What Kind of Telekinesis Is This?

Still, An Hui's reaction was honestly a little overconcerned.

There were countless murder cases in Ideal City every day, but with such an enormous population base, these criminals could hardly make much of a splash.

Ron had lived here for so long; when had he ever not gone to school past wanted posters on the roadside?

But if that wanted criminal really referred to him...

Was the Patrol Bureau really moving that fast?

Ron put away his phone, lay down on the bed, and recalled his conversation with An Hui just now.

He had not expected a case from this evening to have wanted posters plastered all over the streets by nighttime...

It seemed the Patrol Bureau truly cared about this case.

—No, rather, the Patrol Bureau truly cared about the murderer's "unknown" superpower.

Remembering what C01 had said, Ron fell into thought.

It seemed that, as far as the Patrol Bureau was concerned, even they did not know Magic existed?

That was why C01, an elite Patrol Bureau agent, had told him that the criminal had used an unknown superpower to kill the victim.

By the look of it, the Magician Association had hidden itself incredibly well.

Considering that even Noah Pharmaceuticals' laboratory director could be a magician...

There were probably quite a few Magician Association plants within the Patrol Bureau too, weren't there?

The more Ron thought about it, the more unsettling it became.

What exactly were these magicians hiding within every organization in Ideal City for?

And how had they managed it...

Forget it.

After thinking for a moment, Ron immediately gave up.

The secrets buried deep within Ideal City were not something he was qualified to investigate yet.

He was already wanted by the Patrol Bureau. Where would he find the time to think about all this nonsense?

He would be better off figuring out how to raise his ability level as soon as possible...

After all,

once his ability level reached a certain point, even if the Patrol Bureau really caught him, the outcome would not be too bad.

Because in Ideal City, as long as you had enough value...

even death would keep its distance from you.

Maybe in a few years, he could become Ideal City's twelfth Lv.5?

By then, an Lv.5 [Vector Manipulation]... heh heh...

With that thought, Ron eventually drifted off to sleep.

The night passed without incident.

The next day, the sun was already high in the sky.

Ron stretched and climbed out of bed with satisfaction.

Ever since he had arrived in Ideal City, he had rarely been able to sleep this long.

By Ron's old routine, even if it were Sunday and he did not need to attend class, he would still get up at six on the dot—

then begin the kind of ruthless grind ordinary people could hardly comprehend.

His Lv.2 processing power was not a gift of extraordinary talent, but merely a tiny bit of effort from a master of grinding.

Still, he had gone through too much yesterday, and his processing power had overloaded, so he had no choice but to get a proper night's rest.

Now that he had rested enough, it was time to get moving.

He left his apartment and squeezed onto a hovering bus.

The tutoring class Ron had painfully booked to better improve himself was no cheap service. Its address was even in District C of Ideal City.

Compared with the training centers in the District D slums, which could at most hire Lv.2 Superpowered as coaches, this place was in a completely different league.

Otherwise, it would not dare charge ten thousand Credit Points for only half a month of classes...

Ron sat on the bus and watched the scenery flash past outside the window.

Moen of Ideal City, this Cosmic City, had impartially conquered every corner of half the planet, yet it had not impartially sheltered its citizens.

The overwhelming majority could only live outside Ideal City, in the backward regions known as the "Outer City," living primitive lives straight out of the last century.

Under the control of corporate giants, they sweated and bled, while most of the wealth they desperately produced was supplied to the true Ideal City—

the Inner City of Ideal City, where Ron now lived.

Yet even within the Inner City, there were distinctions between high and low.

For example, District D of Ideal City, where Ron lived, could be called the Inner City's slum.

He rarely left District D. Even District C, which was only slightly better than District D, was somewhere he had visited only a handful of times.

When the bus arrived, he got off and walked down the street, following the location in his brain-computer interface to find the training center.

District C was still filled with concrete high-rises just like District D, but the gaps between the buildings were noticeably wider.

The buildings here were clearly newer than those in District D. There were also none of the privately altered shacks in District D's alleyways, nor construction materials piled everywhere. The environment was several times better.

The training center was easy to find. Ron merely followed the main road through one or two commercial streets before spotting a fairly large venue by the roadside.

Above the entrance hung six plain, straightforward words: "Ability Training Center."

Why was there only one sign?

This tutoring center hardly looked like it was trying to do business...

For it to grow this large, its teaching quality must really be decent.

With that thought, Ron was about to go in and take a look when he found the entrance locked.

What was going on?

They had not said it would be closed today when he made the reservation.

Before he could think further, he suddenly heard ragged panting beside him:

"Water... water... brother, please, spare a bottle of water..."

Ron turned around and discovered, to his astonishment, a tall, thin young man with blond hair and blue eyes dragging himself over. His face was pale as he looked at Ron—

Smack!

