Cognitive Correction.
Gu Jianlin hesitated for a moment, then asked, "Which inheritance path does this ability belong to?"
Jing Ci shook his head and explained calmly, "It's not an inheritance path ability. The Eye of Jormungandr is a Mythic Armament that lets the strong prey on the weak. It only works on people with weaker spirituality than mine."
Gu Jianlin thought that explained it, then remarked, "So it's a Mythic Armament too? No wonder. If everyone on an entire path had this ability, wouldn't they be able to do whatever they wanted?"
The most dangerous thing about this ability was that it could win without fighting.
It could also accomplish many things that brute force alone couldn't.
Assassination, sowing discord, subversion, infiltration, turning truth on its head—it was terrifying.
Of course, in the eyes of a dirty old man, it had even more uses...
"It's not as exaggerated as you think. Cognitive correction still has to follow a logical chain. For example, you're seventeen this year, you've never dated, and you certainly aren't married. If I forcibly altered your cognition to make you think you had a wife and son, it wouldn't make logical sense, so it wouldn't work."
Jing Ci leaned against the windowsill and lowered his head to sip his hot latte. "You'd start doubting yourself. You're not even old enough to get married, so how could you have done it? Even if I found two actors to play along with you, you wouldn't have any memories of a wife and son. Everything would feel unfamiliar, and you'd start questioning it."
"Unless I was willing to spend a very long time slowly mending the entire logical chain, like in The Truman Show, making everything seamless. But the cost would be too high."
He paused. "As for Lin Wanqiu, she isn't closely connected to you. The parts I altered had no logical gaps, and there wouldn't be any clues left in reality for her to discover."
Gu Jianlin understood, but the ability still seemed really cool.
"Besides, it's not as if I can do whatever I want."
Seeing the strange look in his eyes, Jing Ci corrected him. "For certain reasons, I can't do anything that would violate morality."
Gu Jianlin was taken aback. "Why not?"
"High-level Ascenders always encounter all sorts of strange advancement processes when they reach the next stage."
Jing Ci looked at him deeply. "If you don't die young, you'll experience them sooner or later."
Gu Jianlin was about to say something when he noticed Jing Ci's gaze fall on his wrist.
"The Non-Existent Lock and the Soul-Pacifying Bell."
Jing Ci nodded. "Not bad. The last time these two Mythic Armaments appeared was more than four thousand years ago. They were said to have been kept by the Kirin Clan all this time. Looks like that was true."
Gu Jianlin was shocked again. He seriously suspected that the effects of these Mythic Armaments were a joke.
How could they be seen through so easily?
The Non-Existent Lock didn't make things disappear in any objective sense.
It made people ignore them subjectively.
Essentially, it erased their sense of presence.
For example, during the fight in the cafeteria, Joker and Gu Jianlin had been right there, beating each other up.
But anyone who wasn't covered by the barrier would have simply ignored their presence.
And yet this man could see through it at a glance.
Jing Ci seemed to notice his doubts and deliberately added, "Don't worry. The Non-Existent Lock's concealment is powerful. You can use it with confidence most of the time. It's just that today, it wasn't concealing you, which was why it left traces for Yan Wu to pick up."
"Only a handful of people in this world can see through the Non-Existent Lock. People at their level can't be bothered with you."
With both hands in his pockets, he smiled and said, "According to the teacher's rules, I can only help you this once. You're clever—you even knew to hide your ability to become a Divine Servant. The Ether Association must never find out about this. Understood?"
To be honest, Gu Jianlin was starting to have doubts.
Because Jing Ci had said it very clearly.
Becoming a Divine Servant.
But the ability he possessed was to transform directly into an Ancient God.
There was a reason he knew he couldn't tell anyone.
The Ether Association's attitude toward the Fallen was to wipe them out completely.
And becoming a Divine Servant or transforming into an Ancient God both seemed like more perfect forms of evolution built upon aberration.
"Are you enemies of the Ether Association?"
Gu Jianlin suddenly asked.
He wasn't sure which side the reinforcements he'd found belonged to.
"You're overthinking it," Jing Ci replied. "They're not qualified to be the teacher's enemies."
Gu Jianlin didn't know what to say.
An overwhelming air of showing off washed over him.
He'd never expected the mysterious old man in the general store to have such a background.
"You mentioned rules just now?"
He asked, confused. "What rules?"
Jing Ci shook his head. "You don't need to know for now. There won't be another one in the future anyway."
"Now that you've learned the teacher's methods, you're an Evolutionist."
He suddenly stressed, "Evolutionists can wield the power of the Ancient God Race in human bodies. But if you're exposed, you'll be killed without mercy. No one will save you."
Gu Jianlin thought that what he was hiding wasn't just his evolution.
It was the power of the Kirin Venerable.
"Why?"
He asked curiously.
"Why do you think the Ether Association wipes out the Fallen? Apart from the fact that the Fallen are indeed dangerous, the main reason is that the Association believes they've defiled its faith."
Jing Ci lifted his eyes, his gaze profound. "But in my opinion, their faith is a joke."
Gu Jianlin still looked puzzled.
"Ancient humans believed in gods because they thought the gods didn't exist."
Jing Ci gazed out the window, his voice calm. "Because they didn't exist, the gods were absolutely fair."
Gu Jianlin carefully considered the meaning of his words.
"But once a god is given a human personality, it's no longer the god humanity needs."
Jing Ci set down his coffee cup. "The reason is simple: why am I human, while you're a god?"
Gu Jianlin's heart suddenly pounded when he heard those words.
