Transformation

On the knoll, raging flames engulfed the two-story house. Billowing black smoke surged into the sky, sparks dancing in the air all around. Following Instructor Wu's wishes, Chen Chuan had used algae oil to incinerate both the corpse and the residence. To thoroughly erase any traces, he had even gathered the shattered wooden splinters from their fight earlier and tossed them into the inferno. Just then, a draft swept through the grass, sending something fluttering toward him. He caught it with an outstretched hand and saw that it was the Molan Company advertisement. After a brief glance, he tossed it casually into the fire. After checking the surroundings once more and confirming nothing had been overlooked, he contacted Wu Bei through his boundary credential. "Brother Wu, nobody observed the fight just now, right?" Wu Bei's voice came through: "Rest easy, Brother Chen. While you two were fighting, I jammed the biological field across this whole area. There's hardly anyone around here anyway, so no need to worry about anyone reporting it." Chen Chuan hummed in acknowledgment. Center City was different from elsewhere. Because of boundary credentials and boundary points, events occurring in certain locations could broadcast information or be observed through alternative means. Having someone tasked with intercepting transmissions had been an absolute necessity. And that wasn't all. If necessary, he could even have had Wu Bei cause a slight glitch in Instructor Wu's boundary credential to disrupt his attention for a split second. Wu Bei was still running on sheer adrenaline. In truth, aside from the brief moments the two had halted, he hadn't clearly seen anything of that fight. All he had witnessed was bricks, stone, and floorboards shattering, along with crater after crater gouged into the earth. Such power was practically inhuman. The previous time, Chen Chuan had fought the Golden Shrimp Commission Company, and Wu Bei had thought that was formidable enough. But this encounter had shown him what truly powerful fighters were capable of—it was on an entirely different level. Then he recalled something and said, "Brother Chen, this Instructor Wu... his condition, um, it seems like he had the trance affliction." "Trance affliction?" "Yeah. Under the official definitions used by the government and corporations nowadays, it's called functional disorder syndrome. The theory goes that under the prolonged influence of biological fields, along with long-term use of boundary credentials and the combined stimulation of drugs and implants, a person's cognition oscillates between illusion and reality. They can't tell which is their real self or what is the actual world. In that state of cognitive confusion, they often do things no normal person would ever do. Well, that's just a theory. The actual condition is very complicated, so that's about all I know." Chen Chuan nodded faintly. Ever since arriving in Center City, he had felt the ambient environment exerting a faint, subtle erosion upon his Second Self—which was actually produced by the exchange of biological fields. Lingering in such an environment long-term might have a slight impact on ordinary people, but for fighters, it hardly posed any real harm. A situation like Instructor Wu's likely had far more complex reasons behind it. Moreover, he looked down toward the foot of the knoll. The ground he was standing on right now had issues as well... Yet he had no leisure to investigate. After all, Center City teemed with vigor, a place where all things contended. He possessed neither the time nor the ability to uncover the truth behind every single thing. Right now, there was something far more deserving of his attention. During his battle with Instructor Wu, even without deliberately tracking it, he could be certain that his overlap time with the Second Self had definitely surpassed twenty-four hours. He had a premonition that some kind of transformation might occur when the time came. Midnight was already very close; he would soon have his answer. Saying goodbye to Wu Bei, he deactivated the boundary credential and pulled his watch from his pocket. Time ticked by, second by second. Finally, midnight arrived. Chen Chuan lowered his watch. Just as he was about to check for any differences from usual, he suddenly sensed an anomaly. This was... He looked outward. Under his focused gaze, whether it was the swirling sparks or the leaves and weeds drifting on the wind, everything seemed to move much slower than before. It was just like when he overlapped with the Second Self. Yet the thing was, he hadn't chosen to overlap. He clenched his fist, feeling that potent, surging strength. So that was it. After twenty-four hours of overlap, the Second Self had thoroughly fused into his body. Did that mean... the "Second Self" had vanished for good? No. He looked to the side. The "Second Self" was still standing right there in one piece, showing faint signs of incorporeality, still absorbing the external erosion on his behalf. Mulling it over, he shifted his intent and drew it into an overlap. Yet this time, aside from still being able to absorb damage in his stead, there seemed to be no additional overlapping effect. No, that wasn't quite right. It wasn't that there was no enhancement; rather, the increase was exceedingly faint. Like... well, like overlapping with the strength of a mere ordinary person. Thoughts raced through his mind. He released the Second Self once more, and after studying it closely, sudden comprehension dawned. The physical attributes this Second Self currently possessed were likely what he had started with—back when he had first crossed over into this world. He had theorized before that the Second Self was likely an alternate version of himself from another world, his very own self, except his arrival had broken through the boundary of worlds. Looking at it now, once a certain limit or condition was reached, this