The man really did look exhausted... because after only two more steps, his legs gave out and he slid straight into a kneel before Ron.

The pose was as perfect as if he were celebrating a goal, worthy of a football star.

All right, brother, you were already kneeling. What more was there to say?

Ron could barely hold it together. Looking at the young man kneeling on the ground as though he had burned out completely and had not said another word, he silently scanned the code at a nearby vending machine...

-2 Credit Points.

"Here."

He handed the man a bottle of ice water and opened one for himself as well.

But before he had even taken a sip, he heard the sound of someone crushing a plastic bottle with a series of crackles.

This little commercial-street football star drained the ice water in one go and let out a satisfied breath.

His gaze toward Ron was full of gratitude:

"Thanks, brother. If you hadn't come through, I might've really collapsed here today."

It was amazing that someone could run themselves into this state...

Being able to watch this kind of animal performance for one Credit Point's worth of water was worth the price no matter how he looked at it.

Ron grumbled inwardly, then shrugged indifferently.

"It's just one Credit Point. No need to thank me."

As he spoke, he did not forget his main purpose and pointed at the locked Ability Training Center in front of them.

"Do you know when this training center opens?

I booked ability training tutoring for today yesterday, but when I got here, I found the door still locked. I have no idea what the coaches inside are doing..."

"Oh, this?" The young man took out a key. "The owner only comes in the evening today, so there's only one unlucky guy with the key to open up."

"That unlucky guy woke up and realized it was already noon, so he rushed all the way here and was saved by a kind passerby right when he was about to get heatstroke..."

Isn't that you?

Watching the young man skillfully unlock the door and walk in, Ron was speechless for a moment.

How had this guy managed to tell the story so naturally from an outsider's perspective?

Ron looked the young man over suspiciously, thinking that he did not seem very reliable.

How could a coach in such a large training center be like this...

Better avoid this one and find another.

He opened the tutoring platform and prepared to request a refund without hesitation.

But before he could act, the young man in front of him scratched his head and flashed him a broad smile.

"If I'm not mistaken, brother, you should be a student who placed a booking on the platform yesterday, right?

Normally, with the tier you booked, you could only wait until the evening for those part-time ability trainers to teach you."

"But how could I stand by and watch my brother be led astray by that bunch of rookies?"

He enthusiastically pulled Ron into the center and patted his chest.

"Just train with me. You don't need to make up the price difference. I'll just show my face to the owner!"

Ron could not help twitching at the man's boastful manner.

In Ideal City, whether someone worked hard enough often represented their ability level...

This guy could not even wake up on time. Could he really understand superpowers?

Seemingly noticing Ron's distrust, the blond, blue-eyed young man thought for a moment and pulled out a student ID from his pocket—

"Let me introduce myself again. I'm Kevin, a second-year physics student at Moen University."

Ron's hand trembled, and he canceled the refund request.

"I'm Ron, a senior in high school."

Seeing the student ID marked with a blood-red crescent school emblem, Ron immediately looked at him with newfound respect.

One of the Three Great Academies...

And Moen University was the only one funded by the city government, with the highest admission requirements!

A second-year student from Moen University definitely had the goods.

No wonder this tutoring center could be established in District C. Its teaching staff was truly impressive; it had even recruited active Moen University students as instructors.

This résumé was far more impressive than those rookie coaches in District D!

Ron readily went along with it. "Then when do we start?"

He could not wait to train his Personal Reality and try to gain control over [Vector Manipulation]!

"Any time, of course."

Kevin answered readily. "While no one else is here, I can even help you activate some equipment that isn't available at your price tier..."

"By the way," he asked, "what kind of training are you planning to do?"

"Train your processing power, strengthen your reality... or optimize your Ability Model?"

Probably both processing power training and reality strengthening?

In any case, there was likely no way to optimize the Ability Model of [Vector Manipulation]...

Thinking about how [Vector Manipulation] performed, Ron said,

"Let's try strengthening my reality first."

Although merely using [Vector Manipulation] caused his processing power to overload and might endanger his life,

the fundamental reason [Vector Manipulation] affected him so severely was still his Personal Reality.

Because his Personal Reality lacked the strength to support the Ability Model of [Vector Manipulation], Ron's processing power overloaded.

Once his Personal Reality could support the operation of [Vector Manipulation], the road ahead would become much easier.

"Then let's try this first."

Kevin carefully placed an AR helmet on Ron's head and had him plug the helmet's data cable into his brain-computer interface.

"Relax and wait for the equipment to load... This is Heavenly Hearing Group's latest Simulated Reality technology. It can simulate a Superpowered's Ability Model.

"It will automatically simulate your own Ability Model. In the virtual field of view, you can use your own processing power to train your ability."

