"How did you know I was talking about the Abyss?"
"A guess."
"You little rascal, you hacked my location, didn't you?!"
"Are you going to talk or not?"
"What lies beneath is extremely complicated—classified Alliance information."
"Then I'm hanging up."
"No, no, wait! I'll talk!" Chen Jin panicked. "There's a non-Terra geological structure beneath the Abyss. It's crawling with insectoids… and filled with countless eggs."
"I knew it."
Su Xun had already suspected as much after encountering so many insectoids in the city. "Then why haven't you just destroyed the Abyss?"
Chen Jin answered in a grave tone, "That's a question I'm not authorized to answer."
Su Xun didn't press further. He understood—it was likely that the Alliance wanted to study and analyze the alien environment within the Abyss.
"Su Xun, we desperately need the Iron Armor. You promised me back then."
Su Xun retorted, "And you promised me access to unlimited resources. But since arriving here, I don't even have the authority to move special materials."
Chen Jin finally realized why the blueprints he'd given to Professor Ma were incomprehensible. Clearly, the kid had been holding back. "Ahem… if you hadn't reminded me, I might've forgotten. Right. I'll send you the highest-level special clearance immediately."
"Once I receive it, I'll deliver the key data for the Arc Reactor development to Professor Ma."
"Deal."
Chen Jin ended the call with a sigh. "Talking to this kid is exhausting."
At that moment, he was standing beneath the Abyss, surrounded by fully armed Alliance soldiers. Not far away loomed a massive pit, the mouth of a tunnel vanishing into darkness, faint blue light flickering from deep within.
"Zhuang Yan, deliver this to Su Xun," Chen Jin said, handing over an oval-shaped metallic badge.
"Right now?"
"Yes."
"Understood."
Zhuang Yan took the token and departed aboard a helicopter.
Su Xun was in the midst of fine-tuning his plasma cannon when Zhuang Yan arrived. He hadn't expected them to act so swiftly—delivering the clearance overnight.
When Su Xun received the special clearance, Zhuang Yan added, "With this, you have full access to all personnel and materials at the Hualing Research Institute."
"Perfect."
Su Xun was elated. At last, he could begin upgrading the Iron Armor.
After sending Zhuang Yan off, he set the blueprints aside, donned the Iron Armor, and soared straight out the window.
"Nikola, disable the institute's surveillance."
"Consider it done."
Su Xun had already integrated Nikola into Hualing's network systems. With its access to all servers, disabling surveillance was child's play.
Soon, he arrived at a concealed underground lab within the institute—the heart of the Iron Armor project.
"Nikola, kill all lights and alarms."
"Yes, sir."
In an instant, the entire facility went dark.
"What's going on?"
The already hectic lab descended into utter chaos.