Spiritual Penetration

"A-rank?"

Han Su got his answer and was momentarily dumbfounded. "What did I even do to get an A-rank?"

Come to think of it, the last time he'd heard the Cipher Incantation, he'd had a pretty strong reaction. He'd even ended up ten years in the past. But in everyone else's eyes, he'd just taken a nap, right?

Hadn't Secretary Cui Qiao said he was pretty slow on the uptake? What was this A-rank evaluation about?

As he wondered, the instructor had the trainees enter the room where Han Su had heard the mysterious language before. The only thing that had changed inside was that the single chair from before had been replaced with a circle of chairs, arranged back-to-back.

The trainees went in one by one and took their seats. The door closed, and even the instructor stepped farther away from it.

Then the secret language Han Su had heard before began playing inside. Outside the room, a group of armed security guards, a group of doctors in white coats, and a group of rescue workers in protective suits waited.

They waited in silence. After a long while, an alarm suddenly sounded. The door opened a crack, and the protective personnel immediately entered the room, carrying out a pale-faced female trainee.

Her nose was bleeding, and her eyes were bloodshot, as if they were weeping blood. As they carried her out, she murmured, "I... I heard it."

"They... They said this is only the beginning... only the beginning..."

"..."

As the female trainee was taken away, the door shut. It seemed the secret language was still playing. A few minutes later, the alarm suddenly sounded again, this time accompanied by flashing lights.

Medical personnel rushed in once more. This time, they carried out a man. His whole body was convulsing, and the veins in his neck twisted like snakes. The medical staff present couldn't even hold him down as he struggled desperately and shouted:

"Bronze men! Bronze men!"

"The Bronze Age will surely descend upon the city!"

"The god of the bronze worshippers has opened his eyes in the abyss..."

"..."

Han Su watched from the side. At a glance, he saw an inhuman, eerie metallic gleam in the man's eyes.

At the same time, the scar on the back of his hand began to ache faintly for no reason, as though it had sensed something.

For some reason, he even seemed to hear the faint sound of machinery turning in his ear. It was like a hallucination, filling his ears without warning, but when he listened closely, he couldn't make it out anymore.

"..."

In the end, the trainee who seemed to have gone mad was restrained by the protective personnel. They forcibly injected him with a sedative, then managed to carry him away. Han Su had no idea where they took him.

As the man disappeared from view, the scar on the back of Han Su's hand gradually stopped hurting.

But Han Su couldn't help feeling a growing sense of alarm.

What was that Bronze Age he'd mentioned? And that metallic gleam in his eyes... Was that really normal?

Why had the scar on Han Su's hand suddenly started hurting?

He felt a vague, instinctive unease, but could only force himself to stay calm and stand quietly to one side.

After that, several more people were carried out in succession. One rolled his eyes back and convulsed on the floor; another suddenly grabbed his own throat and choked himself until his eyes rolled back. They were all acting strangely, but none of them said anything.

The instructor looked at them with regret. Even he, usually so casual and carefree, seemed a little reluctant to see them go through this.

Han Su seized the opportunity and slowly moved closer to the instructor. In a low voice, he asked, "I heard that sound before, but didn't feel anything. Why are they like this?"

"If you didn't feel anything, how did you get an A?"

The instructor glanced at him and shook his head. "Still, it's a good thing. It's better not to understand or hear this stuff."

"So what exactly is it?"

Han Su asked. Seeing that the instructor looked like he didn't want to deal with him, he quickly added, "I asked Uncle Zhang at the time, too. He told me to ask the instructor during training."

"Uncle Zhang..."

The instructor paused, then lowered his voice. "Chief Zhang?"

"Yeah!"

"No wonder!"

The instructor patted Han Su on the shoulder and gave him a knowing look. With a low chuckle, he said, "Well, for the sake of our new leader, I suppose I can tell you a bit."

"What you're listening to is actually a language. It's just not a language from our era."

"The reason we have you listen to it is to test your spiritual reactions and intuition. It's also a way of seeing what kind of potential you have..."

"..."

"Mysterious Power training?"

"That's right!"

The instructor smiled. "It's a way to use the mind directly to fight supernatural aberrations. It's a real weapon."

"Against aberrations like the Ghost Truck, weapons from the real world can hardly achieve the desired effect. So sometimes, we need to use forces that go beyond reality to fight those mad things."

"But to master this kind of supernatural force, you first need to break through a certain theory."

