Book 3, Chapter 25: Change

The two-story house burned furiously on the hill. The rolling, black smoke rose into the sky, and sparks danced in the area.

Chen Chuan did as Wu Ruo had asked and burned his body along with the house.

In order to get rid of all the traces, he even collected all the wooden boards that broke apart during their fight and threw them into the fire.

Just then, the airflow stirred something within the grass, sending it flying. Chen Chuan reached up and grabbed Black Orchid Co.’s advertisement. He cast it a look before throwing it into the fire as well.

After making sure that he didn’t leave behind anything, he contacted Wu Bei through his Realm Pass. “No one was observing our fight, right?”

“Don’t worry. While you were fighting, I blocked all the biofields in the area. In any case, this place is practically deserted, so you don’t need to worry about anyone reporting it,” Wu Bei assured him.

“Okay,” Chen Chuan said. Central City was different from other places. Due to the existence of Realm Passes and Realm Nodes, the authorities could figure out what had happened through various methods, like the messages sent out during that time. That was why Chen Chuan needed Wu Bei to intercept any messages from being sent out during his fight with Wu Ruo.

That wasn’t all. If necessary, he had even been ready to ask Wu Bei to cause Wu Ruo’s Realm Pass to malfunction so that his focus would be affected.

Wu Bei was really excited. During the fight, he was unable to see anything clearly aside from when they stopped moving. He only saw the shattering of the bricks and wooden boards, along with the huge holes being created on the ground. The power they displayed was at a superhuman level.

Chen Chuan’s fight against Gold Prawn had been amazing enough, but this time, Wu Bei came to truly witness just how strong martial artists could be. The powerful ones were on a completely different level.

Just then, he thought of something. “Chen Chuan, considering how Wu Ruo was acting, I think he had a fright disorder.”

“Fright disorder?”

“Yes. In government and corporate terms, it’s called functional dysregulation syndrome.

“If a person is exposed to a gigantic shapeshifting lifeform’s biofield for an extended period of time, uses their Realm Pass too much, and faces multiple stimulations from medicine and implants, their ability to differentiate reality from illusion will weaken.

“They then lose sense of their real self and the real world. In this state of confusion, they do many things normal people wouldn’t do.

“This is just the general description, though. The disorder is really complex, but that’s all I know about it.”

Chen Chuan nodded. From the moment he came to Central City, the environment in the city had damaged his second self. It came from the switch between biofields.

If an average person were exposed to such an environment for a prolonged period of time, they would get affected, but this could barely be considered a scratch to a martial artist. Something more complicated had to have led to Wu Ruo’s condition.

There’s also something wrong with the land here… Chen Chuan thought as he looked at the foot of the hill.

But he didn’t have the time to look into it. After all, Central City was full of life, and everyone competed to stand above the rest. He didn’t have the energy to get to the bottom of every problem, not that it was even possible.

There was also something else that concerned him more.

After the fight with Wu Ruo, even if he hadn’t had the time to check, he was sure that his overlap time with his second self had exceeded twenty-four hours.

He had always had a feeling that his second self would go through some sort of change once he hit the twenty-four-hour mark. It was close to midnight now, so Chen Chuan would soon get his answer.

Once he said goodbye to Wu Bei, he turned off his Realm Pass and took out the watch from his pocket.

The seconds ticked by until midnight.

Chen Chuan lowered his watch to observe how his second self had changed and noticed something strange.

What’s this?

He looked to the side, and as he focused, he found that the dancing sparks, flying leaves, drifting grass, and everything else had become much slower.

It was as if he had overlapped with his second self.

But there was a problem: Chen Chuan hadn’t overlapped with him.

He clenched his fists and sensed the energy contained within.

I see. After reaching the twenty-four-hour mark, the second self fuses with me. Does this mean that he has disappeared? Chen Chuan wondered.

His question was quickly answered when he turned to the side.

His second self was standing around as usual while showing faint signs of blurring out. He was still withstanding the damage from the world.

Chen Chuan then asked his second self to overlap with him, but this time, aside from still absorbing damage for him, he didn’t give him any extra boosts in power or strength.

No. That’s not it. It’s not that I didn’t get any boost, but that it’s very weak. It’s as if… a normal person had overlapped with me, Chen Chuan observed.

His thoughts raced as he asked his second self to leave so that he could observe him, and he immediately had an idea of what had happened. His second self’s physical abilities had returned to their default state, which was when Chen Chuan had just transmigrated.

Chen Chuan had always had the theory that his second self was the him of the other world. He was Chen Chuan, but Chen Chuan’s arrival in this world had shattered the boundary between worlds.

