At that moment, the amphibious flying water-spraying car around his neck—the crude "Dragon"—was giving off warm specks of light, like scattered stars radiating a cozy heat. It seemed to have absorbed some of his mental power.
What a strange feeling!
If he had to make an analogy, it was like the spring-breeze-bathed feeling he experienced when he [Awakened] them. Now they were, in turn, [Awakening] him.
"What's going on?"
Li Qing was startled.
Recently, he had been conducting experiments on the stitched-together monstrosity of a dragon in this bottle universe every day:
He stared at them every day.
Although they had already awakened, he still tried to continue [Awakening] them, wanting to see what would change once they had been nourished to a certain degree.
Seventy seconds was enough to awaken them, but he forcibly stared at them for twenty minutes every day. The experiment had only lasted a week, yet this mutation had already occurred.
"What's going on?" Li Qing asked the attendants around his neck.
"Ah, I don't know either~~"
A simple, adorable Consciousness Wave came through.
Li Qing fell silent on the spot!
Inside this giant dragon's head were countless Single Cell drivers. Normally, whenever he asked this group of little cuties something, they would all chatter over one another.
But now, inside the test tube, there was only one voice!
There was only one life inside.
Since it was his core attendant unit and he did not need to worry about rebellion, he directly opened the test tube and poured out the life-form, which was shaped like a big-headed ant.
"Huh? What's this...?"
The little cutie's voice was filled with confusion.
He wiped down the platform with alcohol, spread the ant out on it, and picked up a delicate, sharp hook knife.
"Don't move. Let me take a look at your brain and see what's going on inside. How did the other brain drivers disappear?"
"Ah~ oh~~"
"Ah~ oh~~"
"I can open it myself~~"
It made a strange, adorably vacant Consciousness Wave sound.
Li Qing discovered that he did not need to cut it open. The other party was surprisingly considerate.
Its brain split open by itself.
Under his microscopic gaze, Li Qing discovered that the original group of driver cells had all connected together inside the brain, becoming a pomegranate-like structure made up of countless gemstones.
"They underwent a second awakening and became an Integrated Consciousness?"
Li Qing was astonished.
The Single Cells in this brain had linked together, resembling composite neurons.
Next, Li Qing began running some tests.
He discovered that after forming an Integrated Consciousness, the intelligence of this greater consciousness had not skyrocketed. There was no case of three cobblers surpassing Zhuge Liang. However, its computational thinking in certain areas had soared.
Its thinking speed was extremely fast, which should have been the effect of the Integrated Consciousness.
"This is too interesting!"
Li Qing was pleasantly surprised. "I even feel that as long as it develops feelings of yearning and worship toward me, it can emit some mental power back as feedback."
He immediately realized what was happening.
This was the original Zombie Lord Ability!
Ning Guochang had said that in his Parallel World, during his life as a zombie, as a zombie tyrant who controlled minds, the zombie life-forms under his control would provide him with mental feedback.
But in this world, Ning Guochang had thought that this power had vanished because Single Cells could not provide him with feedback.
Now that he thought about it, the ability had not disappeared.
Rather, the consciousness of Single Cells was too weak. Only truly large attendant life-forms could provide feedback.
"Thinking about it this way, I seem to see a path to becoming stronger. I'm finally a proper zombie tyrant."
Li Qing pondered.
"It's just a pity that there's a limit to the number of attendants I can control."
"At present, it's only 0.00078 grams, and this one Integrated Consciousness already occupies part of my control quota. The consumption is too great! I estimate that creating a dozen or so of them would use up all my attendant slots."
That would be a losing proposition.
It would be better to scatter them around as church higher-ups, making it more convenient to rule the world from behind the scenes.
Still.
Li Qing was brimming with interest.
If the Zombie Lord Ability had not truly disappeared, did that mean he could still use it?
Li Qing recalled the abilities Ning Guochang had described.
As the zombie tyrant lord who had occupied Phoenix City and beaten the surrounding survivor camps into abject terror, his ability to control attendants was far from simple.
First, the attendant perspective.
All controlled zombies would become the zombie tyrant's eyes and ears.
Second, consciousness descent.
His consciousness could temporarily connect with a zombie and descend into the zombie he controlled.
