There are some technical secrets that he can only analyze more clearly after he continues to fight his way up and see the core arena of Mickett with his own eyes.
"I didn't expect you to be so capable, Gandalf."
The shop owner happened to come over and strike up a conversation with him at that moment.
"If you stay in my shop and keep fighting, you can keep making money just with that strange defensive ability and counterattack. By the way, out of curiosity, what would you do if someone attacked you with ranged attacks?"
"Nothing will happen. I'll just walk up there and punch you with my own fists."
Hayden shrugged.
"I have a question too. Do you rarely see gladiators here trying to run away out of fear when they're about to die?"
The shop owner, with a cigarette between his fingers, shook his head: "Only out-of-towners would be afraid to die and try to run away once they're in the ring. We locals would never do that. But, recently, because there have been more gladiators from out of town, there are also more people who are afraid to die and try to run away. So now we always have people guarding the area."
The increase in people coming from other regions to fight is understandable. The fighting business in North America is becoming increasingly difficult. Hayden is well aware of this. However, it's clear that most people who normally run the fighting business in North America can't adapt to this kind of frenzied, death-defying gladiatorial combat.
This made Hayden even more puzzled: "Aren't the locals afraid of dying at all?"
"fear death?"
This question made the shop owner frown, his expression like that of an elder in a tribe that lives by hunting and gathering, listening to someone explain calculus.
"I don't know," the boss said after a while. "I've never thought about that."
This was truly baffling. So baffling that Hayden broke out in a cold sweat: "Sorry, I want to fight my way up and level up to fight in higher-level gladiatorial combat."
Interestingly, the owner didn't try to stop him. Instead, he readily recorded Hayden's points in his match log and told him which store he could continue playing in the upgrade store matches. It seems these arena owners are quite knowledgeable; they could tell that Hayden's strength was clearly problematic and that he was likely to cause trouble in the future, so it was better to get rid of him as soon as possible.
Perhaps after Hayden leaves, the boss will rush to report to the gladiatorial arena's higher-ups that a strange person has appeared here... but that's not necessarily a bad thing.
Hayden used his true form to fight in this strange gladiatorial match because even if he were exposed, it wouldn't be a big problem; on the contrary, it could draw attention away from his two clones.
Fenrir has now successfully entered the South American mercenary circle. Hayden himself is also seriously bouncing around in the arena, trying to continue moving up the ranks. His plan can be said to be halfway through... but he still has another clone.
Moreover, the importance of that clone's mission is probably even greater than that of the other routes.
Because of Hayden's flesh golem clone, he now has to find a way to infiltrate Miktikashiva's company to work!
314: Life Construction
Hayden's third doppelganger was a flesh golem he had built back in Newbeams.
So-called flesh golems were originally supposed to be low-level golems created by necromancers or golem makers by stitching together human organs and limb fragments, while also incorporating some metal and mechanical modifications. Simply put, they were similar to Frankenstein's monsters, experimental products of early arcane electromagic.
Around 350 years ago, some arcanists, while exploring the magic of lightning, discovered that if an electric current was passed through a corpse whose soul had been separated, the corpse could be made to move, or even manipulated.
If you first use more powerful necromancy to seal the soul in a corpse of good quality, and then use runes, electric current to stimulate the brain and nerves, and use various auxiliary programs, you can even maintain a level of mental activity similar to that of a living person.
Both Eastern and Western magical cultures have an understanding of the relationship between "lightning" and "yin and yang." Yin and yang can be described as "life" and "death." Since lightning can drive corpses, mimicking the life activities of living people, what exactly is life and death? In these lightning-driven zombies, at this point of divergence between life and death, can we glimpse the realm of "the unity of yin and yang"?
This is a question that necromancers will need to spend an infinite amount of time exploring.
Unfortunately, Hayden was a pragmatic wizard, not an arcane sorcerer seeking philosophy and truth. He created this flesh golem merely to infiltrate Mictor Tikkasiva's company and investigate the secrets of the Smoke Mirror Company. For this, Hayden even sought help from his mother-in-law, the goddess Hela—after all, besides Mictor himself, Hela was the most powerful necromancer he knew. And Hayden needed to create a living corpse clone that Mictor wouldn't detect, which was quite difficult for him to do alone.
Fortunately, Hela is always happy to help when things get complicated like this. With her help, the flesh golem clone that Hayden has created is located at the crossroads of life and death, perfectly playing the role of a living dead, theoretically undetectable even by the gods.
...At least Hela swore that even the great gods couldn't see through it. Just to be on the safe side, Hayden added the Kabbalah knowledge he inherited from the old professor. Theoretically, it should be unfathomable, right?
Of course, besides its disguise function, this undead clone still needs to infiltrate the Smoke Mirror Company, so its abilities can't be weak. Hayden was already a decent golem maker; even as a mortal, he could save money to create a reasonably high-quality military-grade Angela shell. Now that Hayden has money, resources, connections, and knowledge, the golems he creates can at least be of Protoss standard.
