When the Information Extraction card materialized, it turned into a monitor equipped with a scanner, a card reader, and other peripheral devices.

For handwritten notes, you simply place them into the scanner, and the restored information would appear on the screen.

For a computer, you could connect it to the monitor with a data cable.

For a chip, the card reader could freely adjust its slot to match the chip's shape and read the data accordingly.

When Mo Bai first saw this card, she felt it was a little too powerful.

Reading information wasn't a particularly strong ability in itself, but this card could restore data that had already been lost. Even in the modern world Mo Bai had lived in, such data could at best be partially recovered, and restoring everything completely was nearly impossible.

After seeing the card, Mo Bai had once asked Xiao Qi whether technology in the Infinite World had advanced to such a level.

Xiao Qi's answer was "No." It told her that what's done cannot be undone. No matter how advanced technology became, something that was already damaged could never be fully restored, unless it was through a player's ability.

Mo Bai flipped through all of Sheng Yan's cards and discovered there was only one of this card, and there were no duplicates.

Sheng Yan told her that the card wasn't obtained from an Instance. He had bought it at a high price on the trading market, spending 500,000 points. It had been listed there for a long time, but the price was so steep that no one was willing to buy it. If he and Sheng Lei hadn't made a huge profit at the time, they would never have spent the money on it. Even after buying it, their friends mocked Sheng Lei for being a sucker, spending so much on a mere B-Rank card.

Sheng Yan himself didn't understand why Sheng Lei had paid such a steep price for it.

Sheng Lei's answer was, "This card's ability is somewhat similar to a friend of mine."

That friend was someone Sheng Lei had met in an A-Rank mandatory Instance after becoming an intermediate player. However, Sheng Yan had never met this person.

Surprised that Sheng Lei had a friend he'd never even seen, Sheng Yan asked to meet him.

But Sheng Lei told him that this friend was physically deformed and unwilling to meet others. He was already an advanced player and moved to Neverland.

After the friend went to Neverland, he lost contact with Sheng Lei. Sheng Lei had sent him messages several times, but he never received a reply.

Sheng Lei had been upset about it for quite a while. From then on, he worked extremely hard to level up, wanting to reach Neverland to find that friend and ask why he had ignored him. Was becoming an advanced player really such a big deal?

Because of that, Sheng Lei paid a high price to buy this card.

He often fantasized that the card had been created by that friend. Maybe there was a way in Neverland to turn abilities into cards. Maybe his friend couldn't afford the high cost of living there and had no choice but to turn his ability into a card and sell it.

The card was very useful, but Sheng Lei could never bring himself to use it. It was stored in the card album all this time until Mo Bai discovered it.

When Mo Bai decided to take the card with her, Sheng Yan said with heartache, "This card is my brother's keepsake. Don't use all three chances. Leave one. After we go back, I'll store it away and never take it out."

Now that he saw Mo Bai using it, Sheng Yan was clearly distressed. He paced back and forth behind her, muttering, "Are you sure there's key information in that chip? This will waste one chance. After this, only two chances will be left."

"This chip looks completely wrecked. Are you sure there's anything important on it?"

"If I'd known, I wouldn't have brought this card. Even if we died in this Instance, we shouldn't have brought it."

His constant muttering was irritating. Mo Bai turned and shot him a cold glance. Sheng Yan immediately covered his mouth, found a corner, and crouched down, trying to minimize his presence.

Inside Mo Bai's mind, Xiao Qi exclaimed admiringly, "Player, so mighty and domineering! You've subdued both Phantom Butterfly and Sheng Yan, two big dogs, in no time!"

Mo Bai was speechless. She explained, "First, they're not dogs. Second, I haven't subdued Phantom Butterfly; it just wants to gain my trust so it can lure me into its territory later. And lastly, what's going on with you lately? Ever since you suggested I trick Sheng Yan, I've noticed your personality's getting more and more mischievous. Did your main system teach you that too?"

Xiao Qi fell silent for a moment, then replied in a dejected tone, "Your question has been submitted to the main system. The main system's response is: 'The initial setup for smart assistant units is identical. Its changes have nothing to do with me; they're all cultivated by Players. After Player Mo Bai dies, it will be reformatted.' Boohoo, the main system is so cold and heartless. Player, please don't die!"

"Shut up," Mo Bai said, her head aching.

While chatting with Xiao Qi, the Information Extraction card was busy restoring the chip's data. After about three minutes, a large-headed figure appeared on the screen.

The person's head was absurdly oversized and his limbs were atrophied, resembling the stereotypical big-headed aliens in movies.

His eyes were like stagnant water, like someone who had lost the will to live. He opened his mouth and spoke in a mechanical voice:

"Daily workflow of surveillance robots:

First, record the genetic information of test subjects and researchers. Each surveillance robot is responsible for twenty individuals and monitors their movement routes.

