The bright light shines on the clean white corridor.

Click—

Accompanied by a crisp sound, the tightly closed electronic door naturally opens.

The fat staff member in a white uniform lifts his head and walks through the electronic door.

The light above the electronic door flickers twice.

The fat staff member raises his head, glances back at the light overhead, and scratches his head in puzzlement.

"What’s wrong?"

A young man walking directly opposite lifts his head and looks at him with some confusion.

"This door seems to be broken," the fat staff turns his head, looking at the slowly closing electronic door, "I remember this light shouldn’t flash for just one person, right?"

The young man glances at the light, then lowers his gaze to the fat staff in front of him, and says slowly, "Did it mistake you for two people?"

The fat staff’s face darkens, "Your aggressiveness is a bit strong."

"Alright, we received a new batch of experimental materials," the young man takes out a scroll and unfolds it into a tablet, "we need to classify them into storage."

"More materials again?" Hearing this, the fat staff’s face darkens, his body naturally leans back, then he hoarsely says, "Why are there so many materials recently."

"No choice," the young man shakes his head, "too many people have died."

"Another street death?" The fat staff member lowers his voice, seemingly suppressing some nauseating feeling accompanied by memories, "Why is it always us doing these things, can’t they change shifts and let others do it."

"Those are all senior employees who joined a few years before us, we haven’t fully transitioned yet," the young man sighs, looking at the fat staff, "who else can this task fall on?"

He waves his hand, "Alright, let’s hurry, otherwise we’ll be working overtime till midnight again, those collecting corpses in the streets aren’t complaining, at least we’re dealing with relatively complete materials."

"Oh, this lousy job, when will it end." The fat staff member speaks slowly.

"Shh," the young man immediately covers the fat staff member’s mouth, raises his head to look at the surveillance in the corridor, "Are you crazy?"

He lowers his head, lowering his voice, "You might not want this job but I do, think about what you would be without a job? Do you want to end up on the streets?"

The fat staff member seems to think of something, his body trembles, and he quickly shakes his head.

"Be careful with your words next time, hopefully the next time I see you won’t be in the storage room." The young man shakes his head, leading the somewhat terrified fat staff to the left into another corridor.

Above them, the surveillance camera originally facing them slowly turns, looking at other areas of the corridor.

And behind them, He Ao watches them leave, passing through the blind spot of the surveillance camera, heading to the other side of the corridor.

Here is a tightly closed wall.

As He Ao approaches, the wall slightly trembles, revealing a hidden door which then naturally opens, revealing the dark corridor inside.

As He Ao appears, the lights previously turned off also light up one by one along his path, illuminating the bright road ahead.

Simultaneously, surveillance cameras glowing with red light also illuminate.

He Ao steps forward, crossing through the open hidden door, he lifts his gaze, takes a look at the surveillance camera on the ceiling of the corridor flickering with red light, and continues forward.

The surveillance camera seems to feel his gaze, naturally turning away to avoid He Ao.

This pitch-black corridor is deep and silent, forming a spiral slope, seemingly a path spiraling continuously downward to the deepest part of the earth.

After circling numerous times, He Ao finally reaches the deepest part of the spiral, where a plain and sturdy iron door stands before him.

He Ao raises his hand, applying slight force, trying to open the iron door but the door remains immovable.

As He Ao tries, the surface of the iron door slightly pulsates, and a somewhat chubby face slowly bulges from the door, the face opens two golden eyes, glancing at He Ao before retracting its gaze.

He Ao increases his strength a bit, yet the door still does not budge.

At this moment, the face on the door opens its eyes again, glances at He Ao, and says slowly, "To open the door, you need a key, otherwise entry is prohibited."

He Ao withdraws his hand, looking at it with interest and without response.

The chubby face on the door glances at He Ao again, using a slightly sharp voice, "I see you have the attire and demeanor of an upper-class person, let me give you a piece of advice, keys aren’t limited to keys."

Having spoken, the face on the door closes its eyes again, lifting slightly upwards as if awaiting He Ao’s response.

After a brief pause, it does not receive any ’feedback’ from He Ao.

It slightly opens a slit of its left eye, discovering He Ao’s hand again placed on the door handle.

"If you don’t understand me, I can make it straightforward," the face raises its head again, speaking in a sharp voice, "Gold, silver, gems, flesh, soul, any offering you have can be given, you can open the door with a key, but offerings can also open this door, but if you have nothing to give, this door will certainly not open."

As it speaks, the door slightly trembles, seeming more solid and robust.

However, He Ao appears not to hear the voice of the face on the door but merely grips the door handle.

This time, a faint purple glow flickers in his pupils.

This time, along with his actions, the previously unmoving door handle begins to twist under his hand, and even the solid door starts twisting violently like torn alloy and iron sheets.

The face on the door also begins to distort, elongating into a swirling spiral with He Ao’s action.

Click—

Finally, accompanied by a crisp sound, a long slit tears open on the solid door.

Following that, the slit rapidly expands, extending further cracks.

"Stop, stop, sir, I’ll open the door for you, I’ll open the door for you," the twisted face on the door quickly shouts, "I beg you, please don’t exert more force."

Click—

With its voice, the door responds by opening, revealing a dark gap.

He Ao withdraws his strength and naturally pushes open the door.

A pitch-black space appears in his field of view.

This time, the lights in front of him do not light up.

The lighting and network here seem to be another local area network, not in the main system of the Stars Pharma Building, Eve cannot control it.

However, this level of darkness does not affect He Ao’s ’field of view’.

At the moment, he can vaguely ’see’ towering shelves standing in this darkness, each holding tightly closed white alloy boxes.

These boxes, large or small, are neatly placed on the shelves.

