Chapter 1185: The Hive
Perhaps provoked, or perhaps having fallen into the mental gateway left by Dr. Zhang and unable to easily withdraw, Tang Guangbo did not simply let go and leave. Instead, he waved his hand to expand the space where the two of them stood, attempting to rebuild the cage from before.
However, the eyes outside the space were not willing to let things go. The pressure they exerted repeatedly compressed the expanded area back down again, and as more and more eyes gathered, Tang Guangbo's watch face began to deform under the strain, clearly on the verge of collapse.
Xu Huo was not shocked for the first time by Dr. Zhang's power. Even before the treatment began, he had sensed that this man might have profound achievements in mental evolution, but the fact that just a single mental gateway within a memory possessed such intensity was still unexpected.
While Tang Guangbo was locked in a tug-of-war with the eyes, Xu Huo once again opened his spiritual world. This time, the Library Tower unfolded smoothly, even managing to push the space open for a moment, but it was soon counterattacked and instantly crushed entirely.
This time, what was crushed also included Tang Guangbo's watch face. As the space collapsed, both of them were swept apart by the surging eyes, each pulled into a different eye.
Entering the eye world meant that one's consciousness would wander along with it. From the outside, it might seem like an instant, but within this spiritual space, it could be long and painful... Xu Huo was no stranger to such pain, but he had no memory of the previous time, so this round was a fresh start. Moreover, because he had already begun his mental evolution, he was more easily drawn into these worlds and found it harder to extricate himself.
Still, he was well aware that the gateway Dr. Zhang had created was meant to train him, so there must be a suitable exit.
Bearing the immense pressure and pain, he wandered through the eye world, switching between countless spaces. He even encountered the eye that preserved his Library Tower twice. Finally, while passing through the gap between two eyes, he found something different from the rest of the gateway space—a hexagonal pattern.
Xu Huo reached out and grabbed it, only to find himself entering an even more complex world. It was like a hive, densely packed with hexagonal entrances and exits, and he stood on one of those hexagons.
"A hive..." he murmured. "No wonder the space behind this gate has more rooms than ants."
Generally, the complexity of a spiritual world is related to the evolution level of the evolver themselves. The stronger their control, the more complex the spiritual world they create from the start. And once a spiritual world is created, it usually doesn't change later on. Therefore, when evolvers first begin super evolution, to make it easier to manage, they rarely create overly complex spiritual worlds—compared to his endlessly repeating Library Tower, Bai Kou's mechanical world was still relatively simple. Who would imagine their spiritual world as a hive from the very beginning?
The hive holes before him seemed endless, hinting at an incredibly complex internal structure. Xu Huo stood at the entrance for two seconds, intending to withdraw, but unexpectedly, a hand pushed him from behind.
It was a child's hand.
Xu Huo slid into the hive. Dazzling lights flashed rapidly before his eyes. Moments later, he reached the end of this hive hole. Looking up, he saw his childhood self and Dr. Zhang standing behind him.
Dr. Zhang held the young Xu Huo's shoulders, both of them gazing at the hive. "A person's spiritual world is more complex than any object in the real world, even the most advanced mechanical brain."
"In the human mind, thirty-six thousand thoughts can flash in an instant. Crisis management, moral judgment, the line between good and evil—all can be processed in less than a second. The highest form of self-control is the control of one's own spirit. Once the spirit is controllable, the body, others, and the world can all be controlled."
This dangerous man's voice was low and deep. "No external thing is more trustworthy than your own mind, Xu Huo. In any situation, trust your own judgment. A person can die from their own miscalculation, but they must never stumble because of another's stupidity. Entrusting anything to others is the behavior of the weak."
The young Xu Huo opposite him looked up at the man. "Doctor, are you trying to place your hopes on me?"
Dr. Zhang smiled gently, looked down at him, and said, "To a doctor, you are more like tendrils growing from the mind. Human lifespan and power are limited. I hope you can take my place and accomplish some things. That is the meaning of your existence."
Young Xu Huo was very quick to learn and asked again, "Then to us, is the doctor also a tendril?"
"You could say that." Dr. Zhang did not seem like a dogmatic person. "But I hope that before you treat others as tendrils, you will first complete the tasks I have assigned."
Young Xu Huo reached out a hand and touched the frame. "I am also a tendril born from my parents. I would rather stay with them, and with my brother."
"You can go back soon." Dr. Zhang's eyes, full of earnestness, gazed at him. "After you grow up, we will meet again."
"When will that be?" young Xu Huo asked.
Dr. Zhang did not answer this question. Instead, he glanced into the mental gateway, and then the hive hole shifted abruptly. The two of them vanished from Xu Huo's sight.
Xu Huo instinctively felt that the "meeting again" Dr. Zhang mentioned should be around the time of Xu Zhi's death. He lunged forward, tearing open the hive, trying to pull back the memory just seen. But behind the hive was only darkness, and a hand reached from behind to yank him back!
Tang Guangbo pulled him back into the eye world, warning him expressionlessly, "If you still want to get out alive, don't go any deeper."
Xu Huo calmed down a little. "I haven't found the exit yet."
At the very least, he needed to find the exit to complete his third evolution.
"Haven't you already found it?" Tang Guangbo retorted. "You entered through the mental gateway and exited through the hive. That has already completed your third evolution. That's enough for you to digest for a while."
Seeing Xu Huo hesitate, unwilling to leave, Tang Guangbo used his clock to open a door and forcibly brought him out of the eye world.
The two returned to the treatment room from before, but this time Tang Guangbo did not try to imprison him, because the moment they emerged, Xu Huo's Library Tower had already appeared.
This Library Tower contained only a single spiral staircase, with no tables, materialized objects, or hundreds of floors.
Standing before the staircase, Xu Huo calmly made a request, "I want to enter the mental gateway one more time."
Even with his well-honed composure, Tang Guangbo flatly refused this time. "I won't help you again this time."
Xu Huo understood that his smooth entry into the hive world was thanks to the balance between Tang Guangbo and the eye world. Though a bit regretful, he knew that knowing when to stop would make future meetings easier.
"I'll go out and take a look at that bridge."
With that, he opened the door and returned to the dark space from before, once again arriving at the broken bridge. In the shadows, of the two bridges, one had already leaned against the other, but the crack in the middle had not been repaired, and the alignment was not quite neat.
Glancing at the other broken bridge, Xu Huo crouched down and patted the bridge surface. "There's plenty of time."
(Chapter End)