What is the essence of spiritual energy?
Li Ang sat cross-legged on the floor of the alchemy workshop, lost in thought.
Spiritual energy is the manifestation of mental power. Psionicists call upon their own mental strength and project it into the real world, either distorting matter and reality,
or directly affecting the minds of other living beings, creating effects.
For example, mind blast, mental manipulation, and memory distortion.
So, where does mental power come from?
According to the spiritual energy manual, all living beings with minds possess mental power, whether strong or weak.
The strength of mental power does not depend on the level of intelligence. Some animals on primitive planets also possess innate spiritual energy.
These creatures are usually physically weak and instinctively use spiritual energy to help them hunt, feed, and protect themselves—just as other creatures use sharp teeth and claws to protect themselves.
Spiritual energy is not mysterious or unpredictable.
Intelligent creatures can stimulate their mental potential and hone their skills through proper training, improving their spiritual energy levels faster than wild animals.
In a few years, they can learn the instinctive talents that wild animals have taken millions of years to evolve,
and on this basis, develop complex spiritual energy usage techniques.
Mental power comes from consciousness.
Consciousness, in turn, comes from the brain or other types of nervous systems.
Returning to the beginning of life's evolution, excluding the interference of animism or creationism, the source of consciousness in living beings is the instinct to seek advantage and avoid harm.
An independent organism instinctively maintains itself and creates more similar individuals. In this process, it needs energy.
Creatures living in an absolutely stable and abundant environment can steadily obtain energy and will not generate any needs, including movement.
Of course, this is an extremely ideal environment. In most cases, creatures must seek unevenly distributed energy to sustain their existence.
In this process, they need the ability to move and the ability to perceive the outside world, such as sight, smell, and awareness, to seek advantage and avoid harm, stay away from danger, and approach food, thereby obtaining energy quickly and safely.
That's still not enough. Creatures living in dangerous environments also need to generate a "purpose." They need to actively seek food, even if the food is no longer within their perception range. They can continue to explore based on residual perception.
Creatures with nervous systems have memories generated by the need for purpose. And memories generate imagination.
Creatures not only need to remember the shape, direction, and location of food, but also combine external factors on this basis to imagine the relationship between themselves, food, and other elements in the outside world, and how it will change over time.
The brain, as the cornerstone, generates memories, memories give birth to purpose, and purpose stimulates imagination. All elements such as the brain, memories, and imagination are mixed together to form the feeling that intelligent life has for the objective material world at this moment—that is, consciousness.
Li Ang frowned, gently pressing the ground with his five fingers. Around his body, there was a circle of invisible, intangible, and surging spiritual energy fluctuations.
In short, spiritual energy is born out of suffering.
It is the harsh external environment that prompts creatures to move, forage, and kill each other for limited food and space resources, ultimately giving rise to all kinds of suffering that do not exist in inanimate environments.
Psionicists go against the tide, fighting against heaven, fighting against earth, fighting against people, using suffering as fuel, licking their wounds, drinking blood, and growing stronger.
But why should transcendents become stronger?
Why should people live?
Li Ang stared at the cement floor of the alchemy workshop, lost in silence.
Along the way, he had seen too many people and things, and had seen too much suffering—much of which was completely unreasonable.
Parents who lost their children, fell into despair, and became mentally unstable;
In beggar dens, women and children were missing their hands and feet, and no one knew where they came from;
Elderly people suffered from diseases and were unable to work or move;
Peers in remote villages continued the numb lives of their ancestors, working hard;
Others who witnessed or heard sad stories might feel a brief pang of heartache, shed a few tears, and sigh a few times,
But this emotion would eventually disappear.
For the parties involved, life continued, and the aftermath of suffering was something called tranquility.
Just like a stone thrown into a lake will eventually sink to the bottom, dispersing the ripples,
All unbearable suffering will be deposited, solidified, and transformed into a terrible tranquility under the grinding of time.
Li Ang's eyes were solemn, and between breaths, spiritual energy flowed out instinctively.
In the face of fate, everyone's only choice
is to endure the pain, bathe in the tranquility, and then live on—to live for the sake of living itself, to experience the feeling of being alive.
But what if not?
Many faces flashed before Li Ang's eyes, and his eyes seemed to be burning with a flame, and the spiritual energy fluctuations around his body suddenly expanded.
