Chapter 133: Spiritual Energy (2)
Consciousness takeover was never an easy thing. In some sense, it was like exchanging blows at the consciousness level, and the strength of one’s blows was determined by the strength of their consciousness.
However, this battle didn’t just depend on whose consciousness was more powerful.
Even though they were competing on such terms, what determined the victor was not just limited to this factor alone.
The host’s advantage was one of the most influential factors. Almost all lifeforms had an innate advantage when they were being invaded since they had various methods of protecting themselves and automatic defenses that would kick in.
Defenders within a city would almost always have an advantage over the attackers. This kind of territorial advantage multiplied a person’s normal strength, making it so that even a person with a weaker consciousness had a chance of resisting the influence of a person with a stronger consciousness.
As to how much of a difference a host’s advantage made, that depended on the person. Some people had the ability to defend their consciousnesses, making it possible for them to amplify their host’s advantage. Other people didn’t because they specialized in offensive tactics, which naturally reduced this advantage.
In most cases, if neither side had any particular advantages, the Spirit Race’s host’s advantage allowed them to multiply their consciousness strength by about five. In other words, a Spirit Race individual with two hundred units of consciousness energy would seem to have around a thousand units when defending against an opponent in their own mind.
Actually, consciousness control operated under a similar principle. The only difference was that if the control attempt failed, the perpetrator would only suffer a bit of backlash; however, if consciousness takeover failed, the perpetrator would die.
Because of this, even the Spirit Race wouldn’t carelessly attempt something like a consciousness takeover. The success rate was often low, and even if they did succeed they were usually downgrading from an unlimited life span to a limited one. There was no good reason to do something like that.
However, to this Spirit Race individual, it had already been tormented far too much. To it, death was no longer as frightening; this was why it was willing to go all out in its bid to escape.
Unfortunately, his luck was terrible, as the person he had run into was an anomaly like Su Chen with a relatively powerful consciousness. Su Chen also had consciousness Origin Skills that could supplement his strength. Under these circ.u.mstances, if the Spirit Race individual wanted to take over Su Chen’s consciousness, he would need at least ten thousand units of consciousness energy. That level of strength was something only Spirit Race Chieftains or the Lord of the Dreamrealm had.
However, with the status that these figures had, neither would be willing to do so even if Su Chen were offering himself.
As such, attempting to takeover Su Chen was truly a death sentence for him.
For this reason, Su Chen didn’t mind opening up his sea of knowledge. Not only that, but he had voluntarily started to attack the Spirit Race individual — since it had come, it had better not think of running. I’ll simply kill you and devour your memories, and then I’ll know everything I want to know.
That was what Su Chen was thinking.
His consciousness was not as powerful as his opponent’s, but because of his host’s advantage, he could attack the opponent as he pleased.
Dark clouds roiled above the surface of his vast sea of knowledge, while thunder boomed and lightning crashed through the air.
Su Chen was like an imposing G.o.d in his own mind as the wind and rain followed his beck and call. Under the control of his will, his entire sea of knowledge undulated violently.
The Spirit Race individual had also appeared in Su Chen’s world and was being beaten black and blue. It was impossible for him to retreat from the onslaught even if he wanted to, so he could only bitterly hold on as he yelled repeatedly, “How can this be? How can this be? You’re only a Yang Opening Realm cultivator. How can your consciousness be this powerful?”
“It’s not powerful enough. Only after I swallow up your consciousness will I be more powerful,” Su Chen said sinisterly.
The consciousness energy of a Spirit Race individual was an incredible supplement. This guy had voluntarily tunneled his way in; if Su Chen was successfully able to devour it, his strength would increase dramatically. He had ingested too many Spirit Sobering Medicines, which had gradually caused the medicine to become ineffective. Now was the perfect time for him to take a supplement.
“No, spare me! I can give you the Soul Branding technique, this time for real!” the Spirit Race individual yelled.
“I can get that if I kill you as well,” Su Chen said disdainfully.
“No. I can at least destroy my most important memories!” the Spirit Race individual yelled.
Its words caused Su Chen to pause momentarily.
This was true. Even though this Spirit Race individual wasn’t his match at all, it still had enough time to destroy a few of its most precious memories before Su Chen killed it.
However, Su Chen gave up on that train of thought almost as quickly as it had surfaced.
He said, “The Spirit Race contains many scholars, so knowledge is not rare for your race. What I can’t get from you, I will obtain from other Spirit Race individuals in the future. However, there aren’t many who are willing to give up on their spiritual body and try to take over a human’s mind. An existence like you is a fine delicacy; if I were to miss it, wouldn’t that be a pity? As for Soul Branding, if I can’t get it from you then so be it. In any case, I am currently stuck in the Ferocious Race’s territory, and I can already control the Ferocious Race. There wouldn’t be much point to it.”
“NO!!!” The Spirit Race individual was badly frightened. “I have even more precious knowledge. I can give you a soul-controlling method…”
“Other Spirit Race individuals know this as well.”
“I can teach you a psychic storm attack…”
“Other Spirit Race individuals know those as well.”
“I can teach you illusion techniques......”
“I know them already.”
“I can teach you......”
The Spirit Race individual continued to yell, listing off everything that it knew.
However, everything it mentioned was either something most Spirit Race individuals knew or something that Su Chen already knew. Occasionally, there would be a few of its original insights and discoveries, but Su Chen only needed to ask it a few questions to realize that its insights were not very deep. This individual’s usefulness to him was limited, so he continued to attack.
The Spirit Race individual couldn’t mention anything that could attract Su Chen’s attention, so he knew that his death was imminent. He could only yell angrily, “With the remaining consciousness energy I have as the price, I will wipe out all of my memories. You won’t get any benefits from my death!”
As he spoke, the Spirit Race individual began to glow brightly in Su Chen’s mind.
Without Su Chen’s attacks, he was going to self-destruct.
Su Chen frowned. He didn’t try to stop the Spirit Race individual’s self-destruction; rather, he continued to attack as quickly as possible.
Thunder and lightning rained down on the Spirit Race individual’s will. In an instant, the Spirit Race individual in the cloud of light was blown to smithereens, the shattered fragments flew away into Su Chen’s mind.
These sparkling fragments were the Spirit Race individual’s surplus consciousness fragments.
It had attempted to destroy itself as quickly as possible so that Su Chen wouldn’t be able to get anything, but its efforts relied on its own strength. If it had been at peak strength, it could have destroyed itself almost completely, and Su Chen truly wouldn’t have been able to get anything from it. However, just as it had said when cursing Su Chen — “with the remaining consciousness energy I have as the price, I will wipe out all of my memories” —- when its consciousness energy levels were low, it wouldn’t be able to pay much of a price, so what it would be able to destroy would also be limited. The statement that Su Chen “wouldn’t get any benefits” needed to be heavily discounted.
Su Chen’s benefits would indeed be limited because of this, but it wasn’t to the point that he wouldn’t get anything.
Actually, he was able to obtain quite a bit, relatively speaking.
Su Chen greedly inhaled the glittering fragments into his sea of knowledge, rapidly absorbing all of them.
These included some of the Spirit Race individual’s memories, as well as large quant.i.ties of consciousness energy.
“Hu!”
After absorbing and digesting the final fragment, Su Chen opened his eyes.
The consciousness battle had concluded, and Su Chen’s consciousness had improved a great deal.
Excluding any equipment bonuses, Su Chen discovered that his current raw consciousness power had already exceeded a thousand units.