For a series that retained its influence in the market today despite being 2 decades old, one could tell the capability of this series and that justified how Prometheus Group established their place in the field today. Easily anyone could claim that, without Matte series, there would be no Prometheus Group. According to these premises, Gao Shichang, a significant figure of the whole group, who also happened to be the one who stirred up a storm in the designing industry for being the best mech designer among the 5 galaxies back then, should not be a challenging topic to research on…
Or so Ye Chong thought… The reality was against his presumption however. Gao Shichang’s information was not as easy as having his name suggested right after the letter "G" being typed on the search engine he thought. Ye Chong could not tell if his long-lost papa could have been that Gao Shichang. Only if he could find a clear hologram visual of Gao Shichang right now… he believed he could get the answer right away.
But the catch, the very strange catch was, there had hardly been any information about Gao Shichang on the virtual world networking system. He did discover a few entries, which only contained a few brief lines of description. Hologram visuals were nothing new in this galaxy where people travelled in the sky as routine, machines did most of the work and people read on hologramic interfaces, there should have been a visual of Gao Shichang, yet to Ye Chong’s confusion, there was barely any, not even a silhouette.
Mu was handling the searching currently and it was an astonishment to the artificial intelligence as well. The sound explanation would be, Ye Chong believed, the records about Gao Shichang were deliberately erased from the system, obviously by some really advanced Mavericks like Mu.
Unfortunately it had been so long that any sign of blatant deletion had already disappeared way before Ye Chong’s inspection.That was already the case in reality, not to mention the Virtual World which had a tremendously rapid updating system flow.
Mu even hacked into the demographic information center as an attempt to retrieve potentially overlooked information. Nevertheless, "Gao Shichang" returned a negative result. The information center had stricter administration however, as Mu discovered something… "Yes, there were signs of deliberate deletion." The journals were kept perfectly too, there were some clues but it would be way too far-fetched if one were to find out a man who disappeared 20 years ago with solely clues this little.
The conclusion? Ye Chong could confirm something with Mu Shang in the end - someone or something had destroyed all sorts of information attached to Gao Shichang.
And that someone or something must be a super Maverick because it would be considerably difficult to wipe out someone on the net completely without alarming people, even for Mu.
The more peculiar part was this was done by a Maverick. Twenty years ago. If that Maverick lingered, hell knows how potent he or she had become. Although one could argue that a Maverick was not a profession which the skill was determined by age, so far not a single one Maverick was known to lose their skills gradually as they aged. Perhaps it could be the imaginative nature or the creativity that one elderly could lose against the youngster. Nonetheless, the elderly always held the calmness brewed by the years he gained immense experience from, which eventually his calculation would turn be more acute and cautious, with mistakes little to none. A senior Maverick’s calculation would be more of a hard nut to crack.
Mu tirelessly was still on the net, looking for any tiny bit of information related to Gao Shichang. Regarding this, both Mu and Shang possessed something that most humanity did not - they did not recognize fatigue, they did not recognize dejection. They were immensely patient.
Ye Chong could not meddle with this search, not the slightest. He might be the first person in the entire galaxy who wanted to find out the visual of Gao Shichang, but if it turned out to be a random guy with the same name as his father, an amusing coincidence, he was not that kind of caring person who would get involved with a total stranger. If that was indeed his father, no way he would be watching everything by the side.
So, to do or not to do, the key lay within the visual of his "papa".
Ye Chong had some great self-control, for he did not waste the next 4 days doing nothing, despite having losing his head over the search. Lunatic Guan had given him a very detailed course to study. That little chip was consuming to read, unlike Lan Yixing’s martial arts guide which he had rich experience in, making it relatable. Moreover, Ye Chong had some basics on muscle manipulation that he could learn the Lan family of the September effortlessly, he just lacked the guidance after all, which Lan Yixing’s chip would suffice. Alchemy however, was something new. He did learn a few tricks from Lunatic Guan, but the following syllabus was so deep, he literally knocked the way out with his cracked head.
At least he had good understanding and memory so it was not that torturous after all.
