Wish Power Enhancement

"Takeoff?"

Tao Yu felt the transformation deep within his soul, that indescribable sensation, and his heart filled with intense exhilaration.

The world before him became clearer, the enhancement to his vision immediately apparent.

And this talent called Deification—he had never even heard of it!

Not to mention that strange level of (MAX++??). He had never heard of that either; it felt like some kind of error.

Still, the description of an Outer God from the void gave Tao Yu a vague guess. Perhaps it had something to do with his transmigration.

Judging from the three known abilities of Deification alone, none seemed capable of immediately increasing combat power, yet they represented limitless potential!

The World Will's gifts did not come with any datafication or permanent stabilization. Any ability acquired through training would decline if left unused for too long.

Wish Power acceleration merely allowed one to maintain stability through appropriate training and expenditure.

But Tao Yu would never have to worry about that again!

Any injury could be restored through Wish Power and eating. That was practically a divine skill as well.

Third Brother and Uncle Hu beside him were both disabled, while his parents had accumulated countless old aches and injuries over the years. Yet none of those would be a problem for him!

The second ability, Mental Immunity, was simple enough, but the overbearing prefix of "ignore anything" was enough to reveal its terrifying potential! The stronger the enemy, the stronger it became!

As for the final Deification ability, Tao Yu did not yet have a concrete understanding of it, but he could vaguely sense how extraordinary it was.

Wish Power was a force spread throughout the major world fragments around Abyss rifts.

It was usually concentrated within Wish Power Creatures and items. After killing a Wish Power Creature, portions of its remains would retain Wish Power. Some remains might even contain knowledge, skills, or fragmented information.

The same applied to certain Wish Power items, which sometimes possessed all kinds of special functions.

For example, the automated machine-gun turret on his home's roof was a secondhand Wish Power item. It could automatically search for nearby Gray Mist Demonic Creatures and attack them.

As for strengthening individuals, Wish Power was more like a training accelerator, generally allowing someone to reach the limit of what they could achieve through practice.

For example, through accelerated physical training with Wish Power, an ordinary person could potentially reach the peak of human performance in every aspect—sprinting, weightlifting, Stamina, and more.

However, without the support of other talents or skills, that would be the limit. And that limit would quickly decline after long periods without training, usually requiring sufficient practice and even some Wish Power expenditure to maintain.

The same was true for all kinds of skills, such as firearms and fighting techniques.

If one obtained new skills or knowledge from the remains of Wish Power Creatures, or learned a skill from someone within a world fragment—

then Wish Power could likewise be used for acceleration. At crucial moments, one could also spend a large amount of Wish Power to break through bottlenecks, depending on one's aptitude and the difficulty of the skill.

Wish Power consumption was closely tied to one's foundation of strength, talent, skill difficulty, and training method. Individuals with Combat Talent consumed far less Wish Power when training in their areas of expertise.

And the stronger one became, the greater the consumption required for acceleration.

It could be said that Wish Power was extremely important, yet far from omnipotent. More than anything, it brought about accumulation through quantitative change.

But judging from the ability Deification, could Wish Power be used to achieve a qualitative transformation in abilities?

Tao Yu's heart throbbed. After taking a deep breath to calm himself, he opened his backpack again and took out a canvas bag. As he lifted it, crisp clinking sounds came from within, as if it contained metal.

Opening it revealed glittering metal crystals inside.

This was the currency that carried Wish Power. His parents had extracted it from their own accumulated Wish Power and imbued it into special metals. It was something usable only after talent awakening, and the greatest gift his parents could give him on Awakening Day!

Talent awakening had no fixed interface. It was more like a form of awareness, and Wish Power had no fixed unit of measurement either.

But anyone could assign a convenient definition through their own will.

Based on his parents' experience and the common standard used in company transactions, with his parents' combined monthly income counted as three hundred units, this Wish Power could be considered one thousand Wish Power units.

It could complete ten hours of training at one hundred times acceleration for an ordinary person, or one hundred hours of training at twenty times acceleration.

As one's personal abilities or skills improved, Wish Power consumption increased more and more.

At the same time, achieving greater acceleration over a shorter period also caused consumption to rise continuously, making it less and less cost-effective. These two acceleration methods were the relatively cost-effective options Tao Yu's parents had developed for Awakening Day.

Though the first method was less cost-effective than the latter, it could greatly reduce time costs during the perilous Awakening Day. One could spend a day completing high-intensity training and rapidly gain targeted improvements based on the fragment's environment.

If the acceleration effect were compressed into a single hour, he might only gain a five-hundredfold speed increase. That was not cost-effective for Tao Yu's current needs.

The better the acceleration effect, the more consumption increased exponentially. On top of that, Wish Power consumption would rise again as strength improved. Eventually, even major figures probably could not afford it.

Wish Power enhancement had limits and thresholds. The closer one came to the limit, the more severe the diminishing returns became.

But Tao Yu now had a new option: directly Deify his existing talents or skills and bring about a qualitative transformation!

Though it seemed a skill's physical expenditure would increase at the same time, it was absolutely worthwhile for someone who could recover through eating.

Uh, Wish Power could also accelerate recovery, and was probably more efficient at it, but poor bastard Tao Yu immediately ruled that option out for now.

Having made his decision, Tao Yu began examining the other skills that had appeared alongside his talent awakening.

They were all things he had painstakingly trained for over the past eighteen years. After awakening his talent, they became more clearly represented. By sensing the Light Balls of those skills, he could vaguely gain some insight.

