Chapter 412 - 375: The Astonishing Changes from the Breakthrough

Chapter 412: Chapter 375: The Astonishing Changes from the Breakthrough

The message from Shi Jingyi was short, but its content was shocking:

"When your Psychic Power limit exceeds one thousand, the Mind Network will activate on its own."

’So that’s how it is!’

Guan Tong was shocked, first that Shi Jingyi had actually broken the one-thousand-point Psychic Power limit, and second that the condition for reactivating the Mind Network was related to one’s Psychic Power limit.

Ever since humanity learned from the Nanomite Swarm that the Mind Network was one way to identify Parasites, they had been trying all sorts of methods to reactivate it.

But no matter what they tried, the result was always failure... He never expected the key to be this: a hard requirement of reaching a one-thousand-point Psychic Power limit.

No wonder humanity hadn’t discovered it before. The threshold was simply too high!

Although every nation treated the median Psychic Power limit of its Ascenders as classified data, never making it public, polls and speculation online suggested that the limit for most ordinary Ascenders was still between 100 and 200.

Those who used the [World First] rule to rack up huge Psychic Power limit bonuses might reach the high hundreds, but they were still a long way from a thousand.

Take Guan Tong himself, for example. In the nearly two years since becoming an Ascender, he had trained diligently, had several fortunate encounters, and earned a few extra opportunities to raise his Psychic Power limit... yet he was still a dozen or so points shy of a thousand.

For Shi Jingyi to be even faster than him, even if she had mastered Psychic Power Flow early on to greatly accelerate its natural growth, she must have also had some fortunate encounters to have progressed so quickly.

After the initial shock passed, Guan Tong understood why Shi Jingyi hadn’t told him this in a message or over the phone.

Their identities were too important; their messages and calls could be monitored. If the monitors were on humanity’s side, it wouldn’t be a big deal... but if the Fire Worship Cult or Parasites had infiltrated some surveillance department and could quickly obtain the information, it would be disastrous.

Once the Parasites learned that an Ascender who broke the thousand-point Psychic Power limit could reactivate the Mind Network and successfully identify them, they would undoubtedly stop at nothing to eliminate any Ascender who met that condition!

For her own safety and Guan Tong’s, Shi Jingyi had to act with caution.

After a few seconds of shock and rapid thinking, Guan Tong replied, "You might be the first Ascender in the world to break the one-thousand-point Psychic Power limit. It’s best not to tell anyone else yet."

Shi Jingyi: "I know. But it’s fine to tell you. If I’m not mistaken, you’re almost there too, right?"

Guan Tong: "Yeah, I’m just a dozen or so points away. I should make it by March. I’m surprised you were so fast."

Shi Jingyi: "I developed a new training method that stimulates accelerated Psychic Power growth. It helped a lot."

Guan Tong: "Teach me!"

Shi Jingyi: "Okay. When are you coming?"

Guan Tong: "I’ll head back to North Star once I’m done with things here in Sisiya. I’ll be as quick as I can. By the way, after breaking one thousand, are there any other changes besides the Mind Network?"

He had been wondering for a long time if there would be new changes after breaking the one-thousand-point Psychic Power limit.

Now that Shi Jingyi was a step ahead of him, he didn’t mind getting a few spoilers. Knowing in advance would help him prepare.

Shi Jingyi: "Besides the Mind Network, the natural growth rate of my Psychic Power has increased again. And I can feel my body has undergone a comprehensive, leap-forward enhancement. The change is so significant, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to call it a complete rebirth."

Guan Tong: "Just as I thought... I suspected it would have this effect. If even a Martial Arts master like you, who’s trained since childhood, feels like it’s a complete rebirth, the sensation must be even more intense for others who break through!"

Shi Jingyi: "Sounds like you’re getting impatient."

Guan Tong: "Of course."

Shi Jingyi: "Oh, right. After breaking one thousand, the comprehensive biological information rating on the Terminal Panel also changes. It goes from ’Excellent’ to ’Perfect’."

’Perfect?’

Guan Tong was slightly startled when he saw that word.

For humans, "perfect" was practically the highest form of praise.

’Does reaching this rating mean a person has reached humanity’s limit? Is that why Shi Jingyi felt a sense of "complete rebirth"?’

Guan Tong: "Just reading your message, I still can’t grasp what that must feel like. It seems I’ll have to wait until I break through myself to truly understand."

Shi Jingyi: "Mm. Guan Tong, I have a question for you."

Guan Tong: "What is it?"

Shi Jingyi: "I don’t know if I’m the first Ascender to break one thousand points, but even if I’m not, there must be very few who have. Do you think I should contact the Strategy Research Room in the next few days and try to use the Mind Network to help identify Parasites? I want to hear your opinion."

Guan Tong fell silent upon seeing Shi Jingyi’s message.

Logically, that was what she should do, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that the risk was too high.

The Strategy Research Room wasn’t an impenetrable fortress; it wasn’t like they’d never had incidents before. There was no guarantee the information wouldn’t be leaked. If there were many Ascenders who had made the breakthrough, it might not be a big deal, but right now, Shi Jingyi was the only one they knew of...

If information about her were to leak, she would become a thorn in the side of all Parasites and any groups hostile to humanity. These entities would relentlessly target her and try to kill her.

At that point, no matter how powerful she was as an individual combatant, she would be overwhelmed when facing hundreds or thousands of times more enemies, both overt and covert.

