Chapter 2185: The Anchor of the Spiritual World
The library tower in the spiritual world had been smashed to pieces by Dou Shengnan earlier. Before it could recover, it encountered this instance. Xu Huo now couldn’t possibly condense the library tower again, so he had to simplify the process as much as possible, using only a spiral staircase to descend into the depths of the library tower.
At this moment, the deepest part of the library tower held only a single table. Besides the core materialized objects representing several of Xu Huo’s personalities, there was also a black cube, somewhat resembling a square brick. It sat alone in one spot, keeping its distance from the other materialized objects.
Xu Huo had never come into close contact with this materialized object, because it had been kept by the childhood personality ever since it was stolen. And even now, he hadn’t fully grasped everything about the childhood personality.
In fact, the same was true for the other personalities.
Whether it was Zheng Yuci or Dou Shengnan, or any other Mental Evolver, when they saw the childhood personality, they suspected it was a case of split personality. To put it bluntly, they suspected he had a mental illness.
But Xu Huo had shown no signs of split personality during his growth. If he had, he couldn’t have been completely unaware. The emergence of these personalities at the beginning of his mental evolution, he believed, was actually due to problems with his memories, which had extended into parts he couldn’t fully control.
For example, the childhood personality. His memory of being taught by Dr. Zhang had been altered, so when his brain developed further after mental evolution, he noticed this. But because the childhood memories were rewritten using special means, the childhood personality was created.
The adolescent personality formed because of the mystery of Xu Zhi’s death. When Xu Zhi died, his memories were also rewritten, and there has been no sign of recovery to this day.
The third personality, close to his current age, was a product of his self-suppression.
Although these personalities had a certain degree of autonomy, they actually represented himself. They were like instincts that emerged in moments of crisis that couldn’t be solved through wisdom or logic. In essence, they were the final result of his accumulated experience and behavioral habits—it’s perfectly normal for a person’s consciousness to hide thoughts and ideas they themselves aren’t aware of.
Just as Xu Huo reached out, the black water seemed to consciously dodge to the side, then, as if sensing some scent, quickly flowed toward the other materialized objects.
The weakened black water had lost its previous agility and was slower to react. A section of it was soon caught in Xu Huo’s hand.
He tried to use his spiritual power to interfere with the square brick, but the moment he touched it, the thing automatically turned into a pool of water, rippling on the table.
It seemed to want to surround the several materialized objects, but unfortunately, the childhood personality’s black shard immediately flowed and stood upright, cutting the liquid into two segments.
However, the childhood personality had succeeded. Not only had he succeeded, but he had even stolen a strand of spiritual power from Dou Shengnan’s spiritual world. So now, Xu Huo needed to figure out how this was done—how to maintain spiritual interference over a long period while detached from the main body.
But all of this was built upon his spiritual world. His personalities, his materialized objects—they were all difficult to separate from the scope of the spiritual world, let alone persist after the person had left.
The moment the black water touched his finger, he realized that Dou Shengnan’s spiritual power was several times greater than his own. This wasn’t just about the range her spiritual power could cover, but also the volume of spiritual power required to form materialized objects.
Condensing spiritual power into a materialized object required a high degree of concentration. This itself was a threshold. Once achieved, one generally expanded the range. For example, Xu Huo’s current materialized space range was about two hundred meters. If he grew stronger, he would further expand this range, increasing the width his materialized objects could defend and attack.
Dou Shengnan’s materialized object, on the other hand, seemed more like a further sublimation after spiritual power materialization. Looking at it this way, her black water was closer to Xu Huo’s original understanding of materialized objects—the range the black water could cover was enormous, almost forming a tidal wave!
Could it be that after spiritual evolution reaches a certain level, it sublimates to this degree?
When Dou Shengnan ambushed him at the end, she no longer had any Super Items. So the detachment of spiritual power from the main body shouldn’t have been influenced by items. If that were the case, it meant the final manifestation of Mental Super Evolution should be at the level of the black water spiritual world.
However, maintaining the effectiveness of spiritual power detached from the main body was likely very strenuous. Otherwise, Dou Shengnan wouldn’t have only used it in a critical moment. Of course, being able to kill an opponent with spiritual power even after they had fled was still terrifying and remarkably effective, especially since Xu Huo himself was a Mental Super Evolver.
But one problem remained: Dou Shengnan certainly wouldn’t have actively maintained the state of this square brick for a long time. It was stolen by the childhood personality. Did this mean that after a Mental Evolver achieved the ability to detach and preserve spiritual power from the body, they would still face the risk of having it stolen?
Reason told Xu Huo that this possibility was very low, but he had no better explanation for this question.
He turned his gaze to the childhood personality.
The childhood personality, wearing pajamas, sat by the table, using his own spiritual core to cut the other half of the flowing water on the table into pieces. Unlike the resistance Xu Huo faced, the pool of black water was as obedient as dough in front of him.
“Can other Mental Evolvers also steal materialized objects from my spiritual world?” Xu Huo asked.
The childhood personality shook his head, then pointed to his book on the table.
Xu Huo opened the book. On the originally blank pages, text had appeared.
Anchor:
A small strand of spiritual power emitted from the spiritual world of a Mental Super Evolver, cast toward another location. Its existence is limited in time, and its effectiveness is determined by the strength of the Super Evolver. Anchors are generally small-scale materializations of the spiritual world. Once cast, they are not controlled by the caster, impose a significant mental burden, and are difficult to use over a large area or multiple times.
So, the wisp of black light that flew from Dou Shengnan’s eyes at the end was the “anchor” she cast?
“Then what about this?” Xu Huo pointed to the black water on the table. The “anchor” Dou Shengnan used to kill him was just like that. It couldn’t be that someone could steal an anchor as large as a brick, could it?
The childhood personality reached into the air and grabbed, then pointed to himself.
“Because you can steal it?” Xu Huo immediately understood his meaning.
The childhood personality nodded. Because he could steal it, he took it on a whim.
“What’s the difference between Dou Shengnan and Zheng Yuci?” Xu Huo asked again.
The shard in the childhood personality’s hand flowed and turned into a hexagon. He pointed to the words in the book, then shook his head.
“Zheng Yuci doesn’t have an anchor.” So, Zheng Yuci’s spiritual world hadn’t evolved to Dou Shengnan’s level.