Awesome Beyond Belief

Finding a place to rent went smoothly. Perhaps because Uncle Wang knew Shen Bing was still a college student, he did not ask for much: a furnished single room with a Health room cost only a thousand yuan a month.

Shen Bing was quite happy with the room, apart from one of the other tenants.

He often heard about guys sharing apartments with beautiful women and even finding romance along the way. His housemate, though, was a hulking man nearly six-foot-three, with a burly build and a fierce air. He looked intimidating enough on the street, let alone under the same roof.

Worse, the man seemed rather unsociable. When Shen Bing greeted him, he did not even respond.

"Pretty full of himself, huh? Like I want to talk to you anyway." Shen Bing made his judgment, though "full of himself" hardly seemed the right phrase...

The room's furnishings were nothing fancy, but they were all new, which saved Shen Bing a lot of trouble.

This was only a temporary place to stay, so he had little to sort out. He went back to his dorm, picked up the laptop he had bought when he started college, and moved in.

He also remembered to let his dormmates know.

Those jerks teased him about whether he had found a beautiful woman to live with, but asked little else. They were seniors now, and plenty of people rented places off campus.

Once he had settled in, Shen Bing could not wait to start experimenting.

His phone had become precious to him, but he knew phones were not exactly reliable. Who knew when it might break? A pickpocket might even steal it while he was out.

After a series of tests, Shen Bing felt reassured.

First, when he looked at his phone Screen through a camera lens, the Gate to the Immortal Realm icon still looked like the original A Chinese Odyssey icon. Even after he opened the app, a camera showed only the old interface.

Shen Bing was almost certain that he alone could see anything related to the Gate to the Immortal Realm. Even if someone else got hold of his phone, they would see only the A Chinese Odyssey mobile game.

Second, he could no longer get rid of the phone. Whenever it went more than a hundred meters away from him, it automatically returned to his pocket. He had confirmed this through repeated tests.

Finally, the Gate to the Immortal Realm had greatly improved the phone's performance. Most importantly, it was now waterproof, crushproof, drop-proof, and who knew how many other kinds of proof.

"Looks like even Heaven Realm thought my life was too boring. I'm about to become awesome beyond belief." Shen Bing had been in this excited state for a whole day. His dopamine was working overtime...

With the phone's safety settled, Shen Bing finally turned his attention to the items in his Inventory.

The one Shen Ice wanted most was naturally the Aperture-Opening Pill. It could develop his brain to fifty percent of its potential. Just thinking about it thrilled him.

If it came from the Immortal Realm, it had to be good.

"Teleport the Aperture-Opening Pill."

"Teleporting the Aperture-Opening Pill costs 1 Immortal Jade (the teleportation fee equals the price of the item being teleported). Teleport?"

"Teleport."

Shen Bing cursed the stingy Gate to the Immortal Realm in his head. It took a cut of everything.

Completing missions required teleportation, and buying teleportation talismans required Immortal Jade.

Buying items from the shop required Immortal Jade.

Transmitting technical data required Immortal Jade.

Even teleporting an item required Immortal Jade.

The thought of what it cost to buy just one Immortal Jade made Shen Bing's liver ache.

There was no way he could afford this. The Aperture-Opening Pill actually cost ten thousand Immortal Jade.

Fine. Shen Bing admitted that buying that much Immortal Jade was a distant dream, never mind teleporting the pill out.

As Shen Ice waited in anticipation, the Aperture-Opening Pill appeared directly in his hand.

"So generous this time?" Compared with teleporting Little Doudou, this speed was wonderful.

Shen Bing examined the Aperture-Opening Pill, which was only the size of a pea.

It was translucent, with a pale golden sheen and a faint glow.

Even without knowing what it was, anyone could tell at a glance that it was a treasure.

"Will something go wrong if I swallow it?"

"Probably not?"

"It's from the Immortal Realm, after all..."

"But the problem is, I'm a mortal..."

In the end, the temptation of the Aperture-Opening Pill overcame Shen Bing's fear. Deep down, he had an adventurous streak. Once he took the pill, his life would change completely.

Besides, Shen Bing had some grounds for confidence.

The Gate to the Immortal Realm was fairly considerate when it came to safety. For example, the description of the Basic Spiritual Wisdom Potion derived from the Aperture-Opening Pill warned that mortals could not take it. Since the pill carried no such warning, it probably was not dangerous.

Shen Bing gritted his teeth and popped the Aperture-Opening Pill into his mouth.

It tasted sweet and slid down his throat...

