“Traceless”: Horror Sequence Number 26
(Enhanceable count 1, Horror Domain count 2)
Base trait effect: — omitted
“Mistform”: Consumes 10% horror energy per second to turn your body into mist, ignoring physical collision damage. Other traits and abilities can be used while in mist form.
“Traceless Horror Domain (Type I)”: After deploying the horror domain, the released “White Mist” becomes formless, creating a “Traceless Horror Domain” with a ten-meter radius centered on yourself. Anything entering this domain enters an undetectable state.
After deploying the “Traceless Horror Domain,” the host can determine affected targets through willpower. Non-affected targets will not enter the traceless state.
“Mistform Control”
Influenced by the host’s horror domain, the host can manipulate “living beings” within the domain to enter mist form. The duration is affected by the horror domain and the horror energy the host injects.
Consumes 1%–100% mental energy per second (determined by the number and size of affected targets).
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“Heh!”
Now that’s what I’m talking about!
This was the enhancement result Shen Ge wanted. Sure enough, if one trait enhancement point wasn’t enough, two would do the trick. The later the enhancement count, the more qualitative the trait’s transformation!
The blocking white mist produced by “Traceless” might become an exposure point for most people, but Shen Ge used it in conjunction with the “Formless” trait most of the time, so there was no issue of the white mist exposing him. Therefore, the formless transformation of the horror domain’s white mist didn’t mean much to him.
The key point of this enhancement lay in “Mistform” and the “Mistform Control” affected by the horror domain. Consuming 10% horror energy per second might seem like a lot — a year ago, Shen Ge might have agonized over it — but now that he’d stepped into sixth-order with over ten thousand horror energy, he could maintain mist form continuously for nearly seventeen minutes.
Seventeen minutes might not seem long, but in reality, it offered tremendous room for maneuver, because “Mistform” was never meant to be a sustained state skill — it was a functional skill.
Take Formless’s “Collapse” for wall-phasing, for example. Consuming 100 horror energy per use was nothing to Shen Ge, because he wouldn’t maintain “Collapse” on a wall continuously.
“Mistform” worked the same way. When Shen Ge used mist form for physical defense, it was only for an instant — like when someone shoots at him, he turns to mist for a second or two to let the bullets pass through, or when he needs to pass through a wall, he can skip “Collapse” entirely and just mist through it, then return to normal.
In other words, if you viewed “Mistform” as a skill rather than a state, then this skill was a “god-tier skill,” its value far exceeding the horror domain’s “Mistform Control.”
With the “Mistform” ability, calling Shen Ge a “ghost” now wouldn’t be an exaggeration at all.
Of course, anyone familiar with Shen Ge knew that his thoughts at this moment were far from ordinary. Sure enough, the very next second, he was heard muttering to himself:
“Well now, no more need for keys to get in and out of doors.”
After finishing the trait upgrades, Shen Ge turned his attention back to the system upgrades.
【System Functions:】
- “Horror Eye”
The host’s eyes can directly observe a target’s horror energy intensity and rating.
Consumes 1000 system points to scan and analyze a target’s abilities (including but not limited to traits, attributes, and equipment).
(Note: For targets below fifth-order, no system points are consumed, and the attributes and abilities visible are more detailed.)
Can use the Horror Eye to deeply observe a target, find weak points on the target’s body, and determine whether a target horror or freak possesses Ancestor Horror cells.
“Ancestor Horror Eye”
The host can consume horror energy to open the Ancestor Horror Eye at the brow, which can perform data detection on fifth-order and above horrors. The stronger the target’s horror energy intensity, the less information is visible.
Unaffected by horror energy black mist blocking sight, the Ancestor Horror Eye can directly penetrate sixth-order and below horror energy black mist to observe distant situations.
It is equally effective against mist and illusions created by sixth-order and above horrors, but the lower the horror energy intensity, the clearer the situation the Ancestor Horror Eye can see.
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- Transfer
After performing charged devouring, system points can be obtained. By consuming different amounts of system points, materials within an area can be transferred before the host.
“Random Category Transfer”: Consumes 100 system points per use. Randomly draws and transfers materials from within a hundred-kilometer area.