"I'll try it first." Li Qing frowned slightly as he stared at the giant dragon, slowly attempting to seep his consciousness inside.
Crack.
The next moment, Li Qing felt as though he had entered the body of the stitched-together dragon, watching its movements from a first-person perspective.
"Ah, Warm Father is beside me."
The other party seemed to sense that Li Qing's consciousness was attached to him.
Li Qing discovered that it really worked!
He continued adjusting the ratio of consciousness. In the end, the giant dragon's consciousness no longer noticed that Li Qing was peeking at it. It could not sense anyone's presence at all.
He could peek whenever he wanted in the future.
He began trying the next operation: controlling the body.
"Ah, don't— it hurts, don't—"
The other party's consciousness instinctively resisted.
After entering its consciousness, Li Qing manipulated the body for a while and found it incredibly interesting.
He was like a child who had received a toy, pressing a remote control and repeatedly playing with the toy car—moving forward, reversing, swimming, and spraying water.
During repeated tests, Li Qing discovered that his control range was even shorter than that of a cheap remote-controlled car.
Beyond ten meters, his control became blurry, and his perspective could no longer distinguish humans from animals.
Beyond fifteen meters, the connection cut off completely.
The Wi-Fi signal was absurdly weak.
After a series of tests, Li Qing rubbed his chin and reached a conclusion. "This is way too pathetic."
He remembered the Zombie Lord Ability Ning Guochang had told him about.
It constantly emitted a special signal wave with a coverage range of forty li, comparable to a ground-based communications station. It could easily transmit commands to his attendants and trigger a zombie tide!
Furthermore, as an intelligent zombie, he had even easily deciphered Wi-Fi and various signals, intercepting military information.
Yet after mutating in his hands, it had become absurdly weak—like telekinesis only strong enough to lift a strand of cotton!
He was clearly a control-type zombie lord as well, but he could only control a tiny ant. Beyond ten meters, its movements immediately spasmed, and his vision could not distinguish humans from animals. Even the remote-controlled toy car he played with was more nimble than this.
Still, it was fortunate that after the crystal core had mutated while crossing space-time, all aspects of its abilities had weakened by several thousand times, while its precision had also strengthened by several thousand times. He could now even make Single Cell bacteria into attendants.
He remembered hearing about the cause of Ning Guochang's death in the Parallel World.
He had attacked a survivor base, and the military had led a group of scientists to decipher his signal waves. They had even interfered with his frequency band. As a result, the zombie tide he drove across a forty-li radius went out of control, his core guard unit lost contact and could not return to defend him, and the enemy then carried out a decapitation operation.
At the time, Li Qing had thought it sounded incredibly cool. If someone wrote an apocalyptic novel about a villainous zombie lord, the concept would be pretty decent. If this Zombie King then added some plot about collecting wives, school beauties, and female CEOs, it would instantly hit the right flavor.
But now, if it was real...
Li Qing could only chuckle. "He had it too easy. No wonder the military surrounded and wiped him out."
He felt that if Ning Guochang from that Parallel Universe, as a zombie lord, had built a laboratory, put on a white coat, studied his own signal frequencies, developed superpowers, and waged an information war against his enemies while constantly improving himself, adjusting, and evolving his Consciousness Wave frequencies, how could he have ended up dead?
To rule a city as a native king, live off his innate talent, and study his own power without rigor—he was bound to be a Zhong Yong.
"Once I have money, I'll build a laboratory to study this signal wave. I'll scientifically and systematically investigate my Consciousness Wave, then evolve and modify it."
"I'm far too short-ranged. At the very least, it should reach a hundred meters, right?"
Li Qing complained for a while. "If I were in his position, I'd keep researching the consciousness waves I use for control. I might even develop a new Wi-Fi, letting my attendants connect to a network and log in, so they could actively submit to my control."
"But the transformation of this giant dragon is quite interesting." Li Qing looked thoughtful. "I can throw it inside now and use it as a temporary medium for descent, allowing me to enter it myself."
From the perspective of giants, it was certainly inferior to viewing this civilization through the eyes of its common people.
With that thought, he organized all his plans, then headed for the neighboring laboratory, intending to truly travel through an "otherworld" and go adventuring.
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