Implanting an Anomalous Trait

"What's going on with Old Tang? What have your students written? Can an experimental report really be this careless?"

Academician Hu of Jingcheng spoke from the screen with an amused expression.

Academician Tang looked wooden in response, and the expression made him appear even older.

Academician Hu sensed that something was wrong. He knew Academician Tang was an extremely rigorous person, so how could he possibly indulge his students in sending such a hastily written report through such a serious channel?

So he asked, "What exactly happened? Did something go wrong?"

Academician Tang asked bitterly, "You read it? The report..."

"I read the report, but there isn't a single picture. How are we supposed to believe it? And those experimental results... How do you expect me to put this?" Academician Hu absolutely refused to believe the descriptions in the report.

A sword that could not be photographed by light and could not conduct heat.

It could also make the iron contained in anything it struck disappear, with the vanished iron nowhere to be found.

This was no longer a tall tale. It was outright fiction.

Yet when he looked at the scholars from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Wuhan on the other end of the video, all of them serious and troubled, he became a little confused.

"It's not that we don't want to show you photographs and operational recordings. We simply can't." Academician Tang said, "We stated in the report that every optical detection method is ineffective against it, and thermal imaging doesn't work either. Do you want me to send you its gravitational vector diagram? There's nothing unusual about its gravity..."

After hearing this, Academician Hu said, "Where's the sword? Put it in front of the camera right now and let me see it."

As expected of a researcher—unless he tried it himself, he simply wouldn't believe it.

However, after he finished speaking, he realized that no one on the other end of the video had moved.

"Why aren't you bringing it over? It shouldn't hurt to put it in front of the camera and let me see it, right?"

Academician Tang slowly pointed to the side and said, "It's right here. Can you see it?"

Academician Hu was stunned. He could only see a table, but there was nothing on it.

"What? It's in front of the camera? Where's the sword?"

As soon as he finished speaking, Academician Tang reached out toward the table.

It seemed as though he had gripped something and raised it in his hand.

Yet from Academician Hu's angle, there was nothing in Academician Tang's hand on the video. He was merely grabbing at empty air.

"You're holding a sword?" Academician Hu found it utterly absurd!

Grabbing air and claiming to be holding a sword—wasn't that just the emperor's new clothes?

Academician Tang, however, said with a solemn and serious expression, "Old Hu, I'm really not joking."

"Now, I'll prove to you just how strange this sword is!"

After saying that, he made a drawing motion with his hand, clearly removing the sword from its sheath.

Academician Hu watched without blinking as Old Tang swung the air in his hand toward the table.

If there had been a sword in his hand, that blow would have struck the table.

The next moment, something unbelievable happened.

The steel table suddenly disappeared.

It had not vanished completely. Most of its substance was simply gone, and a large amount of dust fell from midair and piled up on the floor.

Academician Hu stared in shock. This wasn't a special effect.

Academician Tang said with extreme solemnity, "The sword strike just now made all the iron in the steel table disappear."

"The remaining dust-like material is merely the alloying elements—carbon, silicon, phosphorus, sulfur, and so on."

After saying this, he simply stared at the camera.

On the other end, Academician Hu simply stared back at him.

The two sides remained silent for several minutes before Academician Hu finally became solemn as well.

He said, "Send it to the capital immediately!"

Academician Tang said with a bitter smile, "Old Hu, you believe me now?"

Academician Hu said, "I believe you. You've taken it this far, so I know you're not joking."

Old Tang immediately nodded. "I'll send it over overnight. In addition, I request to participate in the research."

"Oh?"

Academician Tang examined the sword in his hand and sighed, "After encountering it..."

"I know that I'll devote my entire life to this sword!"

"I have to find out why this is happening!"

"Let's begin!"

After returning home, Bai Ge did not immediately put his idea into practice. Instead, he first ate a huge meal.

After replenishing his energy and nutrients, he only began testing his idea of cellular electricity storage the following afternoon.

The settings were made through the bell, with the editing target being Bai Ge's Earthling body.

For the first test, the Safe Electricity Storage trait was set to three days.

Bai Ge returned to reality without any reaction. He did not need to actually electrocute himself. As long as he sensed whether he felt weak or had expended energy, he would know.

For the second test, he changed the duration to one day.

The result was still a failure. Clearly, this trait came at a much higher cost than he had imagined.

Bai Ge tested it step by step, repeatedly lowering the requirements.

When Bai Ge conducted his sixth test, setting the trait to five minutes, he and his body returned to reality, and he immediately collapsed from exhaustion.

An overwhelming sense of weakness swept over him. Bai Ge instantly became skin and bones, his entire body limp and powerless as he collapsed to the floor.

"It really works!"

Although he was so weak that he could not even stand, Bai Ge was extremely excited. This meant that he had succeeded.

At that moment, Bai Ge lay on the floor, gasping for breath. He could feel that he was practically on the verge of death. His entire body ached, and he could not even lift his head. This was what happened when his body became weak to the extreme.

"I'm about to go into shock. I can't faint. If I pass out now, I'll definitely die!"