Good stuff!

Ron immediately realized what this helmet meant to Superpowered.

Using one's own superpower was, in itself, the most practical method among all ways of strengthening Personal Reality.

But for the vast majority of people,

repeatedly using their abilities placed an enormous burden on them and could even lead to injury.

But if they only operated their Ability Models within Simulated Reality,

they could avoid the physical burden and simply train their Personal Reality itself.

For Ron right now, this was exactly what he needed!

"By the way," Kevin casually asked while waiting for the equipment to load, "what ability did you awaken, Ron?"

"I'll record your ability data from the side and use the other model data I've recorded to find a way to optimize your Personal Reality. I'll need to find Ability Models of the same type as yours."

If he remembered correctly, no one with [Vector Manipulation] had ever appeared in Ideal City's history...

The only similar Ability Model Ron could think of was [Gravity Control]—

Was he supposed to make this guy find an Ability Model for [Gravity Control]?

Ron kindly swallowed the unreasonable request.

"I guess it's a mutated form of Telekinesis?"

"Telekinesis?" Kevin slapped his thigh. "Telekinesis is easy!"

He immediately dug a huge pile of USB drives out of a nearby drawer.

"These are all Ability Model data from Telekinesis users. I think there's even some powerful stuff from an Lv.3 Telekinesis user in here..."

He declared confidently, "With these, brother, you can optimize however you want!"

Ron sincerely hoped so.

But he still felt that using the data from these things made it impossible to optimize the Personal Reality of [Vector Manipulation].

The gap between them was like that between a firefly and the bright moon. They were utterly incomparable.

"Beep beep beep."

A notification sounded from the AR helmet, and its indicator light turned green.

"The helmet has finished loading," Kevin reminded him. "Just try calculating the Ability Model as if you were using your ability normally."

As he spoke, he operated the backend and added a test object to Ron's Simulated Reality.

Ron saw a massive boulder fall in front of him. It smashed into the ground, gouging out a deep crater. It looked incredibly real.

But it was clearly just a simulated construct.

Kevin's voice came through:

"Since it's a variation of Telekinesis, test your output on this rock first."

He encouraged him, "Although this rock is something a Lv.1 ability user couldn't possibly budge... you can try your best and use your Telekinesis to affect it."

"The AR helmet will help record your ability output data. As long as you set the scope of your Personal Reality's influence to the virtual world, it won't affect reality, so go all out."

Go all out, huh...

Ron opened the manual and once again loaded [Ability Model: Psychokinesis] and [Beyonder Loss of Control] at the same time.

[Because you loaded "Setting: Beyonder Loss of Control," your extraordinary ability has been twisted into a more powerful state.]

[Temporary Setting: Ability Model: Vector Manipulation (Loss of Control) activated.]

Feeling the wave-like dizziness flood his mind once more, Ron restrained his Personal Reality and tried to use [Vector Manipulation] within the simulation.

Kevin had told him to go all out, but Ron knew his own ability well enough.

Never mind whether he could truly unleash the full power of [Vector Manipulation]...

Even if he tried, he definitely wouldn't be able to control [Vector Manipulation] at full power.

So rather than recklessly unleashing an out-of-control ability, he might as well honestly try using the power he could normally control...

Ron pressed a hand to his temple, ignoring the faint stabbing pain in his head as he ran the Ability Model with all his strength.

He tried to seize a wisp of wind—

To seize a stream of moving air and compress the directions of the gas molecules' random movement inward.

If his calculations were correct, the compression would cause collisions between the gas molecules and high-energy particles, generating high-pressure plasma...

Blasting it at the boulder should have been enough to shake it a little.

But Ron's attempt failed.

He gave it everything he had, and the needle-like pain in his head grew increasingly intense. The [Vector Manipulation] that had barely remained under his control began to stir restlessly...

Before long, that power broke free of his control once again—

In an instant, chaotic power surged forth and covered the entire virtual arena!

The next moment, the virtual scene within the Simulated Reality changed.

Everything began to float as Ron's ability altered the direction of force.

Even the massive boulder trembled as it rose into the air...

The next moment, everything went wild!

In mere moments, the simulated scene in the Virtual Reality was subjected to an extremely violent ravaging and instantly turned into ruins.

Still couldn't control it... I screwed up!

Ron gave an awkward smile.

He rubbed his forehead, feeling somewhat embarrassed as he looked at the mess inside the Virtual Reality...

But Kevin was already standing off to the side like a statue.

He stood there in a daze for a long while before rubbing his eyes and staring at the wreckage in disbelief...

What kind of Lv.1 was this?

A Lv.1 could pull off Planetary Devastation?

Kevin turned to look at Ron as if he had seen a ghost, his eyes full of disbelief.

Brother...

You called that Telekinesis?!