Master of the Stars

Chapter 375: Old Posts

Translator: Strivon

Luo Nan's mind went blank. It was in this moment that a small drop of water, the size of a fingernail, came out from nothing, forming from thin air. It hovered quietly before his eyes, moving slightly and refracting the sunlight that came shining through the window. Colors of every variety could be seen. It was beautiful.

Luo Nan's mind was flooded with a sense of satisfaction. He grinned, relaxing his psychic intent, and only then did he feel weary....

Weary?

Oh, I see. The technique requires little soul strength, but forming the Condensation Ring involves mental energy, focus, and even the physical foundation of the nervous system. It was impossible to use all of these indefinitely.

Luo Nan fell back, his arms spread out on his bed. Cool water vapor hit his face directly. A few drops of water fell on his cheeks, forehead, and some even sprinkled on his arm and collar. It was very refreshing. He moaned in comfort.

Huh? Luo Nan suddenly opened his eyes. He saw a mist of water drift down before his eyes, instantly wetting his body and everything in his surroundings.

F***K!

Luo Nan leapt to his feet, but he was too late. The spray of mist had ended with the sheets of the bed meeting calamity. It was damp, dripping wet. It felt utterly uncomfortable. The two notebooks were on the bed. They were covered completely in droplets of water. Fortunately, the covers were made of leather. They were fine after some wiping.

As for the sheets, Luo Nan would have to move them to the balcony to dry.

What the heck happened? Was there a resource crisis with the humidifier as well?

Luo Nan touched the wet parts of his face. His first reaction was to turn the humidifier off. He looked at the device, be it seemed to be operating normally. Luo Nan then released his mental senses. He observed the air humidity as well as the changes on the mental plane.

From this, Luo Nan was able to discover clues.

The residual fluctuations of interference between the mental and material planes were surprisingly intense. The sources were different, and the numbers were plenty. But the degree of fluctuations stayed largely the same. They clearly affected the moisture in the air. Luo Nan formed a ballpark guess from all of this.

The sculpted structures of the Condensation Ring had become quite reliable during the latter half of his training. The Condensation Ring's capability continued to increase, and after a certain quantity of water had accumulated, the water bead state naturally appeared.

Luo Nan put his full focus on pondering the Condensation Ring structure. He wholeheartedly immersed himself in training. Only the very initial parts of his training remained as an impression. The beads of water lasted longer and longer, while the speed at which they dissipated grew slower and slower, gradually increasing the scale. In the end, several hundred water beads hovered in the room. This lasted until Luo Nan's mind relaxed, releasing his control all of a sudden. The structures descended into disorder, practically exploding all at the same time, turning into a dense mist of water.

This was probably what happened. Luo Nan shook his head and sighed. He tidied up a bit and moved his bed sheets to the balcony. He walked two steps before he saw water glimmering from the corners of his eyes. It was a recently manifested water bead.

Oh, this one was interesting.

Luo Nan stared at the water bead as he held the bed sheets. He was able to confirm that all of the water drops had exploded into nothing. This was certainly true. However, according to his mental senses, this bead of water had just recently coalesced. Its source was none other than the result of Luo Nan's last instance of training.

Luo Nan could perceive it. This last Condensation Ring structure that Luo Nan sculpted was the most perfect one in terms of shape. Its precision had reached a certain level. A wave of turbulence had caused all the gathered moisture to scatter, but the fundamental structure of this Condensation Ring was unlike the others. It didn't burst. Instead, it tenaciously remained there. As time passed, it gathered moisture once more to form a water bead.

This gave off the sense of endless growth.

Luo Nan's attention was completely focused on the water bead. His perception grew all the sharper, and he discovered that the Condensation Ring in the core of the water bead maintained an exceptionally close connection with him. It constantly consumed his soul strength.

The consumption wasn't large. It was mainly a trickle, but it was endless.

Perhaps other mentally enhanced ability users would feel some pressure as they maintained the Condensation Ring for long periods of time, but Luo Nan's soul strength was affected by the high output of the Format Pyramid's production line. The income every second was severalfold greater than the quantity consumed by this single Condensation Ring. It didn't hurt. It didn't even tickle.

Large amounts of soul strength was produced, yet only small amounts were removed. If this was called 'consumption,’ then Luo Nan's entire world was in an economic crisis.

Luo Nan’s lips pulled into a wry smile. Since such a situation was involved, Luo Nan instinctively observed himself internally with clairvoyance to look at the state of the God Gear. His thoughts instantly froze the moment his psychic intent cut through.

...It dropped?

The scene was completely different from what he expected. What had once been an overflowing vast ocean iceberg actually dropped a bit. It was lower than yesterday's normal position. This drop was astonishing. No wonder Luo Nan had felt exhausted.

Luo Nan was a little stupefied. It didn't make sense. The consumption of the Condensation Ring had to be multiplied by a thousand, by ten thousand times in order to reach this result.... Huh?

Luo Nan subconsciously hugged his bed sheets even tighter to his chest. The moistness of his sheets made him recall the mist of water sprayed in the room.