For meditation, Ye Chong kept it up the whole while. Even though the way of living of a mentalist was felt to be not his thing, he could feel the benefits from doing basic meditation.
Yes, the calmness during battle, which reasoned the fearsomeness of mentalist for Ye Chong. That eternal serenity, combined with the mysterious forces and average martial archery, Ye Chong would say the real threat would be those from the Sanctuary, rather than the Black Covers or MPAs.
4 days passed like a day. Whenever Ye Chong got his head into knowledge, time sure flew.
Ye Chong came to the clinic of Wang Weixing, who never had an idea that Ye Chong had been causing little bit of havoc at the outside with his identity.
The clinic was still busy as ever. Well, it felt more of a medical center, a hospital, as the wounded whined and whimpered. The wailing rang throughout the corridor, at least there were much lesser injuries compared to his visit 4 days ago.
Wang Weixing had his hair tussled, messed, ruffled, any way one could describe a total mess in fatigue, blatantly telling Ye Chong that he did not spend the past 4 days well. The tasks could be fatal to an elderly like him. There was too much to do and too little workforce to help, although he did not even have the leisure to think of the fatality of taking one patient or another, as he screamed "Next!", every few minutes.
"Here’s my boy," said Wang Weixing with a smile upon seeing Ye Chong, whom he believed to be the one who understood the reality of being a doc.
"Mhm," Ye Chong sat right in front of Wang Weixing.
The moment the doctor took his seat along, the expression turned stern. The fatigue on the face vaporized and was replaced with solemnity.
"Mhmmmm…" Pondered the elderly, "My boy, I had performed a detailed research on the outcome of your body inspection. As you have mentioned that you had certain kinds of symptoms, I would say you could have consumed some kind of steroids before, by mistake."
Ye Chong did not interrupt the doctor as his expression demanded his elaboration.
"Such steroid… a very tyrannic kind. Or precisely, dominating. This is the first steroid being so dominating in reaction I had encountered after all these years in my research. It was also the first strange kind too." The doctor took a breath.
"Normally, as long as it is a steroid, or even artificial hormone, there would be side effects inevitably, which would be reflected on your body directly, like the pattern of your body changes for example, be it rashes or disarmed immunity. But the one you have taken by mistake… there is in fact a side effect, but not on simple things like these, rather it would make you depend upon it. The dependency grew so overwhelmingly that the mentioned symptoms would return as long as you do not take them regularly."
Then the doctor exclaimed, "How horrifying…"
"The steroid could vastly improve your body mechanism. It performs modification on your muscular structure. In this case, it would not burden your body. Yes, yes, yes, as long as you take them regularly that is. On the contrary, it had modified your body, an overhaul I must say and an alarming ones that is. I seriously have no idea who made this but it’s genius! It took me quite a while but I still could not find out its exact chemical composition."
Ye Chong was expressionless the whole time.
"Hah! My boy, do not worry, if this steroid has given me enough shock you thought, then you are wrong, you had given me a greater shock," gleefully the doctor replied.
"What?" Ye Chong frowned. "Me?" Clearly, he did not comprehend.
The elderly grinned, "I had performed a full inspection on your body remember? The outcome was truly a shocker to me. Most of the mechanism of your body turns out to be way above average, including the strength of your muscular structure, the density of your skeleton system and even the capacity of your cardiovascular system. Physique-wise, your body is hitting perfection. And from your bloodstream I had retrieved some residue of a kind of steroid and then there’s this thing, flowing in your blood, an unknown chemical substance…"
"What is it?" Ye Chong remained calm.
The calmness of the boy was something Wang Weixing found to be eccentric. Normally any youngster of Ye Chong’s age would be jumping from the chair and demanding an immediate response, but Ye Chong was there sitting, all wordless and wise, even when the topic was something regarding his life.
"It’s a factor. A very different factor," he smiled. "I had never come across such factor before in my life and I could not find any information on it. But I could be confident to say that, this is the factor which keeps improving your body."
"Well, you probably were the kind of kid with a well-built body compared to your classmates back then I suppose?"
Nodded Ye Chong.
