Ren Yi

Biodata

Power Progression

Background

Ren Yi transmigrated from another world and grew up as an orphan in the Alliance, raised by his older brother Ren Man. At school, he earned grades among the top three in his year and was well liked by his neighbors 1 2 9.

During the Major Assignment Test, Ren Yi experienced a devastated world in which Ren Man died and a black tide swallowed their building. He woke from the hallucination to discover that his own body had become a mass of mist and tentacles. Ren Man restored his human form and told him that there were no humans in the Alliance 2 3 4.

Appearance

Ren Yi can assume a human appearance or return to a mist-like true form 12 16.

• Human form: A delicate-featured boy with soft features and bright eyes. After learning to maintain the form, his ears remained slightly pointed and faint white mist rippled when he breathed 12.
• True form: A shifting mass of pale mist with numerous writhing tentacles. Something pulses at its core, producing an aura of dizziness and unease 16.

Personality

Ren Yi is outgoing and inquisitive. He talks freely with the quiet Ren Man and was accustomed to handling the family’s social interactions with their neighbors. After awakening, he repeatedly investigates the rules and abilities of the beings around him, including his brother’s mysterious powers 1 9 45.

He adapts quickly and uses deception tactically: he persuaded Doctor Lin to teach him illusion weaving by threatening to tell Ren Man about the awakening hallucination. He also questioned his own lack of distress after killing, wondering whether his instincts as a weird being had affected him 14 23.

Abilities & Skills

Illusion

Ren Yi’s ammunition-type rule allows him to plant an Illusion seed after absorbing positive emotions caused by himself. Doctor Lin described “Illusion” as a provisional name for the ability 14 16.

• At E-Rank, his ammunition capacity was one use. Reloading counted as one feeding, and his target had to become happy because of him 14 16.
• A planted illusion had no stated duration limit; its content depended on Ren Yi’s imagination. Doctor Lin expected its E-Rank effects to be largely visual and advised incorporating the real environment 14.
• The ability could not directly kill. Ren Yi used it to create a false system for Lin Feng and later planted seeds in Holy City residents as a precaution 18 33 48.
• He could target himself to expend ammunition and absorb waiting energy. He also gathered positive emotions from livestream viewers outside an Instance 28 32.
• After receiving knowledge from Lu Qing’s Energy Crystal, he learned to store excess energy temporarily as points of light and eventually condense it into a crystal 44 47.

Shapeshifting and movement

Ren Yi’s flexible body can change shape, float and form tentacles 3 12 17.

• He learned to move on eight tentacles and to maintain a complete human appearance during the days after awakening 12.
• He disguised himself as a white jade pendant on Lu Zihan’s wrist. At that point, he could transform only into simple objects, not impersonate another person through shapeshifting alone 17.
• Returning to his true form would undo the Herb Garden’s flesh-fusing effect on his body 39.

Eerie perception

Ren Yi can perceive his surroundings beyond ordinary human senses, including seeing in darkness and forming a three-dimensional image of distant events 3 34.

• His perception failed to detect Chaye while the Shadow Ghost occupied the two-dimensional plane of a shadow 35 36.
• The Herb Garden’s fog reduced his eerie senses to a range of about half a meter 37.

Relationships

• Ren Man — Ren Yi’s older brother and guardian, who raised him and helped him control his awakened body. Ren Yi draws comfort from him and believes his brother’s happiness supplied the energy for his first advancement 1 4 14.
• Lu Zihan — Ren Yi’s best friend and fellow Youngling. They worked together in Instances and accompanied each other through the Lu Family Courtyard 1 16 37.
• Lin Xinyan / Doctor Lin — The family’s community doctor. Ren Yi blamed him for the awakening experience, but later secured his help learning to weave illusions 10 11 14.
• Lu Qing — Lu Zihan’s mother, who oversaw Ren Yi’s participation in the Three-City harvest and gave him a knowledge-bearing Energy Crystal 24 44.
• Chaye — A Shadow Ghost whom Ren Yi met in the Lu Family Courtyard. Ren Yi apologized for striking him during the Instance, and the two became friends 36 44 45.

Story Role

First Instance

Ren Yi joined Lu Zihan for an internship Instance at the Endless Game Hall. Disguised as Lu Zihan’s jade pendant, he used a fabricated “Invincible Contrarian System” to manipulate participant Lin Feng. After the Instance, he learned how its harvested energy was divided between the Alliance and its administrators 15 17 18 23.

Lu Family Courtyard

For the Alliance’s Special Harvest Plan No. 37, Ren Yi entered Lu Qing’s Instance disguised as the participant Mo Ming, hoping to test whether he could gather emotional energy from outside it. He fulfilled the requirement to personally kill a participant, collected positive emotions from livestream viewers, and cleared the Instance. Lu Qing later explained that the failed participants had gone toward paying the Instance’s rent 24 28 29 32 33 42.

Three-City World

Ren Yi descended near the Holy City with seven days before his automatic return to the Alliance. After killing a mutant beast, he encountered an unexplained source of positive emotions 46 47.

A search party mistook him for the Holy City’s prophesied Divine Son. He accepted the role, gathered believers’ positive emotions and planted Illusion seeds while being escorted to the city’s leaders. At a meeting of the three cities, King City’s prime minister challenged his supposed divine revelation 48 49.