Self-Portrait (Part 1)

Ronan had no idea that someone was closely watching his every move. Even if he had known, he had no spare energy to care.

He was in terrible condition: hunger, pain, numbness, itching, hallucinations. These negative factors had already been present, but as time passed, they only increased rather than diminished. They gradually converged into corrosive poisonous fire, driven by some invisible force as it drifted through his Five Viscera and Six Bowels, his limbs and bones.

That so-called "invisible force" was precisely the ghost Ronan had discovered through contemplation.

The ghost was no longer the size of an "insect." It commanded the poisonous fire as it flowed through the depths of Ronan's flesh, constantly devouring his vital essence and growing stronger. It also continuously inflicted increasingly severe interference upon Ronan, creating an effect akin to a "blockade."

Whenever Ronan tried to calm his mind, clear his thoughts, enter the Meditative State, and investigate the ghost's origins, intense disturbances from both his body and Mental Layer would come roaring in and forcibly blast him out.

If this continued, then simply considering the mental energy consumed by entering the Meditative State and the backlash from failure, Ronan would sooner or later be worn to death by the ghost.

The ghost had also been trying to stir up Ronan's emotions.

Take his conflict with Li Xuecheng. At the moment Ronan had nearly killed Li Xuecheng with a deadly psychological suggestion, he had clearly heard the ghost's faint, hissing laughter echoing in his ears.

The string of reason had truly been only a little away from snapping.

Ronan also remembered how, when his palm had pressed against Li Xuecheng's throat, the other man's fear and despair had melted into the vital essence of flesh and blood, converging into a surging wave of heat that rushed into him. Yet it had been Destined to be nothing more than muddy floodwater passing through. Not only had it failed to serve his purpose, it had even swept away some of his vital essence before vanishing without a trace—though it was easy enough to imagine where it had gone!

The ghost was using this method to grow rapidly stronger, steadily squeezing Ronan's Living Space.

Naturally, Ronan was not in a good mood.

But upon closer examination, much of that mood was still the unpleasant experience of old memories being stirred up, allowing long-settled dregs to rise again.

He was very dissatisfied that he had lost his temper so badly over the laptop just now... all right, over the Imitation Paper Soft Screen.

That should not have happened!

The Imitation Paper Soft Screen had been with him for five years. He had grown used to forgetting everything about it except its practical functions. But where had that violence and impulsiveness come from? And why had those dazed, turbulent emotions welled up afterward?

Was it because someone's genes were hidden deep in his flesh?

That coward?

Heh heh!

Ironically, the ghost's active interference gave Ronan a very good explanation, leaving him with a subtle sense of relief.

If everything came down to the ghost... then things became much simpler.

The ghost's blockade-like interference had indeed caused enormous trouble. But why did he have to stubbornly keep smashing his head against a wall?

Ronan entered the Meditative State in hopes of using that state to better understand the ghost, approach it, capture it, and destroy it. The ghost's obstruction and interference instead proved that his line of thought was correct.

In Ronan's view, the one being stubborn should have been the ghost. To understand something, one did not necessarily have to rely on the "Meditative State."

Ronan had a more direct method:

A pen and a sheet of paper!

For years, he had collected character references, sketched the scenery around him, and made countless on-the-spot drawings to capture other people's traits. His strokes might not follow any Rules, but he had long cultivated first-rate perceptiveness.

What he needed now was merely to create a special "Self-Portrait."

Lines flowed from the tip of his pen, layering over one another and interweaving. His thoughts hovered between presence and absence, focused yet relaxed, smooth yet agile, until they seemed impossible to stop.

In a sense, drawing by hand was freer than contemplation.

Contemplation Graphics seemed to emerge from nothing, but they were actually extremely rigorous. They had to remain in substantial sync with one's body and spirit, and could not be altered at will.

But a rough sketch on blank paper was different. It came from reality, yet could also break free of reality. He could freely use virtual, fantastical, and symbolic strokes to describe a thought or concept, completely liberating his inspiration.