"Then that’s it. I had attempted to extract the factor from your sample, but never knew I would fail miserably in the end in spite of all methods I have tried. Shame…" Wang Weixing’s expression grew regretful, "Although I had failed miserably, I still managed to find something unique."
"What was unique?" asked Ye Chong.
Wang Weixing was a medical doctor, but he also was a researcher. And that moment his seriousness of being a researcher was depicted.
"The factor happened to be very similar with the steroid you have mis-swallowed. But the composition of the factor was much more facilitated than the steroid I must say, that I even started to suspect if the steroid was a copycat trying to mimic the composition of the factor instead. It turned out to be a failed carbon copy. The factor mixes with the blood way better than the steroid. Let me guess, you did not have any of those symptoms before you consumed this steroid, am I right?"
"Nope," he shook his head, even though the conference in his head was about to get chaotic. When the hell did I even have a factor running in my blood and I did not know?
The response was expected, "That would be it. The superior physique you possess shares a correlation with the factor inside you, like the structure of your muscles for example, according to exercise physiology, your structure must be colossal great to supply the strength you wield for now. However, because of the factor inside you or in simpler terms, the strange physique of yours, your structure would not gain its mass while your strength grew over the time. That steroid was a glaring copy of the factor, trying to get a similar effect on your body, but it was half-baked so it returned a number of side effects in the end."
…
Ye Chong was silent. His inside was grumbling in chaos. Mu Shang were also wondering the same conundrum, his physique had always been a mystery.
"The physique you have… should be of inheritance, as such factor has a strong resistance to foreign matters so you could not obtain it by a simple injection or whatsoever. The steroid you possibly have injected was pre-dominating since the dosage was high, which resulted those symptoms you have mentioned for the next long period of time. But slowly, gradually, as time goes, that factor of yours took back its place as it engulfed and destroyed the steroid particles inside you. The amount of steroid inside you remained at a negligible amount now. So not much to worry… Those symptoms should never occur again." The doctor seemed very pleased for the youngster freed from disease.
"Woohoo, you heard that? Ye? You are actually alright!" Shang who had listened to the exchange the entire time was grooving joyfully inside Ye Chong.
"The warning…" Wang Weixing withdrew his smile, "My boy, please, listen, on my plead, please, never ever consume any more of those steroids. The side effects are too great and the effects are subpar compared to the factor inside you. You seriously could have ditched this business failure, it was a bad trade. And one more thing, all of the current unique physique or bloodline we have discovered so far in Science are known to suffer from a particular type of weakening, which we would name it as ‘Relativity Diminish Syndrome", you've got to ask your family, the immediate members of yours, like your parents for example, to know if they suffer from any kind of disease. Or else… if one day you suffer from the syndrome and you are not ready for it, that… that would be horrible I would say. You could die from it."
Immediate members… family? Those words rang bitterly in Ye Chong’s ears. Those were some really foreign terminologies he had heard.
"Alright… I had covered most of the things… I think." He checked the list in his hand, "Mhm, the conclusion, all is well and your body is much healthier than most people out there. If it was not the happening this time, I would really love to take a careful research on the factor inside you. Mhm, right, good, good, well I have some other patients to diagnose, if you would excuse me," summoned Wang Weixing, for the next patient!
"Thank you," bowed Ye Chong slightly, the line came off wholly from his heart.
Wang Weixing did not look at Ye Chong. He waved his hands, signaling him to go, as his eyes were fully focused on the statistic, the diagrams on the hologram appeared on his table.
Ye Chong felt much more relieved as he left the hospital. The syndrome actually cured itself and the mystery of his physique had been revealed.
Family members? Well that was nothing to concern about. He grew up on Trash Planet, so where the hell could he find a family member? There was one and only one member, papa… And papa was … well, perhaps he would be alone for the rest of his life. Thought Ye Chong as he looked at the sky.
The last mystery of his life could just be whether papa was Gao Shichang, the designer of mechs after all. If that was done, he would find a planet and spend his remaining life in tranquility with his best buddies, Mu and Shang, just like Grandpa Qian at Blue Ocean, doing the things he liked, caring for the people he truly cared.
