Moving House... and "Potential"

"Mr. Li, I won't disturb you any further. Here are the house keys. I hope you enjoy living here. If you have any problems, feel free to contact me anytime, and I'll coordinate with the landlord on your behalf."

"Thanks. Take care."

Li Yun gave a slight nod and accepted the small but somewhat weighty key box from the real estate agent.

Only after the other man turned and walked out of the porch, his footsteps gradually fading, did Li Yun casually set the key box on the solid wood table beside him with a soft, dull thud.

This detached house listed for rent on the agency platform was one of several options the Main God had selected for him, and it was relatively more to his liking.

After all, for an illusory information-based lifeform, money was merely a number.

Nearly all matters involved in renting the house—paperwork, fund transfers, and so on—had been quietly handled online by the Main God. Li Yun had only needed to bring the necessary documents, show up in person, and take a look at the place he would soon be living in.

Yes, Li Yun had changed residences.

Though considering certain matters concerning his apparent identity and assets, this place was still rented.

The interior had a simple yet cozy style. Large stretches of solid wood flooring covered the rooms, with separate and spacious living room, bedroom, and kitchen areas. Outside the entrance was a sizable little garden courtyard enclosed by rows of wooden fencing, lush with grass and plants and a world unto itself.

Compared with his previous rental, it certainly lifted his spirits considerably.

Relatively speaking, however, most of the flowers in the garden beds looked sickly, and in some places, there were even visible signs that the soil had recently been disturbed.

Someone had clearly replaced the plants that had withered too badly.

Most likely, the agency had arranged it in advance after hearing that someone was coming to view the house.

But clearly, they had not expected Li Yun to be so decisive. He viewed the house that day, decided to rent it on the spot, and had already moved in by the afternoon.

After all, this place was only about a kilometer and a dozen or so streets away from the floor he had rented before.

That was why the loose ends around the flower beds had apparently not even been cleaned up yet.

But it was nothing important.

According to the brief online information provided by the Main God, the former owner of this house was said to be a boss suspected of property speculation. During the period of soaring housing prices, he had acquired more than a hundred properties under his name, seemingly intending to enter certain related investment industries.

Later, he was imprisoned over certain matters. Many of his fixed assets, along with his properties, were seized and placed into judicial auctions. Yet a small number of properties outside that category remained listed on public rental platforms and were managed long-term through agencies.

Li Yun could tell that this small three-story building, located in the relatively quiet residential area before him, had probably never been lived in. Even the faint traces left by long-term vacancy, accumulated dust, and hurried cleaning by housekeeping staff seemed rather conspicuous.

The Main God might not understand it very well, but Li Yun personally liked houses like this—ones that were not too bustling with human presence and were relatively "clean."

He casually opened all the doors and windows to air the place out.

His gaze swept over the room. Tiny glimmers flickered in the air, followed by a subtle scent of heat.

The dust atop the furniture and the fine cobwebs missed in the corners of the walls were incinerated in an instant. Even several broken strands from steel scrubbers wedged in the narrow gaps beneath the cabinets were somehow drawn out by an invisible force and dropped into the newly bought trash can.

It was a subtle kind of "influence," almost instinctive—something that required no thought at all, as natural as reaching out to take an object.

"Administrator, it seems you have a fairly good grasp of this power?"

As he casually placed newly bought toiletries, cups, and other items around the house, Li Yun remained calm and noncommittal.

"It isn't particularly difficult, nor does it involve much technique. Rather than calling it mastery... well, it would be more accurate to call it a lifeform gradually growing familiar with the abilities it possesses and applying them."

"You are being somewhat too modest. Ordinary people cannot awaken this potential from nothing within a day or two, much less control it to such a fine degree..."

"By the standards of human society, what you said might also be called a kind of subjective 'hypocrisy.'"

Clearly, the Main God's randomly surfaced temporary "surface personality" today was probably the rather serious and nitpicky sort.

Li Yun had no intention of taking offense.

"I don't deny that, though I personally prefer to call it basic courtesy."