Second, if a monitored individual enters a restricted area, the surveillance robot will immediately report to Professor Yang.

Third, Professor Yang will dispatch institute guardians. The surveillance robot is responsible for locating the violator and guiding the guardians to them."

There were only those three statements.

After the big-headed man finished speaking, the scanner printed out a sheet of paper containing his words.

After Mo Bai removed the paper, the big-headed man asked, "Is there any more information to restore?"

"No. You can rest now. I'll turn you back into a card," Mo Bai said.

In a lifeless tone, the big-headed man replied, "All right. I still have two chances."

With that, the monitor reverted into a card. Mo Bai placed her hand on it, and for some reason, she felt that the card was slightly warm.

Not the warmth of an overheating computer, but the warmth of a human body.

Recalling the process by which the Information Extraction card had restored the data, and the appearance of the big-headed man, a chill crept up Mo Bai's spine for no apparent reason, and an inexplicable fear rose in her heart.

She examined the card repeatedly. The card's surface only showed the image of a monitor. Its description was simple, listing only the ability, Rank, and number of uses, without the background story most cards had.

What unsettled Mo Bai most was that, at the end, what the big-headed man had said on the screen was not "You have two chances left," but "I still have two chances."

Just one word's difference, yet the gap between them was enormous.

The former meant, "Mo Bai can still use this card two more times."

While the latter meant, "I only have two more times before I disappear."

Even though the big-headed man had seemed like an emotionless narrating machine, Mo Bai couldn't shake the feeling that he might have had feelings after all.

Could it be that this card is alive... An actually a living thing?

Mo Bai stared at the Information Extraction card, and for a moment, she wasn't in the mood to analyze the suspicious points in the surveillance robot's daily log.

"Done with it? Can I have my card back?" Sheng Yan leaned over, craning his neck to peek as he asked.

Only then did Mo Bai suppress her unease and return the card to him. "Keep it safe. We shouldn't use it again."

"That's great!" Sheng Yan said at once. "If we manage to get out of here alive, I swear I'll never use this card again."

"It's fine if you do," Mo Bai replied. "If you really care about it that much, I can use my ability to upgrade it and see if I can replenish its usage count once we get back."

"That’s great!" Sheng Yan said eagerly.

But what Mo Bai was actually thinking was this: she hoped her ability could allow the big-headed man to appear again, and hoped that it might help him regain more awareness to speak more words.

Of course, that was only possible if they survived this instance and returned to Peach Blossom Land.

Mo Bai lowered her gaze to the sheet printed out by the Information Extraction card. The information on it was simple, yet it gave her a deep sense of contradiction.

It was the same feeling she had experienced when she saw Du Ying. At that time, Phantom Butterfly had been circling around her, forcing her to split her attention, so she hadn't had the chance to carefully think about where that sense of wrongness came from.

That was why, after the Phantom Butterfly left, she had picked up the surveillance robot's chip and tried to extract its data.

Sheng Yan carefully put the card away like a treasured heirloom, then came over to glance at the paper. He muttered unhappily, "We wasted one use just to get these few lines? Who's Professor Yang? The head of the institute? If he knows the institute's secrets, should we grab him and interrogate him?"

Mo Bai sighed softly as she looked at Sheng Yan. "It's truly a blessing from heaven that you've survived this long."

If anyone else had mocked him like that, Sheng Yan would probably have exploded. But faced with Mo Bai's expression, he couldn't bring himself to retort. He could only squat down gloomily and draw circles on the floor with his finger.

Ignoring him, Mo Bai opened the audio recording he had sent and listened at triple speed to his dramatic scene of kicking up a fuss.

Sheng Yan clearly had a talent for causing medical disturbances. He had rolled around on the floor of the third-floor inquiry office, insisting that ordinary researchers couldn't solve his problem and that he had to see their superior.

Driven to helplessness by his antics, the researchers had called in a senior researcher. After checking Sheng Yan's body temperature, even the senior researcher looked troubled, unsure how to handle the situation.

Mo Bai had sent Sheng Yan to make trouble not only because he was well-suited for it, but also because his condition was extremely special.

Among all the players, only Sheng Yan's problem wasn't an injury. It was a seal personally imposed by the system.

Everyone else's issues could be resolved through strengthening with extraction fluid. Only Sheng Yan's problem would likely require an Ultra-Star Rank monster to intervene personally, using power capable of crushing the system's rules to resolve it.

If he were just an ordinary test subject, the researchers could easily brush him off with experimental failure. Test subjects had signed agreements; even if they died because of the experiment, the institute bore no responsibility. The researchers wouldn't care.

But Sheng Yan would make a scene.

The squeaky wheel gets the grease. Coupled with how unusual his condition was, he would surely attract someone of higher authority, perhaps even a professor qualified to know the institute's secrets.

Mo Bai even suspected that the Ultra-Star Rank monster would take an interest in Sheng Yan's condition.