For a series that retained its influence in the market today despite being 2 decades old, one could tell the capability of this series and that justified how Prometheus Group established their place in the field today. Easily anyone could claim that, without Matte series, there would be no Prometheus Group. According to these premises, Gao Shichang, a significant figure of the whole group, who also happened to be the one who stirred up a storm in the designing industry for being the best mech designer among the 5 galaxies back then, should not be a challenging topic to research on…
Or so Ye Chong thought… The reality was against his presumption however. Gao Shichang’s information was not as easy as having his name suggested right after the letter "G" being typed on the search engine he thought. Ye Chong could not tell if his long-lost papa could have been that Gao Shichang. Only if he could find a clear hologram visual of Gao Shichang right now… he believed he could get the answer right away.
But the catch, the very strange catch was, there had hardly been any information about Gao Shichang on the virtual world networking system. He did discover a few entries, which only contained a few brief lines of description. Hologram visuals were nothing new in this galaxy where people travelled in the sky as routine, machines did most of the work and people read on hologramic interfaces, there should have been a visual of Gao Shichang, yet to Ye Chong’s confusion, there was barely any, not even a silhouette.
Mu was handling the searching currently and it was an astonishment to the artificial intelligence as well. The sound explanation would be, Ye Chong believed, the records about Gao Shichang were deliberately erased from the system, obviously by some really advanced Mavericks like Mu.
Unfortunately it had been so long that any sign of blatant deletion had already disappeared way before Ye Chong’s inspection.That was already the case in reality, not to mention the Virtual World which had a tremendously rapid updating system flow.
Mu even hacked into the demographic information center as an attempt to retrieve potentially overlooked information. Nevertheless, "Gao Shichang" returned a negative result. The information center had stricter administration however, as Mu discovered something… "Yes, there were signs of deliberate deletion." The journals were kept perfectly too, there were some clues but it would be way too far-fetched if one were to find out a man who disappeared 20 years ago with solely clues this little.
The conclusion? Ye Chong could confirm something with Mu Shang in the end - someone or something had destroyed all sorts of information attached to Gao Shichang.
And that someone or something must be a super Maverick because it would be considerably difficult to wipe out someone on the net completely without alarming people, even for Mu.
The more peculiar part was this was done by a Maverick. Twenty years ago. If that Maverick lingered, hell knows how potent he or she had become. Although one could argue that a Maverick was not a profession which the skill was determined by age, so far not a single one Maverick was known to lose their skills gradually as they aged. Perhaps it could be the imaginative nature or the creativity that one elderly could lose against the youngster. Nonetheless, the elderly always held the calmness brewed by the years he gained immense experience from, which eventually his calculation would turn be more acute and cautious, with mistakes little to none. A senior Maverick’s calculation would be more of a hard nut to crack.
Mu tirelessly was still on the net, looking for any tiny bit of information related to Gao Shichang. Regarding this, both Mu and Shang possessed something that most humanity did not - they did not recognize fatigue, they did not recognize dejection. They were immensely patient.
Ye Chong could not meddle with this search, not the slightest. He might be the first person in the entire galaxy who wanted to find out the visual of Gao Shichang, but if it turned out to be a random guy with the same name as his father, an amusing coincidence, he was not that kind of caring person who would get involved with a total stranger. If that was indeed his father, no way he would be watching everything by the side.
So, to do or not to do, the key lay within the visual of his "papa".
Ye Chong had some great self-control, for he did not waste the next 4 days doing nothing, despite having losing his head over the search. Lunatic Guan had given him a very detailed course to study. That little chip was consuming to read, unlike Lan Yixing’s martial arts guide which he had rich experience in, making it relatable. Moreover, Ye Chong had some basics on muscle manipulation that he could learn the Lan family of the September effortlessly, he just lacked the guidance after all, which Lan Yixing’s chip would suffice. Alchemy however, was something new. He did learn a few tricks from Lunatic Guan, but the following syllabus was so deep, he literally knocked the way out with his cracked head.
At least he had good understanding and memory so it was not that torturous after all.
