Chapter 17 - Source Power Imprisonment

　　When he heard the phrase "source power confinement", Alan saw Tornisov's fingers twitch a little. Then the lieutenant forced out a smile, perhaps because of some nervousness, his eye shadow seemed to melt. Tonisf gave Alan a nudge and said, "Honey, I think you should go check out your room and I'll let you know if there's anything you're not happy with or otherwise need. Your room is over there."

　　He pointed to the last room on the left at the end of the training area, and Alan said nothing as he picked up the Mad Butcher and headed for the room. He knew that the conversation that followed Tonisph did not intend for him to hear. In that case, source power confinement would not be a simple matter.

　　As Alan walked up to the door, a laser beam swept through and quickly scanned his pupils. Then the door "ticked", the electronic lock automatically opened, and the door silently shrunk towards the right side. When he walked into this room of 30 square meters, Alan was quite speechless, if this was the bedroom, it was obviously too extravagant. If this was a bedroom, it was obviously too extravagant. This room alone was even bigger than the tin house Allen had lived in as a child. Not to mention the complete facilities in the room, it was almost a small home.

　　The entrance is a wooden-floored foyer with a crystal lighted partition for privacy. At the end of the corridor is a separate sanitary suite, where soft lighting reveals white tiled walls, a stone table with patterned materials, a decorative bonsai in the corner, a golden faucet, and a complete set of sanitary ware, all emphasizing the word "quality," which is often mentioned by Tornisov.

　　Turning from the partition into the inner room, there are two stone steps. The inner room is obviously about 20 centimeters higher than the entrance. There is also a wooden floor, and the ceiling is suspended, with both the main and secondary lights behind a frosted glaze, so that the light cast down on the room is bright but not blinding.

　　Directly across from the entrance was a floor-to-ceiling piece of glass that acted as a wall, allowing a view of the rest of Babylon outside from within the room. There was also a semi-circular balcony visible through the glass, which was furnished with a small but elaborate set of tables and chairs.

　　In the right corner of the inner room, there was a sofa set for guests. Next to the sofa is a beautiful wine cooler, and extending forward from the wine cooler is a TV wall. Normally it is just a silver-gray wall, but the wall can be made to project any channel of TV programs by voice control.

　　A bed large enough for three people to sleep together rested on the other side of the wall facing the TV, and was already covered with a quilt decorated with hanging spangles around the edges, as well as fluffy pillows. On each side of the bed was a dark gold bedside table with a unique lamp and a small green bonsai.

　　Alan threw himself onto the bed, and as the automatic door faded shut, he vaguely heard a muffled yelp from Tonisoff outside, as if disputing something with Hughton. When the door closed completely, nothing could be heard.

　　Tonisov, now agitated, tugged at his blonde wig and said in almost a screaming tone, "Major General could you be mistaken, it's just a child! Child! Who in their right mind would inflict source imprisonment on a child, this is ridiculous."

　　It was no wonder the Ensign was agitated, source power confinement was generally only used on dangerous prisoners who had committed felonies, especially those who were strong in force but could not be killed for various reasons. Such prisoners would be subjected to source power confinement before being exiled to a remote and distant star field, where they would not be allowed to return for the rest of their lives, and would ultimately be left to die of old age in some corner of the universe.

　　In the more than four hundred years of the Federation's existence, source power confinement had never been imposed on a child. Not to mention a child from the surface!

　　"I'm old, but I'm not confused here." Hughton nodded his head with his hand, "Is it source power confinement, would I not be able to tell the difference. This matter is indeed strange, you should go and find out the identity of this child and who used source power confinement on him. His potential was originally good, but after being hit by the source power confinement, he can't even build a genetic circuit. Also, there are three layers of confinement in his body!"

　　"Three layers!" Tonisoff jumped again, "That man is absolutely insane, who would use three layers of confinement on a child?"

　　"How do I know, all I know is that the reason why this man did what he did was perhaps because he was afraid of this child's potential." Hughton rolled his eyes and changed back to his previous drunken self, "Anyway, it doesn't matter if I mentor this kid or not anymore. He's going to die no matter what."

　　"Or, do you guys get a new person?"

　　Tornisov braced his hands on the table and leaned forward, both eyes as if they were going to spit out fire, "Major Huiton, you should know that the Death Ring has never been about replacing contestants. Now, no matter what, please fulfill your duty. Even if my Alan baby will end up dying at the hands of some other brat, until then, please make sure you guide him dutifully."

　　Hughton gave him a strange look and said, "Since when do you care about a surface brat?"

　　"Because Ron told me that he jumped into this hell of his own free will." Tornisph showed a rare serious expression, "That courage alone is worth looking at differently."

　　"Courage? Sounds more like a fool's errand; who in their right mind would automatically jump into hell?" Hughton shrugged his shoulders and said, "Well, since you insist, let the boy stay. But this is something you want to report ..."

　　"Not for now." Tornisph shook his head, "As you know, things related to source power confinement are troublesome, and I don't like trouble. If he can't survive, let the secret disappear with him. If he survives, let someone else worry about the trouble."

　　Hughton shook the empty bottle and said, "You're still a smart ass."

　　"Of course, then I'll leave my Alan to you, and I'll see him later." Waving her hand, Tornisph left with an enchanting stride.

　　Hughton caught his hand over another bottle of spirits, still unopened, and thought for a moment, "Never mind, I can't afford to get drunk again when I have a job to do next."

　　"... Just drink a small amount."

　　Ten minutes later, Alan returned to the hall. Hughton was belching and exhaling a strong odor of alcohol from his mouth. Alan even wondered if dropping a match into the old man's mouth right now would set his stomach on fire.

　　Hughton waved at him, "Alan, your name is Alan, right? Here, let me see your precious weapon first."

　　Alan handed him the Mad Butcher in his hand, and the old drunk reached out and swept all the table clutter to the floor with a single sweep of his hand. Bottles and glasses and whatnot fell with a shattering sound. At that moment, a sweeping robot in the corner moved over to the table and quickly cleared away all the debris on the floor and returned to its original position. Now Alan knew why the halls were still so clean despite the presence of Hughton, the old drunkard.

　　"Hey, a magical energy weapon, albeit only a first class one." Hughton glanced toward Allen and said, "But it's pretty good to get something like that on the surface, I'll even bet the other brats don't have a weapon like that in their hands. Ron gave it to you, didn't he? He was kind enough to give it to you, but don't even think about fiddling with it with that amount of source power you've got. Let's see, maybe we can tweak the Cube sequence to reduce energy consumption. The power will drop by about half, but at least you can use it ..."

　　The old drunkard was talking completely to himself and rambling by the end of the day. He jumped down, his body swaying, and said to Allen, "Wait here, I need some tools. Luckily I brought those babies along with me by the way ..."

　　After returning to his room and turning around, Hughton carried a toolbox. Opening it, there were many tools inside that Allen couldn't name. Using these tools, Hughton actually disassembled the Mad Butcher, which made Allen nervous.

　　Under Hughton's hand, Allen watched as the berserker was broken down into a number of parts, culminating in Hughton removing a matchbox-sized part from where the base of the large blade had been. It was a bit like an integrated circuit, but the pattern of the circuits was much more precise and complicated than a circuit board. Moreover, the patterns of the circuits vaguely formed some kind of pattern, and on some of the circuits there were round crystals that were only about ten millimeters in diameter embedded.

　　Seeing Allen's eyes glowing and looking at the thing in his hand with considerable interest, Hughton heatedly laughed: "Seeing it for the first time, this is the magic cube sequence, which is also the heart of the magic energy weapon. Different combinations of sequences can give the weapon different power, like this one in your hand is just the most common energy sharp. But even so, you still can't afford its energy consumption ..."

　　"But you can change it." Alan said.

　　Hughton said with a slightly raised eyebrow, "That's true, before your very eyes is one of the greatest designers of Rubik's Cube sequences. But something like slightly altering the energy consumption is as simple as a wink of an eye to me. If you're interested, come see me after the deathmatch is over and I'll teach you about it. Of course, you'll have to be talented in this area as well."

　　Allen immediately agreed, Ron had already said that magic energy weapons were an important part of the present day federal war power. If he could learn the design knowledge of the Magic Cube Sequence from Hughton, no matter whether it was used to increase his own strength in the future, or used for other purposes, it would have unrivaled value.

　　Of course, that was after the deathmatch was over.

　　Watching Hughton busily tinkering with the tesseract sequence using a variety of tools, Alan couldn't help but ask, "Major General, what's source confinement?"

　　Hughton stalled in his movements, then continued the work at hand, while his mouth said, "You can simply interpret it as a lock, a lock that closes the gate to the source, or a damn coded lock!"

　　The principle of source power confinement was to use a combination of source powers of different attributes and apply them to the target's body in order to confine the operation of its source power. To achieve the purpose of resisting and ultimately depleting the source power. Source power confinement was usually applied to the heart, which was undoubtedly one of the most important organs among human organs. Source power in the human body relies on blood vessels as the operation channel, and human blood vessels are connected to the heart.

　　Taking Alan as an example, when he had hammered out nine vortices of source power, he needed to converge all the vortices in his heart in order to construct the first genetic circuit. However, source power confinement acted on the heart, and when the source power vortexes entered the heart, they would be confined and make it difficult to construct the circuit.

　　And the more powerful a person was, the more they would be affected by the source power confinement!