by <unknown>
Chen Chen vaguely estimated, he had lost approximately 100 millimeters of blood from the radiation exposure, which was equivalent to the amount of half a bag of blood donation.
The bleeding from Chen Chen's nose quickly halted as he stopped the irradiation process. He shut the laptop, packed up the USB drive along with the crystalline fragment that was exhausted of its energy, and started thinking.
The research report of the crystalline fragments was released as well. As expected, they were aluminum-magnesium tetroxide, which was the chemical formula of spinel.
Based on the market price on the Earth Federation, a spinel the size of a fist sculpted into an artful sculpture should be worth hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars.
However, it would appear that Chen Chen had the slightest interest in auctioning off these spinels. He had Cheng Cao crush the spinel into powdered pieces, mix them into the trash along with other glass shards and whatnot, and had them disposed of.
After getting rid of the trash, Chen Chen finally sat back in the laboratory and began experimenting with his newly acquired powers.
To start things off, he sat in front of the test table with a recorder set up in front of him and started recording.
After that, Chen Chen stared at a black marker pen placed on the table. As he invoked a thought, he had the sense that there was a string latched on to the object in front of him.
Chen Chen tried to lift it gently and the marker pen proceeded to be lifted!
From Chen Chen's point of view, the marker pen hung in mid-air and spun in circles repeatedly. It was like it was suspended in the air by some string.
Stop!
Chen Chen issued an order in his mind to get the marker pen to stop spinning. As expected, the spinning marker pen suddenly paused as if the air surrounding it had frozen in place. It was suspended in the air, unmoving.
Upon witnessing this scene, an idea suddenly occurred to Chen Chen. He tried closing his eyes.
"Click!"
A noise immediately followed after, it was the marker pen clapping against the surface of the table.
"Influenced by the line of sight? No, probably not…"
Chen Chen kept his eyes shut. He turned his head and scanned the table in his mind.
Surely, thin strands began to emerge in his vision. With his eyes still closed, he was able to sense the smooth and cold surface of the table as well as a long strip of object laid on the table.
Following Chen Chen's will, the marker pen that fell on the table slowly dangled in the air again.
"I knew it, this ability doesn't have anything to do with the user's vision. The visual aspect only serves as an aid to help better visualize the ability's effects. Upon losing sight of the targeted object, the ability's manipulation effect on the object is subconsciously cut off as well.
"It should be possible to overcome this behavior with more practice. At the very least, this proves that the ability doesn't stem from the user's sight, but something else deep inside the brain…"
Chen Chen mumbled to himself in a low voice with his eyes still closed shut.
The experiment was still going on.
Chen Chen allowed himself to faintly feel the floating marker pen. He felt the marker pen's build, temperature, and shape. Unlike touching it with his hands, these sensations were transmitted into Chen Chen's mind in another form.
It was a truly wondrous feeling. Unlike the sense of sight, hearing, smell or touch, this was a brand new sensation. Chen Chen had never felt something like this in his twenty-plus years of living.
When he tried to apply some force, he heard a small clacking sound coming from the marker pen in front of him. The body of the acrylic pen became slightly deformed.
"This is the power at work. Is it able to transmute some form of energy in the mind into direct kinetic energy used to manipulate objects?"
Needless to say, these were all mere speculations on Chen Chen's side. Want to find out what sort of energy this was and the workings behind transmuting mere thoughts to kinetic energy? It was going to require an intensive amount of experimentation.
Next up, Chen Chen put down the floating marker pen. He began to reach forward with his conscience with his eyes still closed. In his mind's eye, he felt a large number of strands extending forward from his mind, they began reaching in front of him…
However, these strands were unable to extend any further after reaching out close to a meter.
"Looks like the ability is only able to extend about one meter outward. The range of control appears to decrease as the distance increases."
Chen Chen made a brief analysis. After that, he tried to replicate the same effect in his mind except this time, he was extending them outward across all directions.
This time, the strands reached their limit at about half a meter out.
The range could extend up to a meter if probed in one direction. By equally distributing them across all directions, their area of effect was limited to just half a meter.
Though it was not a particularly impressive number, Chen Chen was not dejected. After all, these powers could be further improved with more practice. Chen Chen could also endlessly extract crystalline to build his power capacity.
"If this ability isn't limited by sight, couldn't it essentially replace my sense of sight as another form of sensory device?"
Chen Chen considered silently. He slowly lowered his head in a manner like he was staring at the table, the only difference being that his eyes closed shut…
In Chen Chen's perception, he was gradually zooming into the test bench. What was once the smooth surface of the epoxy tabletop zoomed in until it turned into a rough and bumpy-textured surface.
Zooming to this extent was not easily achievable, he had to maintain a constant stream of focus.
"No, I'm only able to zoom slightly above a hundred times at most. I still can't see the bacteria, let alone the molecular structure..."
After a while, an involuntary frown appeared on Chen Chen's face.