Probability of drawing each material type — Living supplies 30%; Weapons and equipment 40%; Horror remains and cells that can be devoured and converted into attribute enhancement points (15%); Vehicles (10%); Horror energy equipment (5%).
“Resource Detection”: Consumes 1000 system points to detect the material types within a hundred-kilometer area. After detection, the draw probability for each category changes.
“Targeted Category Transfer”: After performing resource detection, consumes 1000 system points per use to perform targeted transfer of a specific category.
“Teleportation Channel”: By consuming dream power, establishes a teleportation channel between two locked coordinate points. Targets can be transferred through the teleportation channel.
Recording target point: Consumes 10 dream power
Establishing teleportation channel: Consumes 100 dream power. Cross-dimensional teleportation channel establishment consumes 1000 dream power, and the teleportation channel exists permanently unless the dream world collapses.
Performing teleportation: The dream power consumed varies based on the size and quantity of the teleported object. Cross-dimensional teleportation consumes double the dream power.
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“Wait, 1000 dream power just to establish a cross-dimensional teleportation channel?” Shen Ge originally had ideas like “I Have a Doomsday World,” “Reality and Doomsday Dual-World Trade,” “My Bedroom Connects to Doomsday” — establishing a teleportation channel to at least open trade between “Reality” and the dream world, so that Reality would no longer lack research materials like horrors, and the Shelter would no longer lack resources.
But 1000 dream power just to open one channel, and the dream power consumed for teleportation varies based on the size and quantity of objects — even if, according to the system’s notes, teleporting a truckload of materials only costs 1 dream power, the construction cost was still absurd to Shen Ge. His entire current net worth was only enough for one channel.
Comparatively, he’d be better off relying on his own horror domain ability to carry people or objects across space. The dream power consumption would only count as his personal teleportation.
At most, it would be a bit troublesome — bringing people or objects to another world required his personal involvement, and the horror domain’s influence was limited.
But regardless, this was still far more reliable than using 1000 dream power to open a dual-world channel.
Then again, this was still Shen Ge’s early days with dream power. His methods of obtaining dream power were still limited to absorbing dream fragments.
This was just like system points. Two years ago, when Shen Ge used system points, he’d count them on his fingers, careful not to waste a single one. But now, tens of thousands of system points flowed in at a time, and he couldn’t even be bothered to draw resources anymore.
Dream power was the same. Perhaps it was still a scarce resource for Shen Ge now, but as he encountered more and more dream worlds and grew stronger, maybe he wouldn’t fuss over spending a thousand or two thousand… probably.
P-Probably.
Though Shen Ge comforted himself this way, deep down he had no real confidence, because dream power and system points were fundamentally different.
The latter could be obtained by hunting horrors — and whether in “Reality” or dream worlds, the one thing never in short supply was horrors. But dream power required absorbing the power of collapsed worlds. Never mind how hard these things were to find — even if you found one, capturing it was harder than reaching the heavens.
And the key point was — this was literally “reaching the heavens.”
Shen Ge was still complaining about how absurdly overpowered the teleportation ability was when a question suddenly struck him — the Freak Organization used teleportation devices when using their teleportation ability.
He’d captured several of these things from freaks, but neither the Rong City Special Policy Department’s research institute nor Li Xiang had been able to figure out how they operated. They’d even used the teleportation device to advance the research department’s technological research further, yet still couldn’t fully understand the thing.
A guess suddenly arose in Shen Ge’s mind — could this teleportation device… require dream power to activate?
If that were true, then never mind the Special Policy Department researchers — even digging up Einstein and other geniuses wouldn’t necessarily yield an answer.
Dream power — this was simply not a force ordinary people could come into contact with!
Shen Ge really wanted to verify his guess. If the Freak Organization truly teleported through such devices, it would mean this method could somewhat reduce dream power consumption. Otherwise, the Freak Organization couldn’t possibly sustain the consumption for so many members.
Even if it weren’t 100 dream power per use — even if it were just 10 — given the Freak Organization’s numbers and frequency, the consumption would far exceed Shen Ge’s.
If that were truly the case, then the dream world was likely crawling with Freak Organization members searching everywhere for dream frag…ments?
Wait!