Well, just think about it. A simple Condensation Ring didn't require a lot of energy consumption, but if there were several hundred of them existing simultaneously, several thousand being produced one after another, the amount of consumption was not something that one could stare idly at as this process continued.

Multi-tasking was particularly resource-intensive. This was very normal. It was possible for this amount of consumption to be able to exceed the output of the Format Pyramid within a certain period of time.

In other words, as the several hundred beads of water exploded apart, Luo Nan's large volume of training truly turned into a method of disposal of milk. He had dumped his surplus of soul strength, stock and barrel, into the river.

No, there were consequences for disposing milk. But what did any of it matter? Forming mist? Evaporation? Sublimation?

Luo Nan started from a wry smile, but it later turned into a bellow of laughter. He even tossed his wet bed sheets up into the air in celebration.

Even if the input and output were not entirely proportional, and the effects could not be said to be a radical cure, it was a pleasant delight to be able to resolve this threat. During times when symptoms often recurred, Luo Nan had never imagined that this matter would be resolved this easily. This was a rather effective contingency method he had reaped.

Luo Nan's stress was immediately dispelled to nothing. The sense of freedom he now had was far too refreshing!

Luo Nan's mood became great. He cast his gaze at the water bead. At this moment, it was as if he was staring at a pearl.

The Condensation Ring gathered water vapor. There should be a limit as to how much it could gather. The volume for the growth of the water bead had already stagnated, ultimately stopping at the size of the tip of a pinky finger. It was around a centimeter in diameter. It couldn't be described as conspicuous, but it was rather eye-catching when it refracted light.

Luo Nan thought for a while. He decided not to disperse the water bead for now. He wanted to see how long it could last. He wanted to see how much soul strength it could consume in total. Later, he would certainly test out the five auxiliary structures, with the core of the Condensation Ring acting as the foundation.

With the bed sheets already hanging over the balcony, Luo Nan headed downstairs to eat.

The water bead orbited around his body in a rather lively manner. This was done without him needing to apply the reinforcement of the Heart of the Ape Technique. Luo Nan's soul strength was inseparably close with the water bead. The water bead was an extension of his body, and it was displaying more and more astonishing functions with the passage of time, with the power of habit.

Once something became habit, one would subconsciously forget about it.

Luo Nan forgot about the water bead next to his body as he engaged in a battle of human nutrition with the AI housekeeper. There was nothing else on the table. His ability to stuff his stomach full was as sound as usual. Luo Nan kept himself occupied as he gulped down his food in large bites. He wanted to flip through the teaching materials and notes that Papercut had sent him. But he thought about it, and he continued to flip through the mission announcement page.

There was nothing else on Her Majesty Empress Wu's mission announcement page, but there was a forum below. It was in the form of a traditional message board. There were twenty messages filling a page, and there was already a terrifying number of over 1800 pages.

There were only a few Awakened in the entire world though!

He recalled that Zhang Yingying had mentioned this before. The number of recorded Awakened in the entire world numbered less than 70,000. By performing some mathematics, this meant that each person had to have posted at least five times in the discussion area.

Though this amount was accumulated in the span of three years, though there were certainly quite a few disputes going on, though several messages might be of low-value, the sheer quantity of posts truly indicated that Empress Wu's announcement was a worldly event in the inner world.

The effects of 'Spreading the name of Wu throughout the land under the heavens' could be seen here.

The reply area was configured in the reverse order by default. The latest message was at the top. It was posted ten minutes ago. Its content was that of a 'daily kneeling.’ There were two more messages an hour earlier, showing that the discussion was still a hot topic.

Luo Nan wanted to understand the atmosphere at the time. He configured the reply order to be in chronological order. He started from the beginning. The first several pages he skimmed through mainly had posts of "Is it real or not?", "What a beauty,” “This is my cup of tea,” and other useless information. Occasionally, there were comments of "Careful, it's a trap to collect your soul print,” "These are first time measurements,” and other young information. Of cours,e there were also "A modern Wu Zetian? Wow!" and other troll information.

It was very clear. Three years ago, Her Majesty Empress Wu wasn't considered a particularly exceptional character within the scope of the inner world. She had yet to possess global fame. However, it was none other than this matter which had caused her to soar past the heavens, painting this matter of 'Spreading the name of Wu throughout the land under the heavens' in a legendary light.

Luo Nan more or less felt admiration for Empress Wu. Though Empress Wu's Mystic Techniques didn't live up to being as godlike as they were described, the sort of influence they caused was real, and Her Majesty Empress Wu was able to shoulder it.

Luo Nan skimmed through a few pages before changing his methods. He would go crazy going through 360,000 posts. To truly look at them one by one would fill up his time for the next dozen days.

Luo Nan used the AI filter function of the HexaEar to eliminate the useless chatter of information. He just looked at the best replies. Although he did this, there were still over two hundred pages of posts.

Many of them were tests of the Dripping Sword. Some had a single line of data. Some were experimental demonstrations. There were even brutal recordings of in-combat use. These were the reactions to this skill from the entire world of several dozens of thousands of ability users.

