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Chapter 71: An Unexpected Turn

The two thus passed each other, their paths diverging for a future encounter.

At the epicenter of the nuclear explosion, radiation of extreme intensity was rapidly assimilated by the surrounding Spirit Qi, creating a vortex-like hub of concentrated Spirit Qi.

With the nuclear radiation largely transmuted, in merely half a day, its intensity had diminished to two-thirds of what it was at the nuclear explosion's genesis that noon. This allowed Bai Mo to venture deeper.

When he reached a point roughly two hundred meters from the alley he'd visited the day before yesterday, Bai Mo once again found that the filtering capacity of his energy-absorbing skin had reached its absolute limit. Any further progress would necessitate his internal organs directly enduring the baptism of radiation.

“Should I press on? My brainstem already underwent Spirit Energy conversion during the preceding grand plunder, so the danger of zombification should be negligible. While my body can't achieve super-speed regeneration like De Bu Luo Yi, its self-healing capabilities are remarkably dependable; the superficial damage sustained from directly confronting the nuclear bomb at noon has already healed for the most part, and internal injuries are projected to mend within two or three days. Though my divine sense detected high-energy reactions pervading the entire nuclear epicenter, as I drew closer, a mysterious intuition, much like before, surfaced, intimating that something exceptionally beneficial might lie within.” Bai Mo paced along the periphery, carefully weighing the potential gains against the risks.

Ultimately, his curiosity for the unknown eclipsed his caution regarding safety, and Bai Mo resolved to venture inside for a closer look.

Bai Mo proceeded step by step. A faint, scorching sensation soon began to spread within his body. Initially, he merely felt a gentle warmth, but the closer he progressed to the center, the more intense that warmth grew.

Much of the surrounding rubble had transmuted into a vitrified state, shimmering beautifully under the moonlight. Yet, every single one of these ostensibly lovely formations carried radiation potent enough to kill an ordinary human. With his expanded range of perceptible light, Bai Mo could now directly observe, through his divine sense, a small fraction of the relatively low-frequency nuclear radiation. Still, it struck him as no more remarkable than a common person perceiving a new color.

“Is this... dissociated Spirit Energy?” Bai Mo, enduring the intensifying scorching sensation within his body, arrived at a point roughly thirty meters from the alley. There, for the first time, he witnessed dissociated Spirit Energy manifesting outside his physical form.

“This substance, however, appears highly unstable; it dissipates swiftly in ordinary environments.” As Bai Mo surveyed his surroundings, dissociated Spirit Energy continuously manifested and vanished.

It was then that a thought suddenly struck Bai Mo.

“If it's all Spirit Energy, can I directly absorb it into my body?”

Given that his energy-absorbing skin was already overloaded from absorbing the bulk of the radiation, Bai Mo found himself unable to utilize it for further absorption. Consequently, he opted for the most rudimentary approach: ingestion.

Like Shennong of old, who tasted a hundred herbs, Bai Mo opted for humanity's most ancient and perilous method of exploring the unknown: direct consumption!

“Here lies a solitary wisp of dissociated Spirit Energy; I can attempt to seize it. These wisps are clearly energy-rich, yet exceptionally difficult to handle, as their rate of dissipation is simply too rapid.”

Bai Mo acted with full exertion. The instant a Spirit Energy flame manifested, he opened his mouth with his utmost speed and consumed it.

Then, nothing at all happened. Bai Mo felt as though he had consumed a piece of cotton candy from his childhood; the moment it entered his mouth, it simply ceased to exist.

The first attempt, Bai Mo reasoned, was a failure of insufficient speed; he believed the dissociated Spirit Energy flame had already dissipated the instant he tried to ingest it. Thus, for his second attempt, he marshaled all his might, yet again, his efforts culminated in an empty sensation upon reaching his mouth.

After several successive failures, Bai Mo abandoned this particular method of exploration.

“Given that direct consumption is unfeasible, and collecting and preserving them even more impossible, what other approach can I employ to study such a peculiar phenomenon on-site?” Bai Mo began to ponder. “At the current radiation levels, I should be able to remain here for approximately two more hours without incurring permanent radiation damage to my body. Time is of the essence.”