This instance was more terrifying than an S-Rank one, yet it had been suppressed down to B-Rank by the Ultra-Star Rank monster. That proved the monster possessed the ability to contend with the system's rules.

Not rewrite them, but resist them. The Ultra-Star Rank monster hadn't broken free from the system, but it could exploit loopholes, such as disguising the instance's difficulty level to deceive the rules.

Which also meant that the Ultra-Star Rank monster wanted to break free from those rules.

The binding force on Sheng Yan was itself a kind of rule.

If the Ultra-Star Rank monster wanted to fight the system, it would likely be very interested in such a binding, and might even try to see whether it could lift it.

Mo Bai kept listening. Sure enough, after Sheng Yan made enough noise, the senior researcher reluctantly called in an associate professor.

Everyone addressed him as Associate Professor. No surname was mentioned.

Mo Bai paused the recording and asked, "What did this associate professor look like?"

"Him? He looked…" Sheng Yan suddenly froze like a machine losing power. After a moment, he said blankly, "I don't remember! Is my memory really that bad?"

"You should at least remember whether they were male or female and what they were wearing, right?" Mo Bai asked.

She asked about gender because the voice in the recording was very androgynous, making it impossible to discern gender from the voice.

"I don't remember!" Sheng Yan frantically scratched his head. "Oh no. Am I really turning into an idiot?"

"Don't doubt yourself. Your IQ is about average; nothing special, but not bad either," Mo Bai reassured him. "Even if I had met this associate professor, I probably wouldn't remember their appearance too."

Du Heng had seen all five A-Rank monsters in the institute. Yet he could only describe four of them: their names, appearances, and abilities. As for the last one, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't recall what it looked like.

Du Heng suspected that the final A-Rank monster could manipulate the human brain, erasing all impressions people had of it.

For convenience, Mo Bai had given that last A-Rank monster a nickname: Blank Paper. It meant that no matter who saw it, the memory left behind would be nothing but a blank sheet.

She resumed the recording and heard Blank Paper examine Sheng Yan. In a calm voice, it chuckled lightly and said, "It's fine. Once you complete Phase Three of the experiment, your condition will be resolved."

Of course, Sheng Yan continued to cause trouble. He believed the institute was brushing him off and demanded an explanation.

Blank Paper's voice had initially been peaceful, but at Sheng Yan's words, a trace of anger crept into it.

Mo Bai heard a burst of crackling noises, as if a fight had broken out.

Then she heard Blank Paper say, "Know when to stop. Don't think I don't understand what 'test subjects like you' are thinking. You are a very valuable talent. We're willing to grant you a degree of autonomy, but if you continue like this, you'll regret it."

"Fine! Then I'll wait for the Phase Three results!" Sheng Yan declared fiercely before dashing back to Mo Bai's room on the first floor.

After listening to the entire recording, Mo Bai asked seriously, "What did that associate professor do to you? I think I heard the sound of a fight."

Sheng Yan couldn't recall any of the associate professor's actions. He tilted his head and thought for a long time before reluctantly answering, "I don't think he hit me. I can't remember what he did… but when I left, the inquiry desk seemed to have been smashed flat."

"It's good that you weren't beaten," Mo Bai recalled Sheng Yan's attitude in the recording and couldn't help but laugh. "He must have impressive self-restraint. Just listening to the recording made me want to hit you."

As soon as she said that, her voice faltered.

She picked up the schedule printed from the chip and glanced at it again. Combined with the recording of Sheng Yan's medical disturbance, an unbelievable thought formed in her mind.

"No way…" Mo Bai stared at the words on the paper as a chill crept over her.

And yet, only this hypothesis could explain the sense of incongruity she had felt after seeing Du Ying.

At that moment, Du Heng sent her another message:

"I just saw Test Subject No. 193, Phantom Butterfly. After checking on Test Subjects No. 025 and No. 251, it looked badly frightened and is running toward the first floor. Is it going to find you? Be careful. I've identified its weakness. Its true form is a one-meter-long multicolored butterfly. Its real heart is in its lower abdomen, not the one it mimics. To kill it, decapitation or piercing the heart won't work. You have to penetrate its lower abdomen."

Mo Bai quickly replied:

"Forget about Phantom Butterfly for now. Go check on Mao Juncai and Zhuang Xiangyang. See if they're in their rooms. If not, find out where they're being held. Check whether they're still alive and how badly they're injured."

After sending the message, Mo Bai sat in her wheelchair, her expression grave. She looked so serious that Sheng Yan didn't dare to make a sound and simply sat to the side, gulping water.

In her mind, Mo Bai said to Xiao Qi, "Xiao Qi, help me pass a message to your main system."

"What is it?" Xiao Qi asked.

"Tell the main system," Mo Bai said, "that there's a possibility it's been played by this Ultra-Star Rank monster. Tell it to wait. I'll find evidence to show it."