Chapter 40: The Level-Up Resulted in Another…
Translator: Pluto Editor: Tehrn
Luther collapsed at a location which couldn’t have been worst—he fell right at the entrance of the building. When Lin Sanjiu and Marcie rushed over, a large crowd had already gathered around him, creating a terrible obstruction at the main doorway. Within the crowd, there were people trying to exit—throwing expletives, shouting furiously for people to get out of the way; there were others who were just interested in the commotion; also, some who were beckoning for help… It was simply chaotic.
At that point, Lin Sanjiu couldn’t care less. Grabbing people by their collars, she tossed aside anyone who dared to stand in her way. After a short time, ignoring the barrage of discontented complaints, she and Marcie finally reached the center of the crowd with her leading the way.
They spotted Luther laying on the ground, his face was pale, and his eyes were shut tightly as his body was racked with mild jerks. His clothes were dirty, and there were even quite a few visible footprints on his pants, probably because he was stepped on when he fell suddenly. Chen Jinfeng arrived at the scene at some unknown time and was crouching beside Luther, “Please give us some space. Someone just fainted, so stop crowding around here!”
Since he was an executive, his words carried weight; the people in the crowd who recognized him quickly help to disseminate his message, clearing away the crowd. Marcie was grateful and quickly thanked him with a smile, “Executive Chen, when did you arrive here? Thank you so much.”
Lin Sanjiu also nodded gratefully at him and pulled Luther up, placing his left arm around her shoulders. Seeing that Lin Sanjiu had helped Luther up, Chen Jinfeng dusted the dirt off his pants and stood up. Facing both women, he said, “It should be alright now since the two of you are here. There is an infirmary in Building 38, you can bring him there. Don’t worry about dinner, I’ll get someone to send it over.”
“Thank you. But he’ll be fine, it’s just a minor chronic condition!” Without explaining further, Lin Sanjiu hurriedly added, “We’ll just bring him back to his room to rest.” Chen Jinfeng responded with a reserved nod and left without saying anything.
“Executive Chen speaks in a rather ostentatious way, but I didn’t expect him to be quite a decent guy,” Marcie commented thoughtfully as she pulled Luther’s right arm over her shoulders and struggled to walk forward. Lin Sanjiu nodded in agreement.
It wasn’t easy for them both to walk against the stream of hungry crowd—people pushed and shoved, and they had to even retreat a little several times. Fed up by this, Lin Sanjiu disregarded any common courtesy and started shoving people aside roughly. With much effort, they made their way to Luther’s cubicle.
After they had placed Luther on his bed, the two drained women finally had time to catch their breath. They sat on the floor and started chatting casually while they waited for Luther to regain consciousness.
“This morning, my ability leveled up too.” Lin Sanjiu grinned, “I think our experience with that pocket dimension was a pretty big trigger.”
Marcie nodded wistfully before sighing, “I don’t even know if my abilities will evolve…”
Marcie had always been the weakest among the three of them—her nails could only be used for drawing blood and were quite useless for anything else as they were as brittle as glass. Each time they found themselves in trouble, she had to grab an available weapon before she could join in to help. Honestly, even though she was slighter stronger than a normal person, she was no expert martial artist after all.
Over the past month, Lin Sanjiu came to realize a natural law regarding her newfound abilities: Evolved Abilities need to be stimulated just like knives that need to be sharpened. The presence of posthumans here at Oasis, with abilities that did not develop past their initial forms, gave her further proof. Their lives were probably too stable or too safe…
“Maybe you have to use your ability more frequently,” Lin Sanjiu suggested. “I just got to know two other Posthumans. Maybe they’ll allow you to draw their blood for analysis.”
After that, she recounted what had happened in the morning with full details—from the walkie-talkie being taken, Xiao Yi’s being unnaturally strict, including how Oasis members used medicine to induce their ability to resist the heat.
“I don’t know if I am being overly cautious, but I just think we have to be careful,” Lin Sanjiu concluded.
“Of course, isn’t it obvious?” someone replied coldly.
Before she was aware, her body already reacted to the abnormality of those words and goosebumps appeared all over her skin. With frozen expressions, Marcie and Lin Sanjiu turned to look.
Luther was already awake, propping himself up on the bed with one arm. With a perked eyebrow, he looked at them both with indifference. Lin Sanjiu had never seen Luther wearing that expression. His facial features and hair were still the same, yet with a single expression, he exuded an entirely different aura. He lost his usual lively, immature temperament and instead appeared to be as cold as ice. Previously, Luther could be described as a talkative young man, but the person in front of them was like a thing… wearing a human suit. Human-like but lacking an element of humanity.
With his uncharacteristic tone, he sounded quite unlike his usual self, “Why are both of you looking at me like that?” while he said this, he observed his own palms and fingers, almost engrossed. The room was filled with an odd atmosphere as nobody answered him even after a long time.
Marcie gulped. Lin Sanjiu could hear that clearly as the room was painfully quiet. Marcie grabbed her own hair as if she had a massive headache and muttered, “Agh!”
With an agonized look on her face, she uttered, “So, you are next!”
“What… what? What do you mean?” Lin Sanjiu could not make sense of the situation. Ignoring Lin Sanjiu’s confused face, Luther sat up holding his chin in one hand as a vaguely enigmatic sneer settled upon his face like a frigid winter fog.
“Crops with growth cycle reduced to 30 days? Heat insulation? Medicine that can induce abilities? Don’t tell me you believe all that crap just like this herd of idiotic pigs here?” even though he spoke with a gentle tone, his scathing remark seemed fully loaded with malice. “Are you scared out of your wits by duoluozhongs? Don’t you realize what this implies?”
Lin Sanjiu stared blankly at Luther. Even without activating her Keen Senses, she could tell that other than his face, she no longer recognized the person in front of her. Inevitably, a question escaped her lips: “Who are you?”
This time, before “Luther” could reply, Marcie grudgingly replied, almost groaning, “Xiao Jiu, let me introduce you to… Luther’s seventh personality, Septimus[1].”
Lin Sanjiu felt mind-blown as she continued staring at “Luther” in shock.
Luther—no, Septimus looked toward Lin Sanjiu and curved his lips upward into somewhat of a smile, almost as if giving a beggar alms, “Luther won’t be coming out for a while, you better get used to having me around.”
Translator’s note: [1] Septimus’s name does not translate well in pinyin as it loses its meaning. The original pinyin is Feng Qiqi which can be roughly translated as “seven seven”.
