Super Vision

Rayne steadied himself and finally recognized the eight-petaled pattern. It was the logo of that domestic phone company, though not exactly the same.

The petals of the original logo were all arranged on one side, forming only half a flower blooming upward in a semicircle. But the pattern before him formed a ring, a complete flower with a mysterious golden core at its center, looking remarkably three-dimensional.

Perhaps the teleportation had caused some mutation, which was why he had failed to recognize it in his dream.

Rayne was both startled and afraid. Scratching his head in confusion, he could not understand how this phone had traveled through worlds with him, much less ended up inside his head.

"Has this phone become a spirit, or have I become a phone spirit?"

He watched the red flower logo on the interface slowly rotate. It was clearly still booting up.

"It boots up so slowly."

Rayne muttered, then quickly noticed that as it started up, the phone seemed to be draining his stamina. He felt increasingly exhausted, his entire body going weak.

He hurriedly found a dry spot and sat down. A few minutes later, the phone finally finished booting and entered its operating interface.

"This interface is different too."

Rayne was astonished. The original interface, like the screen, had been rectangular. But the interface before him was circular, like a giant dial. At its center was the flower made of eight petals, while dozens of icons were arranged around it in outward-expanding rings. Altogether, it resembled a distorted eye.

Some of these icons were familiar, while others were utterly unfamiliar.

"How am I supposed to operate this?"

Rayne was still wondering what he would do if he could not tap it with his fingers when he discovered that whenever he focused on an icon, it enlarged slightly and grew brighter, standing out from the rest.

He did not rush to open any of them. Instead, he gave them a quick once-over first.

Whether the mutation had been too random or there was some other reason, every icon was an odd design, looking both like drawings and characters. Each was more abstract than the last, and unlike normal phone apps, none had names beneath them, making them extremely difficult to identify.

For example, one icon resembled a camera, square and boxy like one, but instead of a lens in the middle, it held a bizarre eye that gleamed with an inexplicable light.

Another icon looked like a microphone, but at the top of the mic was a distorted pointed ear, surrounded by several curved, wavelike lines. He had no idea what it meant.

Rayne could only guess that each icon represented a function or an app.

And all of these functions and apps could be used without an internet connection.

The ones that originally required internet access, such as WeChat, browsers, email, and news apps, had all vanished.

Thinking of this, he could not help feeling disappointed. He had hoped this miraculous phone might let him contact Earth, but now that seemed like nothing more than wishful thinking.

What frustrated Rayne most was that most of the icons were grayed out. No matter how he focused his mind on them, nothing changed. They clearly could not be activated.

"Why are some of them unusable? Is the battery too low?"

Rayne had a guess. Around the Little Red Flower at the center—his newly coined name for it—was a circle divided into evenly spaced little segments. He counted them and found exactly one hundred.

At that moment, starting from the twelve o'clock position and moving clockwise, only seven segments were lit. Beside it was a battery-shaped icon displaying a glaring red number: 7%.

"This should be the phone's battery level. Each segment represents 1%."

Looking at the mere seven lit segments, Rayne suddenly felt very insecure.

For modern people, a phone's battery was their second life. Below 20% was enough to make anyone anxious, and below 10% meant they were practically at death's door.

And this mutated phone was inside his head, seemingly bound to him. Rayne did not dare imagine what would happen if its battery dropped to zero!

Would it shut down when it ran out of power? Or would I die too?

"Whatever. Let's first see what this thing can actually do."

At present, only a handful of icons could be activated, including the camera, calculator, and clock. Rayne focused his mind on the camera icon and thought of opening it.

The camera bearing that bizarre eye immediately expanded before him.

In the very next instant, the world in Rayne's eyes underwent a tremendous change.

Everything became clearer, as though a layer of mist had been wiped from glass, or a thin layer of mosaic had been removed. Every detail stood out vividly, colors became more vibrant, and the world seemed to come alive.

It was morning, with sunlight pouring down from the sky. He could see countless tiny wisps of vapor rising from the river like drifting dust. Beneath the surface swam many fish and shrimp amid swaying aquatic plants, and every single scale on the fish was clearly visible.

When he turned to look elsewhere, Rayne discovered that he could see incredibly far.

Across the river, a tree two or three hundred meters away was magnified a hundredfold in his vision, as though it stood right before him. He could make out every branch on it.

"My god!"

Rayne was stunned by this exaggerated eyesight. He knew the original phone had used the world's most advanced camera, but he had not expected that after mutating, the camera would replace his eyes and improve their performance by an unknown number of times.

Moreover, his eyes had a distance-measuring function.

For instance, the tree's exact distance was 267 meters, accurate to three decimal places. As his gaze shifted, the number changed continuously.

His eyes could zoom as well. When he focused his concentration, he could even observe the veins and textures of leaves on the tree across the river!

And this did not seem to be the limit.

Filled with curiosity, Rayne swept his gaze around and soon discovered another function: brightness adjustment. Even in dark corners, he could see everything clearly, as though he had activated night vision. Black and white were sharply distinguished in his field of view, everything plainly visible.

The X-ray vision he had fantasized about countless times, however, was absent, leaving him quite disappointed.

He wanted to keep exploring when a sudden beep sounded in his mind. He immediately came back to himself and discovered that the battery had dropped by one segment, falling to 6%.

"It drains power that fast? It's only been a few moments!"

Rayne was just about to look for the button to turn off the camera when he realized that the instant he had the thought, he had already exited the Super Vision state.

He then explored several other functions that could be activated, but after opening and trying them for a long time, he found no changes. He guessed that he had not found the proper way to use them, or that they required the right environment. The battery continued dropping, so he could only shut them off.

As the battery level fell, Rayne felt even more exhausted, so he stopped trying.

When his attention shifted away for a few seconds, the phone interface shrank into a Little Red Flower and moved to the upper-left corner, at the edge of his peripheral vision, without affecting his normal sight.

"So this is standby mode. Pretty smart."

With this mutated phone, Rayne felt somewhat reassured. He understood that it was his greatest support for surviving in this world.

After resting by the river for over half an hour, some of his strength returned, but his stomach was growling with hunger. Rayne knew he could not stay here any longer.

He looked toward the distant city filled with exotic architecture. It was Longsand City from his memories.

He straightened his half-wet, half-dry clothes, took a deep breath, and strode away from the riverbank, leaving a row of shallow footprints behind him.