But these dry goods weren't the most popular of the best posts.

In the era of mass entertainment, messages that were funny and silly were bound to absorb the most attention. Luo Nan watched a series of exercises, applications of the Dripping Sword in a comedic manner, all sorts of absurd accidents, and all sorts of stupid disasters. The high difficulty of the Dripping Sword made it so that such videos were brimming with vitality.

Luo Nan saw a weirdo use his own mouth to rapidly coalesce a water bead. The result was an exploded mouth. Luo Nan couldn't hold back from laughing stupidly at the dining table. He watched several videos, nearly missing the time for his noon session.

Luo Nan returned to his bedroom for his noon session. He glanced at the balcony and saw his bedsheets sway slightly. His mind suddenly stirred, leading him to walk straight over.

Today's weather was cloudy. Sometimes there was sunlight, sometimes there was not. The drying effects were quite typical on this day. His bed sheets were light in color. They didn’t have any decorative patterns. But there were shallow traces of halos on it. They just so happened to form a half-blurred silhouette of a person.

Luo Nan used the visual photography function of the HexaEar to take a picture of his bed sheets in this moment. Of course, he let the water bead hovering in midair enter the camera view. He put in the title, "A morning's training in exchange of rain." And he posted it on the message area.

This was sharing, right?

The subtle thoughts of the teenager weren't clear to the teenager himself. But in the end, his brain was clear. He posted in anonymous mode, only showing his place of registration, which was none other than the Xia City branch. Of course, there was also his registration time. Just one look would reveal that he was a budding newcomer.

This newest message soon appeared at the very top of the page. Luo Nan looked it through twice; no response yet. So he happily headed to do his noon session.

It was already one o'clock in the afternoon by the time Luo Nan cycled and filtered vital energy through the three inner organs of liver, heart, and spleen. Luo Nan always held complete focus when it came to cultivating. His mind was filled with such elements. He pretty much forgot about the picture he uploaded and other minor matters.

Luo Nan shifted his attention to the water bead that continued to remain. Through his mental senses, Luo Nan came to find out that its core, the Condensation Ring, remained stable. Perhaps this little thing could continue to exist as long as Luo Nan's soul strength was endlessly supplying it.

This Condensation Ring was undoubtedly an excellent carrier. And Luo Nan tried to further grasp the five auxiliary structures of sharpening, distancing, accelerating, and so on.

Luo Nan was just about to replay the reality recording and study the relevant information when he suddenly remembered an excellent post he had skimmed through during lunch.

The poster started with stating his dissatisfaction toward his firing speed in practical combat. He was skeptical of Her Majesty Empress Wu, believing her to be a fraud. He started off with finding faults like looking for bones in an egg. He began with the recording, analyzing the authenticity of the recording frame by frame.

Though he had major doubts of the authenticity of the video, he began from a practical angle, using a variety of analysis techniques. He captured and analyzed the soul strength fluctuations that Her Majesty Empress Wu had produced twice in practical demonstration. The data was very detailed.

This was an excellent starting point for Luo Nan to replay from.

The reply was extremely long, requiring the use of several posts. Actually, this thread was a series of posts linking to one another. The responses themselves were of quite the size.

These replies followed a cascading mode. They were scattered among posts of various hot spots. If a lurker found interest in a post, he just needed to make contact telepathically and he would be able to see a string of posts come out. Of course, he could choose to view them in bullet commenting mode, but that was too chaotic. Luo Nan didn't like it.

However, normal people would find themselves affected by the hot spots when looking at the posts. Luo Nan paid more attention to the reply chains that were larger in size. He wanted to lock onto the latter half of the lesson, but he unexpectedly stopped halfway.

He saw a hot spot that was made up of a chain of over a dozen thousand replies.

There was a video that left him a deep impression. It attracted his attention. It was not long after the start of the original recording. Her Majesty Empress Wu had her back to the viewer. It was the moment when she suddenly turned around.

The original poster had spat out a few words. "I unexpectedly took a step back when I saw the beauty. This is unscientific, so I got suspicious…."

The connected replies instantly went off-track. "Oh man. Seeing the original poster take a step back makes me feel relieved. There was quite the regret at the time."

"Step back +1, Regret +1."

"Step back +1, Regret +10086."

"I can't be the only one who pounced at her, right?

"Raise your hand if you pounced over."

"Does it count if I knelt and licked her boots?"

"The new posters tooting their horns, haven't you read the whole thing? The original poster shared his analysis below. Everyone here took a step back. There are fixed procedures in the recording. Its purpose is to keep you perverts a distance away."

So it was like this all along! A sudden realization dawned on Luo Nan upon reading this. He wasn't the only one to have been humiliated in taking a step back. This had been the common experience of every participant.

The irresistible elements within this understanding patched up the teenager's injured heart.

But Luo Nan's thoughts took another turn, and he was confused once more. Were the pressure that pierced his heart in weakness and the terror formed within him caused by programmed procedures?