Grandfather had once used hand-drawn diagrams to express the mysteries of Format Theory. Now Ronan could likewise use a similar method to describe and explain the changes happening to himself.

Once those changes fell onto paper, he could even reason and extrapolate from them, taking a step ahead to create a preliminary draft for a "great work."

Thus, Ronan drew a prison that could never exist in reality, using it to symbolize the most prominent thought in his heart at that moment.

Being imprisoned was a first for Ronan in all his life. The novel experience naturally connected to the first line of the Sixteen-Word Incantation:

My Heart is a Prison.

Ronan believed that the Sixteen-Word Incantation must have been Grandfather's interpretation of Format Theory. Terms such as "prison," "furnace," "mirror," and "kingdom" might even be direct descriptions of different format levels. Judging by the sequence, the format of "prison" might be an advanced form of "container."

Thus, taking the cold, cramped Confinement Room as a reference, he used free, fluid strokes to gather flickering inspiration, and even the more wondrous "vital rhythm," constructing a marvelous building unique to himself upon the page.

Of course, he knew that much of the prison's structure was fantasy and might not be applicable to "formats." But as long as he had a thread of inspiration to follow, that was enough.

As for the distorted image, that was even easier to explain, because the drawing reflected reality. The force twisting the building came from within it.

That invisible, formless ghost was the culprit.

He could not see the ghost, but through the distorted scene, he could indirectly sense its existence.

The more elements appeared beneath his pen, the closer the "Self-Portrait" came to reality.

At this moment, Ronan's pen tip and thoughts merged into one, indistinguishable from each other. In the hazy space between presence and absence, the empty world of contemplation unfolded before Ronan again like a painted scroll. The silver-threaded Regular Tetrahedron and its inscribed and circumscribed spheres appeared with clarity, overlapping with the "prison" on the paper to form a marvelous scene.

It did not matter if he could not enter the Meditative State. He could recreate the Meditative State here.

In fact, once it was recreated, it proved that Ronan's state of mind had already cast off external interference, rendering the ghost's actions meaningless.

Ronan's pen did not stop, but his mind had already returned to the Meditative State.

Caught off guard, the ghost that had been constantly interfering and sabotaging him finally revealed its bizarre form!

Beyond the Contemplation Graphic, another color seeped into the darkness that had once been completely empty. It was an oppressive dark red, like a flame struggling not to die amid ashes. It permeated and blended with the darkness, together forming a somewhat blurry outline.

The thing swam through the darkness, pressing against the Contemplation Graphic as it tried to seep inside... and it had already infiltrated a considerable portion.

For anyone else, even finding the boundaries of this monster would have taken some time. But Ronan recognized its form at a glance:

Burning Demon Shadow!

During the "earthquake" in the Research Zone, it had been this very demonic shadow that had flickered into view. With one roar, it had nearly taken Ronan's life, before hiding away again without a trace, impossible to pursue.

Ronan had even preserved its image in his drawing Software.

If not for the mess involving "True Fate," Ronan should have been at school by now, consulting materials and trying to uncover traces of it. Who could have imagined that this thing had been wandering through his consciousness in such a state, fused with his flesh and blood!

Ronan did not stop drawing, but a faint smile curved across his lips.

"He smiled, he smiled!" Lu Zhongxiao cried out involuntarily. He immediately felt deeply ashamed, convinced that Ronan must have infected him for him to be making such a fuss.

Zhang Yingying was also very curious about Ronan's current state of mind. Unfortunately, the surveillance feed was Destined not to detect Ronan's inner thoughts. Instead, a beep sounded in the monitoring room, the door opened, and someone strode in.

Zhang Yingying turned back curiously and saw a man in a crisp, fitted sky-blue uniform. He wore no rank insignia, making him look utterly out of place amid the roomful of "deep-space gray" Aerospace Force uniforms.

When Lu Zhongxiao turned and saw The Visitor, his brows furrowed slightly. He quickly forced a smile, stepped forward, and said with a chuckle, "Assistant Yan, how is the search below progressing?"