Chapter 101: Trial Space

"Help?"

Sitting across from me, Adrian looked confused when he saw my action, not knowing what it meant at first. But he had also worn that virtual headset before, so he quickly made the connection and his expression changed instantly.

"Could you be referring to..." 

However, things were a bit different from what I had imagined. The summoning voice went out for a long time, but there was no response from the surroundings, just dead silence.

"Could it be wrong? How's that possible!"

Adrian gave me a puzzled look. In his eyes, this was still the real world, completely different from the virtual world in the headset. How could a guide like the one in the headset appear here?

"Not necessarily..."

I shook my head stubbornly, not giving up, and decided to try again. So I changed my phrasing.

"Help!"

"Assist!" 

"Guide!"

"Customer service!"

"Little Honey!"

"Assistant!"

At that moment, a little girl with the exact same appearance as the one in the headset appeared before us. With the same "professional" smile, she bowed politely to me and asked:

"Greetings, Trial Participant Gisphrael! 'Dona' War Research Institute Special Assistant No. 5 is pleased to serve you. How may I assist you? Since I cannot currently connect to the Main Zero or the Central City Data Storage, you can only use the local basic Q&A mode."

It really came out! When the first summon failed, I thought maybe I had guessed wrong. But in the end, my efforts paid off!

But what was that Gisphrael thing? As for Adrian, he stared at the virtual figure in front of him, his mouth agape for a long time, unable to say a word.

"How did you know?"

It wasn't that Adrian's brain was slower than mine. The main reason was that he hadn't seen as many related TV shows and novels, so it wasn't strange that he lacked this cognitive awareness.

"Hold on!"

At this critical juncture, I didn't have time to give too many explanations. I forcibly gestured for him to be quiet. Then I took a deep breath and asked in as clear a tone as possible:

"What is this place?"

"This is the 'Dona' War Research Institute under the Central *****Intelligence****, located specifically in the belly of the Sulid*** Mountain."

For some reason, compared to the virtual image in the headset, Special Assistant No. 5's figure looked very unstable, flickering on and off intermittently. Her voice in responding also became intermittent.

"And the world we're in now, what world is this?"

Adrian frowned slightly, as her words didn't clear up much of the confusion, so he probed further.

"This world is the third ***Model Trial Space separated and copied from the real world according to the 'Xuthus Project'."

The intelligence level was about the same as before. Probably due to the lack of that "Main Zero" and data storage, it could only answer our questions based on what we asked, without giving any additional explanations. But even so, her answer left us stunned for quite a while.

"How do we get out of this...model trial space?"

Putting other things aside for now, I went straight to the main topic - this was what Adrian and I cared about the most.

"The remaining ******** can no longer open the space ****** for forced exit. The only way left is to pass through the entire trial. The primary objective: the Alpha energy derived lifeform Beluto..."

After hearing this, Adrian and I immediately looked terrible. After all that excitement, everything came back to the starting point - we still had to defeat that Light God!

"The Light God, oh no! Does Beluto have any weaknesses?"

Adrian was quite calm though. He quickly recovered and asked carefully.

"Retrieving historical records..."

Special Assistant No. 5 paused for a few seconds with a flat expression before responding:

"According to the records of the 352nd trial loop in Trial Space No. 1, Beluto was ***eliminated in the physical form."

Physical form?

So its weakness was physical form? But when we asked how to force Beluto into physical form and how to avoid mental control, Special Assistant No. 5 could only respond with "No records found", no matter how many times we repeated the questions.

"Can you display all the historical records of this research institute and all the relevant information about this trial space in written text?"

Adrian thought for a moment, feeling that this question-and-answer method was too time-consuming. We might as well read it ourselves - it would be faster and more complete.

"Of course!"

As soon as she finished speaking, several virtual document windows appeared before our eyes, containing most of the information we wanted to know. However, there was still a small portion that was permanently lost due to its antiquity, according to Special Assistant No. 5.