This is the ’medical supplies’ prepared by Stars Pharma for this operation, and they still contain Extraordinary Power.

Based on the information He Ao obtained from the core bureaucrats of Stars Pharma, beyond this underground warehouse, Stars Pharma has also set up several large warehouses in Vicat City to store medical supplies.

The scale of these medical supplies far exceeds the needs of the Rockville Energy Group Mercenary Corps.

The army moves after the supply lines are prepared.

This is the essence of a centuries-old medical consortium.

He Ao withdrew his gaze, his body moving among the shelves.

The metal boxes on these shelves seem to possess some kind of shielding and sealing effect, yet through Divine Sense and Super Memory, He Ao can still generally ’sense’ the Extraordinary Power contained within these metal boxes.

The arrangement of Extraordinary Items in this warehouse seems to follow a sequence from low to high; weaker powers are placed at the front, stronger powers at the back.

He Ao slowly moved forward along the shelves, passing through the gaps between them, heading towards the deepest part of the warehouse.

The deeper he went, the smaller these shelves became, and fewer items were placed on them.

On either side of He Ao, something seemed to be surging in the darkness.

Soon, He Ao reached the innermost part of the warehouse.

No more shelves remained here, only a clean platform.

A palm-sized metal box was placed on the platform.

As He Ao approached, some kind of sensor light naturally illuminated, akin to a beam of holy light descending from the heavens, illuminating the box before He Ao.

He Ao raised his hand and opened the metal box.

A ruby ring, gleaming with dark red brilliance, appeared in his view.

Beside the ring lay a card covered with densely packed small text, introducing this Extraordinary Item.

The ring is named ’Blood Surge Ring’.

This is an Extraordinary Item that can affect B-level entities.

Its function is simple: when the holder is injured, a continuous flow of Life Power will surge into the wearer’s body, providing sustained healing.

As a cost, the ring will absorb the holder’s blood, yet during the absorption process, due to the influx of Life Power, the holder will not feel the loss of their blood.

And if the blood is completely drained, the ring will start to absorb the holder’s soul.

However, there are methods to ’offset’ this negative cost.

The back of the card describes an alternative payment method.

Which is to feed the ring with enough blood and soul essence. No specific sacrificial ritual or sacrifices are needed, just placing it in areas with many deceased will suffice for the ring to naturally absorb blood and souls.

Thus, Stars Pharma has been seeking places with high mortality rates everywhere to cultivate this ring.

The Life Power generated from the absorbed blood and souls, if unused, is stored in the ring. The more stored, the more lustrously red the ring becomes, and until the ring’s power is completely drained, it will not absorb the holder’s blood.

Upon reaching this point, He Ao glanced at the ring.

The ring was blood-red. 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

He then reverted his gaze to the card and continued reading.

In the final part, the card strongly emphasized that even if unused, the ring must consistently be placed in areas with numerous deceased; otherwise, if it doesn’t absorb blood and Undead for some time, the stored power in the ring will rapidly decline exponentially.

He Ao lifted his head and glanced at the darkness overhead.

Above this underground warehouse is the Stars Pharma’s ’Material Storage Room’, where numerous deceased bodies are stored.

Therefore, this is the reason why Stars Pharma placed the warehouse here for the ring.

He Ao picked up the Blood Surge Ring from the box; the ring indeed didn’t attempt to absorb his blood. The gemstone on the ring was blood-red, but it had a faintly warm feeling akin to something alive.

This ring is actually quite a practical healing prop.

Even in a situation where its energy is depleted, it can serve as a Life Consuming device to extend endurance.

Bang Bang Bang——

"Mr. Hawke, what do you think of this ring?"

While He Ao was gazing at the ring, slow footsteps sounded from behind, and a man with shoulder-length golden-brown curls gradually emerged from the darkness, looked at He Ao, and smiled slightly, "If Mr. Hawke is willing to abandon darkness for light again, accepting our employment, I can decide to gift this ring to you."

He Ao turned around to look at the golden-brown curly-haired man behind him.

Thump Thump Thump——

Meanwhile, from the darkness on another side, a male figure slowly walked out as well.

However, his body was positioned slightly behind the golden-brown curly-haired man, his figure partially concealed in the shadows.

He wore a white robe with faint and invisible patterns. His long hair was tied into a bun at the back of his head.

His face was lowered, yet whether due to lighting issues or some special ability, his face remained shrouded in darkness, obscuring it from view.

However, He Ao’s gaze did not fall onto the robed man; instead, he looked towards the golden-brown curly-haired man and asked calmly, "Federation Intelligence Bureau Director, Wild?"

Upon hearing He Ao’s inquiry, the golden-brown curly-haired man raised his eyebrows slightly, "Mr. Hawke actually knows me, which saves me a lot of introductory talk."

He looked at He Ao, continuing to smile, "I know Mr. Hawke might not favor the consortium right now, but you don’t need to serve them. You can join the Federation Intelligence Bureau, become an employee of the Federation, the Intelligence Bureau, and the Gray Stone Palace will protect you, allowing you to obtain honors and an income befitting your merit and achievements,"

He slowly moved forward, extending his hand towards He Ao, "We can help you cancel the consortium’s bounty on you, and the issues with the Menshu Group can be settled. They won’t trouble you anymore; you can trust us. We can handle it."

Upon hearing his words, He Ao shifted his gaze to look at the white-robed figure standing in the shadows beside them and said slowly, "A member of the Church of the Grim Reaper?"

"You don’t need to worry about where my companion comes from," Wild squinted slightly, smiling, "Soon, we’ll all be companions, and he’ll give you strong support."

Upon hearing his words, He Ao turned his gaze, calmly observing him, seemingly recalling something, his lips curving slightly into a smile, "You know how the former Intelligence Bureau director died?"