"Name?"
"Holiness!"
"…Age?"
"Holiness!"
"Race…?"
"—Holiness!!"
On the laboratory table, the Steel Crows spread their wings, excitedly hopping around, responding to all of Huai Shi's questions with the same answer, like a parrot on loop.
It was only after Huai Shi noticed there were still seven or eight pages of the standard Border Variant intelligence assessment questionnaire that he wisely chose to give up.
"Fine, let's skip the intelligence part…"
He sighed, tossed the questionnaire into a corner, and massaged his forehead.
There was no helping it. After the crows evolved into Version 2.0 and underwent a major update, their behavior became inexplicable and challenging to comprehend with common sense.
Even Huai Shi himself didn't know what code he had written. To figure out what had happened, he would need to check everything from the beginning.
Although the questionnaire was of little use, based on Huai Shi's experience, their intelligence had likely grown to the level of a seven or eight-year-old child—clearly, they had developed considerably from speaking in broken sentences to speaking fluently now.
They were essentially mature parrots.
It felt like going to Hell was like visiting a wholesale market. He hadn't brought anything back but had bought over a thousand parrots instead.
What a loss!
As his mind was filled with a mix of emotions, his fingers drummed the pen, waiting for the lab's environment to finish changing. A giant Wind tunnel device was temporarily allocated from underground and rose inside the room.
"Alright, let's have a couple of flights."
He picked up one of the Mechanical Crows, feeling its hefty weight—almost fifty pounds each, nearly too heavy to lift. If it were like before, with his body covered in them, Huai Shi felt he would have fractured his bones.
The heartache of parents realizing they can no longer carry their grown children must be similar to what Huai Shi was feeling now.
The door of the Wind tunnel opened, and Huai Shi stretched out his hand, throwing the crow into the chamber. As the equipment operated, a hurricane roared from within, creating a constant airflow.
Amidst the hurricane, the crow skillfully spread its wings and began to fly up and down. Several jets on the iron wings allowed them to maneuver with great agility, enabling them to perform various flashy actions in the Wind tunnel.
Flying was an old trick for them.
It seemed there was no problem.
Now, for the top speed—
Huai Shi began to increase the wind force level and soon obtained effective results from the monitor's parameters. After accelerating over a long distance, the top speed was 240 meters per second.
But it couldn't be maintained for too long.
The regular speed was around 90 meters per second, but the physical condition of each crow varied—some were faster, and the chubbier ones were slower.
An average would suffice.
As for strength…
Huai Shi began to scratch his head.
—How do you measure the strength of a crow?
The mere sight of those alloy steel claws gave Huai Shi goosebumps. They could easily rip through ordinary steel plates.
The crows now basically weighed around thirty kilograms, with a wingspan reaching two meters. They could be considered Monsters in a low-budget horror movie.
Based on their weight and speed, a casual dive from them could shred a typical Shield like paper, even causing effective damage to reinforced concrete structures.
Their destructive power was not to be underestimated.
But the problem was… force is mutual.
The steel body wasn't meant to be played with this way. Damaging the opposition meant potential self-damage. Even if the machines had a degree of self-repair, they probably wouldn't be able to fix themselves if the damage exceeded a certain level.
Maintenance was still Huai Shi's job.
After researching all night, Huai Shi still hadn't made any new discoveries. Seeing the sky gradually brighten outside, he put down his notes and went home for breakfast.
In the moist and chilly air of early morning, the Ivory Tower was already teeming with life.
In fact, this place was lively twenty-four hours a day.
These were Sublimators, after all, each one a practitioner of immortality. Staying awake for forty-eight hours was like child's play to them. During crunch times, like for a thesis project, some would even take drugs and stay up for a month. Quite a few ended up with insomnia and had to recuperate because of this.
Students, early risers, or night owls, greeted Huai Shi respectfully as they saw him on the way. The more courageous ones even wanted to come over to take pictures, but Huai Shi tactfully declined each request.
"Next time for sure, next time for sure."
After skillfully turning down the request from the female students for a group photo, Huai Shi hurried toward his home.
Recent rampant gossip had already caused him enough trouble. He dared not mingle with the ladies outside. Since returning to the Ivory Tower, his life had been a loop between the classroom and home. Aside from that, he didn't step out the front door or cross the secondary door, as proper as a young lady from a reputable family. He certainly didn't dare to wander about outside recklessly.
"Young master, welcome back."
Uncle Fang poked his head out from the kitchen. "Miss Yuan and Mr. Lin will arrive shortly. You can start after breakfast."
"Okay."