Virat was very particular about the whole thing.

He didn't give any autonomy to the team at the moment. The elders and instructors whose egos were so beat up because of this protested harshly to the Deans. But the Deans didn't give a hoot.

They only had one answer for them.

'That same kid beat you all to actually dismantling the bird puppet of the hub. So, technically he had the lead on all of you. We always have been seekers of knowledge and believed that whoever holds more knowledge is fit to be the leader and teacher of that subject.

How come it is changing when the said person with more knowledge is just a bit weaker in cultivation?

"

This answer kept them all dumb.

They didn't know what to say. It is not that none of them never followed that rule. It has always been the rule of Sanatan realm and they actually followed it in many cases. They were even taught by students in some cases.

But most of the time, they are only fourth grade students who held lectures or gave them guidance. That was the only age gap and power gap they were willing to swallow. Anything more than that is too bitter.

On top of that, Virat's indecisive nature is not helping the situation at all.

After some time, feeling the impatience of all these people, he finally made a decision.

"All of you re dismissed for now. I suggest that you guys go back and work on the bird puppets first. Since the puppets are connected to the hub and even tallies your score from various machines in the hub you might have good luck finding that connection.

Meanwhile, I will search for the core, or activating mechanism or anything that helps us achieve this using my method.

Within one day, if I can't do it, we will do it the most agreed up on way among your suggestion.

"

Only that calmed the crowd and everyone was dismissed. Some of them, mostly students stayed behind as they tried to examine Virat's methods.

Virat used the same pen that he used to dismantle the bird puppets as he examined various parts of the hub.

The problem at the moment is, that the machines and the rest of the hub are not active. However, the thousands of layered foramtions inscribed on the equipment to conceal and even destroy it if there is any forceful prying, are active.

For him to tap into the circuits of the machinery he needs to break past these. However, there is another thing he is afraid of because of the methods the creator of Hub used before. He is worried, that there might be a pre-set contingency that might activate. This contingency could make the machine completely dud if all the formations were cracked open.

After all, there is a good justification for a man to put up such kind of defense when he put so many self-destruction triggers. If he is so aversive to people opening it, he could very well made it air-tight with no holes.

He didn't care what others thought of him and with Dean's support to his decision, he managed to get the peace and quiet to examine these machines by himself.

After thinking for a while, he picked up one of the arcade machines that is used to test the reaction time of the punching techniques. It is the simplest device he could find. At least, he assumed it it.

The device is inactive, but the concealment formations are not. And he could see that there is a connection with this device with the concealment formations of the rest of the hub. The only thing that he couldn't find is the source of energy that are keeping this formations active.

He identified a similar pattern with the bird puppets as well.

The energy is stored inside the core, and the core is recharged with the surrounding energy that is being absorbed by the bird. However, the energy core couldn't be identified no matter what. The very concealment formations that the core is powering are covering it up.

So, he started using his pen to once again navigate through the concealment formations. However, this time he is extra safe and he didn't just try to experiment too much. Instead, he spent time on each and every layer.

Since he already got a hang of the style of the inscriptions by dismantling the bird puppets, he had an easy time in the first few layers.

And the more layers he uncovered, the more new details he gained about the style and the more insight he got into the next layers that are about to come.

Many people watched as Virat worked without taking any real break. Every time he got a bit exhausted or his energy ran out, he actually just sat on the side and sipped on some potions while still examining the physical structure of the machine.

Sam used many modern fastening methods, like the rivets, screws, nuts and bolts, Even though these are not foreign to these people as there are several fastening methods developed in the same way, the problem lies with Sam's eccentric methods to improve them.

For example, a screw that held the rear outer cover of the machine actually had a very tricky formation inscribed on it. So, when Virat slowly loosened the screw, the formation got triggered and an energy bond has formed, holding the joint together, making it impossible to remove.

He figured out the formation and cracked it, the next moment, another inscription that he didn't even notice before, got triggered, this is an energy manipulation formation.

When he tried to inject the energy into the machine to figure out a different formation, this energy manipulation formation intervened out of nowhere and diverted that energy flow almost triggering a self-destruct trap set up.

And these don't even scratch the surface of the various other traps he set up. These are still in the realms of the child's play. Inside the machine, there are many more mechanisms and circuits that are enveloped with many more traps.

Virat just felt more and more impressed and intrigued with the way it was arranged. After all, inscribed formations are tricky by themselves. So many intricate components having their own inscriptions and then they got fastened together layers with more inscriptions.

It is very easy for the energy flow to go wrong. On top of that, all these components are then assembled together involved more inscriptions.

Virat suddenly felt like he saw a million new doors open up for him.

And this is just from separating the components that are not even at the core of the machine yet. He has yet to dismantle these components a bit more and understand the mechanisms within. He has yet to go deep into the core of the machine and find the connection that leads to the core of hub.

He has yet to understand how all of those work.

He felt like he has his tasks lined up for the next decade or so at least.

As Virat succeeded in dismantling these layers and machines without triggering any nasty reaction, more and more people saw hope.

Even though there are a lot more skilled people with bigger brains in the team, including the elders, they all felt like they hit a steel plate when they tried to dismantle the machine.

Only after the way Virat worked did they understand, where they are lacking.

It is the thought process.

In their eyes what Virat is doing now didn't just look like some dismantling, it felt like he was communicating with that machine. Even if they felt that and wanted to try it by themselves, they weren't able to do it as well as him.

Following that thought process and the ideas left behind by Virat, they managed to dismantle the bird puppets and started experimenting on the transmitting mechanism it used to share the info with the hub.

But that is the extent they can go right now. They are not confident enough to go and crack open one of the machines in the hub without disturbing them completely.

Of course, not all of them shared the same sentiment. One of the elders, who was dissatisfied with Virat's method thinking, decided to take a more radical yet well engineering approach.

"I am going to build a Negation device.

"

He told his team who looked at him like they just heard some foreign language they don't understand.

"The problem comes with the concealment formations working like this in this interwoven network. The mechanism of the machine itself might be intricate and beyond our complete comprehension. But it is not like we can't even see it with our spiritual senses and observation skills, when the concealment formations are not there.

Once the structure is apparent to our vision, then we can do the dismantling much faster after we experiment with it a few times with a simulated projection.

"

Still, his team didn't understand.

The elder facepalmed and decided to explain while getting started on the work.