After the housekeepers, he personally "cleaned" the house once more, swiftly handling the cleaning and chores inside and out before closing most of the doors and windows again.

Looking at this house that sheltered him from wind and rain, it finally seemed to have gained a hint of something that could perhaps barely be called the feeling of "home."

Li Yun gave a slight nod.

He was more or less satisfied.

He casually pulled his familiar panda pajamas from his suitcase. Their original black-and-white colors had faded gray after years of washing. Fine pills had formed around the elbows and knees, and even the two ears drooped limply.

After changing into his home clothes, he let fine electric currents extend from his wrists like threads. Invisible restless vibrations darted over the surface of the fabric, driving away the specks of dust clinging to the tiny gaps between each textile fiber in the blink of an eye.

A faint, almost imperceptible scorched smell from heated grime lingered in the air.

In truth, after exchanging for Electric Current Drive in the early hours of yesterday morning—a mere "potential" rather than any actual enhancement—Li Yun had quietly noticed several subtle changes in his body after waking from his dream.

It was an extremely natural kind of "understanding."

Some intuition plainly told Li Yun that, like water overflowing a bottle, as long as he wished it, he could easily awaken some latent potential within himself, break through that seemingly nonexistent "barrier," and step into another subtle level.

Fine, he admitted that he had merely been curious.

In fact, he had not deliberately done anything. At that moment, he had simply followed that curious impulse and given it a gentle push—

It was as though a tiny thought deep in his consciousness had caused some seemingly extraordinarily solid invisible shackle to shatter with a sound.

...And then, as naturally as water flowing into a channel, he had "stepped" inside.

He had not noticed any grandiose spectacle like the "strange flashes of lightning and thunder" or "dazzling radiance" described in novels and movies.

Plainly and silently, what arrived instead was an exceedingly brief sense of displacement.

In that instant, Li Yun felt like a spinning top that had suddenly been lashed with a whip. The entire world, including his own body, seemed to have subtly "lagged" by half a beat.

Like an illusion.

Yet not entirely an illusion.

—When the speed at which visual signals entered the brain suddenly seemed slower than some newborn impulse within his body.

That faint discordant feeling on the surface could no longer be called an illusion.

...It was reality.

In the next instant, a faint numbness slowly rose from deep within his flesh and blood, like the gentle fall of first snow. Then, a second later, that numbness abruptly surged!

The snow had barely melted before turning into a rushing torrent!

It was undoubtedly a trembling, almost tangible sense of "flow."

Its vibrations poured forth like a stream, taut as strings, yet its pathways were clear.

At that moment, Li Yun could clearly sense that in the mere span of several breaths, an invisible, formless undercurrent like a great river had suddenly opened within this body, surging without cease.

Like spring ice melting on a river.

This river clearly had no distinction between high and low, rapid and slow. All it possessed was a restless feeling that obeyed his will like his own limbs, yet was active to the extreme.

As waves of "undercurrent" flowed through his flesh and musculature for the first time, it was as if countless tiny tendrils had taken root there, bringing a subtle fullness and tremor.

Li Yun instinctively knew that things were no longer the same.

The faint numbness faded before long, but his breathing began to grow deeper and longer. Every inhalation seemed to greedily draw some invisible "vitality" from the air into his lungs, merging it into that newborn river.

Light, yet clear.

A still-weak seed had truly "sprouted" within his flesh and blood, beginning its earliest growth.

But honestly, compared with the not-yet-so-"intuitive" changes inside his body, what felt more novel were Li Yun's external senses.

The air beneath his fingertips seemed to have become faintly viscous and elastic.

He could even truly "feel" the incredibly subtle resistance in the air, as well as the extremely weak, invisible "fields" lingering around the surfaces of nearby objects.

Clearly, a new perception beyond the five senses had begun to reveal itself.

Then, with a single thought from Li Yun, a faint silver glow so fine it was almost invisible flashed around his body and vanished. The air also gave off faint crackling sounds, like static electricity running across a sweater on a winter night.