Even though he was able to zoom a hundred times into a selected object using the ability, he was unable to zoom into the microorganism scope. He was still largely unsure if this was due to his current power concentration or influenced by other factors.
Still, it did make sense since the size of bacteria were generally between 1 to 5 microns. Humans would need to magnify their vision three hundred times just to see the outline of bacteria. For further observation, magnification of above a thousand times was required.
Sensing the molecular structure of a substance was on a completely separate plane since a magnification of a whooping two million times was needed.
Chen Chen wondered, was there any chance of amplifying the ability on a microscopic scale in addition to an enhancement on the macroscopic scale?
The way Chen Chen saw it, if the subsequent upgrade of the ability in the movie was interpreted as an upgrade in terms of quantity, then enhancing on a micro-scale should be considered an upgrade in quality.
As Chen Chen was immersed in deep thought, he suddenly felt a sharp sting at the tip of his nose. A gush of blood flowed out.
"Approaching my limit…"
Chen Chen calmly opened his eyes. He felt groggy and his head was spinning. He proceeded to go to a sink and splashed cold water on his forehead and the bridge of his nose.
The water used in the laboratory was filtered underground water with a temperature below ten degrees. The moment Chen Chen splashed his face with the water, he felt a chill emanating across his body, jolting him to his senses.
The bleeding from his nose finally stopped after some more time had passed.
Deciding to stop the experiment, Chen Chen got back up and packed up the USB drive. He then turned around to leave the laboratory and had Cheng Cao take him back to the Symphony of the Seas.
As Chen Chen took his leave, the electronic lock indicating green turned red as the laboratory operated by Little X locked itself down…
&nb
sp; Chapter 160: Initial Superpower Speculations |
Two days later, Chen Chen returned to the underground laboratory with a vast amount of experiment devices.
The first thing Chen Chen did upon returning to the laboratory was removing the SD card from the experiment recorder and inserting it into the computer. He proceeded to review the footage from two days ago.
In the footage, Chen Chen was sitting in front of the camera with his eyes closed. Positioned in front of him was a black marker pen spinning in the air.
"Influenced by the line of sight? No, probably not…
"This is the power at work. Is it able to transmute some form of energy in the mind into direct kinetic energy used to manipulate objects?
"Looks like the ability is only able to extend about one meter outward. The range of control appears to decrease as the distance increases.
"Nearing my limit…"
As the video began to show Chen Chen having nosebleeds, the footage ended.
Two days ago, while Cheng Cao was taking Chen Chen back to the cruise ship, he felt like he could not take it anymore. As he sat in the moving car, he could feel his mind fluttering about absently. It was like the feeling you get when you start another game in the morning after cramming out an all-nighter in the internet café.
This was the first time he had experienced such symptoms ever since taking the NZT-48. It could be seen that the effects of radiation were more than they may appear.
Upon returning to the Symphony of the Seas, Chen Chen barely mustered the strength to lock the door of the power distribution room and plug the USB drive back into the charging port before he fell into a deep slumber.
Chen Chen slept from noon until the morning of the next day.
The next morning, Chen Chen was woken up by his starving belly.
A maddening hunger took over his body and mind as if he had been starving for three to four days. He only regained his strength after devouring half a kilogram of chocolate and six steaks.
This phenomenon should be a result of some form of changes happening inside his body. If Chen Chen's estimation was correct, the crystalline had probably configured parts of his DNA structure.
This was not the sort of transformation that would take place over the span of merely a day.
Chen Chen took several large sacks of energy bars from the research center. These energy bars were originally meant for the consumption of B.S.S. members during their tasks. The calories contained in an energy bar should last a regular adult through the day.
After reviewing the footage from the other day, Chen Chen set the recorder in front of him once again. He then took out a load cell and placed it on the table.
A load cell resembled a disc-shaped electronic scale, except it measured force such as tension and pressure instead of weight. Chen Chen planned to measure the current strength of his ability this way.
Following the commencement of the experiment, Chen Chen placed the load cell on the table and supported himself on the table with his arms crossed. He fixed his gaze intently on the load cell.
Immediately after, Chen Chen felt invisible filaments appearing in his mind, they spread out and began touching the load cell!
The electronic display on the side displayed 3.4, the unit measurement following it was mN.
Chen Chen frowned, obviously not very content with the result. He tapped the load cell by applying a smaller amount of pressure.
1.5mN.
Chen Chen repeated this sequence more than a hundred times. He got as low as 0.3mN and as high as 4mN. Barring the highest and lowest reading obtained, the average was 1mN.
Chen Chen tilted his head and appeared to be in deep thought.
1mN was equivalent to 0.001N. According to Newton's second law F=ma, he should be able to simulate an acceleration of 1m/s2 in an object weighing one gram.
This was the current concentration level of the energy inside Chen Chen's mind.
This was a pretty terrible level. To be fair, Chen Chen was not familiar with the ability yet. There should be an improvement as he began practicing.
