Chapter 167: The Second Round of the Tower of Babel

Four days later, early morning. The end of the third basement level.

Jack stood before the silver-gray metal door wrapped in rough paint. The dead white light from the ceiling fluorescents fell on his tall frame, casting a cold, hard shadow stretched impossibly long.

He raised his hand, his somewhat stiff fingertips tapping on the digital lock with its faintly blinking red light, entering the six-digit access code in sequence.

Click.

The heavy mechanical lock core gave a muffled sound as it disengaged, and a cold blast of air suddenly squeezed through the gap in the door—a mixture of high-concentration ozone, fluorocarbon coolant, and sterile disinfectant.

Jack pushed the door open and entered.

Same as last time, the circular chamber stood in the center of the room, its inner wall's flexible light strips already glowing with a dim blue light, like a giant beast sleeping in an iron cage.

Grant stood behind the control console, spine straight, ten fingers flying rapidly across the mechanical keyboard. The keyboard made crisp, cold clicks, each one landing precisely between the ticks of the wall clock.

In the corner, old Aaron was curled up in a leather chair, the dark blue glow from his tablet making his wrinkled face look especially aged. His eyes were glued to the jumping electrocardiogram and electromyogram waveforms on the screen, his withered fingers occasionally fine-tuning data at the screen's edge.

Hearing footsteps, Aaron slowly raised his head, his cloudy pupils pausing on Jack's expressionless face for two seconds.

"Your recovery indicators from last time shot up dramatically," Aaron's voice was hoarse like two pieces of sandpaper rubbing together. "Much better than the theoretical model predicted. Your body showed no rejection response at all."

"What's the intensity today?" Jack stopped beside the chamber, his tall shadow covering the control panel in front of Grant.

Grant didn't even look up, his lenses reflecting the cold light of scrolling code:

"The pre-adaptation phase is over. Starting today, we enter the first round of actual overclocking."

His finger pressed down hard on a key, the mechanical switch making a sharp click.

"Fifteen times gravity coefficient, sustained for twenty seconds. At the same time, the sealed chamber will inject a low-dose overclocking inducer."

In Grant's dictionary, "low-dose" was never a gentle term.

Jack didn't ask about the toxicity behind that chemical formula. Expressionless, he stripped off his tactical jacket and hung it on the cold metal hook by the door, revealing his tight black training suit and the bulging veins on his arms.

He stepped into the chamber and settled deep into the seat.

The memory foam instantly compressed inward, fitting snugly against his lumbar spine and shoulders, providing an almost brutal level of restraint. Grant stepped forward and pulled over the four wide titanium restraint straps.

Click! Click!

The instant the metal buckles locked, a bone-chilling cold penetrated through the fabric directly onto his skin, making the muscles in Jack's body instinctively twitch.

The chamber lid slowly descended overhead, the airtight seal making a muffled hiss like a giant beast exhaling.

The next moment, all sounds from the outside world were completely stripped away.

The light strips inside the chamber shifted from pale blue to a deathly dim white. The ventilation system's air extraction sound was reduced to its minimum. In the entire sealed space, all that remained was the heavy breathing from his own chest and the dull pounding of his heart against his sternum—thump, thump, thump.

Grant's emotionless voice exploded from the built-in speaker:

"First round. Fifteen seconds of warm-up pressurization, fifteen times gravity, twenty seconds. Countdown begins."

Boom!

The pressure didn't build gradually—it was like a collapsing iron mountain, crashing down from overhead!

This was a completely different kind of destructive force from the pre-adaptation. Fifteen times gravity was equivalent to nearly a ton of weight brutally pressing down on his chest!

"Kgh!"

A muffled grunt burst from Jack's throat as the air in his lungs was instantly forced out by this violent overload. His sternum made a sickening creak, his intercostal muscles stretched to the edge of tearing.

Sinking. All the organs, blood, and bone marrow in his body were being pulled violently downward toward his feet by this irresistible physical law!

His heart rate spiked within half a second—60, 90, 120, 140!

His heart was like an overworked engine, hammering frantically in the narrow chest cavity. It felt like molten shattered glass was flowing through his blood vessels, each beat bringing the piercing pain of ten thousand needles.

The edges of his vision began to rapidly collapse. Gray deathly fog devoured from both sides toward the center of his retina—the blackout warning from severe cerebral ischemia.

His nervous system was frantically sending shrill alarms to his central system: collapse! stop! get out of here!

Pain and the sense of approaching death wove together into a raging tide, wave after wave crashing against his remaining consciousness.

But Jack didn't retreat.

His hands gripped the polymer armrests on either side of the seat with all his strength, his knuckles turning corpse-white from excessive force, the veins on the backs of his hands like twisted snakes.

He counted the seconds in his mind.