"Not bad... Uh... My head hurts. Damn it... It hurts way too much! Ah..."

Unable to bear the pain surging through him, Shen Bing passed out.

His last thought was: Did I just swallow a fake pill?

When Shen Bing woke, the feeling was... how could he put it? Like eating a huge slice of chilled watermelon on the hottest day of summer.

Bliss...

His mind felt perfectly clear, and he seemed to have boundless energy.

Uh... apart from being rather hungry.

"What a mistake! I should've prepared some food." Shen Bing kicked himself. The hunger was so fierce that he forgot everything else, flung open the door, and rushed out.

"Meow..." Little Doudou sprang up and followed him.

At a restaurant outside the Residential Compound, Shen Bing ordered two dishes and polished off two whole tubs of rice.

That was right: two tubs, not two bowls.

The owner and servers stared in disbelief. Shen Bing could hardly believe it himself.

It was probably a side effect of his Brain's development. It consumed too much energy, and humans had only one way to replenish it: eating.

Once his hunger was gone, Shen Bing headed back to the apartment.

He had taken the Aperture-Opening Pill. Now he needed to test its effects.

As he walked, Shen Bing noticed that his mind was very different from before.

Countless childhood events he had forgotten surfaced one by one, as vivid as if they had happened yesterday.

Even tiny details from ordinary days—things he had barely paid attention to—were fixed in his memory as though carved there.

A passing glance at an advertising slogan was enough for him to remember it completely. He could not forget it even if he wanted to.

But when he tried to make sense of the Quantum Teleportation Technology data in his head, he was still utterly lost.

That was a problem. The knowledge in his head was too advanced.

He was smarter now, certainly, but he lacked the fundamentals of quantum technology. Reading that material was like trying to decipher an ancient text.

"Never thought I'd end up turning into Old Yang. Library, just you wait."

Back home, Shen Bing began testing just how extraordinary his brain had become. After all, this was the first brain in human history developed to fifty percent of its potential. He was curious himself.

Memory came first. He had already tested it a little, but decided to try again.

He turned on his computer and found an extremely obscure academic paper. It ran for more than fifty pages and some forty to fifty thousand words. Shen Bing skimmed the entire thing in under two minutes.

Amazingly, he remembered all of it. More than that, he thoroughly understood the arguments it presented.

Shen Bing even felt he could go faster. For now, his eyes and brain were not quite in sync. Once his eyes could keep up with his thoughts, he would read faster still.

Next came calculation. To Shen Bing's astonishment, he could multiply dozens of ten-digit numbers and give the answer on the spot. He was better than a calculator.

Shen Bing also discovered that his improved brain gave him astonishingly precise control over his body. He could even toss a thin Iron wire through the eye of a needle five meters away.

That required more than nimble fingers and control over his strength. It tested his eyesight, too.

A single glance at an object told Shen Bing its dimensions to within 0.001 micrometers—a nanometer.

"I really am awesome beyond belief!"

Who could top that?!

Shen Bing took a deep breath. His transformed brain told him he had to plan his life carefully. Wasting an opportunity like this would be asking for divine punishment.

First, the Gate to the Immortal Realm on his phone was the foundation of his future. His goal was to keep teleporting items out of it. That would open up endless possibilities.

Second, he needed to make money. Whether he bought items from the Gate to the Immortal Realm's shop or teleported them out, he needed Immortal Jade, and Immortal Jade meant money. Not pocket change, either—serious money.

At least his family's modest savings would be useless in the Gate to the Immortal Realm.

Uh... perhaps not entirely useless. They might buy a few Immortal Jade.

There were plenty of ways to make money. With his current brain, Shen Bing could think of countless options in an instant. The fastest would be to learn hacking and then... heh, every major bank would become his ATM.

But the idea had barely crossed his mind before he rejected it.

It was not that Shen Bing feared the danger. He had complete confidence in his brain now.

He worried that the Gate to the Immortal Realm might not accept money obtained that way, or that it might cause other problems.

Since the Gate to the Immortal Realm accepted Chinese yuan for purchases, it clearly had close ties to the real world. Stealing vast sums through hacking would inevitably cause financial turmoil...

"Maybe the Gate to the Immortal Realm wants me to develop high technology. But why does that feel so strange?" Even with his miraculous brain, Shen Bing could not figure it out.

"Once I have advanced technology, making money will be easy."

"Good! It's settled. First I'll earn my startup capital, then I'll build factories and start a company. Once I develop Quantum Teleportation Technology, I'll leave Ferrari, Lamborghini, Airbus, and Boeing in the dust..."

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