Chapter 15: Implantation of Anomalous Trait

“Old Tang, what’s the situation? What did your students write? How could the experimental report be so casually messed up?”

Academician Hu in Capital City said with a wry smile on the screen.

Faced with this, Academician Tang wore a wooden expression, which made him look even older.

Academician Hu felt that something was wrong; he thought that Academician Tang was an extremely meticulous person, so how could he allow his students to send a sloppily written report through such a serious channel?

Then he said, “What exactly happened? Did something go wrong?”

Academician Tang asked bitterly, “Did you all read it? The report…”

“I read the report, but there were no pictures at all. How could we believe it? And the experimental results described… What am I supposed to say?” Academician Hu absolutely did not believe the description in the report.

A sword that could not form images under light and did not conduct heat.

It could also cause the iron elements in the objects it struck to vanish, and the vanished iron elements were nowhere to be found.

This was not just a fantasy; it was literally like writing a novel.

But as he watched the scholars from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Wuhan looking serious and troubled on the other end of the video, he was a bit bewildered.

“It’s not that we don’t want to show you photos and real-time operation footage; we genuinely can’t do it.” Academician Tang said, “We mentioned in the report that all optical detection methods are ineffective on it, and thermal imaging doesn’t work either. Do you want me to send its gravity vector diagram? Its gravity doesn’t show any abnormality…”

After hearing this, Academician Hu said, “Where is the sword? Put it in front of the camera now, and let me see it.”

It was no surprise, coming from a researcher—he wouldn’t believe it without trying it out.

However, after he spoke, he noticed that no one on the other end of the video moved.

“Why aren’t you bringing it? Put it in front of the lens—I should be able to see it, right?”

He saw Academician Tang slowly point a finger to the side and say, “It’s right here. Can you see it?”

Academician Hu was startled; he could only see a table, but nothing was on it.

“What? Is it in front of the camera? Where’s the sword?”

As soon as the words were spoken, Academician Tang reached out to grab something on the table.

It felt as if he was holding something, lifting it in his hand.

But from Academician Hu’s perspective, in the video, Academician Tang was just grabbing air, with nothing in his hand.

“You’re holding a sword?” Academician Hu thought it was absolutely ridiculous!

Grabbing air and claiming to hold a sword—wasn’t this like the Emperor’s New Clothes?

Yet Academician Tang replied with a stern and serious expression, “Old Hu, I’m really not joking.”

“Right now, I’ll prove to you just how bizarre this sword really is!”

After saying that, he made a motion of unsheathing the sword, clearly removing the scabbard.

Academician Hu watched unblinkingly as Old Tang swung the air in his hand toward the table.

If he had been holding a sword, this swing would have struck the table.

In the next moment, something incredible happened.

The steel table instantly disappeared.

It hadn’t completely vanished, but a large part of its material was gone; much of it turned to dust that fell from midair and piled onto the floor.

Academician Hu was dumbfounded; this wasn’t a special effect.

Academician Tang said with utmost solemnity, “With that swing of my sword, all the iron elements in the steel table disappeared.”

“What’s left here as dust are only trace elements like carbon, silicon, phosphorus, and sulfur.”

After speaking, he just stared at the camera.

And on the other end of the camera, they just stared back at him.

After several minutes of silence, Academician Hu also wore a solemn expression.

He said, “Bring it to the Capital immediately!”

Academician Tang smiled bitterly, “Old Hu, do you believe me now?”

Academician Hu responded, “I believe you. After all you’ve done, I know it’s not a joke.”

Old Tang immediately nodded and said, “I will send it over tonight, and I request to participate in the research.”

“Oh?”

Academician Tang examined the sword in his hand with emotion and said, “Encountering it…”

“I know I will dedicate my entire life to this sword!”

“I must understand why this is happening!”

…

“Let’s begin!”

After returning home, Bai Ge did not immediately act on his idea; instead, he first ate a big meal.

After recharging his spirit and replenishing his Energy, he began the experiment on the idea of cellular electricity storage the next afternoon.

Ling Dang did the settings, with the edited target being Bai Ge’s Earthling body.

The first trial was for a secure electricity storage Anomalous Trait lasting three days.

Bai Ge returned to Reality with no reaction; he didn’t need to actually electrocute himself—just sensing whether he felt weak or had Energy consumption was enough to tell.

The second trial reduced the time to one day.

The result was still a failure; clearly, the cost of this Anomalous Trait was much higher than imagined.

Bai Ge experimented step by step, repeatedly lowering the requirements.

When Bai Ge tried the sixth trial, reducing the Anomalous Trait to five minutes, he and his body returned to Reality and immediately collapsed in exhaustion.

He felt an immense sense of weakness; Bai Ge instantly became emaciated, too feeble to stand, and collapsed limply onto the floor.

“It really works!”

Though too weak to even get up, Bai Ge was extremely excited—this meant he had succeeded.