Now, this flesh golem only lacks a name worthy of its power and mission. A suitable name will grant it even greater power and define its existence... So, what should Hayden call it?
It's worth noting that Hayden's naming aesthetic was consistently tragic. So, in the end, he decided: "This flesh golem clone will be called 'Voldemort'!"
Voldemors. In Latin, "mors" means death, and "volo" can be understood as "flying away." In other words, the literal meaning of this name is "flying away from death."
The name that flies from death to life will bring this flesh golem the dual power of life and death.
Hayden poured his highest technology and best resources into this golem. All of this was so that this golem clone could infiltrate Mickett's company and uncover her secrets. Frankly, it might sound a little unfair, but Hayden didn't think there was anything seriously wrong with it overall.
...But Hayden hadn't anticipated that, even though he was only controlling an avatar, posing as a Protoss (this avatar was certainly a Protoss), to submit a resume to Mikert's company—and then, less than two hours later, a Protoss manager in the HR department directly contacted him:
Are you Mr. Voldemort, who used to work for the Wotan Corporation?
The zombie nodded in the video call: "I used to work at the Wotan Corporation's Heim Underworld Life Energy Conversion Factory."
This is the false identity that the "Voldemort" avatar is currently using. Hayden went to Hela to have a complete fake resume made for this flesh-and-blood golem. Because Hela helped with the identity and work experience, it's almost more real than the real thing. The only problem is that this resume shows him working for Hela, and the whole world knows that Hela is Hayden's mother-in-law. Some people might therefore suspect that "Voldemort" and Hayden are related—purely theoretically speaking.
However, even Hayden never expected that after hearing Voldemort's words, the HR manager on the other end would immediately say, "I know that, we've seen your resume. You can start working for our company tomorrow."
? ? ? ? ?
Even though Hayden had mentally prepared himself for being a spy, he was still a little stunned when he heard this: "Just looking at a resume is enough? No interview required?"
Moreover, his resume had only been submitted less than two hours ago, so it was clear that Goddess Mikt's HR manager had not yet conducted a complete background check on Voodoo.
"Our company, Smoke Mirrors, never needs interviews. Actual work ability can only be demonstrated in the workplace." However, the manager on the other end of the video call calmly stated, "Furthermore, for the sake of employee turnover efficiency, there's no need to conduct interviews."
"Huh, this is too strange." Hayden even wondered for a moment if his disguise had been exposed. But for the sake of the plan, he quickly pressed on, "So, which department am I currently employed by?"
[You were originally in charge of life energy conversion at Wotan Company, so starting tomorrow you'll be going to our bio-factory in Bogotá and assigned to the life creation department.]
The supervisor on the other end replied,
[Your job description, requirements, compensation, along with your credentials and contract, have all been sent to you. Please arrive at the factory by 8:00 AM tomorrow and be ready to work. Failure to comply with these regulations will result in your termination of employment.]
? ? ? ?
And so, the Protoss leader ended the call, leaving Hayden speechless and utterly bewildered.
What the HR manager of the smoke mirror company said might not seem too strange at first glance. But upon closer examination, it becomes clear that it is actually fraught with problems.
The bio-factory of Smoke Mirror Life Construction Company, and specifically its life creation department—although this is only a small part of Goddess Mikt's domain and not the headquarters of the parent company—is nonetheless a very important core department of Smoke Mirror Company and one of its hallmarks.
However, the HR manager casually threw "Vodim," a foreign god race that hadn't been thoroughly investigated, into the core department. What on earth is he playing at?!
Hayden was completely bewildered. He had thought he would need to work at the Smoke Mirror Company for a long time under the guise of "Voldemort" before he could get a chance to infiltrate the core departments and gather intelligence. But on his very first day, they put him in the Life Creation Department?! Why?!
Your cooperation is actually making me very nervous!
...Despite his complaints, Hayden could only remotely control the "Voddmon" to try working at the bio-factory in Bogotá the next day.
Although he had suspected that this might be a trap, or that the illusionary disguise had been exposed by the Smoke Mirror Company, at this point, the only way to know was to go and see for himself.
Early the next morning, Hayden carefully drove his clone, "Vodim," to the Smoke Mirror Company's biological factory in Bogotá.
Although it's located in Bogotá, the factory is actually situated on the city's outskirts, almost a suburb, in a corner of the city's perimeter. There are few other buildings nearby, and unless someone specifically wants to visit this bio-factory, they probably wouldn't come here at all.
When Voodoo first flew to the bio-factory, he looked it over from the outside and felt that the factory's shape was a bit strange—it was a very large tower, molded as one piece, and grayish-white in color... Moreover, the tower was really very large, wide and tall, and could at least fit one or two communities inside, and probably more.
