Nightmare Energy Erosion

"What's going on?" Yang Ning was stunned, looking at the tank in front of him moving without wind. He was still outside, and this tank had no power at all, and he had placed it on flat ground!

As if sensing something, he controlled the tank to turn forward, backward, left, and right with his mind. He even controlled the crossbow on the tank to load, aim, and fire on its own!

It was as if the tank was equipped with a brainwave controller, requiring no manual operation at all!

"It's the Dragon Pearl!" Yang Ning quickly summoned the Nightmare Dragon Pearl and placed it in his hand.

This Dragon Pearl seemed no different from when he put it in a month ago, but upon closer inspection, there were some differences.

There was some misty vapor inside the Dragon Pearl. Sensing it carefully, he found it could connect with his mind!

"That's your scattered mental energy!" Deep Blue reminded him.

Human life activities constantly emit thermal radiation, and the human brain constantly emits mental fluctuations.

In the macroscopic physical world, this manifests as brainwaves. Devices like brainwave controllers and lie detectors utilize this principle.

As for mental energy, the scientific community hasn't even discovered the soul, let alone mental energy.

But in the Taiheng Realm, mental energy is a tangible force. It is stimulated at the Body Refinement Ninth Level and evolves into divine sense at the Qi Refining Stage. This is not only reflected in various cultivation techniques but also has a complete system of methods for the growth and application of divine sense.

Meditation is a process of consolidating and strengthening mental energy, but his rudimentary meditation technique couldn't stop the dissipation of mental energy. Instead, due to the increased base of mental energy, even more was dissipated.

It was equivalent to filling a bucket while it was leaking, but the filling speed was faster than the leaking speed.

This resulted in Yang Ning's mental growth speed being faster than ordinary people, and it was possible for him to sense mental energy before reaching the Body Refinement Ninth Level.

However, Yang Ning hadn't expected to see his scattered mental energy before he could even sense his own mental energy.

This energy had been absorbed by the Dragon Pearl, and quite a lot had accumulated.

"So, do all Dragon Pearls have this function, or just this one?" Dragon Pearls are too rare and too important, basically secrets not to be passed down by major sects. Therefore, no one would compile research on Dragon Pearls and make it public.

Yang Ning experimented and concluded that consolidating mental energy should be a capability of most Dragon Pearls.

This is because when Dragon Pearls were borrowed into the human world, they became Golden Cores. Golden Cores are Dao Fruits cultivated through the gathering of essence, energy, and spirit, so it's normal for Dragon Pearls to be able to consolidate mental energy.

However, it was abnormal for the mental energy within the Dragon Pearl to integrate with machinery. Although Zhao was a scientist, he was a royal Dragon Clan member with high status and didn't dabble in puppetry. Zhao's memories contained no information related to puppets.

His inherited Great Dragon Physiognomy also had no techniques related to puppets.

"It's the Nightmare!" Although Nightmare Chaos is vaguely mentioned in books circulating in the Taiheng Realm, its ability to erode living beings is undeniable.

Nightmare Beasts and Nightmare Dragons are the products of living beings being eroded by Nightmare Energy.

Could Nightmare Energy erode inanimate objects?

Yang Ning leaned towards yes. Anything alive could be eroded, let alone dead objects.

But Nightmare Energy is inanimate and has no master. If it erodes inanimate objects, no one will control them. So, even if Nightmare Energy erodes them, at most it will damage the objects; they won't move, unlike when it erodes living beings, which allows them to continue fighting.

The situation changed when it was passed down to Yang Ning.

He didn't know if he could control Nightmare Energy, but after his mental energy entered the Dragon Pearl, its nature was definitely influenced by the Nightmare Dragon Pearl.

However, it didn't change the essence of his mental energy, so this mental energy could still be controlled by him after eroding inanimate objects!

Yang Ning took out a sniper rifle to try.

The size of the created objects differed, and the amount of mental energy required also differed. If eroding a tank required 100 units of mental energy, eroding a sniper rifle only required 1!

As for the result of erosion.

Yang Ning threw the sniper rifle on the ground and then controlled it with his imagination. The sniper rifle actually stood up on its own, circled in the open space, and then fired at a distant target!

"It actually works!" Yang Ning's eyes widened. What was the principle behind this?

Where did the force to pull the trigger come from? Where did the force to make the gun stand up come from?

The most outrageous thing was that I didn't even load any bullets into the gun!

"Do you find this setting familiar?" Yang Ning asked.

"Knights don't die in vain?" Deep Blue replied.

"Right!" Yang Ning nodded, then suddenly felt something was off: "Right my ass, I meant Machine Soul!"

Who was "Knights don't die in vain" a skill of? It could turn other people's things into one's own Noble Phantasms, and Yang Ning's ability was only slightly similar.

What was more similar was the Machine Soul!

Machine Soul, also known as Machine Spirit, is a product of the idea that all things have spirits.

