After leaving the interrogation room, Xiang Yi saw a man in work clothes out in the hallway. The man had a small goatee.
Judging by the ID badge hanging on his chest, he was the head of the prison's mechanics, Zhang Lang.
Zhang Lang's gaze had been fixed on Xiang Yi ever since he walked out of the interrogation room. His eyes, however, held obvious disdain, likely because of Xiang Yi's status.
"You're Xiang Yi?"
After Xiang Yi nodded, Zhang Lang gestured for him to follow and started walking down one side of the corridor, clearly not intending to wait.
Xiang Yi frowned slightly but didn't say anything, quickening his pace to keep up.
The two of them crossed the corridor, took an elevator that required Zhang Lang to swipe his work badge to operate, and walked for several more minutes before arriving at a workshop tucked away in a corner.
Xiang Yi's first impression of the workshop was that it was cramped and small. A workbench cluttered with tools set the room's dominant tone.
Despite the cramped environment, it had been partitioned into six workstations, each barely large enough to fit one person.
Three of the six workstations were occupied. The men sitting there wore the same work clothes as Zhang Lang and were craning their necks, sizing up the newcomer, Xiang Yi.
"New guy?"
"Came up from below."
As soon as Zhang Lang spoke, the three men, who had been curious about Xiang Yi, immediately changed their expressions. Muttering something under their breath, they ducked their heads back down.
"Hey!" Zhang Lang suddenly pointed a finger at one of the desks. "Mao Yu, you're up."
"Huh?"
A young technician poked his head out again. Seeing Zhang Lang's serious expression, he could only get up and reluctantly walk over to his side.
Zhang Lang then returned to his own workstation, leaving Xiang Yi with him.
Mao Yu glanced sideways at Xiang Yi and pointed to a corner nearest the door that could barely be called a desk. "That's your desk from now on. Check the computer for trouble reports and go wherever they're coming from. If you have questions, look it up on the computer yourself. Don't come to me unless it's important."
"As for your things..."
Mao Yu glanced at Zhang Lang, who immediately kicked a case out from under his desk, then kicked it again in their direction.
"This is it."
With that, Mao Yu slipped right back to his seat.
The workshop fell quiet, the only sound being the clinking of machine parts.
Xiang Yi bent down, picked up the case, and walked to his desk without a word.
'He couldn't be bothered to try and cozy up to them when they were giving him the cold shoulder. Besides, he'd encountered situations like this many times before because of his past experiences. The outcome was always the same.'
Xiang Yi placed the case on his desk.
Calling it a desk was a bit of an overstatement; it was just an iron table piled high with various tool kits.
But Xiang Yi wasn't bothered by the conditions. He cleared a small space on the table and opened the case.
The most prominent item inside was a work ID with Xiang Yi's name and headshot on it.
Also on the ID, printed even more conspicuously than his name, were the words "Temporary Worker."
This served as both his work ID and his access card; Zhang Lang had used his own ID to operate the elevator on the way here.
'Xiang Yi's ID, however, could probably only grant him access to the prison's non-critical areas.'
Tucked beneath the ID were three folded paper items of some kind.
After taking out the three rather thick, folded items, Xiang Yi saw that the case was now empty.
The case had contained just one ID and three pieces of paper.
'However, the case had plenty of empty slots for hanging tools. It seemed he was supposed to find the necessary tools in the workshop and take them with him as needed for each task.'
He hung the ID around his neck, placed the case on the floor, and spread all three papers out on the table.
Xiang Yi's eyes suddenly lit up. 'He hadn't expected to get a bonus for signing the agreement and coming to work.'
One of the three papers was a complete electrical schematic for the prison, another was a plumbing schematic, and the last was a map of the prison level he was currently on.
The importance of the maps was self-evident.
Although none of the three diagrams were complete—with some clearly important areas he wasn't allowed to access being redacted—these omissions didn't stop Xiang Yi from mentally merging them to construct a three-dimensional model of the entire prison.
He had already been piecing together a structural layout of the prison from memory, and these diagrams finally filled in the last of the gaps.