Human minds and abilities are limited, but transcendents can carry more and transform more reality.
In the past, Li Ang was often in a state of anger.
Angered by the filth and ugliness in the hearts of some humans, angered by the dark corners of human society that the sun cannot reach, and angered by the obstacles and stagnation that the social system encounters in maintaining fairness and justice.
People shouldn't just be alive.
The mental energy around Li Ang's body gradually took on color, converging and forming, like millions of broken pieces of glass colliding, rotating, absorbing, and overlapping.
The Three Realms are insecure, like a burning house, full of suffering, extremely terrifying.
When Buddha saw the suffering in the world, he felt compassion, spread his teachings, and wanted all living beings to seek inner peace—this is Buddha's compassion.
But the world is like a burning house. No matter how calm and stable, or how detached from oneself, one cannot change the fact that hundreds of millions of living beings are in a fiery furnace and a boundless sea of karma.
It is better to shatter the suffering and recast the order.
Li Ang clenched his fist lightly. The will to shatter and recast was as firm and dazzling as a diamond. His mind was clear and bright, and the anger that was entangled in his memories was now transformed into a burning fire.
The power of individual humans is limited, but transcendents can do more.
He not only wanted to live peacefully himself, but also wanted to let others, more people, live with dignity and honor in this world—a world without class, without exploitation and oppression, a world of human self-liberation.
"Whether it's ambition or compassion..."
Li Ang slowly stood up from the ground and said lightly: "I have the ability to make this world a better place..."
With clear thoughts and a clear mind, the surging spiritual energy surrounding Li Ang gradually calmed and stabilized, turning into a bottomless ancient well, tranquil and deep.
The content recorded in the mental ability manual naturally appeared in his mind. With a thought, spiritual energy spontaneously condensed and formed, ready to be released.
Mental Enchantment Series Level 4 Ability: [Domination]: Forcibly order the target to obey the will;
[World-Weariness]: Instill negative and pessimistic emotions into the target;
[Forced Mind Link]: Create a mental link between two unwilling targets;
[Clear Memory]: Erase recent memories;
[Create Memory]: Instill false and incorrect memories into the target;
Invisible and intangible spiritual energy flowed slowly.
Li Ang had a vague intuition that as long as he was willing, he could release multiple spiritual energy spells from the level 4 list at any time.
Not only that, but he could also freely cast level 2 abilities from other factions such as prophecy, creation, transformation, and self-shaping.
Could this be considered... a breakthrough?
Li Ang smiled and waved his hand casually, dispersing the surrounding spiritual energy.
After advancing to demigod, his physical constitution did not undergo a qualitative leap, but the upper limits of his sanity and spiritual power increased a lot.
With the foundation of a demigod, the breakthrough of spiritual energy was a natural consequence.
"[Mental Ability Manual Crystal - Beginner], only displays level zero tricks, up to level 4 mental abilities. To learn mental abilities from levels 5-7, you still need to sacrifice three perfect-level extraordinary items. The conditions are the same as when unlocking for the first time."
Li Ang casually thought: "Before, I sacrificed my own stock of extraordinary items, mainly because I was afraid of causing unnecessary trouble by overpaying in the mall auction house - the prices of almost all perfect-level items rose by 30% during that time.
Now that the Doorway Contention War is over, the Zerg Nest's development is on track, and I myself have advanced to demigod, I have enough self-protection ability.
It's not impossible to directly spend money to buy three perfect-level items in the auction house..."
The Killing Game's version update lifted the drop restrictions on epic-level equipment,
plus the overall expansion of the player base,
the frequency of perfect-level props appearing in the mall or auction house has increased a lot, and the prices are also relatively reasonable.
"The runner-up reward for the Doorway Contention War is 30,000 game coins, plus the net profit of the Immaculate Furnace shop during this period, minus the cost of purchasing alchemy materials, potion materials, and the materials needed for the large-scale development of the Zerg Nest...
I still have some game coins on me now."
Li Ang nodded, "It should be enough."
As soon as he walked out of the alchemy workshop,
he saw that Chai Chai had somehow moved out the paper Frost Iron Throne shell that he had used in the Sheng Nan Wang script mission,
and was sitting on the throne with a solemn and deep expression, staring into the distance.
