The Creatures that We Are

Dr. Jia collected his breaths and explained, “I extracted some energy essence from the guy with Talent: Feigned Death. Combined with the blood of awakeners with self-recovery and healing Talents, I created a medicine for faking death. I tested it on myself. Based on the result, I must have succeeded, but there’s room for improvement.”

War Tiger smacked his lips. It was what Dr. Jia would do. “Aren’t you worried about your experiment failing?”

“It won’t. I calculated that the chance of failure was only 0.01%.”

“What if it did happen?”

“If I failed, Vermilion Bird would save me.”

War Tiger snorted. “Why would you think so?”

“Am I not worthy of being resurrected?” Dr. Jia spoke like it was obvious. “I’m the most intelligent human, the greatest legacy in the world of awakeners…”

“Yeah, yeah.” War Tiger picked his ear with his pinky. “The greatest legacy, why did you strip yourself naked doing an experiment? When I came in, I thought a necrophile had had their way with you.”

“I wanted to observe the change in the human body when feigning death.” Dr. Jia pointed at the crystal chandelier above. “There’s a camera there.”

“A moment.”

Dr. Jia turned to walk into the bathroom. When he emerged ten minutes later, he was dressed in a loose white lab coat, just like the researchers commonly seen in West Nation films.

With the blood on his face washed away, he looked no older than fifty with a full forehead and soft facial features, the lines of his face smooth and round. It was the kind of face that would be described as auspicious back home.

His hair was thick and curly and his beard bushy, the strands of white a hint of his age.

“You look younger than I expected, Dr. Jia,” Gray Bear said with a smile. “You’ve taken yourselves well.”

“I never do anything special,” Dr. Jia said proudly. “Compared to skin care, I believe it’s more effective to maintain a relaxed and carefree attitude in order to stay youthful.”

“I keep an irregular schedule and always go for high calorie food, and I pull all nighters all the time yet never do physical training or healthy dieting. I’m turning 38 this year. It doesn’t look like it, does it?”

The room was silent for a moment.

Lithe Snake looked visibly awkward. He was 38 too, and he could pass as Dr. Jia’s son.

“Doesn’t look like it! Doesn’t look like it!” A few seconds later, it was the gray parrot that broke the silence.

“Ahem.” Gao Yang fake-coughed. “Let’s get to business, Dr. Jia.”

“Alright.” Dr. Jia looked at Gao Yang. “You must be Elder Seven Shadow from the Qilin Guild.”

“You know me?”

“I know all awakeners.” Dr. Jia looked at Gao Yang. “I’ve got all your information.”

“Do you know Tails too?” asked Nine Frost.

“No, but Hyena had worked as my assistant for a few months before joining Tails. I only learned about his joining recently.”

Gao Yang hid his surprise. It seemed that Hyena had learned quite a few things from Dr. Jia, which allowed him to develop holy water.

“Life monster,” War Tiger shifted the conversation back.

Dr. Jia said, “I’ve seen a life monster altar like the one you told me about, War Tiger.”

“Is it in Spice Nation?” asked Gao Yang.

“Oh, it's not.”

“Then why did you call us here?” Gray Bear was flabbergasted. He had spent a night learning the Spice Nation language. He almost pulled his tongue in the process.

Dr. Jia said carelessly, “I’m going with you, but I don’t know how to catch a flight. My butler resigned. That’s why I called you to pick me up.”

Gao Yang swallowed a sigh. Did this man walk right out of a West Nation film?

“Where’s the altar then?” War Tiger asked.

“The Ni Nation,” said Dr. Jia.

Nine Frost looked up the flight information on his phone without being asked to. “There’s a direct flight at three in the morning. Takes five hours. No visa needed.”

War Tiger said, “Book the tickets. We’ll take the flight.”

“How about this parrot?” Gray Bear said. “Is it okay without anyone taking care of it?”

“It’s fine,” said Dr. Jia. “It’ll take care of itself, and I gave it a fake death pill. It’ll be fine for a short time.”

“Fine! Fine! Fine!” The parrot repeated proudly.

…

They got prepared and called a nine-seater car to take them to the airport. It was a service only available to those in the rich neighborhood. Once in the car, they started talking in their native language.

Gao Yang asked the question he had been agonizing over. “I heard that you’ve been studying the shrinking of the Mist World, Dr. Jia. According to what I know, Li City hasn’t gotten smaller, while Spice Nation and Rogue Cape have. Why does each isolated island differ?”

“Good question.” Dr. Jia fiddled with the two carved walnuts in his hands. They were a dark reddish brown with a shine to the surface like a layer of oil had formed, which made it apparent how long they had been played with[1].

“I’ll tell you my conclusion first: the more awakeners there are, the slower the isolated island shrinks—slower, not suspended altogether. Even Li City has been shrinking, only very slowly. You’ll only see the change by measuring every thirty or even fifty years.”

“That’s just your guess.” Gray Bear didn’t seem convinced. “You’re 38.”

Even though he looks 50, Gao Yang thought.

“The universe is billions of years old. Do we have to live that long to come to any conclusion about it?”

“Ignore him, Doctor. He’s just being contrarian,” Lithe Snake said.

“I’m playing devil’s advocate,” Gray Bear retorted.

“I have a large amount of data backing my conclusion up,” Dr. Jia continued. “The truth is that the more awakeners there are on an isolated island, the slower it gets eaten away by the mist. There’s a strong correlation between the two.”

“Why?” Qing Ling asked.

“I don’t know for sure.” Dr. Jia fidgeted with the walnuts more quickly, his excitement apparent. “But I believe that all awakeners’ Talents are one, which is divided and allocated randomly and thus assigned a serial number.”

Gao Yang started. That was exactly what Dragon had said.

Everyone fell silent in bemusement.

“I’ll make a somewhat strange analogy to help you understand.” Dr. Jia spoke at a quicker pace. “The total energy of Talents goes into 199 light bulbs. Each light bulb differs in voltage, and the more light bulbs there are, the greater the area they can illuminate, and the slower the invasion of darkness.”

“Some isolated islands only have a few light bulbs, or even none. Without the light, darkness closes in. That’s the border of the Mist World as we know it.”

“Hm. That’s an easily understandable analogy,” War Tiger praised.

“Is that a guess too?” Gray Bear was being contrarian again.

“Not a guess, but a hypothesis,” Dr. Jia corrected. “Speaking of which, I have a great hypothesis. Wanna hear it?”

1. In China, there’s a tradition of carving and processing walnuts to play with them in your hands. Through long years, they change in colors and textures, and they become expensive antiques for collectors. ☜

Houseau3's Thoughts

Oooooh, interesting.

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