Everythiuro the usual routine. Apart from body pain, stant headaches, and uable nosebleeds, Aleph tinued w.

  Holy speaking, he did not have as much workload as the other researchers during normal days. The duty of an assistant director was to approve certain research dires, distribute fundings, regute certain experiments, and so on.

  It was his unnecessary meddling that pushed him to help some studies that were stu a bottleneck.

  heless, it earned him aremely good reputation withihird researstitute. This resulted in a rather “excessive” out of everyone.

  “Are you alright, Doctor Aleph? Should we call a Doctor of Medie?”

  “You must be pushing yourself too hard, Assistant Director. You should take a rest. We take over here.”

  “That’s right. There’s o push yourself too hard.”

  In the end, Aleph was forced to take a week-long sick leave.

  “What should I do now..?”

  He was bnkly staring at the clear blue sky. Strangely enough, his eyes didn’t hurt from looking at it for quite a long time.

  Although he still experiehe sensation of prig needles all over his body, he didn’t feel as weak as three days ago. His meeting with Mobius at that time went surprisingly well despite his straate.

  “There’s nothing to learn from my dition. All I could do is wait.”

  Aleph went to the open space withihird institute. It served as one of the hangars where experimental mechs take off.

  Aside from the usual damaged mechs and huge ks of metals, there was an ‘emergency f room’ where certain parts could be made with ease. This pce was added to the hangars due to the seriousness of the seajor eruption. Meeeded to be impnted with self-destructive bombs just to serve as a slight diversion for the formidable Herscherr of the Void.

  Now, it became a pce for Aleph to ‘create’ honkai ons.

  “The usual thing.”

  He didn’t e here te but to check his current strength.

  He came in front of a huge sb of metal. Several marks are added to it. Signs of being cut down could be seen in its edges.

  The thick metal couldn’t impede his cursed teique’s power. Nowadays, it was used to approximate the cursed energy used to activate his [Ratio] teique. He would use different ons and examine how much they e to cut down a toughness at that scale.

  “I have a feeling about this…”

  Shogly, Aleph tightened his fists.

  Bam-!

  His punch dehe metal sb siderably. All it took was some twitg in his right hand.

  “I really… that amount of cursed energy affected my body. I might be able to tear down seraph-css beasts bare-handedly. As for the impact geed by the chariot-css beasts… It still needs more putations aing.”

  ‘Strength’ wasn’t simply an ability to punch through metals with ease. A lot more o be tested such as the internal damage his body sustains as well as the physiological activities caused by it.

  “If I add more…”

  Aleph jump started his [Active Power State]. Lines ht purple ran through his entire body, reag to his neck.

  ‘Hm..?’

  The momehought of strengthening his body, the cursed energy inside him acted. It flowed naturally along the lines.

  He was surprised to find out that he ‘instinctively’ did it instead of strengthening his arm solely.

  ‘It feels like a habit. My previous as were deemed worse… Like there's something wrong with it.’

  Aleph caught onto something.

  ‘If only the arm was strengthened… it might cause severe injuries to the body as a whole. Blood circution and likes might be affected…’

  He temporarily pced a theory before he fihe process of enhang his entire body with cursed energy.

  Whe out his sed punch, a loud noise rang out within the hangar.

  Bam-!

  Aleph was surprised to see his fist embedded several inches deep into the metal sb.

  “What the hell…”

  When he removed his hand, he saw a huge dent on the shape of his fist. There wasn’t muoticeable pain except for the occasional itd prig sensations.

  “I’m this strht now… What would happen if I recover?”

  Aleph felt like he could still go further. It's just that he is currently injured due to something.

  Just as he was w, a prig sensation struck his neck. It was his [Danger Sense] ag out. It was mild enough pared to the other times he felt the sensation.

  Aleph looked at its dire.

  “A camera.”

  He already turned off most of the surveilhin this hangar. It begs to differ that no danger could e from it, yet it did.

  There was only one expnatio.

  “I’m being watched..?”

  Aleph recalled the list of people who could’ve hacked through the security of the third institute. The entire building mostly used an internal work of their own. There were only three es to the work outside.

  Even so, this pce was included within the ‘internal work’.

  “Mobius? It's possible. A hidden spy? Could it be from Sakura’s group? What about the other institutes?”

  The first institute focused on honkai energy. There weren't any notable people who had enough skills to infiltrate their work.

  The sed institute, oher hand, has several of them.

  “The troublemaker of the sed institute..?”

  There was one figure who stood out from the rest—a genius from the sed institute. It was said that she ersonally recruited by Elysia after some circumstances.

  He wasn’t fully sure if it was her, but she has the highest probability of doing so.

  ‘To deal with it or not?’

  Aleph sighed before he made a decision.

  “I’m sorry, Doctor Einstein.”

  *****

  “How did he find it?”

  Looking at the ss who turned into static gray boxes one by ohe expert frowned.

  “Just when we decided to monitor him…”

  It didn’t even take a minute before Aleph discovered her peeking. It was something straight from a supernatural movie!

  It’s not like their world wasn’t one already, though.

  “You must know better than me.”

  The girl seemingly spoke to another person, but she was the only one ihe room.

  One sed.

  Two seds.

  Three seds.

  “So that's how it is.”

  Seeing that nobody replied to her, the aggrieved expert could only tinue finding some other ways to effectively stalk him.