Please Prove That You Are Human

More than ten minutes later, Zhang Ping arrived at the small park.

Since he had not yet determined whether the other party was friend or foe, he simply hid in a corner, using the night as cover while waiting for them to appear.

There were still many ways to develop the Fire Eater ability.

As he waited, he manipulated the fire element energy within his body, continuously strengthening his control over it.

The problem was that he could not release fire element energy in its energy form. The energy could only circulate within his body; once released outside, it would turn into flames, and he had no ability to control flames.

To put it another way, he was like a gas cylinder. The valve was in his hands, and he could release the gas, but the released gas would instantly ignite. He could control the gas output, but he could not control the burning flames.

The so-called flame-wrapping effect was actually just a layer of fiery clothing generated over his body.

The essence of Fire Eater was allowing him to treat flames as food, not granting him the ability to control fire.

Awakened abilities came in all sorts of strange forms.

Mingzhu City had many Awakened with seemingly similar abilities that were actually completely different.

For example, two Awakened who could both control flames might operate their abilities through entirely different principles.

Some Awakened developed organs that secreted special fluids. When those fluids mixed with sweat and flowed from their sweat glands, they would burn intensely, turning the ability user into a human torch.

Other Awakened simply expended physical strength to create flames out of thin air.

Awakened like Zhang Ping also existed. They did not even need to consume flames; through their ordinary diets, they could generate and store similar energy, then consume that energy to release flames.

Even among different Awakened who possessed the same kind of energy, differences in personality and other factors could still produce different effects.

Mingzhu City had a famous pair of twin brothers who both awakened Lightning Element Manipulation. The elder brother had a fiery temper, and his ability gradually became violent lightning, while the younger brother was calm and his ability slowly evolved into an electrostatic force field.

Any ability, as long as one kept training it, would gradually take the shape its user was accustomed to.

That was also why Zhang Ping practiced his abilities at every moment.

The Contract Gem could only be used twice a day, so there was no way to train it. Nightwalker was a passive ability. Thus, the only abilities he could truly practice freely at the moment were the Appraisal Technique and Fire Eater.

At nine o'clock, the park was still deserted.

Zhang Ping was not in a hurry. He pondered whether consuming certain special flames with Fire Eater might produce different effects.

Suddenly, a black circle appeared beneath his feet. The moment he saw it, he tried to leap away, but the next second, he fell into it. The darkness inside was not the darkness of night, but a darkness in which nothing could be seen.

He could feel himself falling rapidly, yet there was nothing he could do. Even when he erupted energy through the soles of his feet, even burning through his shoes, he still could not stop himself from falling.

About thirty seconds later, he crashed down. His body was covered by a black liquid that resembled a rubber bodysuit, wrapping him tightly and leaving only his head exposed.

"Now you have five minutes to prove that you are human."

Before Zhang Ping could figure out what was happening, a familiar voice rang out. He immediately looked up and saw a woman dressed in white, wearing an ice mask over her face and holding an ice sword.

The moment he saw the woman, she placed her sword against his neck. The chill radiating from the blade instantly sobered him up considerably.

Prove that I am human?

I am human to begin with. How am I supposed to prove it?

Wait!

Zhang Ping's slitted eyes suddenly widened. He asked, "Don't tell me you have no way to find the Mutated Beasts hiding in the city?"

"..."

The woman did not answer. She responded to Zhang Ping's question with silence, the eyes behind her mask calm and utterly unmoved.

However, Zhang Ping got his answer from her silence. They had no ability to determine the situation in Mingzhu City, and could not even accurately locate the Heavenly Foxes hiding within the city.

They must have realized there was a problem in Mingzhu City through some indirect means.

But they did not know the specifics.

No!

Zhang Ping immediately overturned his own conclusion.

After all, the woman before him had once stopped him from assassinating a Heavenly Fox cub.

They knew it was likely a Heavenly Fox, and even knew what abilities Heavenly Foxes possessed.

But they had no way to accurately locate every Heavenly Fox hiding in Mingzhu City!

Only under those circumstances would they need him to prove he was human himself, because they had no way of determining every resident's true identity.

In their eyes, every person could be a potential Mutated Beast.

Zhang Ping calmed down and immediately understood why they were doing this. Then he became troubled. How was he supposed to prove he was human?

In his previous life, a DNA test would have been enough to prove he was human.

The problem was that they knew the Heavenly Foxes' abilities. Those creatures could distort cognition, so ordinary methods could not prove anything at all.

"Can you give me a hint?"

Zhang Ping looked at the woman before him and asked with a headache.

But unsurprisingly, the woman remained silent, merely waiting for his proof.

Zhang Ping thought for a moment, then simply used the Appraisal Technique on the woman first.

[Appraisal failed]

[Appraisal failed]

[Appraisal failed*8]

[Appraisal failed*20]

A string of appraisal failures made Zhang Ping begin to wonder whether his ability had malfunctioned.

