“So what’s going on here?” Shen Ge was confused for a moment. This situation clearly completely violated the distortion-space principles between “reality” and the dream world.
But Shen Ge already had no shortage of questions on his plate. If he couldn’t figure it out, he might as well stop trying. Things would work out when the time came—these questions would have their answers someday.
The most important thing for Shen Ge right now was to recover his body as quickly as possible, then use his dream power to return to “reality” first and check things out. During the “half a day” he’d been missing, who knew if something had gone wrong on that side again.
To recover quickly, lying in a hospital bed for half a month was obviously not an option. Shen Ge thought of the recovery items he’d just drawn.
But he suddenly realized the Red Mist Armor wasn’t with him. The things he’d drawn had always been kept in his backpack—but where was the backpack now?
And what about the blood spider that little Seven was controlling?
“Fang Mingyue?” Shen Ge shouted toward the door.
The next second the door opened and Fang Mingyue poked her head in. “Shen Ge, you were looking for me?”
Shen Ge knew this girl wouldn’t just leave obediently. She’d definitely be waiting right outside the door until he was fully recovered. His efforts in not mistreating this paramecium—whether in “reality” or the dream world—hadn’t been wasted.
“I should still have a black backpack. Do you know where it went?” Shen Ge asked.
Fang Mingyue walked into the room, went to the cabinet beside the hospital bed, opened it, and took out Shen Ge’s clothes and backpack. “I’ve been keeping all your things for you. Because your identity is rather special, the captain also ordered that no one is allowed to touch your belongings… Take a look, are these them?”
Shen Ge took the backpack and placed it on the bedside table. He didn’t open it directly, but thanked her and said, “Actually, my body is pretty much fine now. Besides, this is the Exploration Team’s hospital—if anything comes up, it’s convenient to find you. You’ve probably not rested well while watching over me these past few days. Go back and rest first. I’ll find you if I need anything.”
“Okay, I’ve arranged for a nurse to be on duty outside. If you need anything, just call her. If you need me, have her contact me. I’ll head back to the team now,” Fang Mingyue said.
After Fang Mingyue left, Shen Ge took the backpack and opened it. His equipment and the supplies he’d drawn were all inside. Judging from how they were arranged, it was indeed as Fang Mingyue had said—no one had touched his things.
What Shen Ge needed most right now was to replenish his distortion energy, so he directly took out a Mental Apple and ate it. And then… nothing happened?
Due to his weak body, his attribute values were all very low, but at least they were slowly recovering. Only his distortion energy remained at zero. Shen Ge had assumed it had been completely drained, but a Mental Apple should have filled it back up instantly. Yet there was no reaction at all.
“System?” Shen Ge called out.
No response.
But Shen Ge quickly realized the system wasn’t little Seven—it wouldn’t communicate beyond commands. So he added, “Initiate lottery draw.”
As Shen Ge’s command was issued, the system’s familiar lottery interface appeared before his eyes. Like the panel functions, it could be used normally, which meant the system wasn’t malfunctioning.
“System, scan me,” Shen Ge said.
【Now beginning detection of host’s distortion energy intensity——】
【Current rating: Grade 5.】
The rating was fine. At least in the system’s eyes, there was nothing wrong with his distortion energy intensity. So why was there not a single bit of distortion energy?
“System, why can’t my distortion energy recover at all?” Shen Ge asked.
The system went back to playing dead. Fortunately, Shen Ge was already used to the system dropping the ball at critical moments. At times like this, little Seven was far more reliable.
Wait—speaking of little Seven… where was the blood spider?
Shen Ge turned the backpack upside down, dumping everything onto the bed. He even forced himself to get up, open the cabinet, and go through his clothes, but there was no sign of the blood spider.
Where had little Seven gone?
Shen Ge didn’t believe little Seven would leave while he was unconscious. Either it had fallen out somewhere during the descent, or it had been left behind in that strange black space.
The system was playing dead, the Mental Apple couldn’t restore his distortion energy, so Shen Ge could only pin his hopes on other recovery items.
He first ate two Internal Injury Recovery Pills, then removed the bandages from his body and treated himself with Recovery Bandages. Sure enough, after treatment, his attribute values rose by another large margin.
Although Shen Ge was severely injured, he hadn’t lost any limbs, so there was no need for things like “Limb Restoration Agent.”
