Unraveling the Mystery

However, this time, as soon as Huang Si regained consciousness, he saw the records he had left for himself on the tabletop.

After reading the records, recalling his thoughts, opening the Creation Book to glance at his own imprint, and pondering for a moment, Huang Si quickly reached a conclusion:

He had lost his memory several times.

This was the third time since he started keeping records, though in reality, he had no idea how many times it had actually been.

He was very likely losing his memory repeatedly, which was why eight hours of time had vanished for no reason.

Huang Si felt a bit of fear, but also a sense of familiarity. How much this resembled the famous movie Memento, where the protagonist suffered from short-term memory loss and could never remember recent events, causing his sense of time to become fragmented.

But upon closer reflection, Huang Si felt that wasn't the case.

He was not ill, nor had he suffered sudden amnesia. On the contrary, this memory loss event must follow a pattern, and the answer lay in the second record he had made.

"Find a way to create a second self in reality," the record ended there.

The memory loss must be related to this.

Huang Si sensed the power within his body. Compared to when he had just finished eating at 1:00, it had actually increased by about 30 units. Yes, it hadn't been consumed at all; it had grown.

Wasn't this strange?

He had lost his memory, which meant his efforts to create a second self in reality had been successful. Yet, logically, this act should have consumed a massive amount of power, but his power had not been depleted.

Thinking further, imprinting new records didn't consume power either, whereas recording any other object cost a significant amount.

Therefore, only imprinting himself and creating himself were actions that did not consume power.

In other words, he had succeeded.

Then why hadn't a second self appeared in reality, and why had he lost his memory?

Huang Si struggled to think, eventually arriving at a terrifying possibility.

It was highly likely that he, as the owner of the Creation Book, was unique, and his special permissions were also unique.

Therefore, he could "back up" himself at no cost and, at the same time, "restore" himself at no cost.

In other words, he could restore his entire self to the state he was in at the time of the 1:00 backup.

Since he had restored a backup, it was just like restoring a computer's records; the events and memories experienced in the interim would vanish without a trace.

But this hypothesis needed verification.

Huang Si gritted his teeth and decided to take the risk.

He first left complete and detailed instructions and records on paper, then went to the kitchen, took a small knife, and sterilized it over the gas stove. Then, summoning his courage, he sliced his hand.

The wound bled.

Huang Si did not stop the bleeding; instead, he connected his consciousness directly to the Creation Book and began to create himself in reality.

Several minutes later.

After reading all the records he had left for himself, Huang Si was not only shocked but his eyes were also gleaming with excitement.

He looked at his wrist; the skin there was smooth, with no sign of a bloody cut.

He wouldn't lie to himself; he was the only one in the room. More importantly, there was indeed a bloodstain on the knife blade in the kitchen.

The experiment was a success! He could indeed "restore" himself!

Before he could celebrate his success, a new question occurred to him.

"But why did my power increase? If I was perfectly backed up and restored by my own power, then the me restored after 9:00 should only have the power level I had at 1:00, right?"

Huang Si discovered, quite strangely, that his power level had recovered normally according to the passage of time.

At 1:00, his power level was almost at a 1 or 2 state because he had just used it all up.

Now, his power level was around 38.

The power had indeed recovered according to the normal flow of time, which meant that the power within his body was independent of his body's physical state.

After pondering for a moment, Huang Si decided to give this power within him a good name.

"Let's call it Creation Power."

The Creation Book couldn't protest anyway, so Huang Si could call it whatever he wanted.

Actually, Huang Si felt that calling this power "creativity" or "productivity" might be better, but to avoid ambiguity when keeping records, he decided against it.

What could be observed was that Creation Power clearly did not follow the state of the body. His body had been "restored" to the state it was in at 1:00, but since the natural recovery of Creation Power was completely independent of the body, it must have nothing to do with the physical condition.

"Is Creation Power related to the soul or consciousness?" Huang Si speculated, but he wasn't familiar with souls or such things and couldn't verify it.

However, this incident also proved that memory followed the body, not the soul.

So, if the brain was damaged, one would lose their memory. Huang Si felt that the novels he had read about soul transmigration suddenly seemed very fake.

The Creation Book was closed and put away by Huang Si.

Since there was the drawback of memory loss, this "restoration" could not be used lightly.

Otherwise, one restoration would mean all the time in between was lived in vain, which was too terrifying.

Not to mention that, just the fact that he had been inexplicably toyed with by his own ability for nine hours was too embarrassing, wasn't it?

Huang Si recalled the web novels he had read. Honestly, there had never been such a pathetic ability user.

Afterward, Huang Si specifically used his notebook to confirm it; it was indeed a nine-hour window from 1:00 to 10:00, not something like 9:00 the next morning.

From that day on, Huang Si began keeping a diary and making records.

