Sixteen special forces soldiers stood guard with rifles at the bottom floor.

Dante hid behind a pillar, tilting his head out at an angle. He noticed that these people were much shorter and smaller than he was.

"Are they dwarves?"

The white ball glared at Dante as if he were an idiot and said crossly, "Wait here. I’m going to scout."

With that, it drifted away, hugging the ground.

When it returned, the white ball asked Dante, "Sixteen men on guard. What’s your plan?"

Dante rubbed his growling stomach. "What plan? How about I turn back into a Loong and eat them?"

"No!" The white ball shook its head. "They have pulse rifles designed to deal with Loongs. Besides, you’ll trigger the alarm, and then many things in this underground laboratory will attack us."

"How about I use the invisibility skill to go inside and find the crystals myself, and you wait for me here?" After saying it, the white ball negated itself. "Ugh, my initial setting prevents me from being more than thirty meters away from you."

"Why don't you teach me the invisibility skill?" Dante stared into the white ball's eyes.

The white ball found it utterly preposterous. "This is the invisibility method for a first-generation AI Plasma Intelligent Ball. You are a massive hunk of human flesh; how can you turn invisible? Besides, you’re a giant Loong!"

"Psh!" Dante bared his teeth, letting out a low growl of dragon-like fury.

"Fine, fine, I’ll teach you. I give up." The white ball floated to Dante’s ear and whispered an incantation.

Dante recited it accordingly, and his physical body instantly vanished.

The white ball: "..."

It truly couldn't understand; there was absolutely no mention in its database that a human could also turn invisible.

Dante remembered what the white ball had just said—one incantation only allows for five minutes of invisibility—so he hurriedly tip-toed forward.

However, he discovered that after reciting the incantation, his body felt softer, and he needed to lean against the wall to walk.

Does one invisibility session consume this much energy? Tsk tsk!

He walked slowly along the wall, finally passing through the large gate guarded by the soldiers and slipping into a pitch-black grotto.

It was very hot inside the cave; beneath a crack several hundred meters deep, there was actually a river of lava.

Under the glow of a dim incandescent lamp, crystals of various colors dazzled the eyes.

Behind a stalagmite, the white ball found amethysts, piled haphazardly on the ground about half a meter high.

"So many, so many..."

It became excited, its entire sphere-body trembling.

"Qi-Qi-Mo-Mo..." After a spell, a purple ribbon of light drilled from the crystal stones into its mouth.

Its entire face turned bright red, and its round little face seemed to grow a bit larger.

Dante tried to follow suit and recited the spell, but found it was completely useless.

"Hey, do you think you’re a high-level AI too? Wanting to copy everything I do, honestly..."

Before the white ball could finish its mockery, Dante picked up a piece of amethyst and stuffed it directly into his mouth. His dragon teeth crunched through it effortlessly; it was no different from eating roasted peanuts.

Besides finding it delicious, Dante discovered a marvelous change in his body. Not only was his hunger gone, but his body became firm and upright, allowing him to stand straight.

Dante stuffed three or four more amethysts into his mouth. Looking up, he finally noticed the "he-has-seen-a-ghost" expression on the white ball. The little thing was muttering:

"Impossible, impossible. Humans eating rocks? Loongs eating rocks? Both Chinese and English data say this is impossible! Professor, how exactly did you build this database?"

Dante didn't care about the little ball. While eating, he stuffed amethysts into his lab coat pockets. Just as he let go, an alarm blared.

"Beep! Beep! Beep! Warning: Suspected crystal theft in progress! Warning: Suspected person..."

Dammit!

Dante reached into his pockets; no matter what, he had to take these dozen amethysts with him.

But then, he could no longer feel the presence of the amethysts.

"??"

A thought occurred to him, and he smiled inwardly. Those things actually existed in his "Consciousness Sea"—a vast ocean that only he could see, with a small island in the center where things could be stored.

Heh heh!

He stopped again and grabbed a dozen more handfuls of amethysts. "All mine, all mine..."

The white ball accurately calculated an escape plan; once the alarm stopped, they could flee with the crystals.

"Follow me! Don't be greedy..."

After speaking, the white ball flew toward the depths of the grotto.

By the time Dante caught up with the white ball, they had reached a brightly lit hall at the end of the cave.

Seven people were tied to stalagmites—all wearing camouflage uniforms and appearing to be in their late twenties. They were sitting back-to-back. When they saw the tall Dante, it was as if they saw a savior.

"Save us! We were hijacked by aliens," shouted a dark-skinned young man with a buzz cut, seemingly about twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old, who was closest to Dante.

"What does he mean by 'hijacked by aliens'?"

Dante asked the white ball, but was met with a harsh glare.

The white ball flew to Dante’s ear and whispered, "I don't have a five-minute invisibility limit, so why are you talking to me? This is an alien-controlled artificial Loong-breeding base. The aliens kidnap humans and add human genes to the Loongs—what’s so strange about that?"

The people didn't know who Dante was talking to and looked confused, but Dante had already walked over and untied all their ropes.

The square-jawed man seemed to be the small-group leader. He cupped his hands to Dante: "Thank you for saving us. We are members of the Aeolus Suicide Squad. And you are?"