But it only had one large door. There were no windows on the high walls.
For some reason, Hayden looked through Voldemort's eyes—though he was only looking at it with a divided gaze—and still felt that this so-called biological factory, this gray-white tower, was somewhat eerie.
"Welcome to the bio-production plant in Bogotá, Mr. Vortimore."
Moreover, the factory worker who came out to greet Voldemort when he entered the gate was quite frightening at first glance—it was a black obsidian skull!
Fortunately, Hayden had met someone like her before and immediately realized: she was a Zizimiti.
The so-called Zizimiti were powerful undead creatures that Hayden encountered during his first encounter with the goddess Mikt. Although they were ugly, they were considered a relatively high-ranking deity among the undead. While their appearance was simply that of obsidian skeletons, in the Aztec mythology of the Old Gods, they held a very important and sacred position, responsible for guiding the dead and assisting in childbirth.
With this kind of Protoss role, being responsible for working in biofactories... seems pretty normal, doesn't it?
“I am Kuralo, the head of the Life Creation Department of this factory. From today onwards, you are assigned to my unit.”
The obsidian skull gave Vladim a skeletal smile and waved.
"Working here is tough. I heard you're an Undead from Wotan Corporation; I wonder if you can adapt to our Smoke Mirror Corporation's work style. But a Protoss is a Protoss after all. So I'll spend an hour showing you around and explaining the work. If you can't get into work mode after that, we won't officially hire you. Is that alright?"
A one-hour tour and brief introduction to the work, after which you have to immediately get to work. Is this how the company that makes smoke mirrors hires?
As a god, Fudimo could naturally answer "no problem." But then he couldn't help but ask, puzzled, "Shouldn't the creation of life be a core and important department in the company? Why are you putting me, a newcomer who hasn't even officially joined yet and just arrived today, in this position?"
To Hayden, this should have been a perfectly obvious question. But when Director Kuralo heard him ask it, she grinned even more broadly: "The creation of life is important? Well, it is indeed quite important. But it's not exactly a top secret."
???
Hearing what the skeleton supervisor said, Hayden felt that there were even more questions in his mind.
"You're clearly new to South America and haven't done much research. No problem, I'll show you around and you'll see."
But then Kuralo laughed and led Voodoo into the tower, passing through a double sliding barrier door.
The next instant, what appeared before Voodoo's eyes was something that made Hayden's pulse beat faster.
There are indeed factories and assembly lines inside this tower, but they are the kind of "factories" and "assemblies" that normal people would never think of, or even imagine.
When Hayden first saw them, he thought he was looking at a huge, curved, wriggling strip of flesh and a large pit of churning mud.
But the next second, he realized that the strip of meat was actually a long pipe, the pit was a pool, and the churning mud was not mud at all.
Inside the sleek, greyish-white tower lay a factory of polished bones, tendons, nerves, and internal organs. Living devices surrounding the fleshy tubes twitched intermittently, causing sacs within the tubes to vibrate. Nerve plexuses of artificial organs transmitted biological signals through various living devices. All around Hayden, an endless expanse of bone shells filled with colossal, constantly pulsating organs.
In short, the person who built this factory must have been a "doctor," not an architect. The entire factory is a living, breathing entity.
And the real point isn't here.
Four obsidian skeletons, the [Qiqimiti] gods, were busy with their tasks around them. One of the Qiqimiti was remotely controlling two large, human-like hands with flesh and skin. These hands reached into the churning, dark red mud pool, scooped up a small lump of mud, kneaded it into a rough human shape, and then placed it into the assembly line pipe to be sent to the next stage.
The second [Qiqimiti] continued to manipulate the large hand, making further adjustments and modifications to this mud figure.
After four steps, the lump of mud clearly took on a human-like shape, except that it had neither skin nor bones.
At the same time, Hayden finally noticed something—the churning, dark red mud was clearly not just mud. And Hayden had actually seen it before. This mud was something Hayden had seen in the arena.
They are soil that has absorbed the blood of gladiators who died.
When a group of gods who guide the dead and assist in the birth of infants mold the clay into human form with their divine hands, the meaning of their actions becomes self-evident.
"Our life factory in Bogotá has fourteen Zizimiti and two thousand five hundred regular employees on duty. It produces about seven hundred standard humans and about three thousand mold humans every day. Of course, this is not the upper limit of the factory's production capacity. The production quantity and the orientation of the human products can be adjusted at any time according to the company's requirements."
Manager Curaro explained to Vortimo with a smile,
"It's not just Bogotá, nor is it just the territory of the goddess Miktiti Kashiva. Throughout South America, within the domain of the Smoke Mirror Company, every plant and animal is brought into this world through biological factories like ours, through the operations of our [Zitsumiti] divine race. After the company's decision, and following a detailed review, we will adopt the centuries-old bioengineering rules derived from the core program code to continuously optimize for more suitable citizens."