But he could not think of any better method now, so he simply persisted with Appraisal. Finally, two minutes later, it succeeded.

[Appraisal successful]

[Name: Liu Sishan]

[Race: Human]

[Potential: ?????]

[Lifespan: 122]

[Rank: High-Level Awakened]

[Level: 21]

[Water Element Manipulation: Stores water element energy by drinking water and can freely control the water element energy within the body.]

[Advanced Skills]

[Intermediate Awakened-Energy Compression: Compresses the water element energy within the body, greatly increasing the upper limit of energy storage.]

[High-Level Awakened-Water Temperature Regulation: Adjusts the temperature contained within water element energy, allowing the temperature of pure water converted from water elements to shift between minus 150 degrees and 200 degrees.]

...

So strong!

It was not as if Zhang Ping had never appraised a High-Level Awakened before, but Liu Sishan's attributes still shocked him.

Especially her potential. She was already a High-Level Awakened, yet she still had five whole stars of potential that had not been converted into strength. If all of it were converted into strength, just how powerful would she become?

A Top-Tier Awakened?

Or one of the legendary Kings?

Zhang Ping closed Liu Sishan's status panel and did not think any further. After all, he did not have much time left.

What mattered most now was proving that he was human, not a Mutated Beast. Originally, he had wanted to use Appraisal to confirm Liu Sishan's identity, then search the original owner's memories to see whether the original owner knew her.

After all, that note indicated that she knew Zhang Ping as a child, so Zhang Ping should know her too.

Heavenly Foxes did not possess abilities like memory reading.

They looked like humans in the eyes of others, but their essence was not disguise. Rather, it was a distortion at the cognitive level.

Therefore, as long as he produced information that a Heavenly Fox could not possibly know, it would be enough to prove that he was himself rather than a Heavenly Fox in disguise. Even if it disguised itself, it could not suddenly speak of information it did not know.

Whenever Heavenly Foxes encountered information they did not know, they usually changed the subject to muddle through it. Due to the cognitive distortion, ordinary people would not notice anything wrong, but Zhang Ping had been closely observing every move made by the Heavenly Foxes during this period, so he understood this very well.

The problem was the name "Liu Sishan."

Zhang Ping could not find any clue in the original owner's memories.

He guessed there were two possibilities. One was that Liu Sishan had changed her name and had not originally been called Liu Sishan. The other was that Liu Sishan knew him, while he did not know Liu Sishan.

"One minute remaining!" Liu Sishan said at last.

Zhang Ping frowned, constantly recalling the original owner's childhood and listing every girl he had known back then.

"Are you Liu Sisi?"

"Are you Liu Xiaoxiao?"

"Are you Liu Pingping?"

"Are you Liu Anan?"

Zhang Ping raised his head to look at Liu Sishan and tested her one name at a time.

Liu Sishan answered with silence, but when she saw that Zhang Ping had no intention of stopping, she finally said, "That does not prove that you are human."

That was true.

This information could actually be found through the orphanage. Although Heavenly Foxes would surely disdain investigating such information, what if they did?

Zhang Ping thought about it and felt that if Liu Sishan really was someone he knew, then Liu Sisi was the most likely possibility. After all, Liu Sisi and Liu Sishan differed by only one character.

At the orphanage, Zhang Ping had very few friends. Most of the others were merely acquaintances and not especially close.

Liu Sisi was three years older than Zhang Ping, so she entered Pearl Ability Academy three years before him. By the time Zhang Ping enrolled, Liu Sisi had already graduated early and joined the Investigation Team.

This was information Zhang Ping found in the original owner's memories.

The reason the original owner knew this was because, on his last visit to the orphanage, he heard the old director say that Liu Sisi had donated money to it. The old director mentioned it in passing. At the time, the original owner had not awakened an ability yet and did not think himself inferior to anyone, so he had not paid much attention to it.

Now, the more Zhang Ping thought about it, the more he felt that the Liu Sishan before him was the Liu Sisi from back then.

Then he racked his brain for every piece of information related to Liu Sisi. Anything that could be recorded definitely could not serve as proof. It had to be something only the two of them knew. Only then could it prove he was human.

The small park, martial arts practice...

Suddenly, Zhang Ping remembered something. For a few days when the original owner was young, he had practiced martial arts with Liu Sisi.

It had really just been childish playacting.

Back then, Liu Sisi had solemnly taught him the Heaven-Shattering, Earth-Rending Sisi's Invincible Fist, and he had actually taken it seriously.

"First form, ha! Second form, he-ha! Third form, ha-he-ha! Heaven-Shattering, Earth-Rending Sisi's Invincible Fist."

Zhang Ping looked up at Liu Sishan. Though he felt somewhat embarrassed, he still recited the martial arts chant Liu Sisi had taught him back then in order to prove that he was human.

In an instant, ripples appeared in the eyes beneath Liu Sishan's mask, which had once been calm and composed.