Hearing Zakhaev's words, taking the warm cup he handed over, Long Yun adjusted his posture on the sofa.

He had a hunch that he was going to hear a long story.

After asking Long Yun for his intentions, he took out a lighter and lit a spicy horse-to-cigarette, Zakhaev didn't speak at first, but his eyes blinked slightly on the sofa and swallowed the clouds. As the red dots of cigarette butts lit up and flickered, the smoke rose in the office space in the shade, and the old man's hands covered with traces of time trembled slightly, as if the memories he wanted to recall had long been buried deep in his heart, and it would take considerable effort to erase the thick dust.

When he finished smoking a cigarette and reached out to poke the cigarette butt in the ashtray, as if he had finished a spiritual baptism, Zakhaev's eyes brightened a little, but his voice became a little hoarse due to the stimulation of the cigarette.

Once again, the major general of the aviation forces in front of him was reminded that everything he heard today was absolutely secret, and the long statement officially began.

"Comrade Reznov, if you want to make the situation in 'Rome' clear, I'm afraid I still have to start from the beginning.

First of all, the original cause of this whole thing comes from a mysterious phenomenon that has long been discovered by mankind but has never been able to explain it. Yes, I think you've probably guessed it, it's the so-called 'special ability', or 'superpower'.

I've already consulted your profile last night, so I know a little bit about it: since you've already taken some tests with the relevant departments, you don't have to say a lot about explaining what a 'special feature' is. Historically, there have been many people who have studied specific functions with different purposes. This includes, of course, our Soviet Union; Record of work in this regard. It can be traced back to the 'Cheka' (All-Russian Committee for the Suppression of Counter-Rebellion. Predecessor of the KGB) shortly after its creation.

For decades of research, the KGB continued to explore superpowers as the ultimate security bulwark for the Soviet Union, even during the extremely difficult days of World War II. Recalling that winter of 1942, when German tanks were approaching Moscow, Comrade Stalin still chose to hold on to the capital, which was, of course, a bold and wise strategic choice; But unlike many of the KGB's departments, the departments responsible for the investigation and study of the 'special functions' had already been evacuated to the east of the Urals. To this day, there are still some important facilities that remain in Siberia.

At that time, the KGB made a prudent decision to relocate the department investigating 'paranormal functions' in the first place, considering the enormous strategic value that the research could have. Because shortly before the outbreak of World War II, years of work in deciphering ancient texts paid off, and KGB agents who followed the clues made extremely important discoveries in Central Asia. ”

Central Asia? Long Yun thought to himself, is it really related to the 0353 region?

Because he was worried about disturbing Zakhaev's train of thought, Long Yun neither interjected nor used his consciousness to snoop, but just sat quietly on the sofa and listened attentively. And probably once the conversation box was opened, the train of thought naturally became smoother, and Zakaev's demeanor had returned to calm. He got up and walked to the tin paper cabinet on the side of the office, took out a stack of materials and rummaged through it for a moment. Then put them on the low table between the two of them, and pulled out a few photos from them and handed them to Long Yun:

"Comrade Rezenov, you see, this is what they found out at that time."

After taking the photo from Zakaev's hand, holding it up and looking at it in the light a few times, Long Yun's face was full of surprise for a moment.

Staring at the relatively clear color photograph taken in his hand, he immediately recognized the strange image on the photo, the several black, somewhat clear-looking crystalline objects, and the mysterious "black crystal" that he had used to hold before. So, what the KGB agents found in Central Asia at that time was the same thing as the "black crystal", which means that there is more than one piece of this kind of thing in the world?

Noticing the subtle change in the expression on Long Yun's face, Zakaev nodded slightly, and then continued to speak to himself:

"As you can see, KGB investigators found several pieces of material with a look like this in an abandoned mine pit in the northern part of the Aral Sea. ――This thing sounds familiar, doesn't it? If I'm not mistaken, you have previously acquired one of these things by chance in France; Although there is no official name for this thing to this day, it is generally called 'Noh Media' by the name of the department.

Of course, as for what exactly this mysterious substance is, frankly, we still know very little to this day. The reason why this black and translucent substance is given the name 'energy medium' is mainly due to the original meaning of the word, or it is related to the mysterious effect of this substance. After the fortunate discovery of these mysterious substances and the initial investigation and research, the KGB quickly confirmed that this mineral-like 'energy medium' had a very amazing effect - specifically, it could greatly enhance the superpowers of people with special functions.

Shortly thereafter, the outbreak of the World War affected the KGB's research, but all of the people who participated in the project at the time - oh, of course I wasn't among them, I was just a kid at the time - all of them believed that the 'energy medium' was a key to the study of human beings' special functions, and could even be said to be a master key to a new era for humanity. As a result, the KGB still invested a lot of manpower and material resources to keep the research going even when the Germans were approaching the city and the Soviets were at a critical moment of life and death.

The emergence of 'energy media' can be said to be a ray of light for the study of superpowers, and it was also pinned on the researchers at that time.

However...... Contrary to what was expected to happen, in the decades after the end of World War II, until I joined the KGB and joined the ministry responsible for the study of anomalous functions, this once-thought-out-of-the-box research had been sidelined, or rather in decline.

As for the reason, it is actually very simple: after the rapid progress made by the 'energy media' before and after World War II, decades have passed, and there have been no commendable achievements in the research of special functions.

At that time, when I first joined the research department, the supernatural phenomena that I could show to members of the Political Bureau and the top management of the KGB were still limited to 'telekinesis' or 'see-through snooping', which was very wonderful as a magic show, but unfortunately had no strategic value. (To be continued......)