With a "ding," the heavy metal doors of the elevator slowly opened before them, revealing the most mysterious place in the entire Fire Moth base.
The two Shus' gazes still hadn't moved from each other as they were "escorted" by the three towards the various monitoring instruments that Otto had just emergently prepared.
From height to weight, from fingerprints to irises, then energy detection, and even drawing a tube of blood from each of them.
Throughout the entire process, their gazes were firmly fixed on each other, their minds taut with vigilance against any possible move the other might make.
But until this series of tedious examinations came to an end, both of them behaved quite honestly.
One could even say that, ignoring the stagnant atmosphere between them, the two were like puppets, completely at Otto's disposal.
Then, Otto fell into contemplation in front of the quantum cluster computer processing this information.
As the quantum cluster computer spat out one piece of feedback after another that no one but Otto could understand, Otto's expression became increasingly strange.
Later on, when Otto saw two X-ray-like images fed back by the quantum cluster computer, Bianka clearly saw Otto's face twist for a moment.
One must know, Otto was a man who could drink an entire tube of nutrient solution without changing his expression, a point Bianka greatly admired.
Even now, Bianka couldn't drink a whole tube of nutrient solution without a change in expression.
For Otto, who was practically a superman in Bianka's eyes, to show such an expression at this time, one could imagine the impact those two X-rays had on him.
Coincidentally, X-rays were one of the few things Shu could understand... at least compared to the pure charts and numbers, he could only understand these two images.
Images contained far more information than text.
On those two black and white films, which looked like they had their colors inverted, Shu could clearly see a gourd-shaped shadow in the chest cavity.
Both films had it, almost identically.
Shu was puzzled. After discovering that the other [Shu] was also full of confusion, the two of them chose in unison to cast their inquiring gazes at Otto.
Otto finally corrected his expression from that of a grandpa looking at a phone, then supported his forehead and let out a long, complicated sigh.
"The situation is very complex..." No one asked him, but he knew he had to explain.
Among the five people here, he was quite clear about Shu's level. From the night before the battle with the pre-evolution, he was already certain that Shu was no academic genius.
He was indeed a late bloomer. Given time and let him chew on academic materials slowly, he might be able to understand this information.
Unfortunately, Shu was still just a kid in his early twenties.
Time? The bitter melons Otto had eaten...
Not to mention these two Shus who might even share the same memories, the other two were even more heavyweight.
Although Sirin grew up in the Tower of Babylon, she only received some knowledge熏陶 and didn't become an ignorant child. Bianka was just a child.
These guys were more uncultured than the last. Even counting the entire Fire Moth, probably only Schrodinger, whom Shu had brought back from Future City, could understand this information.
"What exactly is the situation?" / "What on earth happened?"
Two voices sounded in sync, intertwining to make Shu sound like his throat was clogged.
Otto turned to look at the two, a laser pointer for marking appearing in his hand at some point.
He first placed the light dot of the laser pointer on the gourd-shaped shadow on one of the films.
"Honkai energy interferes with X-ray vision. Even though you have controlled your Honkai energy very well, Shu, the Honkai energy at your core will ultimately affect the results.
"And this shadow is the approximate range where your core is located," Otto said seriously, pointing at the larger shadow.
Shu nodded slightly. He knew this too. Otto had explained this to him when he was collecting his full body information before, but at that time, there was only a lump-shaped shadow on his body, not the current gourd...
Shu's eyebrow suddenly twitched.
Since he already knew that the shadow was the core, then this gourd-shaped shadow could be split into two close-together, causing the shadow area to overlap...
Two cores?
In the back, Sirin, holding the Scepter, was tilting her head, racking her brain to understand the so-called shadow problem with her experience of reading fairy tales. Then she turned her head and saw the two Shus looking at her with shock-filled eyes.
Sirin's body trembled, and she involuntarily hugged the Scepter tighter.
The Scepter...
Shu was indeed a dual-core Herrscher, that's right, but... the Core of Dream wasn't on him right now.
Ever since Shu created that Scepter, the body of the Dream Core and its authority had been residing in that Scepter. What remained in Shu's body was only some Honkai energy that couldn't be carefully separated and some necessary control authority.
So... when did another core appear on his body?!
"Will this cause any problems?" / "Is it possible there's a malfunction?"
Both frowned. One subconsciously looked down, while the other raised a hand to feel his own heartbeat.
Otto took in the shock of both, and the guess in his heart became even more certain.
"Unfortunately, I'm afraid there's no malfunction... and no problem." Otto treated them equally, and at the same time raised his hand to call out a large string of identical films he had omitted in the background.
Looking at those films used for error comparison, Shu felt his lips go a little dry.
"Then this core..."
"This is probably the reason for the appearance of the other you," Otto waved his hand casually, deleting all the films and leaving the initial two.
"Or perhaps we can put it another way?
"Shu, that core that suddenly appeared on you is the real reason you split into two."
Otto pondered for a moment, then smiled at both Shus.
"To explain it specifically, Shu, you have once again become a new Herrscher, and the characteristic of this Herrscher is to simply and crudely split you into two."
The "Shus": "..."
To be honest, he didn't quite accept this conclusion.
"You mean... I suddenly obtained a brand-new Herrscher core, and the core's ability is..."
"To uncontrollably split me into two identical individuals?"
"So he really is the same as me?!" / "So we really are the same?!"