Acting on impulse, Wen Wen headed straight for Ding Mingguang’s office to pursue Yan Biqing.
He paused for a moment upon opening the door and seeing the scene inside.
Ding Mingguang, in a rare display, was not watching anime or drinking goji berry water. Instead, he sat with his eyes closed, while all the electronic devices in the room were operating at full throttle.
Every monitor displayed dense lines of rapidly flashing characters, flickering at a speed too fast for the human brain to register.
Although Wen Wen couldn't understand what the characters were, he inexplicably felt that Ding Mingguang was now unfathomably profound.
“Um… I have something I’d like to ask you about. Do you have time now?” Wen Wen asked with some uncertainty.
“Just say what you need to. I’m listening,” Ding Mingguang replied without opening his eyes, the electronic devices continuing their work.
‘He can control such complex systems while conversing with me. What kind of brain does this guy have? No wonder he’s balding at such a young age…’
Wen Wen mused internally as he posed his questions, all concerning Yan Biqing.
“You want me to help you track down Yan Biqing?” Ding Mingguang asked, opening his eyes in surprise after hearing Wen Wen’s account.
“That’s right. I want to fight him. It’ll be very exciting,” Wen Wen offered the same excuse he used with Lin Zheyuan.
Ding Mingguang opened his eyes, leaned forward, and stared sternly at Wen Wen, saying, “You can’t beat him. It’s better not to court death.”
“Oh?” Wen Wen raised an eyebrow. How could he be so certain?
“Firstly, you can’t find him. Unless he causes trouble, even I can’t track his whereabouts. And I don’t recommend you fight him yourself.”
“Why?” Wen Wen asked.
Ding Mingguang recalled for a moment, then told Wen Wen, “You should have his file. It says his ability is ‘body dataization.’ Just from those five words, you can’t grasp how powerful he is.”
“Can you explain it in detail?” Wen Wen’s eyes flashed, and he leaned closer to Ding Mingguang, feigning great interest.
“First, he can enter the imaginary space for short periods. This allows him to ignore most attacks. Of course, in this state, he cannot attack others either.”
“Wait.” Wen Wen raised his hand. “What is imaginary space?”
“If we call the space we live in the real space, then there also exists a space built upon imaginary numbers. A point in real space, in imaginary space…”
Mid-sentence, Ding Mingguang patted his bald head, shook his head, and said to Wen Wen, “Why am I telling you this? You wouldn’t understand… In short, he can hide in another space for a while, and ordinary means cannot interfere with him.”
Wen Wen sighed. He had always considered himself intellectually superior, but with Ding Mingguang, he felt as though he were being looked down upon for his intelligence.
Ding Mingguang continued, “What I’m about to tell you is his primary combat ability.”
“I know you primarily fight using your body. Let’s assume your strength, speed, reaction time, perception, and resistance to impact, each of these attributes is twenty. Your combined numerical value would be one hundred.”
“Yan Biqing’s combined attributes might only be fifty!”
Wen Wen scratched his chin and said, “Then I should be stronger than him.”
“On the surface, yes. But he can convert all his body attributes into numerical values and allocate them freely. The speed of this switch is extremely fast, even faster than your thoughts.”
“Let me put it this way: when he punches, the destructive power of his fist can be fifty. When dodging an attack, his reaction ability will also be fifty…”
Wen Wen briefly estimated that if Ding Mingguang’s description was accurate, then Yan Biqing would indeed be a difficult opponent.
At the same time, Yan Biqing’s ability also made Wen Wen envious!
If Wen Wen could obtain such an ability, he could better coordinate his various superpowers, surely making himself stronger!
Seeing Wen Wen fall silent, Ding Mingguang wasn’t finished and added,
“And don’t forget, he has already completed his advancement. His strength is different from what I understood. I’m afraid that in our Furong River branch, apart from Captain Lin Zheyuan, no one else could last more than a single exchange with him.”
Wen Wen asked in surprise, “Advancement? Didn’t he fail his advancement, which…”
“Advancement is bound to succeed. Every super-powered individual, as long as they accumulate enough, can advance to the Assimilation Realm. There is no prerequisite for this.”
“However, the standard the association generally uses to judge success or failure is not the change in power after advancement, but rather who controls the consciousness after advancing.”
…
Emerging from Ding Mingguang’s office, Wen Wen pondered continuously.
“Although his intelligence is high, his discretion isn’t as good as others. This way, my understanding of the Assimilation Realm grows more and more.”
“From Ding Mingguang’s words, Yan Biqing should be a very powerful super-powered individual. Therefore, success or failure in advancement has nothing to do with strength.”
“Failure means the consciousness is replaced…”
“This is very close to my hypothesis. Judging by Gong Bao Ding’s reaction, the hidden danger during advancement to the Assimilation Realm is common knowledge among super-powered individuals who control the realm. This implies the problem might originate from within each super-powered individual… but I don’t seem to have such a problem.”
“Then, where does the consciousness that replaces the original body come from? A second personality?”
…
Lu Jiang frowned, perusing the comments on the news.
He had a friend who was a firefighter. Previously, a building caught fire, and his friend rushed in to extinguish it. Suddenly, the room exploded, and his friend was killed.
This incident was widely reported by the news in Furong River and even the entire Beihai Province. Most online comments expressed remembrance and sorrow, but one comment was particularly glaring.
It was a comment posted by an anonymous user, filled with extremely harsh words that made Lu Jiang’s heart turn cold.
‘Pity? What’s there to pity about him? Our local firefighters charge double, yet do nothing useful. His death only proves he was unskilled. Who knows how much illicit money he took before? He deserved to die.’
This comment had incensed the public, drawing spontaneous condemnation from netizens. However, this anonymous user was a formidable debater.
He continuously posted multiple news links, discussing things like firefighters’ passive work ethic and firefighters charging exorbitant fees.
He somehow managed to unearth a trove of negative news about firefighters and used these negative reports as evidence, as basis for his vitriol.
Lu Jiang strongly suspected what kind of mentality it took to specifically seek out a pile of material to smear firefighters on a news report about a firefighter’s death.
The more he read, the angrier he became. He knew he shouldn’t argue with such a person; after all, all the comments below this person’s were骂ing him, and he didn’t need to get involved.
But Lu Jiang couldn’t help himself.
Thus, he found himself drawn into an argument with that person…