At this moment, Shen Ge noticed a piece of black rotten flesh about the size of two fingers pressed under the Anti-Distortion Revolver—”Body Regeneration Substance.” This thing gave the Red Mist Armor its incredibly strong recovery ability. Shen Ge couldn’t help but wonder: if he swallowed it, would he turn into Majin Buu?
But he quickly dismissed the idea. After all, he was only half-human, half-anomaly now—he didn’t fully consider himself a weirdo. If he swallowed this thing, there’d really be no going back.
【Detected a substance that can repair the system. Proceed with “Devour”?】
?
??
???
Shen Ge stared at the black rotten flesh in his hand with a dumbfounded expression. He really wanted to ask: “System, are you sick? You gave me this as a reward, and now you want to devour it back? What does that even mean—self-production and self-sales?”
Shen Ge was almost laughed to anger by the system. Throughout history, had there ever been a recorded “system” that asked its own host to “recycle” the rewards it had given out?
But complaints aside, Shen Ge and the system were now in a symbiotic relationship like Venom and Eddie. The anomaly power in his body all came from the system. So if the system devoured the “Body Regeneration Substance,” maybe it really could give him regeneration abilities too.
Although this “I gave it, now I want it back to eat myself” situation was somewhat absurd, it at least avoided the danger of Shen Ge devouring it himself.
“Devour!” After thinking it over again and again, Shen Ge finally decided to let the system devour it. After all, he also wanted to know what changes would occur after the system devoured it.
【Beginning devouring of Progenitor Anomaly cells——】
As expected!
Seeing this notification, Shen Ge wasn’t surprised. What the system was interested in was most likely “Progenitor Anomaly cells,” even if it had been the one to reward it.
However, since the system’s “rewards” were either transferred from reality or from the dream world, it wasn’t strange that something the system itself was interested in would appear.
【Devouring successful.】
With a flash of white light, the black rotten flesh in Shen Ge’s hand disappeared, just like how it had appeared when he’d drawn it.
【System is upgrading base functions. After the upgrade is complete, new functions will be unlocked. Please check back in two days.】
【All system-related functions are currently unavailable.】
“Great, offline for upgrades again, huh?” A familiar shutdown-and-update situation. Although there was plenty to complain about, Shen Ge really had no interest in complaining anymore.
Two days it was. He could use this time to investigate the weirdo organization behind the shelter. If he could find clues related to “reality,” great. If not, he’d treat it as helping his “acquaintances” in this world deal with some trouble. He was quite satisfied with how the backpack situation had been handled.
During the two days waiting for the system update, Shen Ge could only move around the hospital and the Exploration Team’s area since his body was still weak.
During this time, Deng Yuqi and Liu Jiayi both came to visit him a few times. The other teams and the new council had also long heard of this “mysterious figure” Shen Ge. More and more visitors came, which annoyed Shen Ge greatly, so he handed off the task of dealing with visitors to Fang Mingyue.
Although the paramecium’s thinking was erratic, she was quite skilled at handling this kind of thing and solved a big headache for Shen Ge.
Shen Ge wasn’t idle these two days either. Under the guise of “sightseeing,” accompanied by Fang Mingyue, he visited the Research Department and the underground factory. But what surprised him was that the researchers participating in the research didn’t seem problematic, and what they were researching wasn’t weirdo-related projects, but practical distortion-energy equipment.
For example, the distortion-energy detector Shen Ge had previously “contributed”—the Research Department had now found some research directions and wanted to try mass-producing these detectors to ensure that warriors going out could safely avoid high-grade anomalies and improve survival rates.
Shen Ge was a combatant, not a researcher. He didn’t have better suggestions when it came to research, but drawing on years of experience dealing with high-grade anomalies, he did tell Fang Mingyue quite a few methods for handling them.
Just from these “unimaginable” anti-distortion tactics Shen Ge proposed, Fang Mingyue could tell that the anomaly incidents, big and small, that Shen Ge had experienced were things they couldn’t even dare to imagine. Her admiration for Shen Ge increased another few notches, and she wished she could recommend him to Deng Yuqi as a tactical advisor.
On the third day at dawn, as Shen Ge lay in the dormitory resting, the system’s notification that the upgrade was complete rang out in his mind——
【All system functions have been restored to normal.】
【The system has completed its Grade 6 upgrade. The host may check new functions through the panel.】
“Grade 6?” Shen Ge shot up from the bed, all drowsiness gone. He’d thought this was just an ordinary devour-and-recover, but who would have expected it would complete a Grade 6 mutation?
