the Moniach and historical shipwreck records, we can basically confirm that this embryo did not naturally develop at that depth. Its precise coordinates point to a shipwreck—a vessel of unknown origin that sank in the 1980s or 1990s. Someone deliberately placed this ancient dragon embryo at the deepest point on the seabed."

Someone made special arrangements for them.

These words pierced Angers' ears like icicles.

It's not a natural nest, nor is it a chance slumber. It's man-made! Some force, or some being, deliberately chose to hide an ancient dragon embryo in a deep sea trench inaccessible to humans!