Chapter 74: Three Months. We Can Wait.

Chapter 74: Three Months. We Can Wait.

My last excursion into the real world had been cut short by Pu Liuqian’s sudden appearance and the patrol team’s pursuit. On top of that, I still needed to wait for the base to finish building my new body for going outside, so for the time being I could only go back into the virtual world and explore there instead.

If Feng Du hadn’t confiscated my virtual code-body, I would have liked to spend a few more days in the virtual world—at least until my parasitic host was finished—before returning to reality. But the stench inside the Eighteen Levels of Hell was too foul to bear. I couldn’t wait that long.

After leaving Mother, I went to Uncle’s research base to check on the parasitic host being grown for me. It had basically taken shape—about eighty percent of the work was done, and an AI was now running systematic optimization on its brain.

I’d once asked Uncle why he couldn’t just use the modified bionic person I’d used before. Why bother growing an entirely new parasitic host? Such a hassle.

When Du Xiaoran and I stole the data from the Quantum Research Institute, I’d used that kind of modified bionic person, and I’d found it perfectly serviceable—smooth to operate, no different from my own body except in appearance.

But Uncle told me that for ordinary purposes, a modified bionic person worked fine. They used them themselves for dangerous work often enough, mostly because they were cheap. But that kind of body came with real limitations—shape-shifting and force-of-consciousness projection, for instance, simply didn’t work through it. A parasitic body grown from one’s own genes, on the other hand, was identical to being reborn as oneself. It was, in effect, an extra life. Whatever abilities the original person had, they could use in full.

I understood.

It wasn’t only a matter of cost. It was a matter of capability, and of safety.

So while waiting for my body to finish growing, I went back to riding cheap parasitic pigeons out into the world, wandering more than a few times—and running into Du Xiaoran’s parasitic pigeon along the way.

It puzzled me how Du Xiaoran managed to hop back and forth between the two worlds so freely. Going in and out of reality and the virtual world cost money each time, didn’t it? Twenty points a trip wasn’t cheap. And why did he keep turning up wherever I went? Calling it coincidence, with no purpose behind it, simply didn’t add up.

And yet, in dealing with him, I never sensed even a trace of malice. We were both elite people, after all, and same-frequency sensing ran both ways between us.

Speaking of my same-frequency sensing—only after this trip through the virtual world did I realize how much stronger mine was compared to other elite people’s. Otherwise there was no way I could have fought King Qinguang to a draw with weak rank-five force of consciousness against his rank ten. My unusually strong same-frequency sensing had carried me through it. Even if someone else knew exactly how I’d countered him, they still couldn’t have pulled it off. Just as Uncle said—strength and intensity were positively correlated.

This ability was the very first one I’d ever gained. From sensing Zhu Zhaojie’s thoughts while cheating on an exam, all the way to harvesting force of consciousness in the Eighteen Levels of Hell, my same-frequency sensing had carried far more of the weight than anyone realized.

Because of that, I went specifically to ask Mother where this sensing had come from, and why mine seemed so different from everyone else’s.

Mother told me I’d had it since birth. She’d only been afraid that using it too early would let others—especially the Sweepers—discover it before its time, so she’d helped shield it. It wasn’t until my classmate Meng Ran’s death alarmed the Sweepers into screening every student that this ability of mine was accidentally triggered by their scanning equipment.

Same-frequency sensing was an ability exclusive to elite people. But…