In modern times, this custom mainly appears in the military field. For example, the famous "J-20" fighter jet has a Machine Soul called the "Eagle God."

The existence of a Machine Soul has strong symbolic meaning. It not only enhances people's sense of identification and belonging to equipment but also stimulates people's military honor and patriotic feelings.

Of course, what truly developed and expanded the concept of Machine Soul were various fantasy games, novels, and anime.

For example, the completely unscientific Machine Souls in Warhammer 40K, the ship spirits in the world of One Piece that can sail ships on their own, and the Artifact Spirits in various Xianxia novels.

Yang Ning never expected that he would encounter such a thing, and he even created it himself!

"Fire, fire, fire!"

"And you, don't just stand there!" Yang Ning looked at the tank again, making it move as well.

The sound of the sniper rifle firing continued incessantly, like a submachine gun, without even needing to chamber a round.

The key was that it actually fired bullets, and they had extremely high lethality!

As for the tank on the other side, there was no need to even mention it. Though no one was operating it, it moved incredibly fast. With a thought from Yang Ning, the tank's speed kept increasing, and after fourteen seconds, it directly surpassed the speed of sound!

After 22 seconds, the sniper rifle stopped first.

The tank was still running, showing no signs of slowing down at all. Moreover, Yang Ning could sense that its parts and gears were completely intact, which was truly unlike a tank that had broken the sound barrier!

With a thought, he created a circular track. Yang Ning watched as the tank circled the track again and again until, at 64 seconds, its speed had already reached Mach 4.6 when it abruptly lost power. Then, it was instantly torn apart by the immense acceleration, disintegrating on the track.

For a moment, bearings and gears scattered all over the ground. One wheel even rolled over five hundred meters away, and it was only when Yang Ning couldn't stand watching anymore that he created a wall to stop it.

"The sniper rifle fired bullets at a constant rate of 64 rounds per second. In 22 seconds, a total of 1408 bullets were fired!"

"The tank continuously accelerated from the start until it stopped, with an acceleration of 24.31 m/s², for a duration of 64.93 seconds," Deep Blue reported.

He sensed it and indeed, the spiritual power in the tank and sniper rifle had been depleted.

"With so little spiritual power, it could run for so long?" Yang Ning was a bit surprised. He felt the Nightmare Dragon Pearl and found that there was still quite a lot of spiritual power remaining inside.

By the standard just set, there were still 360 points of spiritual power left, enough for the sniper rifle to fire another 510,000 bullets, or for the tank to continue accelerating for another 180 seconds!

Yang Ning knew that spiritual power wasn't that exaggerated. Void creation was a skill possessed by powerful beings in the Spiritual Law Realm. He, a mere nobody in the Body Refinement Realm, shouldn't even think about it.

But it had clearly created bullets out of thin air just now.

"So, it was Nightmare Energy, I added Nightmare Energy!"

After all, it was an energy capable of eroding an entire world and destroying the entire Dragon Clan civilization. Creating things out of thin air wouldn't be that simple?

Yang Ning immediately took out the Dragon Pearl and summoned 1 point of spiritual power.

"Make me a photolithography machine!"

The spiritual power didn't budge at all.

"Then how about a steamed bun!" Yang Ning desperately thought about the appearance of bread. With the ability to create 1408 bullets with 1 point of spiritual power, creating a steamed bun should be effortless, right?

But the spiritual power remained unmoved, showing no intention of turning into a steamed bun.

Yang Ning thought for a moment, then simply conjured a steamed bun machine and fused it with 10 points of spiritual power.

The steamed bun machine showed no intention of working.

"Why?" Yang Ning scratched his head.

"Perhaps it doesn't know how to make one?" Deep Blue reminded him.

"How could it not? It knows how to fire a gun, doesn't it?" Yang Ning said, then suddenly thought of something.

He first created a bag of flour, put it on the steamed bun machine, and ran it once.

After the flour was used up, Yang Ning started the steamed bun machine again.

This time, there was no problem. The steamed bun machine operated smoothly, producing steamed bun after steamed bun without any flour!

He understood. He had operated the tank before, and he had operated the sniper rifle before, so injecting spiritual power was necessary to use them.

Yang Ning nodded: "I think I understand the principle of this thing!"

Void creation is very unscientific.

But the contraptions that could function had to be creations that could operate.

From this perspective, it was also very reasonable.

Clearly, it was useless to just randomly make a few sticks and mold a stick figure, nor could you use its principle of void creation to make a gourmet tablecloth.

But even with these numerous restrictions, it was an undeniable divine object for Yang Ning!

What was there to fear in scientific research, if not the lack of people and time!

The Spiritual Realm solved the problem of not having time for research and development.

And the erosion of Nightmare Energy solved the problem of no one operating mechanical manufacturing.

A thought suddenly appeared in Yang Ning's mind.

I, alone, am a technological civilization!