For meditation, Ye Chong kept it up the whole while. Even though the way of living of a mentalist was felt to be not his thing, he could feel the benefits from doing basic meditation.
Yes, the calmness during battle, which reasoned the fearsomeness of mentalist for Ye Chong. That eternal serenity, combined with the mysterious forces and average martial archery, Ye Chong would say the real threat would be those from the Sanctuary, rather than the Black Covers or MPAs.
4 days passed like a day. Whenever Ye Chong got his head into knowledge, time sure flew.
Ye Chong came to the clinic of Wang Weixing, who never had an idea that Ye Chong had been causing little bit of havoc at the outside with his identity.
The clinic was still busy as ever. Well, it felt more of a medical center, a hospital, as the wounded whined and whimpered. The wailing rang throughout the corridor, at least there were much lesser injuries compared to his visit 4 days ago.
Wang Weixing had his hair tussled, messed, ruffled, any way one could describe a total mess in fatigue, blatantly telling Ye Chong that he did not spend the past 4 days well. The tasks could be fatal to an elderly like him. There was too much to do and too little workforce to help, although he did not even have the leisure to think of the fatality of taking one patient or another, as he screamed "Next!", every few minutes.
"Here’s my boy," said Wang Weixing with a smile upon seeing Ye Chong, whom he believed to be the one who understood the reality of being a doc.
"Mhm," Ye Chong sat right in front of Wang Weixing.
The moment the doctor took his seat along, the expression turned stern. The fatigue on the face vaporized and was replaced with solemnity.
"Mhmmmm…" Pondered the elderly, "My boy, I had performed a detailed research on the outcome of your body inspection. As you have mentioned that you had certain kinds of symptoms, I would say you could have consumed some kind of steroids before, by mistake."
Ye Chong did not interrupt the doctor as his expression demanded his elaboration.
"Such steroid… a very tyrannic kind. Or precisely, dominating. This is the first steroid being so dominating in reaction I had encountered after all these years in my research. It was also the first strange kind too." The doctor took a breath.
"Normally, as long as it is a steroid, or even artificial hormone, there would be side effects inevitably, which would be reflected on your body directly, like the pattern of your body changes for example, be it rashes or disarmed immunity. But the one you have taken by mistake… there is in fact a side effect, but not on simple things like these, rather it would make you depend upon it. The dependency grew so overwhelmingly that the mentioned symptoms would return as long as you do not take them regularly."
Then the doctor exclaimed, "How horrifying…"
"The steroid could vastly improve your body mechanism. It performs modification on your muscular structure. In this case, it would not burden your body. Yes, yes, yes, as long as you take them regularly that is. On the contrary, it had modified your body, an overhaul I must say and an alarming ones that is. I seriously have no idea who made this but it’s genius! It took me quite a while but I still could not find out its exact chemical composition."
Ye Chong was expressionless the whole time.
"Hah! My boy, do not worry, if this steroid has given me enough shock you thought, then you are wrong, you had given me a greater shock," gleefully the doctor replied.
"What?" Ye Chong frowned. "Me?" Clearly, he did not comprehend.
The elderly grinned, "I had performed a full inspection on your body remember? The outcome was truly a shocker to me. Most of the mechanism of your body turns out to be way above average, including the strength of your muscular structure, the density of your skeleton system and even the capacity of your cardiovascular system. Physique-wise, your body is hitting perfection. And from your bloodstream I had retrieved some residue of a kind of steroid and then there’s this thing, flowing in your blood, an unknown chemical substance…"
"What is it?" Ye Chong remained calm.
The calmness of the boy was something Wang Weixing found to be eccentric. Normally any youngster of Ye Chong’s age would be jumping from the chair and demanding an immediate response, but Ye Chong was there sitting, all wordless and wise, even when the topic was something regarding his life.
"It’s a factor. A very different factor," he smiled. "I had never come across such factor before in my life and I could not find any information on it. But I could be confident to say that, this is the factor which keeps improving your body."
"Well, you probably were the kind of kid with a well-built body compared to your classmates back then I suppose?"
Nodded Ye Chong.
