Chapter 153: The Divine Mechanism

"Damn it!"

In a magnificent circular hall, a brilliant starlight was reflected from infinite distances. Cinderella struck the globe-shaped spacetime positioning projector roughly with her fist, trying to vent the dissatisfaction in her heart.

However, a wave-like phase-shifting shield automatically materialized, neutralizing all the force and causing Cinderella to withdraw her hand in resentment.

At this moment, she appeared as a female figure wearing an eyepatch and a linen robe, but the restless, dim-blue flames flickering within her eye sockets could be vaguely seen from beneath the eyepatch, revealing the violent turmoil deep in her heart.

"Please ask the user to cease intentional violent behavior. Otherwise, in accordance with Article 36, Paragraph 2 of the User Agreement, the Midas Mercantile has the right to refuse equipment maintenance."

The mechanical warning from the spacetime positioning projector only made Cinderella's slightly subsided anger flare up again.

She kicked the phase-shifting shield, instantly leaving a fleeting indentation on a shield powerful enough to traverse stars.

"You have the nerve to say that! You promised there would be no malfunctions whatsoever within the thousand-year service life, and today it broke down! Where is Morganle, who is in charge? Come out and confess!"

Cinderella roared, though she finally refrained from tormenting the poor machine any further.

"Warranty claim accepted. Maintenance personnel will be dispatched to the Divine Bureau in three standard cosmic seconds."

Cinderella took a step back, and the air rippled as a vortex-like silver void opened up. A black figure, as slender as drawn glass, stepped out from the void.

It had no facial features whatsoever, and its head resembled an inverted water droplet. Droplets of starlight-like veins were dotted across its black body, resembling a dazzling galaxy.

"Hello, I am the resident maintenance worker of the Midas Mercantile. My name is fhjugchj, and my business name is 'Morganle'."

Morganle stated its true name with a string of garbled code, followed by its code name. This wasn't out of any need for secrecy, but rather because it is difficult for different civilizations to directly comprehend the meanings of each other's names—not just due to differences in pronunciation, but because their entire biological structures might be entirely different.

Just as humans could not identify a silicon-based lifeform from a burst of electromagnetic waves, business names were necessary when dealing with clients of diverse races.

With the principal party having arrived, Cinderella instead felt a sense of oppression.

As a massive economic community spanning the multiverse, the members of the Midas Mercantile naturally spread across every corner of the multiverse, even employing many legendary and peculiar races.

The Midas Mercantile was founded upon finance; wherever the concept of finance existed, they could even interfere with the souls and destinies of their clients.

This Morganle was naturally no pushover either. It was a born cyber-human, a logical lifeform born from the chaotic data sea, known as a Nirvanist.

Yes, mechanical nirvana was among the cream of the crop of Nirvanists, yet factions existed even among Nirvanists. As artificial souls whose mission was the destruction of civilizations, mechanical nirvanists were actually in mutual opposition to the Midas Bank, which revered financial order.

A universe of nothing but ruins and wreckage obviously could not sustain the existence of economics, which completely ran counter to the profit motives of the Midas Mercantile.

Regardless, this demonstrated the formidable nature of such a being as a Nirvanist. With Morganle truly showing its face, Cinderella dared not act rashly.

Having finished its greeting, Morganle extended a conductive wire directly from its slender fingers and connected it to the projector, while the galaxy within its body slowly began to spin.

"The spacetime positioning projector has no malfunctions whatsoever, yet several overlapping erroneous data entries appeared in the work log. This instrument determines positioning based on the universe's expansion rate, rotational angular velocity, and the gravitational disturbances of nearby stars. Theoretically, unless the opposing party can completely destroy all surrounding stars, positioning failure is impossible."

Cinderella said, "Destroy stars... It is impossible for them to possess such capability!"

Morganle replied, "Then it means the other party transmitted forged, spurious gravitational parameters to mislead this machine."

"Is it that easily misled?"