Bai Ge hurriedly suppressed his smile and reached toward the socket beside him.

A cup of water had been prepared there long ago. He dampened his fingers and resolutely inserted them into the socket!

His arm went numb instantly as a current of electricity burrowed into his body.

He had no time to eat, and his current physical condition was not enough to let him eat. Inserting his hand into the socket was the only thing he could do.

As the current passed through his heart, he could feel his heartbeat becoming strong and powerful. All the electricity entered his body and seemed to vanish. It did not burn his body or leak away. Instead, it was stored inside him.

After less than a minute, he stood up as though nothing had happened. His physical stamina had recovered, and was even better than before. His strength, however, had weakened far too much because his muscles were gone.

"My body hasn't recovered at all. Although I have an excess of energy, all of it is stored in my cells... And my stomach is still just as hungry."

Looking in the mirror, Bai Ge discovered that he was absurdly thin. At a height of 1.8 meters, he now resembled a bamboo pole and might weigh only a little over thirty kilograms. Not only had his fat disappeared, even his muscles had shriveled. His face was gaunt, his eye sockets sunken, and he looked like a ghost.

"Ordinary people store energy as fat, while I now have another method. Electricity will only be stored in my cells and won't increase my fat. If I want to become fat again, I'll have to eat more..."

After gaining the cellular electricity storage trait, Bai Ge could survive without eating, simply by charging himself.

The electricity would provide the energy he needed to survive. This had also been part of the settings.

However, if he did not eat, his stomach lining would be worn through.

"Time to hurry. I can't waste this precious time."

Bai Ge lay on the floor again and began storing electricity with his hand in the socket.

As he felt the amount of electricity inside him grow, Bai Ge knew that he could realize even more of his wild ideas.

"Five minutes. This efficiency is absolutely far beyond the speed at which humans absorb energy."

Bai Ge had an extremely strong sense of time. As the five minutes approached, he felt that it was almost enough.

"I have to stop. Otherwise, when the ability disappears, I'll be electrocuted to death."

The sensation of absorbing electricity was incredibly refreshing, like savoring delicious food.

For living creatures, eating was the most instinctively pleasurable thing there was, even more pleasurable than reproducing. Humans were simply too accustomed to this instinctive pleasure.

In those brief five minutes, Bai Ge experienced that happiness again—the happiness of a body filled to the brim.

Reluctantly, he pulled his finger out and felt better than ever before.

"Before the electricity runs out, my physical stamina will remain full!"

Electricity had replaced all the energy the human body needed. Nutritional imbalances might occur, but there was absolutely no problem with staying alive.

"Continue! The electricity inside me is also part of my body's energy, so I should be able to use it up..."

With the bell's design, Bai Ge once again realized the five-minute electricity storage trait.

This time, he did not become any thinner. He did not even feel weak. Instead, he clearly sensed that some of the electricity inside him had been depleted.

"As expected, the electricity is being consumed."

After the second five-minute charging period ended, Bai Ge absorbed a great deal of electricity once again.

The charging efficiency was clearly far higher than eating and the like.

Even after eating himself into a three-hundred-pound obese man, the energy he had accumulated had not been as great as what he gained in these five minutes. It was truly highly efficient energy storage.

"Let's not do five minutes at a time anymore... I'll manifest it for an entire day in one go. I should have enough energy now."

Bai Ge tried realizing the energy storage trait for one day, and succeeded on the first attempt.

Clearly, the energy he possessed now was enough to bear the cost.

"The breaker tripped... The instantaneous output was too high. After all, this is household electricity..."

Bai Ge did not know how much electricity he had absorbed, but it had definitely exceeded the load for high-power usage.

"Wait, wouldn't I know how much electricity passed through by checking the meter?"

One kilogram of fat could produce 1,600 kilojoules of energy. Forty kilograms amounted to 64,000 kilojoules, while one kilowatt-hour of electricity was 3,600 kilojoules.

In other words, when he first realized the energy storage trait, he had used up roughly 17.8 kilowatt-hours of his body's energy.

Bai Ge went downstairs. Although the electric meter box was locked, he had a habit of recording his meter readings.

"What? That much?"

Bai Ge discovered that compared with the previous month, he had used 650 kilowatt-hours of electricity that month.

He usually used 120 kilowatt-hours. Since it was still the beginning of the month, he had used at most another fifty. Yet in those ten minutes of drawing electricity, he had actually charged himself with six hundred kilowatt-hours!

"The gain from the electricity storage trait is sixteen times the energy consumed to realize it."

"And that's only household electricity. I can make sixteen times the energy at a profit using ordinary electricity. If I use high-voltage electricity as the input, will the efficiency be even higher?"

Bai Ge sat at home charging himself while considering other ways to improve his energy intake.

"A few hundred kilowatt-hours wouldn't matter, but I can't keep charging myself at home like this."

"It won't do to keep tripping the breaker... Wouldn't the neighbors start wondering what I'm doing at home?"

"It's already overloaded. Should I try high-voltage electricity?"