He vaguely felt that he might need this rollback function someday in the future.

A few days later, Huang Si finally completed a simple charging circuit.

First, he connected ten alkaline batteries in series, then attached an inverter circuit, hooked up a voltmeter he had made himself, and finally stripped the wires from a socket to connect them into the loop. It was done.

Whenever the power in the alkaline batteries ran out, Huang Si could instantly create ten more to replace them. Since the batteries were small, they didn't require much Creation Power.

Huang Si adjusted the circuit until the voltage stabilized at 220V, then found a desk lamp and plugged it into the socket.

The lamp lit up, and yellow light poured down from it. Although it was far less bright than the Creation Book, this sudden illumination moved Huang Si deeply.

He had created electricity. Electricity—the spark of modern civilization!

Next, Huang Si fetched an intact mobile phone charger and carefully connected his phone.

The phone remained silent for a moment before a small charging icon finally appeared on the black screen.

Success!

Huang Si waited for a while, feeling both excited and anxious. When the battery indicator reached 10%, he couldn't wait any longer and turned it on.

Looking at those familiar app icons, even though there was still no signal, Huang Si was incredibly happy.

What could be more joyful than finally charging your phone after it had been dead and powered off for so long?

Holding the phone, Huang Si felt as if he had been resurrected; his whole body felt at ease.

Although he couldn't connect to the internet, a phone with power was the hope of modern life.

After the phone finished charging, Huang Si charged his laptop. At that point, the laptop had 35% battery left. Huang Si had originally intended to use it sparingly, but now he had completed his plan ahead of schedule.

Throughout the entire charging process, Huang Si had to repeatedly use his Creation Power to manufacture batteries for replacement.

After a busy day, late at night, Huang Si finally finished charging both his phone and laptop.

Then, lying on his bed, Huang Si happily clicked on a movie on his laptop, enjoying his first mental feast since arriving in this godforsaken place.

In the following days, life with electricity became colorful.

Huang Si drew up a detailed plan for his life. This place lacked a medical system, never saw sunlight, and he couldn't go outside, so it was easy to develop various physical and mental illnesses.

Therefore, for safety's sake, he had the Creation Book light up at 6:00 sharp every day and turn off at 9:00 at night.

He also scheduled one hour of exercise for himself every day. Besides the elliptical machine, the exercise regimen included various bodyweight training routines, the specifics of which Huang Si found in the files he usually kept on his computer.

He couldn't solve the issue of a healthy diet for now, but Huang Si found a bottle of multivitamin pills at home. He ground the pills into powder, dissolved them into liquid, and after several days of intensive effort, he finally learned how to manufacture these pills.

Huang Si wrote in his diary:

"August 3, 2019. Today I finished the production of vitamin pills and can finally supplement my nutrition. But I'm sick of eating pancakes, sick of dough drop soup, and sick of pasta, yet I still can't create potatoes or ham. The structure of biological organisms is simply too complex; the complexity of a single cell is comparable to that of a large machine. However, my Creation Power limit has increased again today; it should be 197 points now."

Early on, Huang Si had discovered that by continuously using his Creation Power, he could slowly increase his limit.

Moreover, not only had his limit increased, but his application of power had become more proficient, more precise, and the power consumed to create complex objects had decreased.

His consciousness strength also seemed to have improved. For instance, he could now switch between microscopic and macroscopic states faster, and his ability to analyze and memorize the structure of objects was stronger.

By now, he had analyzed everything in the house that could be analyzed and had made backups of various daily necessities.

For example, toilet paper—this was very important; if he ran out, he wouldn't be able to use the bathroom.

There were also simple items like soap, seasonings, paper, pens, and so on, all of which Huang Si had analyzed and recorded, ready to be manufactured as backups at any time.

Halfway through writing his diary, Huang Si looked down at the phone charging beside him and noticed the charging indicator light had gone out.

He looked up and saw that, sure enough, the LED light on the charging circuit had also gone out; the batteries must have run dry.

Huang Si sighed. Using batteries for charging was a hassle. He stood up, went over to the battery pack, removed the batteries one by one, and with a wave of his hand, two new batteries appeared directly in the battery slots, fitting perfectly and snapping into place.

"Controlling the position of two simultaneously is no problem now. Let's try three," Huang Si muttered. His consciousness locked onto three battery slots at once, splitting his Creation Power into three moderate branches, then condensing them simultaneously.

Click. Snap.

Three new batteries appeared at once, but two were slightly misaligned in space. Fortunately, the springs in the battery compartment had tension and immediately snapped the batteries back into the correct position.

"I can still work on improving the precision," Huang Si thought, condensing his power again to make three more batteries.

These three were slightly better; only one was misaligned.

Finally, he created two more. With all ten batteries back in place, Huang Si flipped the circuit switch, and the phone let out a ding, resuming its charge.