The Second Latent Skill

The more Shen Xing thought about it, the more likely it seemed. If they didn't intend for him to join them, the Investigation Team wouldn't have handed him a telescopic baton capable of striking ghosts.

Perhaps what they valued was simply the formidable mental resilience he had displayed when facing an anomaly.

He spent the next few days resting at home and opening his shop for two days.

On the fourth day, Shen Xing took a break to visit the First Municipal Hospital for a free full-body checkup, and as expected, he walked away with a medical clearance card.

During the examination, he had intentionally asked the doctor to check his arms, secretly hoping to discover the reason for his increased finger strength, but the results showed everything was normal.

The timber he had ordered from the supplier, Lao Wan, had arrived, and Shen Xing had Lao Wan deliver it directly to the Tingwu Shop.

He mostly purchased wood with a looser, softer structure, such as pine, nanmu, camphor, and ginkgo. Since he was running a small business, he positioned himself to sell products with simple, easy-to-use designs.

Small profits but quick turnover allowed for faster production, making his work widely accepted by the general public.

Of course, he also occasionally purchased hardwoods like cypress, walnut, and callery pear. These woods were dense, tough, and resistant to warping, usually resulting in higher-value carvings, though their focus on intricacy meant a smaller target audience.

However, selling just one of these could equal the profit of several, or even a dozen, ordinary softwood pieces.

He had also received a piece of Shadow Wood for crafting the Blood Pupil, and Shen Xing prepared to use it to create his second Blood Pupil Wood Carving.

As for the wood for the Skin Face, he chose elm.

Elm is often called "elm-headed" by the public, implying it is difficult to enlighten or carve. Yet, the advantages of elm are clear: it has dramatic contours and rich, shifting grain patterns, making it suitable for pieces with fluid, dynamic forms.

The workbench in the Tingwu Shop was Shen Xing's own, while the one in his rental apartment was the one Ye Ting used to use.

Two workbenches—one for the shop, one for home.

Crafting wood carvings in the shop served as a form of indirect promotion. After all, many wood carvings nowadays are mass-produced on assembly lines; they are mere trinkets and rarely considered high art.

The notice at the entrance of Tingwu Shop stated clearly: all wood carvings in this shop are purely handmade, with subtle differences in every finished piece, and are by no means assembly-line products.

During the day at the shop, Shen Xing crafted several small anime-themed carvings. At night, back home, he focused on working on the Skin Face wood carving.

Sometimes, he would alternate by working on the second Blood Pupil.

Over the course of a week, after wearing down various fret saws, carving knives, an electric dental drill, and various grinding heads, the Skin Face and the second Blood Pupil were finally completed.

On the night the Skin Face was finished, Shen Xing stared at the result, momentarily stunned.

The surface of the Skin Face piece was a face, while the back was solid wood rather than hollow, which allowed the finished product to have a small base for display.

The piece had already been waxed and looked incredibly lifelike, even giving off a breathtaking, ethereal quality, as if one were gazing at a mask unearthed from an ancient Egyptian pharaoh.

Staring at this face, Shen Xing carefully recalled that ever since he started crafting this piece, he had been obsessing over every detail, every texture, and the composition of the wrinkles, yet... he realized he hadn't once thought about whether it looked like Song Xiaoyu!

Comparing it now to the black shadow of the face in his mind, it was identical, but looking at the carving again, it definitely did not resemble Song Xiaoyu.

Because he hadn't considered who it should look like while carving, he had simply followed the essence of the black shadow in his mind, resulting in a face that was indistinguishable from that shadow.

Thinking of this, he sat upright at his workbench and turned his adjustable desk lamp to its maximum brightness, to the point where it was almost blinding.

He then placed the Skin Face carving under the light and examined it closely.

A moment later, Shen Xing discovered that this face was starting to look more and more like someone!

Faint willow-leaf eyebrows, eyes as clear and deep as a pool, a straight bridge of the nose, thin and slightly upturned lips, and two shallow dimples beside the corners of the mouth—it seemed to be... smiling at him!

"Ye Ting!?"

Shen Xing was startled and snapped out of it. To see the full picture, he leaned back and focused his gaze again.

Upon this second observation, he found that the appearance of the Skin Face carving seemed to have shifted once more.

Looking at it as a whole, the shadow of Ye Ting was gone, replaced by a sense of playful, mischievous charm—it had actually taken on the appearance of Li Naijing!

"What the hell!"

Shen Xing froze. He stared blankly, eyes unblinking, and realized that the longer he looked, the more it resembled Li Naijing. Even seeing this face made the sneaky remark, "As an investigator, I have the authority to enter any private domain," echo in his mind.

This led Shen Xing to speculate that the original face could resemble anyone; it took on the likeness of whoever it possessed.

Since his wood carving was identical to the original, it meant that if a thousand people looked at it, they might see a thousand different faces.

For now, it was just Shen Xing's perception, but if everyone could see it as he did, the value of this Skin Face carving would be unimaginable!

Feeling genuinely excited, he began to consider making a few more of these Skin Face carvings to see if he could sell them for a high price in the shop.

Even a high price tag would be acceptable.

After pondering for a moment, a thought crossed Shen Xing's mind, and the black shadow of the face in his head quickly vanished.

The next second, a black shadow appeared within the Skin Face carving before him, resting peacefully inside.

Before long, lines of silver text popped up in his mind.

[Conditions for absorbing the characteristics of the Skin Face have been met. Absorbing these characteristics can increase the host's Physical Strength. Do you wish to begin absorption now?]

[Note: If your understanding of its characteristics reaches 90% or higher, there is a chance to discover and absorb the Skin Face's Latent Skill during the absorption process.]

99% understanding of the characteristics—this should be the limit of my ability to comprehend anomalous traits, Shen Xing mused to himself.

"Begin absorption."

Just like the feeling he had when absorbing the Fake Hong Bin and the Blood Pupil wood carving, the Skin Face carving trembled slightly. A sharp snap echoed in his mind, and the skin beneath his hands felt as if it had been touched by a red-hot iron. The Physical Strength progress bar beneath his eyes rose to "Mortal Body 100%."

"From 88% to 100%, that's only a 12 percent increase!" Shen Xing felt a bit puzzled.

At the same moment, text popped up in his mind once again.

[Acquired Latent Skill: Face Swap

Type: Active Skill

Effect: Can generate another face to replace the host's original face.

Cost: Low-level mental energy.

Side Effect: Loss of identity, minimum duration of 8 hours.]

Looking at the text prompt for the acquired Latent Skill, Shen Xing carefully analyzed it.

The name of this Latent Skill was "Face Swap," meaning that once activated, he could alter his own appearance, similar to the ancient art of disguise.

Currently, his highest level of Mental Antibody energy was only level five, so the cost of low-level mental energy would likely be about one level's worth!

Otherwise, if his Mental Antibody energy ran out after activating the "Face Swap" skill, what would he do? If he encountered an anomaly with strong mental attacks afterward, wouldn't he just kick the bucket on the spot!?

As for the final attribute description, the skill had a side effect: "Loss of identity," with a minimum duration of 8 hours.

Shen Xing guessed that since he had swapped his face, others would naturally be unable to recognize his identity, which was perfectly normal.

He suspected that even top-tier intelligent facial recognition technology wouldn't be able to identify his true self.

Since that was the case, his original identity would naturally be temporarily lost, and once the face swap reverted to normal, his identity would be restored as well.

Although he speculated as much, he still felt as though he had overlooked something in the process.