Perhaps the Strategy Research Room would offer her protection, letting her live inside a base. But if that happened, she could no longer live the relatively free life she had now—teaching classes at the academy when she had them, and training on her own when she didn’t...

Perhaps driven by his own personal feelings, Guan Tong hesitated for a moment before replying: "Don’t do it yet. I know you want to help, but your power alone is limited, and you’d be too easy to target... Wait until I make my breakthrough and return to North Star. We can discuss what to do then."

Compared to his slight indecisiveness, Shi Jingyi was much more composed, replying quickly: "Okay, let’s do that."

Shi Jingyi: "It hasn’t been long since I broke through, so there might be other changes that haven’t manifested yet. I’ll contact you if I discover anything new in the next few days."

Shi Jingyi: "One more thing. This month, the academy gave the lecturers our teaching bonus for all of last year. It was quite a lot. I can pay you back the Sublimation Coins I owe you."

Guan Tong: "...Save it. The value of the information you just gave me is more than ten times what I lent you. I should be paying you instead."

He wasn’t just being polite. Putting everything else aside, if Shi Jingyi chose to sell the single piece of information about the Mind Network’s reactivation condition, she could easily get millions for it.

Shi Jingyi: "Haha, alright then. I’m off to train."

Guan Tong: "Mm."

After learning this crucial information from Shi Jingyi, Guan Tong had to admit that his desire to break through was soaring.

He wanted to experience whether the reactivated Mind Network was different from the one described in the old rules; even more, he wanted to feel what the "complete rebirth" of a comprehensive physical enhancement would be like.

But he knew that being impatient was useless. No matter how eager he was, he had to advance step by step.

"PHEW..."

He took a deep breath and exhaled, suppressing the restless anticipation in his heart and pulling his focus back to the task at hand.

...

Inside a private room at the Night Health Club, Valery was gathered with several other men.

These were the key figures he had mentioned, the ones who controlled Sisiya’s three major domains: "military, government, and finance." Along with the "intelligence" domain he represented as the director of the security bureau, they formed a powerful and complex interest group.

At that moment, the men were holding champagne glasses, reveling in the anticipation of their imminent success.

"Once Sikokun is dead, those who still think Yelena can hold onto her position will stop wavering and naturally flock to our side. With no one left to use under her, she’ll have no choice but to be a figurehead. All real power will be ours."

As Valery finished speaking, the men burst into laughter. Only one of them mentioned, "The others are no threat, but I worry Gutman might make a move."

"Gutman? Hmph, he’s been powerless ever since he stepped down as Governor. Besides, after that good-for-nothing Rijeka died, he completely disappeared from public life. He’s a broken man. What’s there to worry about?"

"That’s right. Now we just wait for the news."

"Valery, after this is done, are you really going to let ’Shadow,’ a foreigner, join us?"

"As if." Valery shook his head. "Have you ever seen anyone hang a dirty rag on the rack after mopping the floor? Once he’s finished the dirty work, we’ll just kick him to the curb."

"Kick him to the curb? What if he’s not happy about it...?"

"I’ll deal with him when the time comes. You all just sit back and enjoy the ride."

While the men were talking, an all-pervasive shadow had already infiltrated the club.

Guan Tong, controlling it remotely, discovered that a few rooms in the club were protected by Psychic Power barriers. He guessed these were the places where important personnel like Valery frequented; such insatiably greedy men were naturally far more afraid of death than ordinary people.

But they were in luck. Guan Tong wasn’t here to kill them today. Otherwise, a few more barriers wouldn’t have been enough to stop him.

The Shadow didn’t alert the enemy. It conducted a brute-force search of every room in the club, excluding those protected by barriers, and finally located the surveillance room on the second basement level.

An entire wall here was covered with surveillance monitors, capturing every room in the club with perfect clarity. Some of the footage was quite obscene.

The several surveillance operators stationed here seemed to have seen it all before. They didn’t even bother to watch, each minding their own business.

Guan Tong didn’t waste any time. Just as he had when he infiltrated the Qingmei Association’s Yongzhou Base, he manipulated several hair-thin Shadow Lines to silently creep onto the surveillance operators. When they reached their necks, the lines suddenly tightened.

"URK!!!"

The men instantly found themselves unable to breathe. One of them raised a hand to slap the alarm button on the desk, but before his palm could land, a Shadow Line wrapped around it, immobilizing him.

Soon, all of them suffocated and passed out. Guan Tong used Body Shifting to enter the room and began accessing the data on the computers’ storage drives.

He didn’t just want the recording of his conversation with Valery that day; he wanted all the other saved recordings too. The subjects of these videos included a large number of Sisiya’s insiders.

Without a doubt, these recordings were one of the methods Valery’s group used to control numerous people connected to the military, government, finance, and intelligence sectors.

First, they established this hidden, invitation-only club. Then, they used its debauchery to corrupt their targets. Finally, with the recordings they made, they could control their targets through a combination of blackmail and persuasion, forcing them to obey.

If someone refused to comply, Valery would use his position as the director of the security bureau, along with fabricated evidence, to attack them both openly and covertly, forcing them into submission.

However, while these recordings were a weapon in the hands of Valery and his cronies, they could also be a weapon in Yelena’s hands. Not only could she use them to go on the offensive, but she could also provide a reasonable explanation to the people of Sisiya.