Test

Not yet sure whether anyone else could see this thing. To be safe, it would be better to go home and study it.

With that thought, Ji Minghuan tapped the X in the upper-right corner. The System Panel shrank into a gear icon and moved to the lower-right corner of his field of vision.

He left the secluded corner behind the school building and soon crossed the gates of Li Jing Fifth Middle School, stepping into the bustling market. It was rush hour, and dense crowds surged toward him like an ant colony. The honking seemed to carry the smell of sweat.

After much difficulty, Ji Minghuan found a gap and slipped nimbly out of the crowd like a fish.

Rather than continue down the main road, he turned into a City Village.

He found a narrow, damp alley within the City Village and turned into it. Air-conditioning units sat behind security grilles, while clothes hanging on rooftops swayed in the wind. A light rain had fallen at noon, and puddles still remained on the ground, with one or two gray-black cigarette butts floating in them.

Seeing no one around and no surveillance equipment in the alley, Ji Minghuan leaned against the wall.

He raised his right hand and stared silently at his fingers for a moment. "If the memories are correct, this body's ability is..."

The next moment, Ji Minghuan curled his fingers slightly. A pitch-black Restraint Band slid from the sleeve of his school uniform like a snake, coiled around his wrist, and slowly wrapped around his index finger.

"Just like in the memories." Gazing at the Restraint Band as if it possessed tangible life, he murmured, "This is Gu Wenyu's ability."

The moment Character Memory had loaded, memories related to this ability had naturally flowed into his mind. According to the setting, "Gu Wenyu" had awakened his ability less than a month ago. His control over the Restraint Bands was only rudimentary, and he had not even fully grasped the rules of his ability.

Even so, this body retained the muscle memory from repeated ability training.

Ji Minghuan did not need to deliberately control it. The instant a thought crossed his mind, his body moved instinctively, and the Restraint Bands responded accordingly.

Leaning against the alley wall, Ji Minghuan quietly recalled "Gu Wenyu's" earliest experiments with his ability. A moment later, he raised a brow, seeming to find some rules in the memories that Gu Wenyu himself had never noticed.

He lifted his backpack one-handed and held it over his head, extending a pitch-black Restraint Band from his sleeve at the same time. The moment he let go, the heavy backpack dropped straight down at the back of his head.

Yet unexpectedly, Ji Minghuan felt no sudden pressure on his head.

Instead, the Restraint Band wrapped around his wrist suddenly sank slightly, its surface denting downward.

Ji Minghuan scratched his head and stared at the backpack on the ground with interest. "That's pretty fun."

Indeed, even though the heavy backpack had just struck him, his head had not been affected in the slightest.

Just as he had guessed, the Restraint Bands could share the force he endured. Moreover, as that force flowed from his body into the Restraint Bands, it was weakened to a certain degree.

If Ji Minghuan's body was a "sink," and the force acting on him was "water," then the Restraint Bands were like several "small puddles" dug beside the sink. The moment water fell into the sink, it would first be diverted into the puddles, and during that diversion, part of the water would be absorbed by the soil, reducing its total volume slightly.

With that in mind, he could even rely on the Restraint Bands' mechanism to move at high speed atop tall buildings without any risk. Even if he accidentally fell, Ji Minghuan could have the Restraint Bands bear the instantaneous impact of hitting the ground in his place.

It was like giving himself an insurance policy.

Of course, that depended on the impact of landing not exceeding the maximum limit the Restraint Bands could bear. Otherwise, once the Restraint Bands shattered, he might not even leave a corpse behind.

Yet in Gu Wenyu's memories, he himself had never realized this. He had once jumped from a height of five meters and emerged unscathed, mistakenly believing that his Physical Quality had toughened after awakening his ability. In truth, the Restraint Bands had absorbed ninety percent of the impact the instant he hit the ground.

Objectively speaking, though, his Physical Quality really had improved after awakening his ability—and by no small amount.

At that thought, Ji Minghuan suddenly blinked. "Right. What if it absorbs not instantaneous impact, but continuous force?"

