At dusk, in the Super Seminary cafeteria.
The cafeteria was usually noisy and bustling, but now a suffocating gloom hung over it.
The members of Xiong Bing Lian sat around a long table, heads lowered as they mechanically picked at the food on their trays. It tasted like sawdust.
Ge Xiaolun was especially dejected, his head almost buried in his tray. The scene of him accidentally striking a teammate that afternoon kept replaying in his mind, leaving him so ashamed he wished the ground would swallow him up.
Liu Chuang rubbed his still-aching chest and glared at Ge Xiaolun now and then. He wanted to curse him out, but seeing how miserable Ge Xiaolun looked, he swallowed his words and could only let out a heavy sigh.
Zhao Xin, Qi Lin, Rui Mengmeng, Cheng Yaowen, and the others looked just as gloomy, sitting in silence. They'd been taken out for no apparent reason before they'd even had a chance to do much, without ever seeing their opponent. It was more frustrating than simply losing a fight.
Qiangwei's face was pale, her expression conflicted. As the tactical commander, she'd been almost completely ineffective in the fight just now. She'd even been fooled by an illusion and attacked her own teammate at one point. It had hit her especially hard.
Lena sat at the head of the table, looking at her subordinates, who seemed like wilted eggplants after a frost. She was filled with regret and frustration.
She regretted ever suggesting that damn sparring match!
Su Xiao Li's bizarre mental abilities and illusions were completely beyond the scope of what ordinary Super Soldiers could handle. Never mind these rookie soldiers—even Lena herself couldn't say she'd have been entirely unaffected in that kind of environment.
She knew that, after this lesson, Lianfeng would surely start developing a specialized Mental Firewall. But right now, these guys had clearly been left with psychological scars, and their morale had hit rock bottom.
They'd barely gotten started, and their morale had already collapsed... What a terrible opening!
In stark contrast to the lifeless atmosphere on this side was the other corner of the cafeteria.
Si Yao sat alone at a small table, eating at a leisurely pace.
Su Xiao Li, meanwhile, fluttered around him like a cheerful Little Bird. Her face glowed with excitement and anticipation as she chattered away.
"Boss, boss! How did I do today? The fog! And my tails! Weren't they amazing?" Su Xiao Li's eyes sparkled, and the fox tails behind her swayed gently with her excitement.
"I took down several of them in one go!"
She didn't pay the slightest attention to the gloom hanging over Xiong Bing Lian. She was immersed in the joy of "victory" and the excitement of wanting Si Yao's approval.
Si Yao glanced up at her and gave a noncommittal "Mm."
It was only one simple syllable, but Su Xiao Li was so happy she nearly jumped. Her smile grew even brighter.
Truthfully, Su Xiao Li had been extremely nervous before the fight began.
Si Yao had analyzed Xiong Bing Lian for her in advance. Ge Xiaolun and Liu Chuang were extremely dangerous; their weapons and strength could pose a lethal threat to a Third Generation God Body. He'd repeatedly warned her never to fight those two head-on, and had even said that Suo Dun might not withstand their combined attack.
So from the very start of the fight, she'd held nothing back. She'd used all her might to channel Kongshi Realm Divine Power and Yongzhen Realm Divine Power, creating large-scale Mental Illusions and a Mist Domain. Her core strategy was to disrupt, split them up, and sow chaos—make Xiong Bing Lian fight among themselves, and especially make the two "weapons of mass destruction," Ge Xiaolun and Liu Chuang, wear each other down.
The facts proved Si Yao's assessment completely correct, and her strategy had worked perfectly. Her attacks couldn't truly break through Ge Xiaolun and Liu Chuang's defenses, but she'd successfully turned them into the greatest threats to each other.
As for the rest of Xiong Bing Lian, her power was enough to control and strike them effectively, quickly reducing the enemy's fighting strength.
The victory had relied on a few tricks, but it had undoubtedly proven her worth and the success of Si Yao's "modifications."
Su Xiao Li eagerly served Si Yao food and poured him water, practically radiating an air of "please praise me."
The cheerfulness on her side contrasted sharply with the dead silence on Xiong Bing Lian's, making the atmosphere in the cafeteria even more bizarre.
Lena looked at Su Xiao Li, so full of excitement, then at her own team, sunk in gloom. Her teeth ground with frustration, but there was nothing she could do.
They'd been outmatched. What could she say?
Dukao watched the scene silently from the monitoring room, his feelings complicated.
"Lianfeng, develop a Mental Protection Program as soon as possible. This ability is a hard counter to them."
"Understood. However, I don't know the other side's Mental Algorithm, so I can only develop a general-purpose program. The results... probably won't be very good," Lianfeng replied.