By the looks of it, once he fulfilled the requirements, the him of another world would fuse with him, but wouldn’t disappear because of it. It was just that after the fusion, the second self would return to the state from when Chen Chuan first arrived.

Chen Chuan didn’t need to do any tests. After overlapping with his second self, he knew that the total overlap time was one day and four hours. He had moved past the twenty-four-hour mark and was now headed to a new goal further down the path.

He could also sense that his second self would grow stronger as time went by.

No. That wasn’t quite accurate. He should say that as time went by, his strength would grow closer to Chen Chuan’s, though Chen Chuan would need to take an active role in helping his second self grow stronger.

He didn’t know whether that meant that his second self would end up becoming as strong as Chen Chuan currently was or whether he would be as strong as Chen Chuan was before their fusion. However, even if it was just the latter, he would still give a great boost of power.

After overlapping with his second self, Chen Chuan found that he had also gained a new ability.

He shut his eyes for a second, and his strength returned to before the fusion.

When he overlapped with his second self, he could restrict his strength to the point before the fusion. In other words, he could remove the fused second self from himself.

That made things interesting.

This wasn’t a useless ability. He would even wager that it was really useful. After all, the stronger a person was, the more materials and energy were needed to keep them alive and functioning.

Chen Chuan already needed much more nutrients during training than before. If he became even stronger, he would need a lot more energy just to stay alive, while if he overlapped with his second self and stayed in his “weakened” state, he could minimize his energy usage and avoid running out of energy altogether.

There might be other uses too. Chen Chuan had figured out one of them and was going to look for others when he returned.

As he stared at the roaring flames, he remembered what He Xiaoxing had told him. Attaching the word “Limit” to the martial art stages was to show that there was a limit to a person’s strength. As long as they remained humans, no matter how strong their mutated tissue got, at some point, they would reach a peak. Theoretically, only perfect beings could reach that peak.

During the test, even after overlapping with his second self, Chen Chuan had been unable to reach that theoretical peak. He was close to it, though. He wondered whether after fusing with his second self he would be able to reach that peak of the Second Limit, or would he still be a distance away?

He had a feeling that there was still a distance, but with his second self, there would come a day where he could reach or even surpass it.

As he stood quietly before the roaring flames, the quiet night waited behind him. The Frost King Saber was situated next to him, while the wind made his scarf and trench coat dance.

Chen Chuan waited for another hour before the fire finally died and the house was reduced to ashes. Once he ensured that nothing special was left behind, he turned on his Realm Pass, and with Wu Bei’s help, got rid of the remaining traces before picking up the Frost King Saber and leaving the place.

By the time he arrived at the tram station, it was close to 2 a.m., but when he boarded the tram, more than half the seats were occupied by office workers.

They could work for much longer due to the help of medicine and implants. Even if they only clocked off now, it was just an hour or two later than the usual time they got off work, so many of them were already used to it.

Chen Chuan used his Realm Pass to check the two people Wu Ruo had mentioned before he died.

Yuan Binshu was not from the university, since there was no such person among the lecturers, top management, or students. Chen Chuan decided to look into him later.

As for the other person, Wu Ruo had failed to say their name, but there were only two people with Ling as their surname among the lecturers and top management. One of them was a university consultant in his eighties and didn’t teach a single course, while the other was Ling Jianxing, the vice chancellor’s assistant.

Chen Chuan had a feeling that Wu Ruo had been talking about the vice chancellor’s assistant.

The two people might have something to do with the entire mess. If that were the case, would they and the other people involved in this give up because of Wu Ruo’s death?

If they had a greater goal, they were unlikely to give up.

While Chen Chuan mulled over this, the tram reached the university. When he left the tram station and returned to the Arcane Palace, it was already past 3 a.m..

Just as he was about to walk into the hall, he saw Hongfu standing on the roof, and he gave her a nod.

After seeing him, Hongfu turned her lively eyes toward him and gave him a nod as well.

Chen Chuan looked away. From the moment he left the hill, he had overlapped with his second self so that he could remain in his former state.

His biofield readings were practically the same as when he left the campus.

After he walked into the hall and entered the elevator, Chen Chuan watched the numbers move up as he thought about how reducing his strength to his unfused state and having his second self absorb damage was undoubtedly going to eat away at his overlap time, even if it had already gone past the twenty-four-hour mark.

On top of that, if he wanted to make his second self return to being almost as strong as Chen Chuan was, he was going to have to extend the overlap time, just like before.

The elevator doors opened, and he returned to his room. Once he set the Frost King Saber down, he looked at the beautiful night scenery outside, drew the curtains, took a shower, and went to bed.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep