Chapter 14: Mental Power Purity – Yu Xia carefully tucked himself into the blanket.
Not long after Ye Zhichen left, the Director of the Hospital’s Mental Power Department entered Yu Xia’s ward with the necessary documents and equipment.
The Director was a gentle-looking middle-aged man named Zhai Shuxin. As soon as he entered, he placed a brand new mental power tester next to the bed. “Xiao Yu, I know you just finished your physical checkup and might be uncomfortable. Don’t worry, just lie there. I’m very familiar with mental power testing; nothing will go wrong.”
Yu Xia looked at the countless wires extending from the main unit of the mental power tester next to his bed and felt a bit panicked. “Does it have to be tested?”
During the previous test, he had been in a coma, so he didn’t know how he had been handled. But now, having just finished his confrontation with Ye Zhichen, he was perfectly lucid. Seeing those colorful wires and thinking about how they would soon be attached to his scalp made him feel apprehensive. If it could be skipped, that would be for the best.
However, Dr. Zhai firmly dispelled his thoughts. “Of course it must be tested. Mental power testing is also a part of the physical checkup. Moreover, with the current technological development of the Empire, a person’s mental power can change many aspects of their life. Our hospital upholds an attitude of honesty and trustworthiness, treating everyone’s mental power seriously. We need to ensure the test results for everyone are accurate. But during the last test, as you know, your mental power was particularly unstable. So we need to test it again.”
Yu Xia: “.” Dr. Zhai’s explanation was so convincing he almost believed it.
Yu Xia lay down on the bed, trying his best to relax. “Then let’s test it. It’s not the first time anyway.”
Dr. Zhai smiled. “Good boy!”
Just as she said, she was indeed very experienced with mental power testing. Sometimes Yu Xia didn’t even see what color the wire in her hand was before it was already attached to his head.
Even Dr. Yu, also an attending physician in the Mental Power Department, couldn’t help much and could only comfort Yu Xia by the bedside. “Relax. Dr. Zhai is already a top-level physician in our hospital. Testing mental power is a minor thing for her.”
Yu Xia actually trusted Dr. Zhai quite a bit, but the problem was his resistance to those wires.
But soon, he didn’t need to resist. Dr. Zhai had connected all the wires and turned on the tester.
Yu Xia instantly felt his head grow warm, as if the winter sun was shining on his crown. It was a very comfortable temperature. Even the headache caused by his excessive mental power was alleviated quite a bit.
However, this comfortable temperature didn’t last long. With a “bang,” all the wires stopped working, and the warmth Yu Xia felt vanished instantly.
The mental power tester had failed to work once again. At the moment it stopped working, its needle was resting at the maximum mark.
Dr. Zhai didn’t seem to care much about the broken tester. Instead, she was more interested in the position where the needle had stopped. She squatted down to look at the needle at eye level. “The needle is at the maximum. It seems it’s definitely SSS+ mental power. I just don’t know to what degree the ‘+’ goes. Why are there still no specific divisions for levels above SSS? Our Empire has already had several people with off-the-charts mental power, right?”
Dr. Yu helped Yu Xia remove the wires from his head one by one. “There aren’t many, are there? The last one was Dr. Lu Yao?”
Dr. Zhai shook her head. “No. Dr. Lu Yao was the last Mental Power Disorder patient to be cured. But there have been several others with SSS+ mental power whose constitutions could keep up. Although their specific identities aren’t revealed to us, they do exist.”
After Dr. Yu had removed all the wires from his head, Yu Xia asked Dr. Zhai, “So Dr. Zhai, is there any problem with my mental power now?”
Dr. Zhai looked at Yu Xia and reached up to scratch the back of her head. “Don’t worry, there’s no problem. Aside from the mental power being much higher than an average person’s and much higher than your own constitution, there are no other issues. Furthermore, your mental power purity is very high—exceptionally high. Even among other SSS+ mental power tests, I’ve never seen mental power with such high purity.”
Yu Xia blinked and asked in confusion, “Purity?” This was the first time he had heard this term.
Dr. Zhai nodded. “Yes, mental power purity. Constitution can be improved through training later in life. Mental power can actually be improved too, but currently, no method has been found. The way to train mental power is to refine its purity. This also has great benefits for the owner of the mental power.”
“People with high mental power will easily lose control if they don’t release it for a long time. High-purity mental power is easier to control. This means that once your constitution rises in the future, you will be even more proficient in manipulating your mental power. I heard you want to study mechanics in the future—that’s definitely a good thing for you. The mental power requirements for the Department of Mechanics are very high.”
Yu Xia flattened his lips. “It’s clearly very violent.”
Hearing this, Dr. Zhai smiled and patted Yu Xia’s shoulder. “That’s because your constitution is low! So you need to work hard and raise your constitution. Dr. Yu, do you have Yu Xia’s previous mental power reports? I noticed the previous mental power purity wasn’t this high.”
Hearing Dr. Zhai ask him, Dr. Yu nodded. “It indeed wasn’t. Even the results from the test that broke a machine last time weren’t this high. I suspect it’s because of the mental power backlash.”
Dr. Zhai compared the two mental power reports in confusion. “Strange. Even with a mental power backlash, this hasn’t happened before. These two reports look like the mental power of two different people. But with a mental power backlash, anything is possible.”
Hearing this, Yu Xia’s heart suddenly trembled. He carefully tucked himself into the blanket.
Dr. Zhai noticed his movement. “Tired? True. You just had a physical checkup this morning; those things are exceptionally exhausting. You rest well, I’ll be heading off now. Dr. Yu, help me carry the tester back to the office!”
Dr. Yu: “Alright, Director.”
After resting for most of the day, Yu Xia regained some spirit. He went back and forth between checking out the virtual network and just resting. In the end, he put on the helmet.
His mental power told him he couldn’t rest yet. Besides, learning was something that required perseverance. People are inherently lazy; once you set it aside for a day, you’ll be slack the next. Yu Xia didn’t have much time to begin with; with the time left until his exam, he had a little over a month at most. How could he afford to rest so recklessly?
However, logging on today felt a bit different. Although Yu Xia was in his Personal Space, colorful words often popped up in the Virtual Community section.
These flashy features required spending real money to activate. After all, building such a large Virtual Community required a massive investment. To this day, the platform’s channels for making money, aside from selling virtual mechs and advertising for major games, were services like these “server-wide bulletins.”
But since they were server-wide bulletins, everyone online could see them, making the service exceptionally expensive. In the few days since Yu Xia got his helmet, he had only seen them four or five times. They would just float past, and Yu Xia would ignore them and continue his work. But today, something must have happened; a continuous stream of bulletins kept floating over his head, making it difficult to ignore even if he wanted to.
He pulled out the light screen for the server-wide bulletins and found—good heavens—it had turned into an Interstellar chat room! Mech enthusiasts from various planets across the Empire were chatting on it!
Yu Xia felt a bit bad for their money. Sending one of those server-wide bulletins cost a solid 2 Starcoins. If you have this much free cash, why not just open a virtual chat room? People could come and go as they pleased and talk about whatever they wanted. Most importantly, virtual chat rooms were free. What a cost-effective solution—it practically made people call the virtual platform “merciful”!
But they didn’t. They preferred to treat this exceptionally expensive section as their personal chat room. Perhaps they just had money with nowhere else to spend it!
Yu Xia scanned through the colorful bulletins and finally understood a few things. Overall, someone had posted an exceptionally passionate mech duel video. The two participants in the duel were students from Imperial Star Academy, and they seemed to be quite excellent students. In short, it was very educational and an excellent reference video for students of the Mech Department, which explained the celebration among mech enthusiasts.
After Yu Xia finished reading, he was silent for a moment before turning toward the Collection Hall. The Collection Hall was a section of the virtual platform dedicated to storing various excellent videos. A video that caused such a celebration among enthusiasts today would likely be found in the Mech Collection Hall. As someone about to become a mechanic, Yu Xia was also interested in a mech video that made so many people so excited.
Sure enough, once Yu Xia entered the Mech Collection Hall, he didn’t even need to look. He saw the video of two mechs blasting each other playing on the largest screen in the center. Beside it, quite a few people were talking incessantly, starting to analyze the various actions of the two mech pilots. Even if the people next to them were getting impatient, they still talked with great relish.
Yu Xia had no interest in the pilots’ actions, but he was interested in the two mechs. It was well known that in space, mechs and starships were a mechanic’s romance. Although most mechanics could only make intelligent models—mechs were something only master-level mechanics could create.
While Yu Xia was watching the video with interest, Luo Dian suddenly sent a message: [Tulip, you’re finally online! Where are you? Come on, come on, we’re in the library. Get over here quickly.]
He had some impression of Luo Dian—the person who appeared with Qing Zheng that day. But why was he looking for him so urgently? Yu Xia was baffled but followed Luo Dian’s directions to the library, finding them in a corner on the first floor. “What is it? Is there something you need me for?”
Qing Zheng, who was next to Luo Dian, patted the seat beside him, signaling for him to sit. “He’s started going crazy again. You don’t have to pay him any mind.”
Yu Xia tilted his head in confusion.
Luo Dian gave Qing Zheng an unsatisfied glare before circling Yu Xia twice. “I heard you went for a physical checkup today. Those testing capsules are really not meant for humans. How do you feel logging on now?”
Yu Xia replied, “I’m alright. The testing capsule was indeed uncomfortable; it took me a long time to recover today. And after the checkup, someone came looking for trouble. I didn’t even want to log on originally, but to calm my restless mental power, I thought I’d better come on and burn some off.”
Qing Zheng frowned. “It couldn’t be the person you mentioned last time—the one who spoke sarcasm to you?”
Yu Xia sighed. “Yeah. He came to ask for a letter of forgiveness.”
Luo Dian sat in his seat and snorted twice. “You shouldn’t give a letter of forgiveness to someone like that. He truly has no sense of propriety.”
Qing Zheng’s reaction was completely different from Luo Dian’s. He looked at Yu Xia. “A letter of forgiveness? Is the person you mentioned from Imperial Star Academy or Duxin Academy?”
Luo Dian seemed to have just realized: “Right! If the person is a student, then letters of forgiveness are indeed used more by those two schools. Is it really from one of those academies?”
Yu Xia waved his hand. “Forget it. That matter is already behind me. I just hope that in the future, he and his partner can stay far away from me, just as he wrote in the letter of forgiveness.”
Qing Zheng looked at him and said, “If it’s Imperial Star Academy, a submitted letter of forgiveness has legal effect and will be specifically archived. If the other person is from Imperial Star Academy and continues to harass you, you can apply to the school to have the archived letter brought to court. Of course, that’s assuming you wrote the conditions clearly in the letter.”
“Really? Then I’m relieved.” Yu Xia’s eyes curved happily. “Although I didn’t write the letter, I specifically had the person include that condition before I signed—even though I mainly wanted to express an ‘I forgive you, now get lost’ attitude.”
Qing Zheng also smiled. “So that person really is from Imperial Star Academy?”
Yu Xia was stunned for a moment, then quickly reacted and glanced at Qing Zheng. “You’re really something, always tricking me into revealing things!”
Qing Zheng seriously admitted his mistake. “Alright, alright, it was my fault. To make up for it, I’ll tell you a useful method for consuming mental power. How about it?”
Yu Xia instantly perked up. “What method?”
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