No wait—thinking about it again, the Red Mist Armor could become an indestructible divine artifact thanks to this strange “Body Regeneration Substance.” That showed just how valuable this piece of Progenitor Anomaly cells was.
What Shen Ge found strange, though, was why the system hadn’t prompted him to devour the first piece of “Body Regeneration Substance” when he’d drawn it.
Could this be related to his weak body somehow?
Shen Ge opened the panel with confusion, wanting to see what differences there were between the system at Grade 5 and after completing this “high-grade anomaly” transformation.
The moment he looked, he was stunned. Not only had all the system’s functions undergone earth-shaking changes, but some functions had been revolutionized.
【Shen Ge】
Rating: Grade 6
System integration: 100%
“System (Grade 6)”: Man-made Anomaly Sequence 1, Trait: Devour——After killing an anomaly, the anomaly’s corpse can be devoured.
System integrity: 60%
Trait: “Devour”
This trait’s abilities are divided into “Charging Devour” and “Fusion Devour.”
Charging Devour: After devouring a target, the system can be charged to obtain energy (system points) to use “Random Supply Teleportation” and “Targeted Supply Teleportation.”
————The host can lock onto coordinate points through “Dream Power” and build teleportation channels to transport matter through the channel.
Dream power consumption for teleportation within the current world (very weak);
Cross-space teleportation (extremely strong).
Cannot cross dream worlds that haven’t been locked onto through dream power.
————————
The evolution of “Charging Devour’s” function was the first thing that surprised Shen Ge. Previously, he could only “extract (transfer)” supplies to himself through the system.
Although after the system upgrade, he could first consume system points to scan, then conduct targeted transfers to avoid the system pulling in useless “junk” when extracting from an area, the essence of this ability was still one-way transfer.
Now after the upgrade, Shen Ge could not only establish teleportation channels through dream power to transfer supplies from an area to himself, but even transfer things to locations where channels had been established.
“Why does this ability feel similar to the weirdo organization’s teleportation device? Wait—could it be that the weirdo organization has also mastered dream power?” Thinking this, Shen Ge suddenly felt it was actually quite possible. Then he thought of that “big whale” that could travel through space…
The key, the space-traveling anomaly, the teleportation power… Shen Ge believed there had to be some connection between these points. If the weirdo organization’s goal was to establish a connection between “reality” and the dream world, then the “big whale” was very likely their initial research, and Shen Ge… was the more reliable “key.”
Shen Ge suddenly felt enlightened, as if he’d figured out why Rongshan Psychiatric Hospital had been so devoted to researching parasitic-type anomalies.
First, as an anomaly gradually mutates from low-grade to high-grade, it means they gradually slip out of the researcher’s control. The danger of creating a high-grade anomaly is imaginable.
If the “big whale” was the weirdo organization’s initial research into cross-space travel, then it had clearly already escaped their control.
So they learned from experience and began new attempts. First, they researched parasitic-type anomalies that were easier to control. These “little bugs” were—one, easier to manipulate, and two, had a lower mutation probability than ordinary anomalies. By having them “parasitize” within high-grade anomalies, the Weirdo Association could control high-grade anomalies.
The high-grade anomalies and high-grade weirdos Shen Ge had encountered—whether fusion-type or not—all more or less showed traces of parasitic-type anomalies within their bodies. This showed the speculation had great potential.
And Shen Ge, the “key” in the Weirdo Association’s eyes, was very likely the third-stage product derived after the first-stage “Big Whale Plan” and the second-stage “Parasite Anomaly Plan.”
It wasn’t Shen Ge’s fault for overthinking. The series of experiments that Rongshan Psychiatric Hospital and the Weirdo Association had conducted on him definitely had some purpose.
If a world is destined for destruction, then human thinking would naturally seek a way out. Moreover, the Earth would have a “reboot” mode that erases everything and restarts—even if whether this mode currently exists is still unknown, these people didn’t want to just wait for death.
So they thought of a method that wasn’t really a method. Shen Ge had also thought of this method after mastering dream power’s travel ability—that is, finding worlds that had already reached their endings, locking onto coordinate points there to establish teleportation, and then transferring survivors there to live.
