Chapter 311 - 243: The Sky is Like a Dome (Part 2)

Chapter 311: Chapter 243: The Sky is Like a Dome (Part 2)

She subconsciously looked at the "walking encyclopedia" beside her.

"Mass death, a few mutations, and a very small number that remained unchanged but went into hiding."

Ye Qingzhou didn’t look up. She was carefully examining the scratches on the sword’s body.

"The contamination affects different species to varying degrees. Based on current observations, most small animals died right away in the initial stages of infection because they couldn’t handle the accelerated metabolism it caused."

As she spoke, she casually tossed the piece of Blade in her hand back onto the "material pile" nearby, dusted off her hands, and stood up straight to look at Lin Fan.

"I’ve been observing on our journey. My theory is that it’s probably like this for all animals. The vast majority don’t even qualify to become living corpses—they just become actual corpses. A small portion turn into monsters. As for specimens that remained unchanged... they should exist, but they’re extremely rare."

She paused, a flicker of confusion crossing her calm eyes.

"But humans seem to be an exception.

Humans exhibit a very high rate of mutation, a low rate of remaining unchanged, and an extremely low rate of ’benign mutation’—in other words, Awakening.

So far, I haven’t captured a single living large animal in a ’normal physiological state.’ That pig was a large mutant, and we’ve encountered some small and medium-sized animal mutants before..."

Ye Qingzhou signaled for Cheng Qi to put down the greatsword, and she closed the notebook in her hands.

"It seems this world is rapidly culling the life forms of the ’old era.’ The very fact that we’re alive is, in itself, an extremely improbable survival."

"I don’t care what the world is trying to do. I’ll just do what I have to do..." Lin Fan walked over to Cheng Qi. With a touch of his hand, the greatsword vanished into thin air, freeing the miserable-looking coolie from his burden.

Then, his fingers swept over the pile of materials on the ground, collecting them one by one into his backpack inventory.

"Do you have to physically touch these things to collect them?" Ye Qingzhou asked, opening her notebook again.

"I haven’t really looked into that specifically..." Lin Fan said, extending his hand and making a grasping motion in the air toward a piece of scrap metal on the ground. "Looks like it."

"What if you use the weapon you made to touch them?"

Ye Qingzhou jotted something down with her pen, then threw out a hypothesis without looking up.

"Since that weapon is also a product of your ability, and can even resonate with the energy you produce, shouldn’t it, in a sense, be considered an extension of your own body?"

"...I’ll give it a try." At Lin Fan’s thought, the greatsword reappeared in his hands. He gripped the hilt with both hands and, like a shovel, lowered it parallel to the ground and pushed it toward the pile of materials.

When the greatsword’s blade touched the pile of materials, that feeling of "connection" suddenly appeared. With a thought from Lin Fan, the scrap metal and Blades touching the sword’s body vanished into thin air, reappearing in his backpack inventory...

’A vacuum cleaner!’

"How did you think of that?" Lin Fan looked at Ye Qingzhou in surprise. He’d always just grabbed and tossed these materials around by hand as they appeared in his backpack. He had never considered this possibility, but she’d figured it out.

"Whether it’s storing items or manipulating the weapon to release energy, it’s all essentially about the flow of energy and information..."

Ye Qingzhou answered thoughtfully while writing something in her notebook.

"Since your weapon can channel energy along with your body, it stands to reason that the weapon can also connect to the information your body connects to..."

The tip of her pen paused, and she pointed it at the greatsword in Lin Fan’s hand.

"Since it’s ’connected,’ then a two-way street must also be possible... If information and energy can go in, they can naturally come out."

"I see..."

Lin Fan nodded thoughtfully.

To test this "two-way street" theory, he focused his thoughts once more.

WHOOSH—

A fist-sized metal ball didn’t appear in his palm, but abruptly materialized on the wide surface of the greatsword’s blade.

CLANG—

The metal ball rolled down the slanted blade and hit the ground with a crisp sound.

"It’s connected."

But Lin Fan’s understanding went deeper. It wasn’t so much about the weapon itself, but rather the function of that "module."

[Interface Module: A one-time, permanent link between an object and an energy crystal to construct an energy pathway.]

’So all this time I only paid attention to the first half of the description, and never realized the second half was also a function...’

"Colonel Ye." Lin Fan put away the greatsword and gave a thumbs-up to Ye Qingzhou, who was still writing. He praised her sincerely.

"Your brain works way better than mine... From now on, I’m counting on you for this kind of bug-exploiting."

Although Lin Fan’s compliment didn’t cause any appreciative change to appear on Ye Qingzhou’s cold expression, her hand holding the pen grew noticeably more nimble, and a flicker of pride flashed in her eyes.

"Since the principle is established, let’s move on to the next test." Without any extra pleasantries or nonsense, she went straight to the next hypothesis. "Can you achieve fine-tuned ’flow diversion’ with the energy output in the weapon?"

As she spoke, she tapped twice on the blade of the greatsword in Lin Fan’s hand.

"For example..."

She first tapped a spot near the center of balance, close to the tip, then slid her fingertip along the spine of the blade to the junction between the hilt and the blade.

"Here, and here. Can you apply an identical energy impact to both these points simultaneously and independently? Like... a processor handling two threads at once?"

"Flow diversion?"

Lin Fan froze for a moment.

His combat style had always been about overwhelming force. Whether it was with his previous spear, his current greatsword, or his use of the [Impact Crystal], his approach was always a simple and brutal "full power output."