At that moment, Bai Ge panted on the floor; he felt almost dead, with aching all over and unable to lift his head—a reaction to his body being pushed to its limit.

“I’m about to go into shock; I can’t faint. If I faint now, I’ll surely die!”

Bai Ge quickly suppressed his smile and reached his hand toward a nearby socket.

He had already prepared a cup of water; he wet his fingers and resolutely inserted them into the outlet!

Instantly, his arm went numb as a current surged into his body.

He didn’t have time to eat; his current physical state wasn’t sufficient for it either. Inserting his hand into the outlet was the only thing he could do.

The current passed through his heart; he could feel his heart beating strongly. All the electricity entering his body seemed to vanish—it didn’t burn his body or dissipate, but was stored instead.

Within less than a minute, he stood up as if nothing had happened; his physical stamina had recovered and even exceeded before, but he was much weaker because his muscles were gone.

“My body hasn’t recovered fully; although there’s an excess of Energy stored in my cells… I’m still just as hungry in my stomach.”

Looking in the mirror, Bai Ge saw that he was extremely thin—at 1.8 meters tall, he now looked like a bamboo pole, weighing only about sixty pounds. Not only had his fat disappeared, but his muscles had shriveled too; his face was gaunt, with deep eye bags, looking like a ghost.

“Ordinarily, Humans store Energy as fat, but I’ve gained another way—electricity is only stored in cells and won’t increase my fat. To gain weight back, I just need to eat more…”

Adding the cellular electricity storage Anomalous Trait allowed Bai Ge to survive without food, just by charging.

The electricity would supply the Energy needed for survival, which was part of the setting.

But if he didn’t eat, his stomach lining could wear out.

“Seize the time; don’t waste this precious opportunity.”

Bai Ge lay down on the floor again and inserted his hand into the outlet to store electricity.

Feeling more and more electricity building up inside him, Bai Ge knew he could realize more of his Brain Hole settings.

“Five minutes—this efficiency is definitely far higher than the Human energy intake speed.”

Bai Ge had a strong sense of time; when the five minutes were almost up, he felt it was time.

“I have to stop now; otherwise, if the ability vanishes, I’ll be electrocuted to death.”

The sensation of absorbing electricity was quite exhilarating, like savoring a delicious meal.

For organisms, eating is the most pleasurable instinct, even more satisfying than reproduction—it’s just that Humans are accustomed to this instinctive joy.

In that short five minutes, Bai Ge felt that pleasure again—the profound satisfaction of his body being full.

He reluctantly pulled out his finger and felt unprecedentedly good.

“Before the electricity runs out, my physical stamina will remain full!”

Electricity replaced all the Energy the Human body needs; perhaps it could cause nutritional imbalances, but survival wasn’t an issue.

“Again! This electricity in my body is also part of my Energy—it should be usable as a consumption resource…”

This time, he didn’t lose weight; in fact, he didn’t feel weak at all but clearly sensed that some electricity had drained from him.

“So, the electricity was consumed.”

After the second five-minute charging period, Bai Ge absorbed a large amount of electricity again.

The efficiency of charging electricity was clearly much higher than eating.

Even if he bulked himself up to 300 pounds, the accumulated Energy wouldn’t match what he got in these five minutes—it was highly efficient storage.

“Don’t do it every five minutes… I’ll manifest it for a whole day at once; my current Energy should be enough.”

Bai Ge tried to achieve the one-day storage Anomalous Trait, and it succeeded immediately.

Clearly, his current Energy was sufficient to bear the cost.

“It tripped the circuit… The instantaneous output was too high—after all, it’s household electricity…”

Bai Ge didn’t know how much electricity he had absorbed, but it definitely exceeded the load for high-power usage.

“Right, I can check the electricity meter to see how much power I’ve consumed?”

One pound of fat can produce 1600 kilojoules of Energy; forty pounds is 64,000 kilojoules, while one kilowatt-hour is 3600 kilojoules.

In other words, his first attempt at realizing the storage Anomalous Trait consumed about 17.8 kilowatts of Human body Energy.

Bai Ge went downstairs; the electrical panel was locked, but he had a habit of recording his electricity meter readings.

“What? This much?”

Bai Ge discovered that, compared to last month, his usage this month was 650 kilowatts.

Typically, he used about 120 kilowatts, and since it was the start of the month, he had used at most 50 kilowatts so far. Those ten minutes of absorption had charged about 600 kilowatts of electricity!

“The gain from the electricity storage Anomalous Trait was sixteen times the consumption cost for realizing the Anomalous Trait.”

“And this was just household electricity—I made a net gain of sixteen times the Energy. What if I used high-voltage electricity to input Energy? Would the efficiency be even higher?”

Bai Ge sat at home charging himself while pondering other ways to increase Energy intake.

“A few hundred kilowatts per hour isn’t a big deal, but I can’t keep doing this at home.”

“If I trip the circuit too often, people will start wondering what I’m doing indoors…”

“It already overloaded this time—maybe try high-voltage electricity next?”

…