More than ten minutes later, Zhang Ping arrived at the small park.
Since he had not yet fully determined whether the other party was friend or foe, he simply hid in a corner, using the night as cover while waiting for her 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 the form of energy. It could only circulate inside his body; once released outside, it turned into flames, and he did not possess the ability to control flames.
To put it another way, he was like a gas canister. The valve was in his hands, and he could release the gas, but the moment it was released, it would ignite. He could control the output of the gas, but not the burning flames.
The so-called flame-wrapping effect was actually just a Flame Mantle forming over the surface of his body.
The essence of Fire Eater was that it allowed him to treat flames as food, not that it gave him the ability to control flames.
Awakened abilities came in all sorts of strange forms.
Mingzhu City had many Awakened with seemingly similar abilities that were actually entirely different.
For example, two Awakened who both controlled flames might operate their abilities according to completely different principles.
Some Awakened grew organs inside their bodies that secreted a special liquid. When that liquid mixed with sweat and flowed from their sweat glands, it burned fiercely, turning the ability user into a human torch.
Other Awakened simply consumed physical strength to create flames out of thin air.
There were also Awakened similar to Zhang Ping. They did not even need to consume flames; through their daily diets, they could generate and store similar energy, then expend it to release flames.
Even if different Awakened 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 had both awakened Lightning Element Manipulation. The elder brother had a fiery temper, and his ability gradually became berserk lightning, while the younger brother was mild-tempered, and his ability slowly evolved into an electrostatic force field.
As long as any ability was practiced persistently, it would gradually take the shape its user was accustomed to.
That was also why Zhang Ping practiced his abilities at all times.
The Contract Gem could only be used twice a day, making it impossible to train. Nightwalker was a passive ability, so the only abilities he could truly practice freely at present were Appraisal Technique and Fire Eater.
At nine o'clock, the park was still completely empty.
Zhang Ping was not in a hurry. He wondered whether consuming certain special flames with Fire Eater might produce different effects.
Suddenly, a black circle appeared beneath his feet. The instant he saw it, he tried to leap away, but in the next second, he fell into it. The darkness inside the circle was not the darkness of night, but a darkness in which nothing could be seen.
He could feel himself falling rapidly, but there was nothing he could do. Even when he burst energy from the soles of his feet and burned 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 suit, tightly wrapping him up with only his head exposed.
"You now have five minutes to prove that you are human."
Before Zhang Ping could figure out what was going on, a familiar voice rang out. He immediately looked up and saw a woman dressed in white, her face covered by an ice mask, standing before him with an ice sword in her hand.
The moment he saw her, she placed the sword against his neck. The chill radiating from its blade instantly cleared his mind considerably.
Prove that I'm human?
I'm human to begin with. How am I supposed to prove it?
Wait!
Zhang Ping's narrowed eyes suddenly widened. "Don't tell me you have no way to identify the Mutated Beasts hiding in the city?"
"..."
The woman did not answer. She responded to Zhang Ping's question with silence, the eyes beneath her mask calm and utterly without ripples.
But Zhang Ping got his answer from her silence. They had no ability to determine the situation within Mingzhu City, nor could they accurately locate the Heavenly Foxes hiding there.
They must have realized that 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 the Heavenly Fox possessed.
But they had no way to accurately identify every Heavenly Fox hidden in Mingzhu City!
Only then would they need him to prove that he was human himself, because they had no way to determine the identity of every resident in Mingzhu City.
In their eyes, everyone could be a potential Mutated Beast.
Zhang Ping calmed down and immediately understood why they were doing this. Then he grew troubled. How was he supposed to prove that 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 about the Heavenly Fox's ability. It was an ability that could twist cognition, so ordinary methods could not prove anything.
"Could 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 him to provide proof.
After thinking for a moment, Zhang Ping simply used Appraisal Technique on the woman first.
[Appraisal failed] [Appraisal failed] [Appraisal failed *8] [Appraisal failed *20]
After a string of appraisal failures, Zhang Ping began to wonder whether something had gone wrong with his ability.
But he could not think of any better method, so he simply persisted with the appraisals. Finally, two minutes later, he 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 manipulate the Water Element energy within the body at will.] [Advanced Skills] [Intermediate—Energy Compression: Compresses the Water Element energy within the body, greatly increasing the maximum energy storage capacity.] [High-Level—Water Temperature Regulation: Adjusts the temperature contained within Water Element energy, allowing the temperature of Pure Water converted from Water Element energy to shift between minus one hundred and fifty degrees and two hundred 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 as many as five 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 dwell on it further. After all, he did not have much time left.
What mattered now was proving that he was human rather than 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 showed 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 human to others, but their essence was not disguise. Rather, it was a distortion at the cognitive level.
So long as he produced information that the 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 reveal 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 the problem, but Zhang Ping had been observing the Heavenly Fox's every move during this time, so he understood this clearly.
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 spoke at last.
Zhang Ping frowned and continuously recalled the original owner's childhood, listing every girl he had known back then one by one.
"Are you Liu Sisi?"
"Are you Liu Xiaoxiao?"
"Are you Liu Pingping?"
"Are you Liu An'an?"
Then Zhang Ping looked up at Liu Sishan and tested her with each name.
Liu Sishan responded with silence, but seeing that Zhang Ping had no intention of stopping, she finally said, "That cannot 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 had?
Zhang Ping thought it over and felt that if Liu Sishan truly 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 people were merely acquaintances and not close to him.
Liu Sisi was three years older than Zhang Ping, so she enrolled at Pearl Ability Academy three years before he did. By the time Zhang Ping enrolled, Liu Sisi had already graduated early and joined the Investigation Team.
Zhang Ping found this information 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 mention that Liu Sisi had donated money to it. The old director had brought it up casually. At the time, the original owner had not yet awakened an ability and was confident he was no worse than anyone else, so he had not taken it to heart.
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 brains for every piece of information related to Liu Sisi. Anything that could be recorded definitely could not serve as proof. It would be best if it was something only the two of them knew. Only then could it prove that he was human.
The small park, practicing martial arts...
Suddenly, Zhang Ping remembered something. For a few days during his childhood, the original owner had practiced martial arts with Liu Sisi.
It had really just been childish playacting.
Back then, Liu Sisi had seriously taught him the "Heaven-Shattering, Earth-Rending Sisi's Invincible Fist," and he had actually believed her.
"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. Although he felt a little embarrassed, he still recited the fist technique chant Liu Sisi had taught him back then in order to prove that he was human.
In an instant, the eyes beneath Liu Sishan's mask, once calm and composed, rippled with emotion.