He summoned the Restraint Bands across his entire body, making the pitch-black bands circle around him. From a distance, he looked like some alien object surrounded by a black vortex.

Ji Minghuan raised a brow and tried continuously transferring the gravity acting on him to the Restraint Bands. Then he tapped the ground with the tips of his shoes.

With only that light tap, his body shot high into the air in an instant, easily clearing the midpoint of the wall and reaching a height of four meters.

Then he drifted back to the ground like a Fallen Leaf, his entire body as weightless as if he were in space.

"It even works on gravity."

As the soles of his shoes touched the ground, Ji Minghuan retracted the Restraint Bands into his sleeves, a trace of surprise flashing through his eyes.

Only now was he certain. That move was not only effective against instantaneous impacts; it also worked on continuously applied force. In other words—Ji Minghuan could use the Restraint Bands' mechanism to reduce gravity's effect on himself, making his body lighter and granting himself superior mobility.

As long as he had the Restraint Bands continuously share the gravity acting on him, and... as gravity weakened slightly while flowing into the Restraint Bands, the "total gravity" affecting the Main Body and the Restraint Bands would decrease. His whole body would thus become more than twice as light.

But doing so came at a cost.

It would be easy to exceed the Restraint Bands' carrying capacity. Ji Minghuan could feel that after having them share his gravity for only a short while, the Restraint Band around his wrist had already become slightly hot.

"If I let the Restraint Bands share my gravity for a long time, wouldn't they just catch fire?" Ji Minghuan let his imagination run wild. "And if they really caught fire, could I use them as flaming whips to hit people?"

He paused. "Though if I did that, I'd be the first one to get burned."

After testing the basic rules of the Restraint Bands, Ji Minghuan slung the backpack he had thrown onto the ground over his shoulder.

He stood at the entrance of the alley, diverting gravity into the Restraint Bands all over his body.

With a leap, his body sprang upward in an instant, rising four or five meters into the air. He then extended the Restraint Bands wrapped around his fingers and caught hold of the security grille outside an air-conditioning unit. At that moment, he sharply raised his right hand and tugged on the Restraint Band connected to the grille, his lean figure swaying forward through the air.

Like a circus trapeze artist.

He carved a clear arc through the air, passing over one rusty security grille after another. The hum of the air-conditioning units was drowned out by the sound of air tearing apart.

As the Restraint Bands retracted to his side, Ji Minghuan fell toward the ground once more. Before landing, however, he sent out another Restraint Band, tightly wrapping it around a construction lift in the alley. He then pulled on it to borrow its force, swinging in a circle and soaring upward, swiftly vaulting over the billboard directly ahead like a petrel crossing the waves.

Freed from gravity's restraints, his body darted through the dusk like a bird.

After only two attempts, Ji Minghuan had completely mastered the technique.

The twilight was blood-red, and the pitch-black Restraint Bands danced through the air like spilled ink, winding around one security grille after another. The Young Man in his school uniform gripped the Restraint Bands as he passed through the narrow alley. At its end, his slender body dropped from more than ten meters above. His school jacket flew high behind him, fluttering wildly like a bird's tail feathers.

As he fell, the Restraint Bands gathered toward his body, as though a mass of wildly dancing black light streamed behind him while he plunged down like torrential rain.

The puddle in the alley grew larger and larger in his pupils, as did the reflection on its surface.

The instant his shoe soles touched the ground, Ji Minghuan diverted the impact surging up from below into every Restraint Band with mechanical precision, without a single error.

He landed safely, without even bending his knees.

Instead, the Restraint Bands around him drooped limply like dying snakes, hanging by his feet.

In the Dead Silence of the deep alley, he straightened his back and took a light breath of muddy air.

Then, lowering his gaze, he retracted the scorching, listless Restraint Bands into his sleeves. He pulled the backpack strap that had slipped to his elbow back onto his shoulder, tucked both hands into his school uniform pockets, and slowly walked out of the narrow alley as though nothing had happened.

Bathed in the afterglow of the setting sun, his figure gradually vanished into the city's clamor.