19... 18... 17... Each second was stretched impossibly long by the torment of his flesh.

His breathing became extremely weak and short gasps. His alveoli filled with accumulated carbon dioxide, the burning sensation spreading from his trachea all the way to his nasal cavity.

The blue countdown in the upper left corner of his vision was flashing.

When the number jumped to "5," Jack caught a glimpse of his exposed fingertips with his peripheral vision—their color had suddenly shifted from pale white to a strange deep blue-purple.

That was the signal that blood oxygen levels had dropped below the danger threshold.

"Grr..."

He squeezed out a beast-like growl through his clenched teeth, his core muscles instantly tightening to the extreme, forcibly using the absolute strength of his muscles to compress his aorta, forcing that pitiful amount of oxygenated blood back to his brain!

3, 2, 1, 0.

Pop!

The pressure retreated like a receding tide.

The dim white lights inside the chamber instantly switched to warm yellow, the top air vents burst with rapid ventilation sounds, and high-concentration pure oxygen flooded in.

"Ha... hah...!"

Jack jerked his head back violently, his chest rising high as fresh oxygen stabbed into his lungs like ice blades, the intense burning sensation forcibly suppressed within a second.

In its place came a tingling sensation as every cell in his body experienced rebirth.

"Blood pressure 180/110, heart rate 135, alpha wave brain activity maintained within controllable range." Grant's voice came through the speaker, still steady as a machine. "Rest for two minutes, prepare for the second round."

Jack leaned heavily against the seat, slowly closing his eyes.

His hands were still trembling uncontrollably, but the genetic chains within his body were forcibly correcting all of this at a speed that defied biological logic.

Twenty seconds later, his heart rate plummeted from one hundred thirty-five beats down to eighty.

The torn tissue crushed by the ultra-high gravity was frantically reorganizing and repairing under the catalysis of pure oxygen and genetic stress response. He could even feel a faint flow of heat spreading deep within his bone marrow.

The two-minute interval was as brief as a blink.

"Second round. Countdown begins."

The crushing pressure descended again.

Same torment, same intense pain. But this time, Jack's body didn't send out panicked retreat signals. His muscles, blood vessels, and even nerves seemed to have already memorized this hellish abuse.

He maintained a dead-calm stillness amid the boundless pressure and pain, like a piece of refined steel placed on an anvil, silently tightening his molecular structure no matter how the thousand-pound hammer fell.

Three rounds ended.

Hiss—

The chamber lid slowly rose, harsh warm white light pouring in.

Jack pushed himself up from the seat using the armrests. His legs were somewhat uncontrollably weak, muscle fibers sending waves of sore, numb warnings, his movements half a beat slower than usual.

But he still stood firm, ramrod straight.

He stepped out of the chamber, his feet landing on the ice-cold concrete floor, and walked to the metal chair opposite the control console to sit down.

Grant handed him an opened bottle of sterile water.

Jack took it and tilted his head back for two large gulps. The ice-cold water slid down his esophagus, forcibly suppressing the metallic taste of blood in his throat. He set the bottle on his knee, his knuckles still carrying the slightest tremor.

"Your body is learning to 'devour' stress at an astonishing rate."

Grant stood before him, handing over a freshly printed data report still warm to the touch.

"Cell-level stress damage is forty percent lower than theoretical estimates. We're on the right track, progress is completely under control."

Jack took the paper without even glancing at it, just casually pressed it against his knee next to the water bottle.

"When's the next one?" His voice was hoarse, like sandpaper grinding on his vocal cords.

"Four days from now." Grant adjusted his glasses, his tone without a ripple of emotion. "By then, both dosage and gravity coefficient will be doubled."

Jack sat in the chair, quietly sipping water, offering no comment on that dangerous number.

In the corner, old Aaron slowly stood up, supporting himself against the wall as he walked to stand before him, his cloudy eyes flashing with something complex, almost fanatical.

"How do you feel, son?"

"Tired." Jack set down the water bottle and lifted his eyelids. "But capable of killing."

Aaron paused, then slowly nodded, said nothing more, and retreated back into his shadows.

Jack sat for about three minutes until the muscles in his legs had completely regained control. He stood up, fastened his jacket, and walked straight toward the door.

The instant his hand touched the door handle, his steps paused. Without turning back, he only angled that sculpture-hard profile and quietly spoke a few words:

"Thanks."

The door closed heavily behind him.

The corridor was silent as death. Jack didn't leave immediately but instead leaned his spine against the ice-cold metal wall and slowly closed his eyes.

He drew in a deep breath of dusty air.

The intense pain and soreness inside his body were receding, and deep within that place where destruction and reconstruction intertwined in his bone marrow, an extremely heavy, ancient, and violent force—like a giant beast awakening from the abyss—was quietly opening its eyes.