Completely devoid of clues, Bai Mo recalled his high school exam days, when, much like now, he had to wrangle answers out of his brain within a two-hour time limit. He smiled knowingly.

With no suitable testing materials available in his immediate vicinity, Bai Mo could only turn his attention to the contents of his luggage.

From his luggage, he retrieved the Spirit Energy tissue he had just extracted from De Bu Luo Yi, alongside a small, web-like piece of unknown tissue he had collected previously. Adopting the mindset of trying anything, even if it meant treating a dead horse as if it were alive, he casually placed both specimens atop a freshly manifested Spirit Energy flame.

“The flame didn't dissipate on its own this time!” In Bai Mo's perception, it was strikingly clear that the Spirit Energy tissue had absorbed the flame, rather than it naturally vanishing.

After absorbing a single Spirit Energy flame, both frozen tissue samples appeared to regain a flicker of vitality.

“The Spirit Energy organs of Ability Users truly possess tenacious vitality. I wonder how long a excised piece of my own body could retain its freshness?”

Having spotted this promising lead, and acutely aware of his limited time, Bai Mo ceased considering the preciousness of the samples. He simply allowed them to continuously absorb the Spirit Energy flames that sporadically manifested around them.

Throughout the absorption process, Bai Mo also observed that, as time elapsed, the frequency with which dissociated Spirit Energy flames appeared steadily declined. Correlating this with the continuously decreasing radiation intensity, he began to hypothesize that the primary cause for the manifestation of dissociated Spirit Energy was likely linked to radiation intensity.

Roughly twenty minutes later, both tissue samples appeared to have absorbed Spirit Energy to a saturated state. While Bai Mo was unaware of the ultimate utility of saturating them with Spirit Energy, he completed this task, operating on the principle that some action was always superior to inaction.

Bai Mo meticulously examined the two tissue samples. Having fully absorbed the Spirit Energy, both now emanated a radiant glow, invisible to the mundane eye, yet strikingly beautiful under the scrutiny of his divine sense.

Impelled by a creature's innate curiosity toward an unknown radiance, he foolishly attempted to touch them directly with his bare hands, eschewing the use of tweezers.

However, the instant his Life Field made contact with them, the unexpected occurred.

The two tissue samples melted into his Life Field with a speed Bai Mo couldn't even react to!

“A grave miscalculation... I hadn't anticipated that these two tissue samples, unlike the preceding mutated lysosomes, would still retain a residual fragment of the original entity's will...” Bai Mo barely had time for this thought. His divine sense, once habitually crystal clear, now perceived everything as incredibly blurred, as if a significant portion had been completely blocked. All that remained was a chaotic afterimage, and simultaneously, his body began to feel somewhat beyond his control.

Nevertheless, Bai Mo's mind remained perfectly lucid. He understood that he absolutely had to vacate this area of exceptionally high radiation concentration before his body completely succumbed to loss of control. So, steeling himself, he stumbled out of the central region, randomly forced open the door of an intact house, and then collapsed onto the ground with the momentum.

“The lingering fragment of will seems to have understood that a head-on clash of wills was unequivocally no match for me. Thus, it shrewdly utilized the two Spirit Energy tissues, integrating them into my Life Field as a primer, thereby enticing my originally pristine Life Field to open an aperture. This allowed it to infiltrate my body and establish itself within my sensory organs and nerves, respectively.” Lying on the ground, Bai Mo rapidly began to mentally deduce the underlying causes.

“I’ve temporarily lost the majority of my divine sense perception and, concurrently, partial control over my body. This is truly the story of the farmer and the snake. Had I not curiously imbued them with energy, none of this would have transpired.” For the time being, Bai Mo possessed no method to counter this intangible will. Such a phenomenon had already transcended the scientific parameters he had previously encountered, leaving him no choice but to lie quietly and ponder.

Concurrently, the severely wounded Luo Yi, much like Bai Mo, lay recuperating quietly in an uninhabited house in Rome. At this very moment, the two individuals were separated by no more than five hundred meters.