Li Ang felt inexplicable and asked Shuang Dao Huo Ji (Double-Blade Turkey), who looked devout beside the throne, "What's going on?"
"Her Holiness the Saintess is watching the first generation of converters,"
Shuang Dao Huo Ji piously made a gesture on his chest and said reverently, "Her Holiness the Saintess believes that they are your first human believers in the mortal world, and they must be strictly selected, inspected, and tested before they can shoulder the heavy responsibility."
"Hmm?"
Li Ang raised an eyebrow and immersed his thoughts in the divine power link.
As the master of the divine power network, he found Chai Chai's thought fluctuations.
At this moment, Chai Chai was lowering his voice and murmuring in the minds of all the first batch of converted people around the world: "...Work hard, strive, don't think about what the Zerg Nest can do for you, think about what you can do for the Zerg Nest."
"Being able to fight for the will of the Zerg Nest is a great blessing, a blessing that has been cultivated for three lifetimes and that ordinary people cannot get even if they want to. Work hard, strive, and do some truly beneficial things to help you and your children have more blessings."
"A person's life should be spent like this: when he looks back on the past, he will not regret wasting his years, nor will he be ashamed of doing nothing; in this way, when he is dying, he can say that he has dedicated his entire life and all his energy to the most precious cause in life - fighting for the Zerg Nest to liberate and save all mankind..."
Chai Chai's voice, under the rendering of the spiritual energy network, sounded magnificent, deep, and powerful, with a strong Morgan Freeman-style persuasiveness,
What made Li Ang even more egg-ache was that
Chai Chai had also dragged in a few idle Cerebrates from somewhere, and asked them to use spiritual energy to emit magnificent human voice accompaniment sounds of "Ah~ Ah~" in the communication network.
"As converters, you bear the heavy responsibility of spreading the will of the Zerg Nest. Spread seeds, spread love, peace, and hope."
"In this process, ordinary people who do not understand the great cause of the Zerg Nest's will may harbor malice towards you. They think that you are erasing individual will and are traitors helping alien races enslave humans. But these are all misunderstandings."
"The Zerg Nest has come for peace. In the face of chaos, only by embracing the Zerg Nest and accepting the guidance of the Zerg Nest can more humans be liberated. Therefore, you need to take the initiative to spread it."
"Spreading needs to be done in secret, by directly planting parasites on others through physical contact, or by spreading Zerg eggs in water sources..."
"If the process is discovered, you need to contact the Genestealers in the city where you are located and let them help clean up. Don't be afraid of being discovered, the Zerg Nest is your strongest backing..."
Chai Chai seductively instilled the great plan of the Zerg Nest's will into the converters, teaching them how to spread the Zerg eggs more widely, which made Li Ang smack his lips beside him.
He felt that Chai Chai was becoming more and more skilled in the position of Saintess...
Li Ang eavesdropped for more than ten minutes, listening to Chai Chai's impassioned description of the beautiful scene of the human world after the realization of the Zerg Nest's great plan, where there would be no more exploitation and oppression.
Her speech was not just a speech,
but also accompanied by the hormones released by the parasites, and the secondary and tertiary mental abilities released by the Cerebrates.
Such as [Sensory Intrusion], [Suggestion], [Mind Link], etc.
Under the superposition of various factors, the first batch of converted people had already begun to develop a power of faith that could be described as firm in the will of the Zerg Nest in the dark.
This power of faith was transmitted and flowed through the divine power link, and then transmitted to Li Ang through the Cthulhu figurine.
Although the efficiency of the power of faith provided by the first batch of converted people was not high due to the unclear subject of prayer (the converted people did not know who the superior was), it was still considerable with the blessing of the base number.
"The creator of the Zerg Nest is an wise and great慈父(Cifu/Compassionate Father). He is the most supreme, the most holy, the most great, the most high, the most pure, the most blessed, one and also ten thousand, the beginning and also the end. He is the embodiment of perfection, compassionately providing food and shelter..."
The corner of Li Ang's eye twitched, and he shook his head as he watched Chai Chai, who was improvising and creating the follow-up content of the Saint Chai Revelation, and casually instructed Shuang Dao Huo Ji, and then left the real world and logged into the game square.