Since the conclusion of that bizarre, fog-shrouded interrogation, the atmosphere in the base had fallen into an extremely abnormal state of routine tranquility.
As the core involved Anomaly of this storm—or rather, as the Anomaly designated B-013-A—Ren Yi found himself being temporarily put on ice.
Aside from a few researchers in hazmat suits who looked like they’d stepped off a Resident Evil set coming to the observation room next door every few hours to record data, the organization had not taken any aggressive measures against him.
"I suppose this is the treatment for an 'expensive asset,'" Ren Yi mocked himself inwardly.
He was in no hurry; this calm actually gave him plenty of time for his mental excursions.
By utilizing his perception's infiltration and his three pairs of 'eyes,' he quietly pried into the secrets of the entire base, piecing together the full picture of this world.
With a thought, Ren Yi instantly switched his perception to another perspective, landing in the direction of the Medical Wing.
There, the treatment of staff member B-050 was still in full swing, though from the looks of it, things had clearly reached a stalemate.
The man was currently lying in a tank filled with green nutrient fluid like a vegetable, while several top medical officers were so worried their hair was turning white.
They had deployed the base's most advanced medical equipment, from brain-computer interfaces to neural repair, from consciousness awakening to sensory stimulation—they had tried almost every method imaginable, yet they remained unable to restore B-050's sight and hearing.
The senses Ren Yi had shut down were not a result of physical damage, but a 'stripping' of rule-based logic.
In the eyes of these researchers, B-050's cerebral cortex was very active, even more excited than a normal person's, yet he simply could not hear or see, as if his soul had been locked in an absolute void of a black box.
During this time, the errand boy B-406 appeared there several times.
He still had those half-asleep dead-fish eyes, his mechanical prosthetic eye clicking as it focused.
In the end, he could only shake his head helplessly, leaving behind a sigh filled with exhaustion.
As for Evans, his treatment was much more 'grounded.'
This freshly minted 'C-rank temporary worker' was taken for a whole set of inexplicable physical examinations.
Calling it a physical exam was a stretch; in reality, it was no different from torture.
After the exam, Evans was not assigned to actual staff quarters, but was instead thrown into a cramped room labeled 'staff dormitory' that was effectively no different from a solitary confinement cell.
Aside from the same metal walls as Ren Yi's room, there were no windows and no decorations.
There was only a stiff plank bed and a toilet with a half-length curtain that offered no privacy whatsoever; other than that, there was nothing.
Evans sat on the edge of the bed, his frame so thin he looked like he might blow away in a gust of wind. He raised his head and stared blankly at the yellowing ceiling, his eyes hollow and numb.
Occasionally, he would subconsciously clutch his stomach, his brow furrowing tightly as a look of pain crossed his face.
"How pathetic," Ren Yi commented, switching his attention back to the doctor.
Compared to Evans's misery, the movements of this unhinged doctor were what he cared about most.
Dr. Cyril was a total workaholic.
During this period, Ren Yi had used the convenience of his perception's infiltration to follow her and 'peek' at many of the base's internal files.
Although most of the files were trivial records of base expenditures, attendance reports for ordinary staff, or daily care records for other B-rank and C-rank Anomalies.
No other explosive material like S-099 or the S-003 God's Corpse appeared again.
However, through these clues, he gradually pieced together a rough picture of this strange world.
First of all, this organization, which possessed black technology and a cold, decisive style of operation, had a fairly simple and crude name:
【Sky Eye Organization】.
Their emblem was a glowing pupil, meaning "Watching all things, containing the radiance."
Though he didn't know why a containment organization chose a name like a spy agency, their work was standard enough.
To put it bluntly, they were an Anomaly containment team that insisted on wrapping themselves in a high-and-mighty mantle, cultivating some sort of divine persona.
As he flipped through more files, Ren Yi felt a sense of unprecedented surprise regarding the geographical structure of this world.
He was astonished to find that in this world, where the technology tree had already reached the levels of 'dream influence' and 'brain-computer interference'—and could even create sealed pods he couldn't easily break out of—the concept of a 'planet' didn't exist at all.
The fantasy of 'flying into space,' which almost all normal civilizations or even individuals possess, did not seem to be a prioritized goal in this world.
"Is it that the thought never occurred to them, or... did they encounter some sort of obstacle?"
Ren Yi found no answer in the information he received.
Correspondingly, the lack of knowledge in this area had produced some strange effects.
For instance, the academic circles here did not believe the earth was round.
Ren Yi had not seen a map of this world, but from a large number of written descriptions, he gradually pieced together some of its structure.
According to the understanding of the Sky Eye Organization, this world had boundaries.
No matter which direction you set out from or how far you traveled, you would eventually reach a terrifying zone called the "Black Forest," which was the end of the world.
The descriptions of the Black Forest in the files were extremely contradictory, yet bone-chillingly eerie.
It was officially defined as an "absolute wasteland," with no life, no water, and no resources for survival.
Yet its physical form was a dense, vast, and boundless giant black forest.
The trees had no leaves and no trunks, only iron-hard, twisted, and entangled branches.
Not a single person or probe had ever been able to find the end of this forest.
"No global travel, no satellites, no oceans—even the world itself has boundaries."
Ren Yi analyzed calmly, his misty body rippling slightly. "This means the physical scale of this world is much smaller than I imagined."
"They are like being kept in a 'petri dish' surrounded by the Black Forest, trapped in this finite land, unable to escape or explore a wider world."
And within this limited area, geological activity was frantic to the point of madness.
Earthquakes, fissures, and surface eruptions occurred frequently, and extreme weather was constant.
Ren Yi discovered through the files that due to this extremely harsh environment, humanity was not divided by traditional national boundaries.
Instead, based on geological conditions for survival, they had evolved completely different survival strategies, even forming species-like barriers and oppositions, trapped in a complex geopolitical quagmire.
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