Skills: Basic Shooting Level 1, Basic Combat Level 2, Basic Weapons Level 2, Basic Breathing Technique Level 1, Basic Herbal Identification Level 1, Basic Trap Making Level 1...

He had a whole pile of miscellaneous skills—broad but not refined, all primarily for survival. Of them, the four most closely related to his combat strength were probably Basic Shooting, Basic Combat, Basic Weapons, and Basic Breathing Technique.

Their meanings were easy enough to understand from their names. If he used Wish Power to strengthen his training, even without advancing a level, his proficiency would improve noticeably, along with some related physical attributes.

Those level markers were merely intuitive impressions for easier understanding, a standard only within the company.

The gap between levels did not involve some qualitative transformation from breaking through a rank. Everything came naturally with accumulated progress. The differences were large, but not absurdly so.

Level 1 and Level 2 could be seen as ordinary amateur athletes and top amateur athletes, while Level 3 meant professional athlete.

The first three levels could all be pushed through with accelerated Wish Power training, but Level 4, roughly equivalent to an Olympic-caliber athlete, already depended on talent.

It could still be forced through without talent, but the effort would yield half the results! The decline rate would also be severe, and maintaining it would be exhausting.

Level 5 represented the limits of the human body. Even within Level 5, the gap between different proficiency ranges was considerable—roughly like the difference between running one hundred meters in 9.8 seconds and 9 seconds.

Tao Yu had not looked into skill levels beyond that. His father, even with Eagle Eye, had only reached Basic Shooting Level 4. He might have been able to push for Level 5, but could not bear the maintenance cost. That was the normal state of ordinary families in the Outer City.

The same went for Wish Power unit divisions. If Tao Yu wanted, he could invent any bizarre unit himself, even label his own ability level as Level 99. Naturally, though, the upper limit would rise accordingly.

But with Deification available, he would never choose to increase the proficiency of skills he had already trained so hard for years.

In the end, Tao Yu focused his mind on his talent Dynamic Vision (B-) and Basic Breathing Technique Level 1.

Dynamic Vision was his innate talent. Its importance went without saying.

Basic Breathing Technique, meanwhile, was a relatively respectable skill in the Outer City, not something everyone could learn. Tao Yu had only barely gotten started because the disabled Third Brother had repeatedly guided him through close personal instruction.

It was not some lofty Internal Cultivation Method, and it could not even break the limits of the human body.

But it could increase Stamina to a certain degree, slow physical decline, reduce the intensity of maintenance training, and improve the efficiency of physical exercise. Among the many skills Tao Yu had acquired later in life, it was one of the more advanced ones.

According to the information returned when he concentrated, Deifying Dynamic Vision would cost around eight hundred Wish Power units.

Basic Breathing Technique would cost around one hundred and forty.

Basic Shooting, Basic Combat, and Basic Weapons would each cost between eighty and one hundred, leaving insufficient Wish Power to strengthen them as well.

But he could still add Basic Trap Making as an extra, or leave some behind for accelerated enhancement and emergency injury recovery.

After roughly planning things out, Tao Yu began proceeding step by step. Naturally, Dynamic Vision came first!

As Tao Yu concentrated, he first drew all one thousand Wish Power units from the metal into his body, then focused his attention on Dynamic Vision.

The next moment, the Light Ball representing his Dynamic Vision talent visibly changed, seeming to give off flickering strands of golden radiance.

And Tao Yu's already clearer vision from Dynamic Vision suddenly became even brighter.

Even in the dim rainforest, he could see every piece of information and detail as clearly as if it were daylight—the patterns in the trees, crawling insects, pythons hanging from branches, and everything else entered his sight!

Just the passive enhancement to his vision had already brought tremendous gains!

There was a slight dizzy sensation, like putting on glasses, but it seemed to settle quickly. Perhaps that was adaptation brought by Mental Immunity.

As he focused, the new ability after Deification entered his awareness.

Dynamic Vision?? (Deification??): Possesses extremely powerful Dynamic Vision under normal conditions. By consuming mental focus under intense concentration, its effects can be greatly enhanced, allowing the user to see the flight paths of mosquito wings and traces of bullet trajectories. By consuming a large amount of additional physical strength, the user can temporarily increase explosive power and reaction speed. Insufficient physical strength may cause muscle strain.

The skill description transformed into information Tao Yu could understand through means other than words.

Receiving this terrifying enhancement, Tao Yu immediately felt his heart pumping hot blood through his veins.

This was way too outrageous!

How was this Dynamic Vision anymore? This was clearly Bullet Time!

Almost as soon as Tao Yu thought holy shit, the information on his talent shifted and changed into something he understood.

Talent: Bullet Time (MAX)

What stirred Tao Yu the most was discovering that Bullet Time could still be strengthened further!

But the moment he focused and sensed it, he was immediately doused with cold water.

The cost of this second Deification was vastly greater than the multiplier gained through Wish Power acceleration. The cost of Deifying his ability for the first time had still been within an acceptable range.

But the feedback telling him that another Deification would require at least a hundred thousand Wish Power units made him realize that it was not something he could accomplish anytime soon.

"It's actually nothing. Bullet Time is already completely enough for now. If I really strengthened it again, my physical and mental energy probably wouldn't even last a second. It doesn't matter. It really doesn't matter."

Tao Yu comforted himself for a while, but he could not shake the sour feeling of wanting grapes he could not have.

Still, it was not entirely self-consolation. As a little nobody, he might already struggle to sustain Bullet Time's active consumption. If he strengthened it again, it might truly become nothing more than a passive ability...