alternate self would achieve a complete fusion with him. Yet the Second Self would not vanish. It simply reset back to zero—returning to the state it had been in when he first arrived. Right now, without even needing to test it, when overlapping with it he clearly knew that the overlap time was one day and four hours. It seemed to have broken through the twenty-four-hour ceiling, advancing toward a much longer horizon. He could sense that this Second Self's strength would gradually grow over time—though calling it growth wasn't entirely accurate. Rather, its strength would continuously catch up to where he was now, though the process might require his own impetus. Whether it would catch up to his current strength or to the strength he had possessed before the fusion remained unclear. But even if it was the latter, the boost would still be immense. And during the overlap, he discovered he seemed to have gained another option. He closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he found his physical state had reverted to what it had been before. When he chose to overlap with the Second Self, he could suppress the manifestation of his physical attributes down to pre-fusion levels—effectively peeling away the fused Second Self once again in an alternate manner. Now, this was intriguing. This was by no means useless; in fact, it was exceptionally practical. The more powerful an individual became, the more matter and energy were required to sustain their existence and physical activity. For instance, the nutrition he needed to ingest during training was already vastly greater than before. Should he reach an even higher limit, merely maintaining his baseline existence would likely consume an enormous amount. But if he could remain in a lower-limit state through the overlap, he could mitigate or prevent that entirely. Moreover, there might be other uses. One had already occurred to him, and he thought he could test it once he got back. Looking toward the roaring fire ahead, he remembered what He Xiaoxing had once told him: the concept of "limits" meant human strength had its bounds. So long as one remained human, no matter how powerful the mutated tissue grew, a ceiling inevitably existed within each stage—one that only a theoretically perfect individual could attain. During the test back then, even with the Second Self overlapped, he hadn't reached the theoretical ceiling, merely approaching it. Now that he had fused with the Second Self, he wondered whether he had attained that ceiling within the Second Limit, or if a gap still remained. He felt a gap likely remained. Yet with the Second Self present, he believed that one day he might reach or even surpass that limit. He stood there quietly before the crimson flames, the silent night stretched out behind him. The Xuejun Saber was planted at his side. A distant breeze blew in, setting his scarf and trench coat fluttering. After waiting over an hour longer, the fire finally died down, the house burnt completely to the ground. Having confirmed that nothing noteworthy remained, he activated his boundary credential again and cleaned up the remaining traces with Wu Bei's assistance. Only then did he pick up the Xuejun Saber and depart. By the time he reached the station, it was nearly two o'clock in the morning. Yet when he boarded the tram for the return trip, at least half the seats in the carriage were occupied, mostly by corporate employees. Relying on medications and implants, these employees maintained grueling work hours; being only an hour or two past their normal shift, many had long since grown accustomed to it. Aboard the tram, Chen Chuan used his boundary credential to look up the two individuals Instructor Wu had mentioned at the end. Yuan Binshu was likely not someone from the academy; none of the instructors or senior administrators seemed to bear that name, nor did he sound like a student. Chen Chuan could look into him later. As for the other person, Instructor Wu hadn't finished his sentence. But Chen Chuan noted that among the academy's faculty and administration, only two shared the surname Ling: one was an eighty-something academy consultant who didn't even teach classes, and the other was Ling Jianxing, assistant to the vice principal. He had a feeling the person Wu mentioned was very likely the latter. Whatever had happened to Instructor Wu might well be tied to those two. If so, would they and whoever else was involved behind the scenes give up just because Wu had died? If there was a deeper agenda at play, he doubted they would. Lost in thought, he rode the tram all the way back to the academy. By the time he walked out of the station and approached the Xuan Palace Building, it was already past three in the morning. Just as he was about to step into the lobby, he looked up and saw Hongfu standing above, and he gave her a slight nod. Upon seeing him, Hongfu's lively eyes above her veil turned toward him, and she nodded in greeting as well. Chen Chuan withdrew his gaze. From the moment he had come down from the knoll, he had overlapped with the Second Self, maintaining himself in his previous state. The outward expression of his biological field was virtually identical to when he had left the academy. Walking into the lobby and entering the elevator, he watched the floor indicator rise. In his mind, he considered how, even though his overlap time with the Second Self now exceeded twenty-four hours, using it to suppress his physical state or diverting damage and erosion would undoubtedly eat into that duration. Moreover, to bring the Second Self back up to a level close to his own strength, he would still need to find ways to extend the ceiling moving forward. The elevator doors slid open to either side. He stepped out, pushed open the door to his dorm room, and set down the Xuejun Saber. Glancing at the glittering night cityscape outside, he walked over and drew the curtains, washed up, and went to rest.