"What the teacher taught you is how to obtain the power of gods while remaining in a human body. Evolutionists aren't corrupted. Instead, they can use the power of Ancient Gods to strengthen themselves. In other words, it's controlled aberration. But the Ether Association absolutely forbids it."
Jing Ci explained, "The Ether Association believes Evolutionists are extremely dangerous and will eventually betray humanity. Even if they don't betray humanity, they'll rise above the rest of us. You've already felt that power, haven't you?"
Gu Jianlin pondered for a moment. If it was controlled aberration, then it really was powerful.
Joker had been a second-tier Magician. Aside from illusions, he didn't have much combat ability, and his Teleportation and Card Blade were of limited use. But when he had mutated into a spider, his strength had increased explosively.
Gu Jianlin was only at the zero tier, but once he unlocked the Qilin form, he possessed overwhelming strength. Unfortunately, it only lasted a few seconds.
"The Tribunal now dominates the Ether Association. They're extremely wary of this kind of power."
Jing Ci sneered. "The laughable thing is that they want this method for themselves too, whether to use it or to find a way to counter it."
Gu Jianlin thought he understood.
"Since ancient times, the war between humanity and the gods has never stopped."
Jing Ci said, "The Ether Association, every Ascender organization on Earth, and even the Ascender families here in the country all share one ultimate goal: to prevent that lost civilization from returning."
"For example, when the Kirin Immortal Palace opens soon, if the great being inside hasn't completely died, they'll do whatever it takes to kill him again."
He smiled. "So if you gain the power of Ancient Gods in a human body, will people still think you're human?"
Gu Jianlin's ears rang.
The man's voice was gentle and calm, yet it boomed like thunder, sending waves surging through the night.
Just like the storm raging in the young man's heart.
So that was it.
So that was where the Ascenders and the Ancient God Race stood.
But the being inside the Immortal Palace wasn't the Kirin Venerable.
It was him.
The more Gu Jianlin thought about it, the colder his spine felt. His blood seemed to freeze.
He could almost picture the tomb gate of the Kirin Immortal Palace being blasted open before long, with a large group of high-level Ascenders from the Ether Association rushing in and unleashing all sorts of powerful attacks on him.
There was no doubt that if that day really came, he'd be doomed.
After all, the power of the Kirin Venerable hadn't recovered at all.
Gu Jianlin himself was only a zero-tier rookie.
Though it wasn't serious enough to put his life in danger, since he wasn't sealed inside the Kirin Immortal Palace.
In reality, he was a member of the Ether Association. When the Immortal Palace truly opened, he'd definitely hear about it.
Most likely, when the Kirin Immortal Palace opened, the Ether Association's members would find an empty tomb chamber.
But the question now was, which side did he belong to?
Humanity or the Ancient God Race?
This was practically a double-agent situation.
Gu Jianlin felt like a newborn lion cub that had fallen into a den of hyenas.
How absurd.
Fortunately, his secret hadn't been exposed.
For now, no one knew about it.
As long as the Ether Association didn't find out, he could keep hiding it and use the other side's resources to grow stronger.
Until he figured out what was going on.
And how he had obtained the power of the Qilin.
Thinking about it, hiding among the enemy and using their resources to level up did sound pretty exciting.
"May I ask something?"
Gu Jianlin asked seriously, "How far can an Evolutionist evolve? Can they become a true Ancient God?"
Jing Ci shook his head. "Of course not. Ancient Gods are Ancient Gods, and humans are humans. No matter how much humans evolve, they can't become Ancient Gods. There's an essential difference between the two. Ordinary people can only reach the level of a Divine Servant."
Gu Jianlin fell silent. It seemed his situation was special. He wasn't an Evolutionist, at least not in the usual sense. He was something else entirely.
"All right, I'm leaving. Take this."
Jing Ci took a vial of serum from his suit pocket and set it on the table. "Evolution's side effects will completely dry out your body and soul, leaving you unable to recover your spirituality on your own. If you're in a hurry to use the Soul-Pacifying Bell to look through Joker's memories, inject this secret medicine. It'll help your body recover quickly."
Gu Jianlin gazed silently at the vial and sighed.
Apart from the fact that he'd inherited the power of the Kirin Venerable, Jing Ci knew everything.
It was as if Jing Ci knew every time he so much as farted.
"One more thing."
Just before Jing Ci left, he suddenly said, "The Tribunal may be a bunch of bastards, but they won't openly send you to your death. During this operation to hunt Joker, once the fourteen members of the action team lost their ability to fight, there would be about thirty-five seconds—enough time for someone to rush in and rescue you."
"That was the gap while the Non-Existent Lock's barrier was active."
With his hands in his pockets, he smiled. "During that time, three people planned to rush into the barrier and save you, but each of them ultimately held back for a different reason."
Gu Jianlin narrowed his eyes. "Three people?"
"One of them was a member of the Ether Association, code-named Thunder. She followed the Sword Sect Path and was the most talented young practitioner of that path in decades. Even the teacher thought highly of her. She was the action team's emergency backup. The reason she didn't step in was that I altered her perception of time. If you could become a Divine Servant, Joker couldn't possibly be your match."
Jing Ci smiled. "Another was a descendant of the Lu Family. He had borrowed a Mythic Armament that could foresee the future and divine fortune and misfortune. He knew you'd be fine, so he didn't try to steal the credit for saving you."
Gu Jianlin thought that explained why he'd shown up at the school and disguised himself.
He'd really gone to the trouble.
"Who was the last one?"
He couldn't figure it out.
"That's confidential."
Jing Ci said, "It'll be more interesting if you figure it out yourself."
Before you continue