In any case, after several hours of reading and researching, Adrian and I finally gained a general understanding of the situation we were in.

As Special Assistant No. 5 had told us, this was an independent trial space separate from the main world. Its purpose was to constantly reset and challenge the Alpha energy derived lifeform, the Light God, to observe and find its weaknesses in order to deal with the crisis happening in the real world.

Apart from the staff of the "Dona" War Research Institute, the creators of this space included a few very special names - the Wind Angel Liana, the Earth Angel Galadra, the Water Angel Gisphrael, and the Fire Angel Michelle. 

The four Elemental Angels were all here!

The leading roles were played by the ancestors of the Angelic race, the Wind Angel Liana and the Earth Angel Galadra. They separated three identical miniature parallel worlds from the real world's timeline, then forcibly reversed time and space to be used for trials. 

In other words, they created three constantly repeating trial worlds to fight monsters - similar to what I initially experienced!

It also revealed an important piece of information - most of the situations appearing in this trial space had actually occurred in the real world, just with different plots and endings.

"I can't believe Michelle is on this list too!"

When I saw this name, I was truly surprised. This person who had lived for ten thousand years and constantly opposed us was actually involved in the relevant research work.

"But her main task was just to maintain the energy supply and conversion stability, so her role wasn't that big..."

Adrian nodded as he flipped through the documents.

What was quite interesting was that the element sustaining this space for ten thousand years was not what we normally perceived, but geothermal energy! The geothermal energy from inside the Sulid Volcano! Probably chosen for its relatively stable supply, as proven to be very reliable. It was because maintaining this space and its connecting passages required constantly absorbing a large amount of energy from geothermal sources, which greatly reduced the intensity level of subsequent volcanic eruptions, thereby ensuring the safety of this research institute that stood firm for nearly ten thousand years.

However, it was nearing its end now, precisely because of our unintentional intrusion as outsiders.

Maintaining trial participants inside required more energy consumption, especially for protecting their soul memories. Of all the people who entered this trial space, only Adrian and I had login information recorded. As for the others, since their soul signatures could not be identified, they were not included in the trial participant list and were not provided with soul protection privileges. Therefore, after each reset, they lost all memories.

The number of unidentifiable intruders over ten thousand years far exceeded our imagination, totaling several hundred! Only a handful had login information recorded, and they were mostly unfamiliar names. 

Before the last eruption of the Sulid Volcano, Trial Space No. 2 still had three remaining entry portals. Due to the volcanic eruption and facility aging, the space passages connecting to Trial Space No. 2 suffered severe damage. As a result, all the humans who had previously entered lost their space coordinates and could no longer be contacted. Afterwards, the last remaining backup Trial Space No. 3, which is where we are now, had to be activated with only one entry passage left.

And the latest eruption of Sulid Volcano was 150 years ago. Although there weren't too many records left, based on our understanding, the first person to arrive in Trial Space No. 3 should have been Judith, about 120 years ago!

"Judith is that old?" 

Adrian and I looked at each other in shock, never imagining that Judith could be so old! She looked no more than thirty years old at most! If she were an angel, it would make sense, but Judith is a true human being!

Fortunately, humans in this world tend to live longer than humans on Earth. Ordinary people can generally reach 100 years old, likely benefiting from the low concentration of light elements in the air.

Of course, humans with high-rank strength can live even longer, especially light mage and those who have awakened their battle qi. If nothing goes wrong, they generally start from over 200 years old, but that's still far behind angels.

Our login information could also be found - Gisphrael and Albert!

Leaving aside the unfamiliar name Albert, my login name Gisphrael implied many special meanings.

"So you logged in with the identity of one of the creators of this space, the Water Angel?"

Adrian specifically pointed this out, but his tone didn't seem too surprised. After all, we had discussed at length before why I had an affinity for the water element, so he was somewhat mentally prepared.