The next morning, Ryan woke feeling like his brain had been stuffed into a high-speed particle collider—buzzing nonstop.
He did his morning routine and looked at his somewhat pale face in the mirror, rubbing his still-aching temples.
“Yesterday took a lot out of me. The aftereffects are real…” He muttered, feeling mentally drained, still somewhat dazed.
[Feeling weak?]
Ryan paused mid-brush, nearly swallowing the toothpaste foam.
He rolled his eyes at the mirror and shot back mentally: “You’re weak! Your whole family’s weak! I thought you’d crashed—you haven’t shown up in ages.”
[You seemed to be having fun—shocking dolls, building perpetual motion machines. This master didn’t want to interrupt your groove.]
The system always had this infuriating attitude.
It seemed to have no physical form—more like a parasitic “mentor” in his consciousness: knowledgeable but with a terrible personality, occasionally popping up to offer guidance but mostly playing dead.
“Enough nonsense.” Ryan rinsed his mouth and responded irritably.
“Is there any trick to yesterday’s type of manipulation? I can’t be this exhausted every time.”
[A trick? Sure.]
[Practice more. Blow things up more. Eventually you’ll get used to it. Practice makes perfect. The ancients knew what they were talking about.]
Ryan: “…What use are you?”
[Hey, don’t be like that.]
[Here’s some good news: right now, as long as you want to and have enough energy, theoretically you can appear anywhere whose electromagnetic field details you can clearly perceive.]
Ryan froze.
“What do you mean? Teleportation?”
[Something like that.
The budget version.] It continued explaining: [You can ‘decompose’ yourself—don’t panic, not physically—and merge into the omnipresent electromagnetic field, moving at ultra-high speed along field lines, then ‘reassemble’ at another clearly-perceived location.]
Ryan was dumbfounded.
“Is… is that even scientific?”
He doubted his ears.
The acceleration principle he’d understood before, but now it was turning into science fiction?
[Stop applying your old world’s physics to this place, kid. Here, consciousness affects reality and imaginary internal energy drives everything.]
[Your ability is essentially a manifestation of higher-dimensional information in a lower-dimensional world. Anyway, theory class is over. Practice makes perfect. Give it a try?]
Ryan was skeptical.
He focused on perceiving his surroundings—the electromagnetic structure of the lab’s rest area was familiar to him.
He tried extending his perception outward, through the walls, to lock onto…
the botanical garden.
A thought.
A strange sensation of weightlessness and pulling overcame him—like being compressed from three dimensions to one, shooting along an invisible channel at incredible speed.
When he came to his senses, he was standing in the botanical garden.
Surrounding him were lush, exotic plants, some radiating faint energy halos.
“Holy shit…” Ryan stared at his suddenly-changed position, shocked and thrilled.
“It… actually worked?!”
What was this—teleportation?
Sci-fi turning into fantasy?
But it filled him with immense excitement.
This was the ultimate tool for exploration—and slacking off!
He walked to his experimental station, where the unremarkable-looking seed from Ruan Mei still sat.
Today’s goal was to continue studying it.
He extended a finger and lightly touched the seed’s shell, his ultra-fine electromagnetic perception penetrating inward like microscopic probes.
As before, the seed’s shell strongly resisted detection.
“I don’t believe this…” Ryan’s stubbornness kicked in.
The precision-manipulation momentum hadn’t worn off yet.
He decided to increase the “power.”
He concentrated, condensing his perception into even finer, sharper “needles,” carefully probing for weak points in the shell’s structure.
[Easy there, kid.]
[That thing doesn’t look simple. Don’t break it. She’s a biology researcher—she might decide to research you instead.]
“Relax, I know what I’m doing.” Ryan was fully focused.
Suddenly, his “vision” plunged into a completely different world.
It wasn’t the seed’s internal structure—it was…
a vast micro-universe composed of incredibly complex energy circuits and life-information streams.
DNA-like chains twisted together, forming the seed’s core.
Massive life energy flowed slowly through it like nebulae, containing unimaginable vitality.
Further out were layer upon layer of precise seals and containment structures, locking everything inside and leaving only the tiniest channels for energy exchange.
This wasn’t a seed at all.
It was more like a living…
Ryan was utterly stunned by the majestic internal landscape.
His mind went blank.
His mouth hung open.
Words failed him.
What exactly had Ruan Mei given him?
Had she just handed him a life form?
[This is… a secondary derivative of the ‘Ambrosial Arbor’? The energy level and structural complexity are… incredible. You’ve hit the jackpot—though it might be a hot potato.]
“Ambrosial… Arbor?”
Ryan snapped back to reality, his voice trembling.
He remembered the lore of this world—the forbidden thing of the Xianzhou Alliance.
She gave him something this massive right off the bat?!
Ryan stared at the star-river-like internal complexity, realizing how naive his earlier thoughts had been.
He’d thought he was just studying germination conditions or something.
One wrong move with this thing, and the lab might turn into a rainforest.
Or worse.
He tried continuing to probe with electromagnetic perception.
And then, something transmitted back.
In that instant, Ryan seemed to see the phantom of a colossal tree piercing heaven and earth.
He heard the sound of all things growing…
He violently severed the connection and stumbled backward, cold sweat beading on his forehead.
“This… this thing is seriously dangerous.”
Ryan stared at the still-quiet seed, his gaze now heavy with both wariness and even stronger curiosity.
Ruan Mei…
what was she planning?
Giving something this dangerous to a “newbie” like him?
But on the other hand, the scientist’s instinct to explore the unknown stirred restlessly inside him.
Such a wondrous creation—if he didn’t study it thoroughly, wouldn’t that be a waste of this otherworldly journey?
“If I could fully understand what’s inside the Ambrosial Arbor… could I achieve… immortality?”