"A few broken ribs, it's fine."

Facing the stonemason, Julia seemed a little nervous, and her eyes unconsciously glanced at the strange bloated figure in black robe next to the stonemason.

"Hmm."

The stonemason nodded, "Endor? ”

This seems to be the name of the bloated figure.

Julia swallowed subconsciously, appearing even more nervous.

The bloated figure stepped forward, and countless metal twigs suddenly extended from under the black robe, each of which was connected to a strangely shaped surgical tool.

The green eyes under the hood of the black robe sparkled, as if they were scanning Julia.

After a long time, he said in a hoarse and sharp voice that seemed to have his fingernails scraped across the blackboard, "There is nothing wrong with the body, and my mind is also normal, and there is no cognitive curse, heart snatching, and Dao heart planting demons..."

I don't know if it's Julia's delusion, but she feels that there is a strong regret in the other party's tone—regret that he didn't have the opportunity to perform emergency surgery and disintegrate the bodies of other members of the syndicate.

"Okay, it's okay."

The stonemason interrupted Endor's narrative and smiled at Julia, "Go to lux22 and report the mission details, after completing this script mission, your ranking will rise again." ”

Julia smiled reluctantly, not very happy.

The Syndicate is a tight-knit and secretive organization, with a group of peripheral members at the bottom, such as mercenaries, private armed companies, research labs, brokers, and hackers.

The Syndicates have their own industries and strongholds on every continent, but they don't seem to care much about the periphery.

Above the outer members are the internal members, that is, the players with extraordinary powers.

These players are called "apprentices",

After being recruited into the Syndicate, the Apprentice is sent to the Colony to receive all-round training and complete various tasks assigned by the Syndicate to earn Contribution Points and redeem them for rewards from within the Syndicate.

Compared to other covert organizations, the rewards given to members by the Syndicate are incredibly rich, and some of them are even more generous than the equipment items that players get by working hard to complete the scripted missions.

Of course, this is not without a price,

The real-world tasks issued by the syndicate to the members are generally strict to complete, and the execution is no simpler than the scripted tasks.

what assassinated the president of a public company and set up the scene as an accident;

hunt down and capture a lone wolf player whose true identity has been revealed;

Kill a tissue-cultured creature weapon in an arena duel;

Moreover, the syndicate implements an internal elimination system, and only the apprentices with excellent performance can be promoted, obtain more resources, and more intelligence.

At the top of all the apprentices are the ten core members of the syndicate known as the "Apostles".

Those were the first players in the real world to qualify, ten months ahead of the current players...

Julia had never met the Apostles, but had only vaguely heard that above the Ten Apostles was the creator of the Syndicate, and his title was only one word.

Professor.

Julia breathed a sigh of relief, she had never hoped that she would continue to climb the ranks within the organization and eventually become an apostle.

She joined the syndicate just out of desperation, just hoping that she could live a little longer, and one day, she could return to her family as she used to be...

Julia hid her sadness well, smiled at the stonemason and the short-haired girl, returned the towel, and walked towards the door.

"Wait."

Endor's voice suddenly sounded, and at the shoulder under the cloak,

A thin metal branch attached to the scalpel sprang up and flew straight behind Julia's back, slashing diagonally before retracting it at an even faster speed.

Julia felt a chill on her back, a shallow scar appeared on the skin of her back, and there was faint blood flowing out.

Before she could react to what was going on, her body was already driven by instinct, and she turned around sharply and made a fighting stance.

saw the black-robed figure holding up a rectangular metal operating tray with a metal twig,

And the scalpel stained with a trace amount of blood will be gently scraped on the operating plate.

"This is..."

Julia subconsciously looked into the operating tray, and by the dim light, she could clearly see a transparent parasite as thin as a hair and as long as chopsticks lying at the bottom of the tray.

The parasites coiled together and seem to have lost their activity,

The blood stained on the worm's body also proved that it had just been removed from Julia's back.

Julia trembled, her whole body overwhelmed with fear.

"Hmm..."

Endor lowered his head, used the scalpel to delicately and steadily cut through the delicate worms in the operating plate, and examined it carefully,

"Doesn't look like a native parasitic species, a bit like planarians? There are rhizomephae in the hollow cavity, and their role is not known. The whole worm is dead, there is no activity, no energy remains..."

He thought for a moment, then raised his head to the trembling Julia and said, "Turn around." ”

Julia subconsciously turned around, but heard the sound of a scalpel cutting through the air behind her again,

I felt that the whole body was cut through several tiny wounds in an instant.

One, two... A full eighteen parasites lay neatly in the operating tray, looking terrifying and shocking.

"These bugs are man-made,"

Endor looked at Julia, her eyes full of inquiring enthusiasm, "You've been parasiticized. ”

“...”

Julia shuddered, and the thought of so many bugs hiding inside her made her feel a wave of fear welling up in her heart.

The short-haired girl's eyes were wide open, and her face was also full of horror,

The stonemason frowned and asked in a low voice, "Can you track it?" ”

"It's almost impossible, these bugs are already dead, the psionic fluctuations have long since dissipated, even if you use the causal level tracking technique, you can't find the source, and..."

As Endor spoke, he saw that all the parasites in the operating tray melted into a puddle of transparent liquid as if they had received some command, along with the internal mycelium.

“...”

Everyone stared at the operating tray silently, and Julia clearly felt a small amount of blood gushing out of the tiny wound on her body, and there was a tingling pain, but she didn't have the heart to pay attention to the scar at all.

Who? When? How to lay the bugs?

Julia had undergone a full medical examination before going on a mission in the fairytale world, so it was only possible that the bugs were acquired during her mission.

Her eyes flashed with faces she had met in the world of the script, players, natives, Warcraft... Finally, it was frozen in the figure shrouded in a red coat.

"Let's go, I'll accompany you to lux22."

The stonemason took a deep breath and said solemnly to Julia, "You have to tell everything that happened in the script's mission. ”