When Xiao Ran opened his eyes, the familiar cockpit was gone. In its place was a dazzling aurora-filled world, with every streak of light rushing past him toward the rear. This was completely different from the Mental Communication Space, more like entering a passageway. What rushed past was not light, but Xiao Ran's consciousness.
As colors flashed rapidly before his eyes, Xiao Ran felt a faint pain accompany them, along with the sensation that his soul was leaving its body and drifting farther and farther away. It was a feeling he had never experienced before—not even when he had entered a quantum state.
All kinds of simple emotions continuously brushed past Xiao Ran during this process: happiness, excitement, sadness, sorrow, longing. Every emotion appearing within that kaleidoscopic passage represented the weak manifestation of an ELS Unit's soul. Compared to Xiao Ran's mental projection, those tiny emotions might not even have been as large as ants. Yet when countless emotions linked together, they became unimaginably heavy—so heavy that even Xiao Ran found them difficult to bear.
Fortunately, none of those emotions attempted to assimilate Xiao Ran. They merely allowed him to feel and touch them, telling him what they were thinking and feeling. But perhaps because ELS were too simple—or rather, because most ELS other than the mother organism were simple—their intelligence only allowed them to express their emotions and nothing more.
Of course, Xiao Ran, as an Innovator, could not be assimilated so easily just because something wanted to assimilate him. But if it had been an ordinary person, even if they stopped immediately after being washed over by countless emotions, they would probably have remained immersed in them for quite some time.
As time passed, Xiao Ran felt his head ache more and more, as though countless needles were