Chapter 69: Breath of the Deeps (Part 2/2)
Luo Nan felt a certain tempo coming deep within the waters; it was barely distinguishable. It was none other than the peaceful and drawn-out breathing of being in deep sleep. It seemed that Rui Wen wasn’t causing ripples, but she was constantly breathing in the new and breathing out the old in a natural cadence.
Rui Wen’s body and consciousness were highly integrated within this cadence. Of course, this wasn’t the monotonous undulation of force. It was the joint effect of various components such as breathing, blood flow, and the movements of inner organs. It was like a harmonious rhythm played by a symphonic orchestra.
Even her soul had merged within; it was practically perfect.
Luo Nan was able to confirm that it was probably impossible for his Siege Hammer attack, which ignored the defenses of the corporeal body and attacked the soul directly, to work against Rui Wen in her current state.
Rui Wen had merged her soul and her fleshly body perfectly together. The internal was harmonious with the external. They were complete as one. A purely mental attack would become greatly scattered.
This was precisely what happened with Jack.
Indeed, the method that Jack used was absolutely clear and logical.
When Luo Nan engage with Jack in battle, Luo Nan’s Siege Hammer attack had no effect. Luo Nan couldn’t understand the reason behind this no matter how much he thought. He could only conclude the reason to be the fact that Jack was an altered human. Now his understanding became much clearer.
Of course, being altered was certainly an element in how Jack was able to achieve this. Rui Wen relied only on the simplest method, breathing, to reach this stage.
Perhaps she was a true genius.
When Luo Nan’s understanding grew this far, the body of water slowly lit up. His consciousness illuminated within the water and he genuinely saw Rui Wen this time. He gave this girl a light scan of her status.
Rui Wen was still unconscious. Luo Nan was unable to see any other changes.
Luo Nan tried to wake her up, but he failed.
The cause for this was very simple. Rui Wen was currently in a certain state of merging. It was very hard to separate the boundary between her body and her consciousness. Luo Nan’s simple contact on the mental plane was clearly far too weak. He was incapable of forming enough stimulation to wake her up.
There was a very key area over here: Rui Wen’s merged state was a dual harmonization between her body and her consciousness. Neither one of the two fulcrums could be lacking.
The problem lay in Rui Wen’s current unconscious state. Logic dictates that she couldn’t possibly achieve a true merging in this state. If she had truly merged, she wouldn’t be unconscious. She would certainly have achieved absolute mastery over body and mind.
A paradox seemed to have formed between her state of unconsciousness and her merging…… It was here where the main culprit of Rui Wen’s lasting unconsciousness lay.
Luo Nan had already discovered the source of this cause before: While Rui Wen’s current state was “practically perfect”, there were still some flaws.
The problem did not lay in Rui Wen herself but stemmed from an outside disturbance. There were two in total. One in her skull. Another in her chest. These were the devices that Jack had implanted into her body long ago.
The device in her chest discharged electricity. It was stuck to her spinal column. The purpose of this electric discharge weapon was to destroy Rui Wen’s mobility within the shortest time frame.
But with a scan by Luo Nan, it seemed like this toy had already failed. Perhaps it was destroyed by the recoil of Rui Wen’s powerful ability.
The true source of the disturbance was still the device in the skull. That toy was constantly emitting an interfering pulse. The pulse wasn’t particularly strong, but it was able to break Rui Wen’s harmonious system, causing Rui Wen’s merging rate between her mind and body to be lacking by just a little bit.
It was this little bit that made Rui Wen unconscious until now.
This was a bit troublesome.
Luo Nan wasn’t a neurosurgery specialist. Even if he was, the little bit of consciousness he projected over here wouldn’t be able to perform an open brain surgery
Sure enough, he would have to rely on external reinforcements.
Luo Nan grudgingly let go of his thoughts of awakening Rui Wen. He did the next best thing. He had his projected consciousness act as a fulcrum, or in other words a signal relay tower, to strengthen the connection with his soul body.
Luo Nan’s soul body was still at the DeShang Building right now. The range of his all-encompassing sense was still only five hundred meters. The wide area outside that range was fuzzy and black.
Of course, when this signal tower was erected, a dark zone in the distance lit up with a mass of light. The map of that small piece of area was lit up as well.
The range of Luo Nan’s mental senses did not increase. Instead, he had projected his senses to the designated location. He looked down from above like he had opened up a rough satellite image. The resolution was extremely terrible, but it was gradually improving.
It also contained something that was impossible for a satellite photo to possess.
It was a small real-time panoramic map. Luo Nan was like a specter hovering in the skies above right now. A better sounding description would be...
God.
Luo Nan “saw” Jack in the next moment.
Jack clearly didn’t detect Luo Nan’s existence. This was because Luo Nan was relying on the signal tower erected within Rui Wen’s body. Luo Nan’s existence was concealed within Rui Wen’s aura. There was an interference effect.
Anyway, Luo Nan didn’t pay particular attention to Jack. This was to avoid this crafty fellow from raising his guard.
He was mainly focused on the surrounding environment
Sure enough, Jack had ditched the truck half way. Right now he was standing in the living room of some apartment in contemplation. Rui Wen was at a hand’s reach away on the sofa.
The location of the apartment was not clear and Luo Nan wasn't sure whether or not this was Jack’s property. But after some thought, Luo Nan realized that Xia City, an AI city covered in networks, was practically defenseless from Jack’s perspective thanks to the Dynamo Core.
Luo Nan wanted to determine the location of this apartment, but it wasn’t easy.
The recently-opened “small map” had a finite range. It wasn’t even large enough to cover the entire apartment. There was a "fog of war" in the middle. The only information that was clear was the direction and distance. He had to compare this with a map of Xia City to make a guess.
Luo Nan made adjustments to the precision and range of his senses while he compared what he saw with a map on the Psychic Wave Network. He discovered a relatively ideal midpoint.
Right when Luo Nan was being tormented by his research, a call came through over at Jack’s side.
Jack was deep in thought while he stood in the living room when his wristband vibrated. He gave a cold laugh and made a gesture. The hologram in the living room lit up. A figure, one that had left Luo Nan a deep impression, appeared clearly.
“Hey Jack, how does it feel to become the center of the world?”
Yan Yongbo raised the coffee cup in his hands, sending his greetings from far far away.
Jack responded indifferently: “It’s not that great. I’ve turned from the house into a gambler and now there’s pressure on the entire family……”
“Even when you have a blackjack in your hand?”
“If you have time to joke around, you have time to tell me the route I should transfer to…… Actually, I thought you would tell me that there’s a car parked downstairs when you first called me.”
Luo Nan could tell that the relationship between Jack and Yan Yongbo was a cold one.
Yan Yongbo put down his cup of coffee and shrugged his shoulders: “Apologies. I thought it would be better to first give a call for the sake of safety. And also, I can't help saying a few words: Before I returned to Xia City, I believed that my mission had the highest level of priority. This made me a bit vain. But I never thought there would be a higher level job that would force me to stop my work and go coordinate with others. I have to say, Jack, you hid it very well. Your dedication to work is very admirable.”