Now that he could genuinely see these invisible and subtle "fields," a slight deliberate disturbance would trigger a real chain reaction within them, like falling dominoes.

No, it was more than that.

Li Yun casually blinked, confirming that his vision seemed to have grown sharper. He could easily make out every irregular edge of the floating dust in the air.

But it did not seem to be an illusion...

Within these eyes, their trajectories now appeared so slow and... fragile?

His original senses had also been slightly enhanced... Was this the bionic superpower mentioned in the description of Electric Current Drive?

With a thought, he slowly raised his right hand and loosely curled his fingers.

There was no obvious sign of electricity swirling around him, but the air around Li Yun's palm rippled and twisted slightly. It felt as though he were looking at something through a transparent, undulating curtain of water.

A sense of fullness, of power nearly overflowing, silently gathered between his fingers and palm. Silent and still as an abyss, yet distinctly containing a wild, unruly "restlessness."

Very good.

Only after his interest had been satisfied did Li Yun casually crush it, as though crushing a wisp of thin smoke.

Just like that, his curiosity had indeed been satisfied.

The price was that two or three blocks near his residence had suddenly experienced an abnormal temporary power outage that night. Quite a few people had abruptly broken out in goosebumps in their sleep, even waking without realizing why.

Buildings that still had their lights on late at night, along with roadside night markets, suddenly plunged into darkness without warning.

Then, in just one or two seconds, the lights all came back on and everything returned to normal, as if nothing had happened.

Fortunately, it had been late at night.

To outsiders, it probably looked like a circuit breaker had suddenly tripped or some other electrical malfunction had occurred.

But in reality, if Li Yun had not reacted quickly enough at that moment—realizing that the power he had crushed and dispersed had still caused some effects, then using the Main God's material interference ability to promptly clean up the mess...

The relevant electrical repair workers would probably have had no choice but to work overtime, taking on the additional temporary workload of inspecting, repairing, and replacing lines throughout the nearby streets.

However.

Putting that aside, based on Li Yun's actual experience, even though its effectiveness was clearly related to one's base personal qualities.

He now had some understanding of this newcomer-exclusive exchange recommended by the Main God, one that did not even provide any substantive increase in life rank.

It truly was worth the price.

[Name: Electric Current Drive (Potential)]

[Type: Superpower/Mutation]

[Quality: Unrated]

[Description: Originating from a derivative worldview of a certain "Super Martial Arts Melee," it is one of the foundational abilities of the Magnetic Field Martial God System, one of the templates for human bionic superpowers. After awakening, the user can use personal consciousness to induce high-speed friction reactions in the cellular structure of their physical body, generating and utilizing bioelectric currents.]

[Exchange Requirements: 1,000 Universal Points, one Rare-grade Exchange Card.]

[Additional Notice: This exchange is a lower-tier exchange for the seed of "Magnetic Field Rotation" power and is only available to newcomers within their first three missions.]

[Additional Notice: This exchange only provides the potential to awaken the relevant superpower and does not grant any direct substantive enhancement.]

[Note: —When you have fought with all your strength and blasted a Martial God to the brink of defeat, what could be more terrifying than hearing him suddenly say, "Power, I command you to come forth!"?]

[Note: —"Infinite War God! Come forth!"]

Li Yun casually dismissed the light screen and glanced once more at the description.

Especially after reading the strange "notes" at the bottom of the exchange entry, which seemed to change at all times, Li Yun, already contentedly curled up on the sofa in the living room like a panda director after work, picked up his phone and casually asked, "Main God, explain?"

"It is merely the reflection of a martial artist who specialized in a divine martial art called the Primal Heaven Mirror, specifically its Profound Universe Realm, after being defeated in battle by a magnetic field powerhouse in the world line from which this exchange originated."

The Main God's explanation had a distinctly restrained quality.

"After all, though the path of martial artists advancing step by step toward divine thresholds is proud and self-centered, never fearing hardship or tempering, not everyone can calmly accept an opponent shouting those two lines before and after a decisive battle."

"...Mm, completely understandable."