"Theoretically, anti-interference grids and chaotic mathematical formulas can perfectly prevent such occurrences. However, I suspect the other party applied micro-universe technology, or equivalent space-partitioning technologies such as a palm-sized Buddhist kingdom, a faithful divine realm, or an immortal's grotto-heaven. Such instances are exceptionally rare and represent extremely precious technologies, but do not worry—this mercantile offers them for sale at a price of only..."

If not for her face mask, Morganle would surely have seen Cinderella rolling her eyes. This mercantile was notorious throughout the universe for coaxing people into reckless spending, and its dazzling array of commodities posed a devastating temptation to newcomers and civilizations wet behind the ears.

Moreover, the Midas Mercantile offered various loan services—such as "Simple Loans, Easy Victories" and "Lowest Interest Rates, Highest Returns"—which could destroy a person's psychological defenses even more effectively than gambling.

Quite a few individuals had been entrapped by the Midas Mercantile due to compulsive shopping, resulting in utterly tragic fates. Some were sold to mine the abyss, while others were used as starship energy, making their lives worse than death.

Still, Cinderella replied, "That's right, I did feel at the time that the entire space had an obnoxious crawling sensation."

"That should be a micro-universe constructed on the basis of meta-quantum theory, representing the doctrine of quantum singularity creation, yet relying on the power of a demon-like system as its framework. It is an exquisitely refined magitech. Even within the Cage of Truth, it should be quite uncommon."

Morganle flickered its finger, and the entire spacetime positioning projector instantly folded piece by piece like building blocks, vanishing into the air as it was stored into Morganle's fingertips via four-dimensional spatial folding technology.

"Such counter-technology confrontation data is extremely helpful for our research on the next generation of instruments, so please allow me to replace yours with a brand-new model free of charge."

Cinderella waved her hand. "Don't talk to me; talk to our boss. He stays holed up in the dimensional nexus you sold him all day long, doing goodness knows what."

Morganle nodded and said, "The dimensional nexus is the most crucial core of any miniature garden. It seems Lord Zhonggu Yuanyang is growing increasingly confident in constructing a new miniature garden."

Cinderella curled her lips and said, "Confident of what? Isn't it just buying all the spacetime interpretation technologies from old-school miniature gardens like yours? I suspect he's about to start going on a spending spree himself!"

Miniature Garden!

The Midas Mercantile turned out to be a miniature garden as well, and one that integrated into every corner of the multiverse through financial trade as a medium. By utilizing various universal equivalents for transactions, it beguiled human hearts, subtly shaping the multiverse into the form they desired.

This was a development model whose future was exceptionally difficult to predict. It did not blindly pursue might and sublimity; rather, it personally forged order and prosperity, driving everything around it to ascend.

Naturally, as a system of lawful evil, financial trade could hardly be a selfless and great entity.

Capital behemoths never spit out bones when they devour people. A capital behemoth entrenched in the multiverse would devour people without leaving even their souls behind.

The things bound to money were far from merely material; such filthy copper stench could very well represent the future of an individual, an ethnic group, or a civilization.

When a civilization's credit fell into the negative and its assets turned negative, the Midas Mercantile would meticulously swallow the entire civilization whole, with an efficiency comparable to—or even exceeding—civilization devouring.

That said, the Divine Bureau was clearly not a normal miniature garden organization; it was a spacetime institution whimsically conceived by someone to pioneer independently, and it had received the staunch support of the Midas Mercantile.

The secrets behind several ancient miniature gardens were not only a source of curiosity for outsiders, but even the apostles within the gardens remained utterly baffled. Furthermore, entities in the multiverse capable of countering spatial incursions against miniature gardens were few and far between.

Whether a deeply mysterious miniature garden could truly be replicated remained an unknown variable.

At least judging by the current scale and power of the Divine Bureau, it simply could not be mentioned in the same breath as the older, established miniature gardens.

Yet, despite her tone of complaint, Cinderella revealed a hint of lightness, clearly harboring no anxiety about the future.

Morganle swayed its glass-filament-slender legs, swinging its black silhouette as it walked toward the depths of the Divine Bureau's grand hall.