After that, Chen Chen tried to attack the load cell with the highest amount of force he could muster. He heard a clear "dong" from the load cell as if it had just been hit by an invisible force and the electronic display showed 036N!
That was right, N. This meant that Chen Chen managed to evoke a force of almost 0.3N using his mind.
Chen Chen gave it several more shots after that and obtained the same results each time.
After completing the strength benchmark, Chen Chen took out a container the size of a loaf of bread.
Upon opening the box, it was revealed that its content was a box of standard experiment-use weights.
The international standard categorization for weights was E1, E2, F1, F2, M1, and M2. E2 was the most precise among the collection, able to pinpoint down to the milligrams.
"JF-1 non-magnetic stainless steel weight. Cylindrical. Weight grade: E1."
Chen Chen muttered to the recorder feed as he strapped on a pair of disposable gloves. Using a pair of tweezers that came with the box, he gently lifted that smallest 1mg weight and set it on the table.
The 1mg weight was shaped like a tiny metal sheet. It was so tiny that it may be easily blown away by a gust of wind.
Chen Chen tried to lift it. He was able to suspend the 1-milligram weight in the air without expending too much effort.
In that case, Chen Chen decided he was just going to skip the milligram weight and took the one gram weight.
Chen Chen still found it relatively easy to lift the weight. He was even able to effortlessly make the weight circle around his head.
After that, Chen Chen experimented with the 5-gram and 10-gram weights. By the time he got to the 50-gram weight, his expression changed.
He could distinctly feel that a larger amount of concentration was required to control the 50-gram weight with his mind. It was nowhere close to the effort required for the 10-gram weight whether in terms of speed and agility.
With that, Chen Chen decided it was time to pause the experiment. He went to the side to grab several energy bars and chocolate and proceeded to eat them. After he had finished eating, he returned to the experiment table and tried his luck with the 100-gram weight.
At this weight, Chen Chen could barely lift it, if at all. It was like getting a baby to swing a hammer, the resulting movements were very slow and clumsy.
Chen Chen took note of all the data accumulated so far and turned his attention to the largest weight.
The largest weight was roughly the size of half a fist, the label on it displayed 500 grams.
Chen Chen went ahead and set the weight in front of him and squinted his eyes while visualizing the weight being suspended in the air.
Suddenly, the giant weight began to tremble as if something was attempting to lift it but could not muster enough strength to do so.
Amid its hectic rumbling, Chen Chen suddenly groaned. "Rise!"
In a split instant, the weight produced a "whoosh" sound and moved for a brief moment before slamming back on the table with a "bang".
"Phew!"
Chen Chen appeared to have exhausted all the energy in him as his vision turned black as he felt yet another warm sensation in his nose. When he reached and touched his nose, blood came gushing out again.
"As suspected, overexerting the ability over a certain threshold causes nosebleed. Is this caused by the brain being overworked which ruptures the nasal capillaries?"
Chen Chen continued speculating as he went to the sink to stop the bleeding.
After stopping the bleeding for good, Chen Chen did not risk continuing the experiment anymore. If he were to continue bleeding like this regularly, he would get anemia eventually and weaken his body.
This explained why Andrew, the protagonist of the movie always appeared pale and sickly while his cousin did not display similar symptoms. Perhaps it was because he had overworked himself with trainin
g?
Chen Chen became speechless and shook his head, his mind suddenly went back to the fundamental question ---
To sum it up, what was this power he had acquired supposed to be?
Amplified mental prowess? Telekinesis? Or was it something else?
The purpose of the last few experiments conducted was all to find out the underlying principle behind his abilities. If he could figure out the gist of his abilities and the scientific theories behind it, he should be able to incorporate specific, targeted methods to make something out of them.
Chapter 161: Electromagnetic Force |
Just as Chen Chen was about to pack up the weights, he noticed something.
There were some fine specks of dust attached to the weights.
These specks of dust were fine powder from when Chen Chen chipped the crystalline to test its substance. These fine fragments attached themselves to the weight as if some unknown force pasted them there directly.
Static electricity?
Chen Chen raised an eyebrow.
He took out a weight from the briefcase again and brushed it against the table. Nothing happened.
Logically speaking, this was a perfectly sensible observation considering the weights were made of stainless steel with high nickel content. The maximum magnetic susceptibility was only 0.25, designed specifically so that it should not have its precise weight affected under any circumstances.
However, after being altered by his superpowers, these non-magnetic weights were ever so slightly magnetized.
Chen Chen attempted to peel off the crumbs and tested with the magnetized weights again. As expected, the crumbs stuck themselves to the weight.
What was the reason behind these weights becoming magnetized? Was it caused by a magnetic field? Or the electric field?
Or was it…
An idea suddenly occurred to Chen Chen.
Chen Chen pointed the radiation detector at himself and began trying to discharge the energy filaments from his mind.
Even though he might have already overexerted his energy today, it should still be fine to discharge a tiny amount. After all, the protagonists in the movie seemed to be doing fine even after bleeding out a river worth of blood from their noses.