Dante ignored him. He circled the five men and two women, looking them up and down several times. Suddenly, it clicked: "Oh, so this is what men look like, and this is what women look like. Chinese accents—so you are Chinese."

Seeing them still looking at him in confusion, Dante patted his chest and said, "I am the same as you!"

They looked at each other.

The Aeolus Suicide Squad didn't have anyone this tall—being unable to hide during a mission was a major problem. Moreover, he was wearing a white lab coat that almost exposed everything; he looked quite unreliable.

However, because they had been rescued, they didn't feel right questioning him. They took turns introducing themselves.

The square-jawed man was the captain, named Xu Feng. One of the women was Zhang Manman. As for the others' names, Dante didn't remember a single one—Chinese names were too hard to remember. He truly couldn't understand why a Chinese person hatching a Chinese Loong would find a white nurse to give him English "prenatal education" every day, making him feel like a foreign dragon.

"An alien officer will bring a search party soon. We need to find a place to hide," Xu Feng suggested.

Everyone chimed in with ideas on where to hide, but the conclusion was that they could only fight their way out. Although the crystal cave was dark, the search party could turn on lights; there was nowhere to hide.

The white ball whispered in Dante’s ear, "I’ll teach you the Mass Invisibility spell."

After Dante memorized the incantation, he puffed out his chest. "Ahem, I can make you all invisible for five minutes. However, you must protect me as we leave this place."

"Invisibility?" Xu Feng looked at Dante with skepticism. Could this guy be a psychiatric patient? Only a psychiatric patient would wear nothing but a white lab coat.

The others were also full of disbelief.

Humans turning invisible? Isn't that nonsense?

But there were no other good options left. Besides, the Aeolus Squad intended to leave this place anyway; what did it matter if they promised to protect him? After thinking it through, Xu Feng replied quickly, "Big Brother, we can protect you while we escape. Just say the word."

Dante felt very satisfied. The Professor had told him several times that in China, "Big Brother" (Da Ge) was a term for a leader among strangers.

He recited the incantation once, and indeed, everyone's physical bodies vanished collectively.

In less than half a minute, an alien captain in a spacesuit indeed entered with six special forces soldiers. They stood before the stalagmites, looking at the ropes and discussing animatedly.

"Escaped? They actually escaped!"

"Yes, how strange."

"I bet they must still be hiding in..."

While they were still talking, they were suddenly attacked. The strikes all landed on their vital lower areas; one by one, they clutched their stomachs and rolled on the ground.

Their guns were snatched away, floating into the air as if by magic, and aimed at the aliens.

"Bang, bang, bang!"

The alien’s spacesuit was shattered. After it leaked air, a sound similar to a tire exploding occurred. Thick blue blood splattered everywhere. Immediately after, what struggled to crawl out were blue tentacles like an octopus.

"Ugh, so disgusting."

The special forces soldiers on the ground cried out. Likely no one had expected that the alien captain, who looked human, was actually a mollusk.

While the search party was still gagging, the guns floating in the air fired a few more shots into the alien, then all turned around to aim at the soldiers.

A transparent person's voice rang out nearby: "Get up. Take us out of here."

Despite hijacking the soldiers, the group still couldn't leave the crystal cave because more than a dozen ambushers stood up from the shadows at the entrance, aiming their guns in unison.

"They can't see us at all. Their aim is bad," Dante whispered.

The Aeolus Squad was daring and skilled. They first threw rocks near the soldiers to distract them, then launched a charge, mixing into the crowd of soldiers for a chaotic brawl.

Before the fight could finish, the five minutes were up, and everyone’s figures reappeared.

The search party members who had just been held hostage saw that Dante was alone and immediately surrounded him, wanting to beat him up.

Dante was thinking: should he recite the invisibility spell again, or reveal his Loong form and eat these delicious, weaponless humans?

A middle-aged man’s authoritative voice suddenly rang out from the crystal cave. "Stop! So many humans have already been killed by aliens. Are you going to kill each other as well?"

It was the Professor!

The other soldiers also seemed to have a high opinion of the Professor, saying one after another: "The Professor is here."

He had a kind face and maintained the flat-top haircut from his younger days in the Chinese army. His hair was thick and dark, and his stubble was clean-shaven. He was a middle-aged Chinese man of medium build.

Dante stopped baring his teeth. He had an inexplicable fondness for the Professor's voice.

The Professor walked into the middle of the crowd and said, "We worked for the aliens for a year just to survive the Big Bang, but we were forced. We were not willing, and we don't want to help the enemy harm our own compatriots."

"The Aeolus Squad came here to destroy the alien base and to save us. Are we going to continue helping the aliens harm them?"

"Now the alien Governor is dead. This base only has four monsters and a bunch of lackeys left. We can absolutely kill a monster or two and escape together."

Hearing the Professor's words, everyone embraced—white, yellow, and the mixed-race young man no longer cared about who had just beaten whom or what their skin color was.

When others tried to hug Dante, however, he dodged.

Tall people were fine; they could reach his chest. But shorter people could only hug his groin. The white ball had just whispered a warning: this would reveal that he was "commando" under his lab coat, with no underwear at all.