At its core, combat between Super Soldiers was a contest of Algorithms, Computing Power, and Energy Levels.
Algorithms had the highest priority, while Computing Power and Energy Levels were more like brute force that could work miracles.
She didn't know the basic algorithm behind Su Xiao Li's mental abilities, so developing a corresponding Protection Program would be very difficult.
"Do what you can," Dukao sighed.
He'd wanted to test Su Xiao Li's changes and gauge Xiong Bing Lian's combat strength. And the result?
They'd been sent straight into depression!
And they still had another exercise coming up...
Lena looked at Su Xiao Li, so full of excitement, then at her own team, sunk in gloom. At last, she couldn't hold back her frustration and confusion any longer.
She picked up her tray, dropped into the empty seat opposite Si Yao, and fixed him with a blazing stare.
Si Yao looked up at her. "Say what you have to say. Don't glare at me like a scorned wife."
"Su Xiao Li... What exactly is going on with her?" Lena gestured toward Su Xiao Li, who was still riding high on her excitement.
"Even if you've got money to burn and upgraded her Super Gene, Super Genes still need to be developed! They're not parts you can swap out and use right away!"
"How many days has it been? She was an ordinary girl before this. She hadn't even gotten the hang of Micro Wormhole Transport! How could she master such a complicated, high-level mental ability so quickly? And use it so skillfully? It's like she's been training for hundreds of years! It makes no sense!"
Super Genes focused on mental abilities were extremely rare and expensive, even scarcer than spatial genes.
That wasn't only because their coding was complex. Developing and training them also required a staggering amount of resources.
The Deno Civilization and Lieyang had considered researching this field in the past, but their final conclusion had been—its Cost-Effectiveness Ratio was too low.
Mental abilities weren't very versatile in actual combat.
Or rather, against truly powerful gods, such abilities were often beneath notice.
Divine Body Strength, the scale of the Dark Plane, Energy Level, Algorithms, and Computing Power—those were what determined the outcome of a God-Tier Duel.
If Ge Xiaolun and Liu Chuang could fully master the power of their Super Genes, their enormous Dark Planes and formidable Divine Body Strength would make it impossible for Su Xiao Li's minor Mental Interference to cause the kind of chaos it had that afternoon. It might not even affect them at all.
In large-scale warfare, mental abilities served mainly as support and surprise tactics.
Besides, such tactics were usually most effective the first time an opponent encountered them. Once the enemy was prepared and developed a corresponding Protection Program or Algorithm Firewall, their threat level would plummet.
In the end, a true God-Tier Duel always came down to a contest of Algorithms, a Computing Power Crush, and an all-out exchange of attacks on the absolute "god-slaying" scale.
Super Genes geared toward mental abilities were, to some extent, an unconventional path. They demanded enormous investment, but their late-stage growth and versatility were limited.
Su Xiao Li's "first-encounter kill" had been astonishing today, but Lena knew that kind of surprise attack would only work once.
Next time, Xiong Bing Lian would be prepared. Lianfeng was surely already working on a Mental Firewall.
What Lena couldn't understand was how quickly Su Xiao Li had mastered such a difficult ability! It completely defied the objective laws governing a Super Soldier's growth!
Si Yao put down his chopsticks and wiped the corner of his mouth with a napkin. "It's simple. I just wrote it directly into her brain."
Lena froze. "Wrote... wrote it in? What do you mean?"
"I mean exactly what I said," Si Yao replied coolly.
"At first, I expected her to develop the abilities herself, but after a day of training, I gave up. If I'd waited for her to master that complex set of mental techniques and combat logic on her own... I'm afraid I'd never have lived to see the day."
At that, Su Xiao Li instinctively gave him a resentful look.
What did he mean? Did he think she was stupid?
"So I tried a different approach." Si Yao ignored Su Xiao Li's resentful look.
"Using a special method, I embedded a large amount of mature combat logic, Energy Manipulation Algorithms, and mental techniques deep in her subconscious, so they'd exist as naturally as her instincts."
Qiangwei furrowed her brow. "Thought Writing? That involves direct interference with the brain and the information level of the Dark Plane. The slightest mistake could cause irreversible damage or even a collapse of consciousness. It's far riskier than Gene Modification. You..."
"The risks are real. But I have my own way of avoiding them—as long as the price is high enough," Si Yao said calmly.
The "price" he was talking about was, of course, the True Points required by the [Seed of Delusion].
As long as there were enough "True Points" to pay, the [Seed of Delusion] could bypass conventional technological barriers and risks, anchoring "lies" and "settings" to reality. It could even directly modify the Information Layer and accomplish this astonishing "Consciousness Infusion."
Even forcing different Super Genes to adapt to each other was possible.
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