"Then that’s it. I had attempted to extract the factor from your sample, but never knew I would fail miserably in the end in spite of all methods I have tried. Shame…" Wang Weixing’s expression grew regretful, "Although I had failed miserably, I still managed to find something unique."
"What was unique?" asked Ye Chong.
Wang Weixing was a medical doctor, but he also was a researcher. And that moment his seriousness of being a researcher was depicted.
"The factor happened to be very similar with the steroid you have mis-swallowed. But the composition of the factor was much more facilitated than the steroid I must say, that I even started to suspect if the steroid was a copycat trying to mimic the composition of the factor instead. It turned out to be a failed carbon copy. The factor mixes with the blood way better than the steroid. Let me guess, you did not have any of those symptoms before you consumed this steroid, am I right?"
"Nope," he shook his head, even though the conference in his head was about to get chaotic. When the hell did I even have a factor running in my blood and I did not know?
The response was expected, "That would be it. The superior physique you possess shares a correlation with the factor inside you, like the structure of your muscles for example, according to exercise physiology, your structure must be colossal great to supply the strength you wield for now. However, because of the factor inside you or in simpler terms, the strange physique of yours, your structure would not gain its mass while your strength grew over the time. That steroid was a glaring copy of the factor, trying to get a similar effect on your body, but it was half-baked so it returned a number of side effects in the end."
…
Ye Chong was silent. His inside was grumbling in chaos. Mu Shang were also wondering the same conundrum, his physique had always been a mystery.
"The physique you have… should be of inheritance, as such factor has a strong resistance to foreign matters so you could not obtain it by a simple injection or whatsoever. The steroid you possibly have injected was pre-dominating since the dosage was high, which resulted those symptoms you have mentioned for the next long period of time. But slowly, gradually, as time goes, that factor of yours took back its place as it engulfed and destroyed the steroid particles inside you. The amount of steroid inside you remained at a negligible amount now. So not much to worry… Those symptoms should never occur again." The doctor seemed very pleased for the youngster freed from disease.
"Woohoo, you heard that? Ye? You are actually alright!" Shang who had listened to the exchange the entire time was grooving joyfully inside Ye Chong.
"The warning…" Wang Weixing withdrew his smile, "My boy, please, listen, on my plead, please, never ever consume any more of those steroids. The side effects are too great and the effects are subpar compared to the factor inside you. You seriously could have ditched this business failure, it was a bad trade. And one more thing, all of the current unique physique or bloodline we have discovered so far in Science are known to suffer from a particular type of weakening, which we would name it as ‘Relativity Diminish Syndrome", you've got to ask your family, the immediate members of yours, like your parents for example, to know if they suffer from any kind of disease. Or else… if one day you suffer from the syndrome and you are not ready for it, that… that would be horrible I would say. You could die from it."
Immediate members… family? Those words rang bitterly in Ye Chong’s ears. Those were some really foreign terminologies he had heard.
"Alright… I had covered most of the things… I think." He checked the list in his hand, "Mhm, the conclusion, all is well and your body is much healthier than most people out there. If it was not the happening this time, I would really love to take a careful research on the factor inside you. Mhm, right, good, good, well I have some other patients to diagnose, if you would excuse me," summoned Wang Weixing, for the next patient!
"Thank you," bowed Ye Chong slightly, the line came off wholly from his heart.
Wang Weixing did not look at Ye Chong. He waved his hands, signaling him to go, as his eyes were fully focused on the statistic, the diagrams on the hologram appeared on his table.
Ye Chong felt much more relieved as he left the hospital. The syndrome actually cured itself and the mystery of his physique had been revealed.
Family members? Well that was nothing to concern about. He grew up on Trash Planet, so where the hell could he find a family member? There was one and only one member, papa… And papa was … well, perhaps he would be alone for the rest of his life. Thought Ye Chong as he looked at the sky.
The last mystery of his life could just be whether papa was Gao Shichang, the designer of mechs after all. If that was done, he would find a planet and spend his remaining life in tranquility with his best buddies, Mu and Shang, just like Grandpa Qian at Blue Ocean, doing the things he liked, caring for the people he truly cared.