Managing a city's bio-factory, equipped with fourteen Protoss workers on an assembly line, producing seven hundred standard humans and three thousand secondary humans daily—this was clearly not the upper limit of their work efficiency. The expression on Supervisor Kuralo's face also revealed her ease and control. It was obvious that if the company so desired, they could easily ramp up production at any time.
Now that things had come to this, Hayden understood why Kuralo was amused when he said, "Isn't the Life Creation Department a top secret?"
Yes, the life creation department is indeed very important, and bio-factories are important... but in South America, it's still just a very ordinary job. Because all humans, and even all plants and animals, in South America are created by these life creation departments. The scale of this department is so large that it's impossible to keep it "secret."
The Smoke Mirror Company wouldn't deliberately publicize this, but it's also unlikely they'd go to great lengths to hide it, as something of this scale simply can't be concealed. Anyone wanting to investigate will always find a way.
Mr. Vortimo, a Protoss newcomer who jumped ship from Wotan Corporation, has excellent potential, so his presence in this department as an intern today is nothing special.
Anyway, all life in South America, whether it can breathe or not, is under the control of the Smoke Mirror Company!
315: Adult Behavior
In ancient times, the Qiqimiti were a South American deity responsible for guiding the dead and assisting in the birth of infants.
Today, they work diligently in bio-factories, using centuries-old genetic engineering rules encoded by precious core programs to continuously optimize and create even better human products.
Don't misunderstand, the people produced by the Smoke Mirror factory are not clones, because cloning is far too impractical. The Smoke Mirror company uses the world's most advanced gene-editing technology. The [QiQiMiti]s are the most skilled flesh-and-blood craftsmen. They combine traditional techniques with arcane genetic engineering, recombinating genes from different individuals into new gene sequences, capable of freely altering and recombining life forms.
In this way, the company can produce people who meet current needs and create the most practical products. They can produce almost any kind of life form, depending on the company's requirements.
Of course, in terms of actual operation, the scene is really strange—how can the [Qiqimiti] control a giant divine hand to knead flesh and mud and call it a kind of gene editing life modification technology? However, this is what makes them and the Smoke Mirror Company so powerful; this is the magical power of the Smoke Mirror Company that combines traditional and modern magic.
After all, in the oldest and most obscure myths around the world, humans were molded from clay—whether it was the goddess Nuwa with a human head and a snake's body, or the ancient Sumerian gods of Mesopotamia, they all created humans from clay in ancient myths.
Smoke Mirror Life Construction Company, as a super-enterprise that has inherited the most ancient and ancient god traditions, is no exception to the ancient mythology of South America.
The ancient creation myth of South America tells the story of:
Long, long ago, after creating all sorts of animals, the ancient gods decided to create one last kind of being—a being with language—that could serve and praise them. So they tried to mold humans from clay, but the result was not good: the clay figures were too soft, weak, and easily fell over; moreover, they were foolish and could not speak.
So the ancient South American gods smashed the clay figures to pieces and began to create a second batch. This time, the ancient gods used wood. The wooden figures were indeed better than the clay ones. They were more robust, could reproduce, and possessed intelligence and could speak. However, the wooden figures also had flaws. Because they had no blood in their bodies, their cheeks were dry. They had no heart or soul, so their faces were expressionless. They did not worship their creator and simply acted aimlessly.
So the ancient South American gods destroyed these wooden figures again. This time, in their third attempt to create humans, the ancient South American gods, drawing on their experience from the previous two failures, finally came up with a good idea: they chose a relatively young god, had him sacrificed, and killed him. Then they summoned fourteen little goddesses, called "Chichimiti," who mixed the god's flesh and blood with clay, tamped it down, and then sculpted seven women and seven men by hand, so that they could reproduce and increase their numbers.
In this way, humankind, who conformed to the wishes of the ancient South American gods, was truly born—at least in ancient mythology.
As a wizard, and a fairly well-informed archmage, Hayden was naturally familiar with the ancient myths of South America, so this was actually quite easy to understand… That being said, after learning this truth about the Smoke Mirror Company and South American society, he still immediately felt something was strange:
As for whether the Smoke Mirror Corporation could create humans from clay, Hayden truly believed it could. These super-corporations and supreme gods almost all possessed this power. The Smoke Mirror could, Odin could, Jupiter could, and Mithra, of course, was even more capable.
However, the manager of Kuralo actually said that all the creatures in South America were created by the Smoke Mirror Company.
Being able to mold people from clay is not on the same level as "creating all the creatures on an entire continent".
Even in ancient myths around the world, not everyone was created by the gods themselves. Generally speaking, in myths, after the gods created the first humans, they allowed them to reproduce freely. Wouldn't it be exhausting to create a hundred million people by hand?