Chapter 44: Learning to Parasitize

Chapter 44: Learning to Parasitize

Old Wang watched me steadily and said nothing. He clearly had no intention of getting into it.

I had no choice but to settle down and listen.

“This is called a chakra controller. Ordinary people need it installed in the brain. You don’t. You’re different — you can copy it directly into the composite structure in your brain.”

“Wait,” I said. “Why am I different? Why does everyone else need an installation and I don’t?”

“What, you’re complaining?” Old Wang said. “You get the better end of the deal and you’re still not satisfied? Have you ever had an AI bio-brain–computer interface installed?”

“No,” I said. “That’s exactly why I’ve never been able to figure this out. Where did my abilities come from? Why do I have same-frequency sensing? Why can I replicate brain-computer-interface abilities? Why can ordinary people only do it by installing an AI bio-brain–computer interface?”

“Because,” Old Wang said, “you were never an ordinary person.”

“Then who am I?”

“Why do you have so much to say? Isn’t it enough just to have the abilities? Are you learning this or not?”

What did that mean?

He didn’t want to say, or he couldn’t?

Fine.

Say it or don’t. If someone doesn’t want to tell you, asking gets you nowhere.

Old Wang pointed at the chakra controller. “Copy it now. Then activate it — don’t be afraid. This first step only starts up the control system. I’ve already prepared a biological puppet for you. Activate it and you’ll understand. The second step: if you want to share a body with an ally — what you call parasitizing — switch into connector mode and interact with the other party’s consciousness. Before, when you opened the connector a crack, you thought that was why you could hear conversations between Soul Hunter consciousnesses. It had nothing to do with opening a crack. The connector itself is an allied information interconnection — their consciousness made contact with yours. You were lucky you activated brainwave shielding at the same time. Without that, opening a crack would have meant nothing. They would have sensed your consciousness information regardless.”

Huh.

So that was how it worked.

When I had cracked it open to eavesdrop, I’d assumed that keeping the opening small would keep me safe. Apparently not. The reason I’d been fine was that I’d been afraid of being caught through same-frequency sensing and had shielded my brainwaves.

Caution had saved me, plain and simple.

Following Old Wang’s instructions, I held the chakra controller against my neurons, closed my eyes, and slowly copied its functions into my consciousness composite.

The composite engaged immediately.

Then something began to take shape in front of me.

Or rather — I opened a pair of eyes that weren’t mine.

The world shifted.

I was seated cross-legged in a dark room. Everything around me was silent.

I rose and pushed the door open.

A creak.

This place was actually a temple. I had only taken a few steps outside when someone spoke behind me.

“Senior Brother, have you emerged from seclusion?”

I turned. From his robes, I could tell he was a temple steward. Information about him began surfacing in my mind.

His Dharma name was Danying. He had entered the temple a year after I had.

I nodded. “Danying, I’ve been in seclusion too long. I wanted to come out for a walk.”

I walked toward the Mahavira Hall. Several monks spotted me and pressed their palms together in greeting. My standing here was not low — I was the head Dharma master, second only to the abbot.

Not that being abbot would impress me much. It wasn’t as though I’d never held that title.

I passed by the main hall and the release pond and made my way to the temple gate. The view that opened before me was extraordinary: beyond the stone steps, clouds and rosy mist billowed upward while a thousand peaks lay bowed beneath. Breathtaking.

A mountaintop temple.

I looked back at the inscription above the gate: Yunding Temple.

How had I ended up…