Volume 8: A Trip to the Sick Village Chapter 405 Skill Upgrade
"Then...if I fuse this thing, will it have any side effects on me?" Ke Lan asked with some concern.
In many fantasy novels, all the props that can quickly improve one's strength are mostly accompanied by some strange side effects, such as the Book of the Golden Flower that requires one to castrate oneself, and elixirs that will overdraw future potential and cause one's strength to stagnate. These are still relatively minor. The most feared are those that will directly cause one to become possessed, explode, and die... There are also those treasures that will subtly influence the user's mind, and even turn the tables - such as a certain famous ring.
"You have already fused half of the crystal. If there are any side effects, they should have appeared." Ze Luo said.
"As for side effects... there don't seem to be any. Radiation resistance, rapid healing... these are all benign mutations, and there's nothing wrong with my body. If I had to say there were side effects, it would probably be frequent nightmares, and hearing the screams of the victims before they died. If it were someone with a weaker mental endurance, they would have probably collapsed long ago."
"You fell into those dreams because of me. Because of this crystal, there is a very special connection between us. No matter how far apart we are, I can sense your presence, even in frozen time."
Ke Lan was stunned for a moment? What was this? A father-daughter relationship that transcends time and space?
But then again, if Ze Luo was really a little human girl, it would be nice to have a daughter like her. It's just that her learning ability is a little too terrifying. Ke Lan has only been in contact with her for half a day, and it feels like the girl has grown from a babbling baby to an independent adult. Her way of thinking is completely in line with the standards of an adult...even according to the standards of a hundreds-year-old monster like Chiron.
If the relationship between Ze Luo and Ke Lan was like that of father and daughter a few hours ago, now it is more like brother and sister.
Ke Lan even had a feeling that after a while, the situation would be reversed... and they would become mother and son???
Sure enough, the creations of the Alpha civilization could never be measured by human standards. No matter how close her appearance was to humans, her essence was still a creature that had existed for tens of thousands of years and was far more advanced than humans.
Ke Lan thought of her previous worries. What if Ze Luo lost interest in "pretending to be human", a "recreation activity" that was just like playing house for them? Would bringing her to the Ark be like bringing a time bomb? No, it should be called a time bomb.
After all, in the eyes of advanced civilizations, the life of lower civilizations can only be regarded as a pastime after dinner - just like a child may stare at ants moving for hours, or may urinate on a whim and destroy the entire ant nest.
But what made Ke Lan feel most tragic was that... he didn't seem to have the capital to reject Ze Luo.
"In addition, the remaining thoughts of the victims have dissipated with the death of the puppet individuals, and you will not hear those voices in the future." Just as Ke Lan was daydreaming, Ze Luo's cold voice without a trace of emotion brought him back to reality.
"This is rare good news." Ke Lan stretched out his hand, wanting to take the half crystal in front of his eyes for a closer look, but as soon as his hand approached, the crystal suddenly floated towards him as if attracted - just as Ke Lan was about to retract his hand, the half crystal suddenly flashed across the distance of more than ten centimeters and drilled into his palm.
Ke Lan didn't even feel any pain as the crystal had already penetrated beneath his skin and dissolved into his blood.
"Could this thing be a stand-in? It can actually attract each other?" Ke Lan complained silently. Everything that just happened was so fast that he didn't even have time to make a surprised expression.
Ze Luo looked at Ke Lan seriously, obviously wondering what the "stand-in" in Ke Lan's words meant - after all, such a wonderful metaphor would not appear in the vocabulary of ordinary humans.
"So, I am... considered 'completed'? Uh, I mean, the half crystal in my body is now a complete one?"
Ze Luo nodded.
"Then my abilities should have changed as well, right?"
Ze Luo nodded again.
As the saying goes, seeing is believing, so Ke Lan decided to give it a try first to see what new changes the crystallization after being "completed" would bring to her abilities .
He took a deep breath and clenched his fists gently.
Everything around him turned black and white in an instant. The wailing sounds that he was accustomed to did not ring in Ke Lan's mind. Instead, there was an unbearable pain coming from deep within his brain!
"ah!"
Ke Lan let out a scream and immediately squatted down with his hands covering his head. At the same time, the time stop effect was lifted and everything around him returned to normal.
"It hurts, it hurts..." Ke Lan said with trembling lips. Even though the pain only lasted for a moment, the impression it left on him was too "deep". Just recalling it made him shudder - this kind of pain went straight to the soul and could not be resisted by human willpower alone. If it was not necessary, Ke Lan absolutely did not want to feel it even once.
"What is going on? Why after the two halves of the crystal merged, it turned out to be..." He stood up from the ground, but suddenly felt dizzy. Fortunately, he grabbed the railing beside him in time and did not fall to the ground.
Ke Lan felt as if his brain had been hollowed out. An irresistible feeling of drowsiness kept welling up from the depths of his brain. Any slight movement made him feel as if there was some heavy liquid shaking inside his head, as if it was filled not with brain matter but mercury, which had a much higher density than brain matter.
"No...just now it seemed..."
Although the memory was painful, Ke Lan still forced himself to try to recall the scene just now - he clearly remembered that when he screamed and put his hands to his head, the surrounding scene was still black and white. It was not until his body began to squat that the world returned to color.
In other words, the screams he made and the action of holding his head with both hands were completed in a time-stopped state.
Doesn't this mean that I have the ability to move while time is stopped?
"Could this be the upgraded 2.0 version of 'Time Stop'?" Ke Lan seemed to have forgotten the discomfort in his body and looked at his hands in amazement. "So, the stinging feeling... was because my mental strength was drained in an instant?"
