Chapter 249 Treacherous Upper Echelons
In fact, in this case, it was even worse. Normally, when you scanned something and you realized something had been blocked, you would know that you were missing something.
It was like looking at a brightly lit room of 100 squares and seeing that 1 square was dark. You would realize that something was wrong and was blocking you from seeing that sphere, prompting you to investigate.
lightsnοvεl.cοm However, Dante's methods had made it such that there were 100 brightly lit squares, but he and everything about him now existed on a 101st dark square that floated above the head of the onlooker, a direction they could not look even if they wanted to.
The same had been done to Dante by the top factions of the universes. All the technology he collected and all the information he had gotten had been perfectly curated by them.
Dante had once been very suspicious of the Solaris AI from the ship he bought from the company in the Eternal Universe.
Well, he would soon find out how right he was in being wary. The current him could not begin to comprehend the various measures put in place to deal with him and monitor him.
The only saving grace and the only thing that had prevented the various factions from knowing everything about Dante was the fact that he traveled between two universes and all signals, bacteria, and unwanted matter got destroyed when he used quantum tunnels.
So secret codes or messages that were meant to report his situation were always destroyed through his movements.
How soon would Dante realize this and counterattack? Too soon for the Eternal Universe, and a hefty price would have to be paid for crossing an entity they could not afford to offend.
However, the current Dante was still fully ignorant and thought himself the controller of his tech.
In fact, he did not even know that the moment he released his androids and began building a base, there was a quantum ping somewhere more than a million miles away.
In a fortress built within a humongous city, there was a round table of men and women who exuded power and arrogance. Each of them had a certain military bearing to them, and their uniforms were consistent with the army of the Prime Human Council.
In the room, there were 12 people, 7 pure humans, 3 mixed breeds, and 2 aliens. Among the pure humans was surprisingly a familiar face… Lara, the headmistress!
"Well, you fellows got what you wanted this time. That lad has been forcefully brought to the Universe Battlefield so I will make sure that I get what I was promised." Lara emphasized with a cold smile, looking down on all of them.
The faces of the other 11 became ugly as they had truly paid a great price to get this woman to accede to their plan. However, as long as their purpose for causing the information blackout succeeded, everything would be alright!
"Do we have any intel on him?" One of the other pure humans asked, this one being an aged woman with extreme wrinkles and a tied-up bun of purple hair. Despite her aged appearance, she was the second most powerful person on this board, the Ancestress of the Ao Clan!
"Nothing yet. We planned back doors in all the designs and technology he purchased, but none of them have ever reported back. We suspect he might be aware of the deception and has simply refused to use them." An Aide who was standing behind the 12 hurriedly reported.
There was a bang on the table as a burly man with a bald head and plentiful facial hair vented his anger. "Damn it, why not? Are you telling me even the exosuit he was given by the military does not have trackers? What about his Citizen AI chip? Or his Bionics or Psionics?"
"Erm, he already had a chip initially and when he was given his citizen chip, we found that his initial AI chip dissolved the trackers within. Unless we use the Etranet to track him openly, there is no other way." The Aide explained helplessly.
Lara nodded in understanding because she too had a headache tracking Dante when he entered quantum worlds and went back and forth because she could only do so openly, meaning that Dante would know.
"He had his own…? Interesting. I read about his so-called family background that was uploaded recently and it might be because of a superpower he has or that one of his clan has." Another pure human leader muttered thoughtfully, this one being a lovely young woman with fiery red hair and phoenix-shaped eyes.
"That doesn't matter. What matters is why we cannot track him using other means, as Baldy Julon stated." A young and extremely handsome man with pale golden hair and white eyes interrupted with a sneer towards the bald man.
"Dammit, Juliano, are you trying to pick a fight?!" Julon roared as he stood up.
"Hmph, as barbaric as always." Juliano retorted without moving.
"Right, about the other things…! Well, they were all supplied by the Student Enhancement Center of the Eternal Academy, soo…" The Aide hurriedly interrupted seeing that the bosses were about to fight then glanced at Lara.
All eyes then fell on Lara, who was casually reclining in her seat. She did not seem bothered by the various intense questioning glances and shrugged with a smirk.
"Hey, don't look at me. We all decided that things given by the school have to be clean since it would affect all of our interests, no?"
The others almost facepalmed. While this was true, that was for their own people, of which Dante was definitely not a part of. However, there was no use chasing blame with this woman, not to mention that many of them feared her.
"What about the exosuit?" Julon pressed.
"Well, it was issued by Beatrice Portinari and we did not dare place any trackers on her or anything she owned, soo…" The Aide once again gave negative news which left the leaders speechless.
While the group was stumped, another aide rushed in with an excited expression and whispered into the ear of the one who was allowed to speak. Soon, that particular aide bowed and with a smile, reported:
"Good news, Marshals. We have received a quantum ping from around 2 million kilometers away to the south. It is from one of the backdoors we left in Dante's foundational life sequence code for Artificial intelligence."
The marshals immediately perked up with interest. This was like hearing about rainfall in the midst of a drought! How could they be so lucky this time?
"Not only did he arrive here, but he's still alive? What a miracle! Our gambit might actually bear great fruit this time!" Juliano sat up seriously and exclaimed.
"I can't believe it. Where exactly did he drop that he managed to keep his life as a mere student with a lower than C grade superpower?" The red-head, who was called Ophelia, asked with curiosity.
The Aide came forth and touched the round table, turning on its holographic display. After entering into some coordinates using her own AI chip, the map suddenly jumped to the south and landed on a certain area.
However, when the destination was displayed, the pupils of everyone in the room constricted rapidly. All breathing seemed to stop as the place was thrust into a deathly silence.
The faces of all 12 Marshals, even Lara, had paled slightly. It was the stunned Aide who muttered the name of the location silently.
"The Central Wasteland."
Even with this, the silence permeated the room for an unknown amount of time and the air became heavy.
......…
Meanwhile, Dante had recovered the totality of his energy and got up. While his base was being built, he was going to check out the north where the vulture creature had left.
For in as much as he had to avoid risk, he simply needed information desperately, or he would become a sitting duck waiting for death. As such, he simply activated his exosuit and began moving in that direction as fast as he could, maintaining his active defenses and the spirit sense range.
What puzzled Dante was the fact that nothing appeared from around to deal with him. There was no wildlife nor any hostile monsters as he rapidly caught up to the androids he had left coming this way, which was strange for sure.
Eventually, he caught up to his scouting androids and recollected it, which also had the effect of neutralizing the location beacon that the Eternal universe upper echelons had on him.
Dante would not know this yet, but this was just as well since he was about to enter a place that would forever change his life and ascend him to levels far greater than he ever could have imagined, as well as cut off all the leeches on him that secretly hampered his growth and destiny.
The source of this c𝐨ntent is fre𝒆w(e)bn(o)vel