Novels online

Chapter 185: Level Revision

"Ability User Level Classification Revision?" A few days later, a pinned post from the Contribution Points forum quickly caught countless people's attention.

"As the number of Ability Users continued to increase, statistics showed that the entire Huaxia Federation now had nearly ten million Ability Users. The original level classification was encountering more and more issues in stratifying Ability Users, and the measurement error for Spirit Energy conversion percentage was also significant. Therefore, it was necessary to establish a new system for reclassifying the existing levels..."

"According to the newly revised standards, existing Ability Users would be reclassified into three levels: Spirit Animation Stage, Life Field Stage, and Unmelting Realm. The demarcation between the first two was the emergence of the Life Field; the subsequent classifications would remain unchanged. This is hereby announced."

"I never thought this could be changed!" This was the first reaction of many Ability Users after reading it.

"There used to be classifications for landlords too; weren't they all abolished now? What can't be changed?" Most ordinary people who were just watching the show didn't care how the levels were divided. Anyway, it was just a name; as long as the big shot Ability Users were happy.

Across the entire Huaxia Federation, there were nearly ten million Ability Users.

While the number ten million seemed astonishing, compared to the Federation's total population of over a billion, it was actually less than one percent of the total. And among this less than one percent, only one percent, or approximately one hundred thousand people, possessed their own Life Field.

Therefore, this revision would actually only affect these roughly one hundred thousand people.

Such a change, which didn't actually harm anyone's interests but could still garner significant attention, naturally came from the hand of Du Zhongqi, the new director of the Spirit Energy Research Institute.

As the second director, replacing Li Mofu, he was quite tormented by the mess at the Spirit Energy Research Institute. Hundreds of junior researchers had died in the previous rebellion, most of the mid- and high-level participants in the rebellion had also died in Tianqing, while some remaining ones had fled abroad, leaving the entire institute severely crippled.

Desperate to boost morale and help researchers regain their drive, and before the institute could produce any groundbreaking achievements in the short term, he could only rely on reclassifying standards to showcase the institute's relevance and convince everyone that what they were doing was still meaningful.

As for Bai Mo, precisely because he didn't want to take on this mess, he hadn't accepted the position of official director, preferring to remain a hands-off manager in his own experimental lab.

Over the next three months, with Cui Mengdie as a test subject, Bai Mo divided his attention to conduct many similar experiments. The results showed that even long-term control of Spirit Animation Stage Ability Users without a Life Field was essentially no different from controlling other inanimate objects. There was no phenomenon of assimilation or fusion between Life Fields, unlike what he had seen before.

"I am me! Not you!" For many nights after she returned, Cui Mengdie would have the same nightmare. In the dream, her body was occupied by another will, and it even swallowed her own will in one gulp. Every time, she would wake up in a cold sweat after everything went black.

"It's useless again... Why is nothing working!" Waking from the nightmare, she instantly shattered everything around her with her psychic powers.

In these days, a faint fear of something within her body, coupled with increasingly frequent nightmares, drove her to constantly seek various methods to resolve the issue. She even tried numerous folk remedies, one by one, but the results were still unsatisfactory.

Only during the weekly injection of "Spirit Energy Factors" could she feel a trace of warmth, and her taut nerves could slightly relax. This directly led to a severe addiction.

However, at other times, dread continuously enveloped Cui Mengdie, because a premonition told her this nightmare might soon become reality.

The lingering fear in her daily life and the frequent nightmares during sleep, even though she was an Ability User with physical qualities far surpassing ordinary people, had made her suspicious, irritable, and neurasthenic under this prolonged mental torment, inevitably becoming emaciated and neurotic.

Cui Mengdie had also tried to talk about this with others, but each time, after speaking only the first few words, her body would be taken over by the monster lurking within, redirecting the conversation elsewhere, and then she would be trapped again in a small, dark room, devoid of sight and sound.

She even began to regret not choosing suicide back then. Now, she was so pathetic that she had lost even the ability to end her own life, because as soon as she showed any inclination to do so, her body would immediately lose control.

Having nowhere left to turn, guided by an inexplicable feeling, she chose to return to where the nightmare began—the experimental center she had been ordered to infiltrate for information. R/AN,O|bes

Seeing his test subject return, Bai Mo brought her back to the underground laboratory.

"Please let me go. I'll agree to any other condition, even if you kill me now. At least it would be a release. I've had enough of this life worse than death," Cui Mengdie said in a lifeless tone.

"Mm." Bai Mo nodded.

She couldn't believe it; the other party had agreed directly without any superfluous words. She even shed tears of gratitude for it.

"Farewell." He waved his hand, then embraced her.

After their bodies made contact, their highly congruent Life Fields began to slowly merge—or rather, it wasn't a merge, but a one-sided devouring from Bai Mo's side.

The entire process encountered almost no resistance. To him, this process was like watching himself grow a new body—a tangible body with real sensations—unlike his previous Spirit Energy avatar, which only had perception without substance, nor was it like the dead-object sensation of controlling Spirit Animation Stage Ability Users.

"What's truly terrifying is never death itself, but the waiting for death."

In Cui Mengdie's perception, she was like in her dream, rapidly swallowed by an impenetrable, dense darkness. Her body completely lost sensation. She finally understood that her recurring nightmare was coming true at this very moment. Too late to regret, this laboratory and the person before her became her last memories.

With his experience in controlling avatars, Bai Mo quickly grew accustomed to the sensation of having two bodies. As for appearance and gender, those had ceased to be concerns for him long ago.

"I suppose I've barely gotten onto the slow lane of the 'man-eating' path... Even though it took me nearly four months to consume someone weaker than myself, I still can't compare to those whose digestion speed is measured in seconds." He recalled the novels he used to read, where protagonists quickly grew stronger by consuming others, and couldn't help but feel a pang of emotion.

Wiping away the lingering tears from the corners of his eyes, Bai Mo began to study his new body.

"Although I've continuously supplemented it over the past few months, its physical quality still has a certain gap compared to the original body. Someone in the institute has already begun developing a universal Spirit Art for optical invisibility, so an additional Spirit Hub for light distortion holds little significance."

"Next, it's time to actively go out and choose my prey." After the resounding success of this physical avatar experiment, he planned to extend his reach further.