Chapter 237: Seven Dimensions
"The starlight, an aberrant form of mental energy, can bypass a Life Field's obstruction because its essence lies in compressed packages of knowledge from my memories. At its core, it's merely weak mental energy carrying information, thus it won't be intercepted."
"However, as the quantity of light entering her body accumulates and surpasses a critical point, I can detonate all the information packets, instantly submerging her original thoughts. Once she loses her sense of self, she will be assimilated by me."
"Information overlay that bypasses almost all defenses... turning battle into a one-sided competition of information volume." Bai Mo retrieved all the information just moments before his assistant lost herself.
Chen Xi, narrowly escaping disaster, collapsed onto the ground, replaying the events in her mind. She was now genuinely curious about what the consequences would have been if she had truly taken that final step.
The others, who had only enjoyed the mental benefits without experiencing the final burst, were completely unaware that they had just been swimming at the edge of a great white shark's jaws. They looked thoroughly satisfied, as if craving more.
They believed this was a "sudden enlightenment" benefit bestowed by Mr. Bai Mo, and each gazed at the core area with expressions of profound reverence, as if looking up at a towering mountain.
To be able to subjectively create enlightenment for others, in their eyes, meant far transcending the realm of humanity.
"Mr. Bai must have had another breakthrough."
"He must have."
"Yang Tao, you brat, be careful. There are gods three feet above your head." A few nearby guards pointed towards the core area, grinning cheekily at their companion who had spoken out of turn.
"Surely... he wouldn't hold a grudge against a small fry like me, would he? I just spoke too quickly." Yang Tao covered his mouth, his legs trembling almost imperceptibly.
As a new guard at this experimental facility, he had heard many terrifying rumors about Bai Mo from his seniors.
However, Bai Mo evidently paid no heed to such trivial matters. He had far too much to attend to. His exchange with Yu Xi had sparked many new ideas, all of which needed to be tested one by one.
During the lunch break shift, a group of guards gathered, chatting amongst themselves.
"Have you seen the news push?"
"What's the big news now?"
"That starry sky in Su Zhe City, doesn't it look a lot like what we just saw?"
"The photos certainly suggest so, though there's a bit of a size difference."
...
Half a month passed in a flash, and the events in Su Zhe City finally came to an end. Wen Jian had searched for an entire week there but still hadn't found the monster's ultimate whereabouts. In the end, he could only return with a single tentacle.
Of course, he never imagined that the entity would actually conceal its existence within a young girl, thus evading his mental scans.
In the hospital, most of the previously comatose patients had woken up. Occasionally, there were reports of deaths, accompanied by the wailing of their families.
If two people happened to wake up simultaneously, they would almost always exchange a knowing smile, then leave separately to begin their new lives.
Ultimately, over forty thousand people were reborn, successfully taking over their original bodies. Nearly three thousand others died in the hospital, and fewer than ten individuals managed to win the battle of wits and usurp the host.
A large portion of the over forty thousand successful usurpers later formed a secret organization—the Wings of Tianhai—as their communication network.
The rare few who had, conversely, devoured the souls of the usurpers and uncovered the truth, chose to bury the secret deep in their hearts, for they lacked any evidence.
They would be accusing over forty thousand ability users. If they were to step forward without absolute power and evidence, they might not live to see the next day's sun.
"Huaxia's first truly meaningful VR system has arrived!" In recent times, its advertisements filled the streets and alleys of the Huaxia Federation.
"Developed solely by our nation's Spirit Energy Research Institute, it features the most scientific combat power evaluation system, and its generated evaluations will be nationally recognized!"
Strategic technologies like virtual reality were naturally first considered for military applications.
However, due to the changing times, a large amount of military power flowed into the civilian sector with the emergence of ability users, forcing the authorities to consider the public's reaction during development.
Thus, it was clear that the time the VR system was opened to the public was only half a month later than the completion of VR training systems in the major war zones.
Of course, the developers also played a role. One of Bai Mo's major future plans was to implement it through a society-wide VR system, and he held enough sway to influence such matters.
Evaluations recognized by the state—this was undoubtedly what concerned all those planning to participate in the assessment most.
For many of them, their income and status were directly proportional to their strength, but displaying strength was actually a troublesome matter.
After all, it was still a society governed by law, but often, demonstrating power meant injuring people, causing destruction, and then attracting trouble. The Special Combat Department, responsible for managing all cultivators, was not to be trifled with.
But now, with a combat power level certification acknowledged by the entire Huaxia officialdom, simply presenting the certificate would be enough to decide most matters.
Of course, everything still depended on the subsequent implementation, specifically whether the issued certifications would be diluted, which was the fundamental factor in whether it could truly establish sufficient public credibility.
However, for now at least, the vast majority of people were willing to trust the Huaxia government's integrity in this regard, because the upper echelons were largely built upon a strongman political system; weaklings simply couldn't muddle through.
"Seven dimensions: point attack power, area attack power, defense, speed and evasion, perception and mental energy, recovery ability, and combat intuition and experience. All are based on an adult ordinary person as baseline 1. Each doubling corresponds to an increase of 1 in the index. How much do you think we can measure?" Chen Bo and a few others chatted with Bai Mo at Ziliu Sea.
"My system isn't capable of that yet; it can't measure the values for us. All of you 'beyond the norms' have been directly thrown into the Fifth Tier by me."
"Each of the First to Fourth Tiers is further divided into upper, middle, and lower levels. Such a simple and crude classification method."
"In scholarly pursuits, there's no first, but in martial arts, there's no second. For combat power ratings, numbers are sufficient."
"The system's accuracy is quite good. We sent out three thousand soldiers to participate in the initial test, and most of them felt their evaluations were very accurate."
"When can you develop a VR system that we can use? I still want to be the first to clear the Heavenly Passage." Wen Jian was clearly a warlike person at heart, but he didn't seem to have read Bai Mo's report carefully.
"The system has two modes: a 'real' mode and a 'standard' mode."
"The former reproduces all of the participant's power within the system, while the latter starts from level six and gradually grinds up through combat. As for the seventh dimension, combat intuition and experience, that can only be judged by each person's true level." Bai Mo didn't mind, explaining it again.
"The standard mode is roughly similar to a holographic online game. I had them create a game map about a quarter the size of Huaxia, which should meet needs for a long time."
"That's truly sparing no expense..."
"It's not my money, after all." Bai Mo spread his hands.
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