Surging Power

Luo Yifang walked over to the armored police car, which weighed more than a ton. Instead of lifting it like he had lifted the motorcycle earlier, he reached for the door. His five fingers pierced the hard alloy door with ease. With a flick of his right arm, he tore it off amid another screech of twisting steel. Luo Yifang raised an eyebrow in surprise. "Still barely felt anything?"

"Then try lifting the car?" Paqi was not afraid of seeing Luo Yifang embarrass himself. In her view, no matter how strong he was, it was still unlikely that he could lift a vehicle weighing several tons. After all, he had only gained this ability a few hours ago. Even if it was Level 5, a reinforcement-type ability could not possibly show results this quickly.

"I'll give it a try." Luo Yifang nodded with a smile, unconcerned. He had roughly figured things out from those two attempts. The increase in strength was not the important part—Vector Manipulation could do better than that. What he wanted to test was something else.

Still using just one hand, Luo Yifang grabbed the car and tried to lift it. It did not move.

"Already can't do it?" Paqi immediately took the chance to mock him. "That was quick."

"No. That part can't bear the car's weight. If I force it, it'll break, so I can't lift it that way." Luo Yifang glanced at the vehicle, then kicked the police car directly. Like a toy, it flipped over and crashed onto the ground with a heavy boom. Only then did Luo Yifang grab a bar beneath the chassis. Still with one hand, he lifted the car without much effort.

"What kind of freakish ability is this? It's only been a few hours, and your physical abilities are already this absurd?" Paqi was stunned as well. Luo Yifang's esper ability simply refused to follow common sense.

"Honestly, if I told you I could dismantle a tank barehanded now, would you believe me?" Luo Yifang sounded utterly casual. To him, this boost in strength was merely icing on the cake.

"You say that like you couldn't do it before."

Luo Yifang was instantly speechless. Fine, he had been able to dismantle a Gundam barehanded before. And why was he even showing off to someone who was obviously determined to oppose him? She would probably seize every chance she got to mock him in some new way. Still, having someone around to bicker with did make him feel less lonely. Back when he had been disabled and treated like a freak, he had gone years without speaking face-to-face with anyone.

To thoroughly test his other esper ability, Luo Yifang examined his current strength, speed, durability, recovery ability, neural reflexes, and other overall physical attributes. Even he was shocked by the results—judging by his current performance, he might be able to suppress some of the less overpowered Servants from Fate in a fight. Of course, without actual combat experience, he did not know for sure. Still, he felt like he could probably trade a few blows with Hulk now.

Even more shocking was that his body was growing stronger every moment. It seemed that the energy he had absorbed from eating earlier had merely been a trigger, an opportunity to activate this ability. Even without calculating, his body was continuing to grow stronger at a terrifying rate. He even felt that if this went on without end, he would be able to blow up the Earth with one punch in a few weeks. Fortunately, he could already sense a limit. That limit was still terrifying, of course, and he was nowhere near it yet. At his current rate of growth, Luo Yifang estimated it would take anywhere from several days to a week to reach it.

But now Luo Yifang began to wonder whether this ability of his really was an esper ability. If it was, why could he grow stronger without calculating? Even though his Vector Manipulation was already infinitely close to Level 6, and the formulas involved had been simplified to an astonishing degree, calculation was still necessary to use an esper ability.

"Could it be... this isn't a Level 5 ability?" Luo Yifang recalled the document he had read before. It mentioned the distinctions between espers, as well as methods for increasing an esper's strength. It could allow a weak Level 1 esper to disregard innate factors and become Level 5 in just a few years. Naturally, because an esper's strength was closely tied to talent, such a Level 5 would be somewhat weaker than those who had naturally been born at Level 5 or reached it through normal advancement. Even so, they would still be far stronger than a Level 4 high-level esper.

Yet that miraculous document did not mention Level 6 even once. It merely hinted in extremely vague terms that esper abilities would undergo certain changes upon reaching Level 6. Luo Yifang had no idea what those changes would be, but he guessed they were related to how esper abilities were used.

As everyone knew, the use of esper abilities was closely tied to the development of the user's brain. Any esper needed to calculate while using their power, working out changes in physical quantities through formulas in their mind. Naturally, the stronger the ability used, the more complicated the calculations became. If Luo Yifang went all out and used his esper ability to manipulate vectors, even he could barely handle that amount of calculation. This limitation practically ensured that espers found it difficult to fight at high intensity for extended periods.

Worse still, some espers found it hard to use their abilities when struck by intense emotional fluctuations such as panic or fear. This was no small hidden danger of esper abilities. But Luo Yifang had discovered that as his strength had grown since arriving in this world, the calculations he needed had begun to simplify. Calculations that had once taken him five seconds to complete could now be finished in less than one second before he activated his ability. That was why he had said he could now fight ten of his former selves.

And in this world, the simpler a statement was, the less likely it was to conceal a trap. The simpler something was, the closer it often came to the truth. Luo Yifang felt that this simplification of calculations was not merely due to his enhanced mental capacity. He thought it was more likely that he was gradually approaching a certain truth. Vector Manipulation was an incredibly terrifying ability. As its master, Luo Yifang could clearly feel its immense power. It seemed capable of more than merely controlling vectors and energy, but Luo Yifang could not yet understand it. This was his bottleneck—the bottleneck he needed to break through to reach Level 6.

In any case, though he still did not understand exactly how his other ability operated, Luo Yifang knew it was not a bad thing. At the very least, he could tangibly feel his body becoming stronger without any side effects. The weakness of espers becoming overly reliant on their abilities was drifting away from him, because the benefits brought by his other ability were genuine physical enhancements.

Luo Yifang had Paqi return to the original dimension, then clapped his hands and looked around at the streets, which were no different from before he had come down. He turned and returned to his apartment.

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