From his earliest memories of arriving at this prison...
The prison was built on an asteroid about ten kilometers in diameter. The asteroid's surface had two ports for starships to enter and exit. To escape, he would inevitably have to pass through one of those heavily secured ports.
Further in, the asteroid's interior was roughly divided into three levels.
The Outer Level was where Xiang Yi had just signed the non-disclosure agreement and where he'd been processed upon his arrival half a month ago. It connected directly to the external ports.
The Mid-Level housed the living quarters for most of the staff and contained the various systems that kept the entire prison running long-term. This was the level Xiang Yi was currently on.
And the Inner Level was the inmates' living area, which included some essential facilities.
Of course, one could also count the network of mining tunnels at the very center of the asteroid, the deepest layer of all.
Although Xiang Yi had only walked through a single corridor on the Outer Level, by combining the two incomplete schematics, he could figure out its general layout completely.
He had the map for the Mid-Level, and he had access rights to most areas of the Inner Level's inmate residential zone.
In almost the same amount of time it took him to think about it, the complete structure of the prison had been built in his mind.
It was effortless, completely without strain.
'He still didn't know the exact locations of critical facilities like the gravity generator, main power station, hydroponics bays, or the life support system, but an escape wouldn't necessarily require them.'
Xiang Yi gently tapped his temples. 'It seemed his cognitive abilities had improved significantly since awakening his Spiritual Energy. The path to escape was becoming clearer and clearer.'
'The problem now was that his access card was too low-level. The difficulty of stealing a higher-level card, breaking through the guard patrols, and getting to the asteroid's ports was too high.'
'Unless he had a more thorough plan... he needed to think this through more.'
Having organized his things, Xiang Yi turned his attention back to the desk.
There was a display screen on the desk—or more accurately, a display embedded in the wall behind it.
Xiang Yi rummaged through the pile of tools on the desk and found a keyboard and mouse. 'Looks like this era hadn't completely abandoned such "ancient" peripherals.'
'It seemed he could also control it by touching the screen, but he opted for the more familiar method.'
Just as Xiang Yi had thought, the computer was connected to the prison's internal network, and his access level was extremely low.
The main feature was a task list.
Whenever a department had a problem, a report was sent here, and this workshop would dispatch someone for repairs.
Besides that, the computer also seemed to store some professional books on maintenance, like *Maintenance Manual for Asteroid-Based Artificial Structures*, *Long-Term Maintenance Techniques for High-Voltage Lines in a Vacuum*, and so on.
Clicking on any one of them revealed hundreds upon hundreds of pages of technical jargon.
Although there were parts he couldn't understand, Xiang Yi wasn't frustrated by these technical manuals at all. In fact, he was a little excited.
'Because he had already seen this world's technology, he knew that even if these were just professional books on maintenance, they surely contained many techniques he had never seen before and knowledge he had never encountered.'
'These technologies were once just fantasies from his youth, but now, they were real.'
'And more importantly, his Spiritual Energy needed these things.'
Xiang Yi calmed himself slightly and focused his attention on the computer in front of him.
But to his surprise, he was unable to successfully open the computer's panel.
Over the past two days, he had specifically tested his ability on various mechanical and electronic devices around him. He could open the panels of any mechanical or electronic device, yet he couldn't do it with this computer.
'However, his focused consciousness gave him a faint feeling that the reason he couldn't open its panel was that he didn't have master control permissions for the computer.'
'Of course, if he were to dismantle the computer, he could probably control it then.'
'But the consequences of doing that... Well, there was no way he was going to do that.'
As Xiang Yi was still studying the computer, he suddenly heard footsteps approaching from behind and turned to look.
Zhang Lang was walking over. He placed a device about the size of a human head on Xiang Yi's desk.
"This is yours for now. Director He said you need to handle its routine maintenance. He'll be needing it later."
As soon as he finished speaking, Zhang Lang left.
He left Xiang Yi staring at the device on the desk in complete surprise, wondering how he could best make use of it.
The ["Edge Company" Continuous Psychic Pulse Disruption Field Generator].