The more Shen Ge thought about it, the more alarmed he became. Suppose the Freak Organization really did master cross-dimensional ability through the “Great Whale” and entered the dream world, then enslaved survivors in doomsday worlds to help them search for dream fragments… it actually seemed possible!
For example — the New God Cult.
Shen Ge helplessly raised his hand and rubbed his forehead. Though he’d grown used to how solving one problem always spawned more problems, the deeper he investigated, the more he discovered the Freak Organization was larger and had a farther reach than he’d imagined — and it gave him a headache.
“Forget it, I’ll stop thinking about it. I’ve already got a pile of messes on my hands. Whatever the truth is, I’ll have to deal with the Freak Organization in the end anyway. No use thinking more about it.” Shen Ge simply pulled his thoughts back, deciding to find an opportunity to test the Vertex and teleportation abilities later, then turned his attention back to the system.
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- Map
“Scan” — Consumes 100 system points to mark targets containing horror energy within a ten-kilometer area.
(Note 1: The marked position is where horror energy was detected. If the target has moved, the map only shows the position where horror energy was scanned.)
(Note 2: The host can choose to display only a certain type or class of horror or freak, blocking other types to avoid interference.)
“Mark” — Consumes 1000 system points to mark a designated target detected by scanning. Duration: 30 minutes.
When using scan and mark in conjunction with the “Ancestor Horror Eye,” system point consumption is halved.
“Mission Mark”: Consumes 1000 system points to scan a ten-kilometer area and find regions that can trigger missions.
Each time a mission generated by a mission mark is completed, one “Spirit Apple” is rewarded in addition to the mission reward.
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“Hm? There’s something this good?” Shen Ge’s biggest headaches were running out of horror energy at critical moments and the fact that Spirit Apples could only be obtained through supply draws.
The appearance of “Mission Mark” not only gave Shen Ge a way to obtain missions, but also threw in a free Spirit Apple every time. Considering the value of a Spirit Apple, even buying one directly for 1000 system points would be a guaranteed profit.
The 【Map】 system update essentially gave Shen Ge a steady supply channel for Spirit Apples. Advancing to sixth-order had already greatly increased his horror energy — now he didn’t need to worry about horror energy problems at all.
Shen Ge originally thought the changes from this system advancement were already plenty, but looking further down, there were still more surprises!
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- Log
Through 【Log】, you can view situations related to “yourself” at a certain node “currently or four years later.”
“Observation/Prediction” — Consumes 1000 system points to observe the situation at a future node once. This intelligence can be used to predict events on the current timeline, used to trigger random missions.
Prediction content includes but is not limited to “random events,” “horror events,” “horror disasters,” etc.
Observe 【Log】 information of mastered dream fragments.
“Fusion Fragment 1”: Chaotic Distorted World
Fragments 2/3/4/5: Collapsed Worlds
(Note: Cannot interfere with endings occurring in dream fragment worlds through dream power. Can lock coordinates for a predicted node and consume dream power to teleport.)
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“?”
Heh, well now — the dead 【Log】 function had actually come back to life. Now Shen Ge could once again become a late-night chapter-chaser.
But that wasn’t the point. The point was the change in the “Prediction” ability. Previously, predictions showed random events from the entire collapsed world, making the ability highly uncertain.
Shen Ge had tried observing through 【Log】 and then predicting before, but what he predicted was either a horror disaster in some foreign region four years later or another country being wiped out.
Basically, foreign countries were in complete chaos, while domestically… well, domestically was blocked and couldn’t be detected.
Now that the function had been upgraded to observe worlds related to himself, this gave Shen Ge tremendous room for maneuver.
Shen Ge immediately called on the system to give it a try, randomly choosing the largest dream fragment he had — “Fusion Fragment 1.”
【Consume 1000 system points to observe “Fusion Fragment 1”?】
“Yes!”
Just as Shen Ge settled into his chapter-chasing pose, ready to watch a spectacular show, the system notified him:
【Unable to detect host information in the current space. Suspecting the host has died. Observation failed. Please select another world for observation!】
?
??
???
What the hell — you took the money, and now you’re telling me the protagonist kicked the bucket and you want to end the show?