"The mind can influence reality, but it cannot enter reality directly."

"..."

The instructor's words made Han Su's mind stir.

When he'd tried to make his Mental Power break through his right eye, he'd faintly sensed this same idea. But no one had told him; it had felt more like a reminder from deep within his genes when he touched a certain boundary.

Now someone had actually said those words aloud in the real world. It gave him a strange, novel feeling.

The instructor's gaze grew slightly distant, and he said with a hint of emotion, "The mind is really an abstract term. It encompasses a person's consciousness, thoughts, mental faculties, and more."

"Humans use their minds to command their bodies and their thoughts to create things and conduct research. Through all kinds of actions, they change the world."

"That's what it means for the mind to influence the real world."

"But when the mind passes beyond the body and enters reality directly, that's a very frightening thing."

"The Mysterious Power training at the Disaster Management Bureau uses special methods alongside the listening of these ancient secret languages. It allows people to resonate with a certain force in the shadows, ultimately breaking through their limitations and achieving the controlled penetration of Mental Power into the real world."

Han Su's heart stirred. "Penetration?"

"That's right."

The instructor held out his palm and gently closed it. "This is a force that shouldn't belong to reality, so naturally, it's beyond what ordinary people can imagine. You can think of it as:"

"Supernatural application."

"All our supernatural powers, whether they're spells, talents, or certain objects, rely on this foundation."

"..."

"So that's how it fits together..."

Han Su felt as if something had clicked into place.

So the power in his right eye and left hand both belonged to a kind of Mysterious Power, but this Mysterious Power was brought about by the mind penetrating into reality?

But why did the power in his right eye need to penetrate outward, while the power in his left hand seemed to work without penetrating at all?

The question of the details flashed through his mind. He'd have a chance to figure them out eventually. For now, he seized the opportunity and asked, "Then why could some of the trainees understand the sound that was just played, while others couldn't?"

"That's the difference in their levels of spiritual sensitivity."

The instructor rubbed the beard on his chin and said, "The gifted are people born with unusually high spiritual sensitivity, who achieve spiritual penetration right from the start."

As he spoke, he glanced at the black-hooded girl leaning against the wall beside them, silent as ever, then continued:

"But people like that are rare, and the Disaster Management Bureau can't find many of them. So most field agents and investigators still need Mysterious Power training. In other words, we use acquired methods to help ordinary people achieve spiritual penetration safely."

"So it's very important to judge which ordinary people have the potential to achieve spiritual penetration."

"Those who heard distinct sounds in the secret language just now have exceptionally high spiritual sensitivity. People like them are easily contaminated, but they can also gain 'talents' more easily through Mysterious Power training."

"And some can even hear 'spells' in the secret language."

"..."

Han Su was surprised. "Spells?"

"That's right."

By this point, the instructor seemed almost delighted. He said with a sigh, "Mysterious Powers are hidden in the shadows of the world. Ordinary people can't discover them; only the languages unearthed from ruins can activate them."

"These spells are languages that can directly draw upon those Mysterious Powers."

"When someone who has achieved spiritual penetration recites a spell, they can directly wield that Mysterious Power."

"Of course, secret languages aren't the same as spells."

"Many secret languages are indeed among the languages unearthed from ruins, but they don't contain any targeted Mysterious Power. Such spells are empty."

"..."

Languages that could wield Mysterious Powers, ruins from before the Reconstruction Era...

The more Han Su learned, the more he felt as though a vast, unknown world was slowly unfolding before his eyes...

"What kind of language is so mysterious?"

The instructor couldn't help glancing at Han Su, thinking that even if he was a connected hire, asking this many questions was a bit impolite...

But just then, the black-hooded girl, who seemed not to have been listening to their conversation at all, suddenly spoke softly. "Some people believe it's the language once used by the gods."

Han Su's gaze sharpened. "Gods?"

The black-hooded girl gave a slight nod and said gently, "The Language of the Gods is a higher-level language. Conceptually, it encompasses all languages. Our language and the languages of the Western Continent are both branches of the Language of the Gods."

"Of course, that means it also encompasses their authorities."

"Humans use Mental Power that has penetrated into reality as their foundation, and Cipher Incantations, bloodlines, contracts, or objects as their medium, to wield powers that once belonged only to the gods."

"This is humanity's imitation of the gods—and humanity's talent."

"..."

"Talent..."

Han Su pondered this and looked over at her.