Despite tracking Luo Shu's location immediately, Barbie showed no signs of joy—only anxiety.
Today had been their best chance to eliminate Luo Shu. If they couldn't do it now, would they ever get another opportunity?
If even Lord "Zeus" couldn't deal with Luo Shu, what hope did Barbie and her field team have chasing him across the continent?
For the first time, Barbie felt her confidence waver.
By the time she sluggishly organized her team and prepared to head to South Carolina, the Foundation's satellites had already lost track of their target.
Luo Shu and his group had successfully masked their Hume levels.
Strangely, Barbie felt a wave of relief at the news.
It wasn't that she feared Luo Shu—she didn't believe he could actually harm her.
But the sheer frustration of being outmaneuvered by him time and time again made her reluctant to face this slippery adversary again.
And Barbie wasn't the only one feeling demoralized. Even "The Master" was starting to doubt himself.
The self-proclaimed top strategist of Achilles' Heel had suffered nothing but defeats in his repeated clashes with Luo Shu.
It was a blow to his pride.
Meanwhile, Luo Shu was finally meeting the long-awaited Waiter face-to-face.
This Beta-class heavyweight of the Chaos Insurgency had personally delivered the Scranton Reality Anchor that Luo Shu had ordered.
Waiter was a middle-aged man of mixed Chinese and Caucasian descent—refined, amiable, and exuding an almost disarming warmth.
But that wasn't the important part.
What struck Luo Shu was an inexplicable sense of familiarity, as if they'd met before.
Given that "Him" might have used Anomalous Item-2000 to reset the world multiple times, it wasn't impossible.
"I'm handing IR1705 and the logistics captain over to you. Oh, and these two might need emergency treatment."
Aeolus and the logistics captain were in critical condition—severe burns covered their bodies. Without immediate medical attention, they'd soon die from complications.
Waiter reached into his coat and pulled out a small plastic container containing a single red pill.
"This is for you. You save them."
[Page: 120]
[Item No.: Anomalous Item-500]
[Designation: Panacea]
[Object Class: Safe]
[Image: …]
[Description: …]
[Special Containment Procedures: …]
[Abilities: Cures all ailments]
[Status: Successfully contained]
[Interaction History: Click to play]
[O]
A Panacea.
Luo Shu accepted it without hesitation and casually tossed a "cure-all" ability at Aeolus and the logistics captain.
Their skin rapidly regenerated—though their scorched hair took longer to regrow, leaving them both bald.
Aside from the unexpected gift of Anomalous Item-500, Luo Shu's main focus remained the Scranton Reality Anchor.
The Chaos Insurgency had needed an entire truck just to transport the massive device.
Seeing it, the logistics captain eagerly volunteered:
"I can go with you—help you shrink it down."
IR1705 quickly chimed in: "I want to come too!"
Luo Shu glanced at them, then at Jianjia and Aeolus.
Though they'd been through life-and-death struggles together, their past allegiances still made things awkward.
More importantly, Luo Shu didn't want Chaos Insurgency personnel meddling in his Anomalous Item-100 underground facility.
He wasn't about to let them take over and turn it into a Chaos Insurgency site.
"No need. I can handle it myself."
A cafeteria lady who could turn meals into truth serums and a logistics captain specializing in transport?
Yeah, Anomalous Item-100's underground facility didn't need that.
Under IR1705 and the logistics captain's resentful stares, Luo Shu shrank the Scranton Reality Anchor, loaded it onto a pickup truck, and drove off with Jianjia and Aeolus after bidding Waiter farewell.
An hour later, the pickup arrived at the junkyard housing Anomalous Item-100.
A Foundation security team was stationed here permanently to prevent the Chaos Insurgency from making another move on the anomaly.
But thanks to Luo Shu's unobservability ability, the truck and its passengers went completely undetected.
He drove straight into the warehouse before deactivating the ability.
Inside, Anomalous Item-100-1 was supervising construction like a foreman, directing a group of Terminator industrial robots.
They were packing excavated soil into the hollow spaces of scrapped cars and welding them shut.
Spotting Luo Shu, Anomalous Item-100-1 rushed over and gave him an enthusiastic hug.
Truly, the #1 Anomalous Ally in the Anomalous Item Catalog.
"How's construction going?" Luo Shu asked.
This place was going to be his long-term home—and Jianjia and Aeolus's as well.
Since Anomalous Item-100-1 couldn't speak, it led Luo Shu underground to inspect the progress.
Less than a month into construction, progress was slow.
The biggest bottleneck was soil disposal, and the tunnel-boring machine provided by the Chaos Insurgency hadn't been deployed yet.
So far, the underground facility had only excavated a few dozen cubic meters—barely enough for a single room.
Fitting the Scranton Reality Anchor inside would be a challenge.
At this rate, reaching the desired scale would take forever.
But now that Luo Shu was here, everything would change.
First, the tunnel-boring machine.
With the Chaos Insurgency's blueprints in hand, the industrial robots quickly welded together a prototype.
But tunnel-boring machines were heavy-duty equipment—this shoddy makeshift version would probably break down within two hours.
So Luo Shu flipped open the Anomalous Item Catalog to Page 119: The Hyperbrain Sword Immortal.
Silicon-Based Intelligence!
The machine began transforming like a Transformer, absorbing silicates from surrounding soil and rock to reinforce itself as it drilled.
This was a fusion of living machinery and silicon-based intelligence—it wouldn't lose functionality even outside Anomalous Item-100's range.
With the efficiency problem solved, the next issue was soil disposal.
Luo Shu issued a bold command:
"Dig! Dig like crazy! I'll handle the soil!"
He used size manipulation to compress the excavated earth to its smallest volume, then transported it via reinforced pickup trucks to dump it into the ocean.
Over the next few days, Luo Shu made two trips daily, disposing of thousands of cubic meters of soil.
Combined with the industrial robots working around the clock, the Anomalous Item-100 underground facility was rapidly taking shape.