Chapter 6: Mind Reading

Lu Zhiyu slept for a day and a night. When he woke up the following day, he felt that the whole world had changed, he had become more sensitive to his surroundings. When he tried to reach out for his disposable cup by the side of the bed, the cup fell to the floor, before he could touch it.

When he looked at the Scroll of the World, he found that the battle inside the Scroll was growing more and more fierce. After the first queen insect had appeared, the rest of the colonies had started to evolve as well. Fights, evolutions, and new insects developed as a result of the catalyst.

Although Lu Zhiyu would have liked to continue with his observation, he changed his mind when he realized he was starving. After walking around his neighborhood, he settled down at a café across the street from Carrefour. It was late in the afternoon and quite a number of people were having afternoon tea.

"Sir, are you alone or..." the waitress asked him, immediately struck by his handsome appearance.

This guy is quite good looking, but he does not look wealthy. Oh, it is such a tiring day!

"Ah!" Lu Zhiyu looked at the waitress, stunned. Why did she say such a thing in front of me?

Why is he looking at me? Don't tell me that he likes me... the waitress was thinking in her head.

"I am alone. I want a set of..." Lu Zhiyu looked at the menu and ordered his meal. After the waitress had written down his order, she turned and left.

Lu Zhiyu looked at her back and was baffled. He did not remember seeing her talking, as she did not move her lips. However, he had heard some strange sound, as if the waitress was talking.

Another cute waitress in uniform arrived, bringing his meal, thinking of her own life's dilemma... How I wish I could knock off from work now. Zhou Hao has asked me out for a movie. Should I go?

"Don't go. When a guy asks a girl out for a midnight movie, they usually have an ulterior motive. They would have planned it well in advance, and are waiting for you to take the bait," Lu Zhiyu said.

The waitress immediately looked up, stared at Lu Zhiyu and asked, "Oh, I'm sorry. Did I say that out loud?"

The waitress was flustered and quickly walked away. As she was walking away, she turned to look at Lu Zhiyu with a strange and confused expression.

Lu Zhiyu lowered his head and ate his food. He was smiling. Finally, he could no longer contain his joy and burst into laughter.

Mind reading? It is mind reading! I know what others are thinking. This is amazing!

Lu Zhiyu recalled what had happened to him. When he was in the low-dimensional world, his consciousness had gone into an Inner Space and absorbed strange energy that allowed him to have such power.

He was like the queen insect, which was able to control the entire colony through its mind power. However, Lu Zhiyu had just acquired this power, so it was inferior compared to the queen insect's. He could only hear the thoughts of the people around him.

On his way home, he passed many people who had just left work. As he passed by the people, he could hear different voices.

I haven't finished the report. I must get it done tonight!

School should have ended. I wonder if my honey has gone to pick up Le!

My boss is too much. I need to fly again tomorrow. I have been traveling for more than half of this month!

I need to send allowance to mom and dad tomorrow. How much shall I send? I think I will send more!

...

Lu Zhiyu heard many voices in his brain. There seemed to be a buzzing sound in his head, as if his brain was exploding. After getting out of the crowd, he felt better, and was now walking along the small path toward his house.

It's really mind reading. Its effective distance is limited, no further than 2 meters. However, this power will be a problem, if I can't to shut it off!

Lu Zhiyu was extremely excited to have acquired a special power. As he thought of how the queen insect had evolved and created offsprings with diverse morphology through its pheromone secretion, he wondered if he could do the same. His cancer might possibly be cured because of this.

That's right. Who knows? I might be cured!

Lu Zhiyu became very excited. Although he had accepted the fact that he had a terminal disease, it would be great if he need not die from it.

For the next few days, Lu Zhiyu continued to observe the happenings in the Scroll of the World. He realized that the scroll was an entrance of a low-dimensional space. His painting space used to be a two-dimensional world, but ever since he introduced the elements and concept from the three-dimensional world, the dimensions of the painting space may have been increased.

However, it hadn't reached three dimension yet, but was in between two-dimensional and three-dimensional. This made the painting space unique and unpredictable.

When Lu Zhiyu entered the painting space with his consciousness, the long tunnel that he saw must be an one-dimensional space. The two-dimensional space was a flat surface, and one-dimensional world at most could be just a line. In this case, it would be even more difficult for living things to survive in an one-dimensional world than in a two-dimensional space. Such space may not even be able to contain basic elements.

Lu Zhiyu guessed that the Inner Space should be a zero-dimensional space, a highly condensed singularity. In this world, there could be nothing except the source of power. No material things, but the source, the existence of a concept.

If in a two-dimensional world, life could barely survive in the flat surface, then how about in the one-dimensional world? Or even zero-dimensional? In such low-dimensional spaces, the only thing that could exist probably were some conceptional things such as the consciousness or soul.

There was a tunnel leading toward the low-dimensional spaces in the Scroll of the World. As the dimensional space reduced, the life forms found it became closer to their origin.

Life in the zero-dimensional space could be counted as being the source. Life forms existed in the form of consciousness, or soul. Both Lu Zhiyu and the queen insect had gained access to the low-dimensional space through the Scroll of the World. Through absorbing energy from the source of power, they had strengthened their consciousness and eventually developed something like mind power.

The living things in the higher dimensional space were more complex and thus were farther away from getting in contact with the origin of life. Lives below the two-dimensional space made use of the source energy and activate their souls.

Lu Zhiyu named this power the Source Form. He started to imitate the queen insect, making use of the tunnel to bring his consciousness into the zero-dimensional space through the Scroll of the World and to absorb the Source Form to further increase his consciousness and mind power.

However, his consciousness could not last long in the zero-dimensional world. After absorbing a small amount of Source Form, he had to get out quickly. Later, he was able to maintain the structure of his consciousness in the zero-dimensional world through meditation and visualization. This helped him alter the situation slightly.

Lu Zhiyu started to read up on meditation, Taoism, visualization, and cultivation, hoping to gain something useful from these subjects.