IWOL Chapter 36: Ability Awakening

Dong Linhai stared at the curved spoon in his hand and fell into a deep suspicion about life: Bend spoon? What the hell was this?! In the end, if he meets the enemy in the box, will he first deprive the enemy of the right to drink soup?

Nope! No! Was he really just baggage? Absolutely not!!!

“Congratulations, Mr. Allen King. You have successfully awakened the ability—Haste.”

Dong Linhai looked at him dully. On the other side of the hall, a fiery red image flashed forward. When he passed by Dong Linhai, the rapid airflow lifted the corner of his clothing. Then, Allen’s voice only came after a delay. “Help! Who can tell me how to stop—“

Cui Zuojing stood beside Dong Zheng with his arms folded across his chest, guiding him calmly. “This is your power. Use it like you use your hands and feet. Don’t repel it.”

After six or seven seconds, Allen gradually slowed down. Before that, he’d ran hundreds of laps around the entire venue. Tired and panting, he staggered a few steps and lay face down at Cui Zuojing’s feet. The only movement he made was deep breathing.

Although it was a bit under control now, it wasn’t the same as he’d imagined. But this ability…was too cool! From now on, he was like Flash!

Dong Zheng stood behind Dong Linhai and placed his hand on his incredulous younger brother’s shoulder. Then, he looked at the spoon, and said after a moment of silence, “It doesn’t matter—”

“Why doesn’t it matter?!” Dong Linhai’s eyes were red rimmed. He sniffed and vented, “I don’t want to run into something and just hide behind you, or to always need Victor’s help! I don’t want to be a waste! If I can only drag your legs, it would be better to let me go and die on my own. What qualifications do I have to stay in the team?!”

His expectations had suddenly fallen through, and a completely unreasonable result was reached. Dong Linhai couldn’t control himself. He rubbed his face fiercely and choked out, “Why, why are you all so strong, but I can only do this? Why…”

Dong Zheng sighed silently, grabbed Dong Linhai, patted his back, and reassured him, “No one will feel that you’re dragging our legs. Allen and I have never thought about it like this.”

Allen propped himself up on the ground and agreed, “Yeah, yeah.”

“That’s because we just came here! The further we go, the harder the boxes will be and the more we’ll need to rely on our ability. Now, I already can’t do anything at all!”

Dong Linhai bit his bottom lip hard. He threw the spoon on the ground and kicked it with one foot.

The little spoon rolled to Cui Zuojing’s feet.

Cui Zuojing: ………………

He frowned, picked up the spoon and said, “If you encounter something unsatisfactory and you could only scream and cry at the people close to you, then you really are a waste.”

“There is no such thing as a waste ability, only waste users. Do you really think this ability can only bend spoons? Or, are you really willing to make it only bend spoons?”

Dong Linhai turned away his red face and sniffed expressionlessly.

“Everyone will help you to exercise your ability. Also, don’t affect the emotions of the entire team because of your own personal joys and sorrows.” Cui Zuojing put the spoon in Dong Linhai’s pocket and said to Dong Zheng, “You also try to awaken your ability.”

Dong Zheng nodded and gave Dong Linhai a hug, whispering, “I won’t leave you, regardless.”

Here, they were each other’s only family.

Under Cui Zuojing’s gaze, Dong Zheng stood on the stage. He placed his left hand on the crystal ball, took a deep breath, and closed his eyes.

“Laugh if you want to laugh.” Cui Zuojing suddenly heard Dong Linhai say.

“Why should I laugh?” Cui Zuojing looked at him in amazement. Dong Linhai was more than 1.8 meters tall so he had to raise his head to look at him.

“Don’t you always dislike me?”

Cui Zuojing chuckled and looked back at Dong Zheng again. “Like or dislike doesn’t exist for me. I am only targeting you because your performance is stupid and weak. Of course, if you can improve it in the future, I will definitely not continue to do so.”

Dong Linhai gritted his teeth and said, “But I don’t like you.”

In truth, Dong Linhai was actually quite grateful to Cui Zuojing. If it weren’t for him appearing at the most critical juncture, he and Dong Zheng would have both died in Hamelin.

But the young man’s casual and sarcastic tone really made him uncomfortable. Starting from a young age, Dong Linhai grew up adored by the masses, and he could not accept the fact that he was completely useless.

“So? Whether you like me or not, what is our relationship?” Cui Zuojing didn’t care at all. “The object of my blood contract is Dong Zheng. As his prisoner, what does it matter if you like or dislike me? Do you really think you are so important to Dong Zheng that he would give up such a powerful helper for you? Don’t be silly, little brother. Your big brother is very wise. He knows what is the most important thing in the face of a life and death crisis.”

“You—!”

Allen, who had been ignored, saw that the two were about to quarrel again and hurried out to save the atmosphere. “No, you two! What’s the matter? Why are you fighting like pets?”

Victor pawed Dong Linhai’s pant leg and whispered, “Mmn, Linhai, don’t quarrel. A’Zuo is not malicious.”

“He is not malicious?! Can’t you feel that he hates me?!”

Cui Zuojing sneered. “I said I don’t like or hate anyone. It’s your own problem if you don’t understand people.”

“Hey, stop.” Allen grabbed Dong Linhai’s shoulders and shifted the topic, “Ok. Your brother seems to be over there. Let’s take a look?”

The star sand in the crystal ball began to gradually surge, and Dong Zheng focused on relaxing his breathing. Cui Zuojing had told him that, when awakening his ability, he needed to stay as calm as possible, empty his mind, and reach for the voice deep within his soul.

The edges of his horizon sank into darkness. The crystal ball isolated him from the outside world, creating an absolutely quiet environment, so that Dong Zheng didn’t hear the dispute between Ding Linhai and Cui Zuojing not far away.

Suddenly a little light broke in.

The speck of light expanded rapidly, and in the blink of an eye, a dark green road appeared at Dong Zheng’s foot. At the other end of the straight road, there was a high wall with no ends that blocked everything in the distance.

As if there was a voice calling in his ear, Dong Zheng walked over and stood in front of the wall. He reached out his hand.

The moment he touched the brick with the palm of his hand, orange data burst from the point of contact and flew away, flashing faint 0s and 1s.

Dong Zheng pushed gently, and the bricks turned into a string of data. The moment this happened, the wall collapsed.

As each section of the wall fell down in a chain reaction, the firewall shattered, revealing the other end of the road to Dong Zheng’s eyes.

Huge black security bacteriophages floated in the sky, a blue-violet protective field enveloped the entire world, and data flowed through the information highway at an inconceivable speed, with web crawlers shuttling through it.

Dong Zheng raised his head in disbelief. Above his head was another completely inverted road. The space was wholly twisted here—No, it should be said that there was a completely different set of laws here.

[Selection Algorithm]

A voice sounded. .

[What?] Dong Zheng didn’t understand what was happening. He took a step back and barely avoided stepping on the foot of a giant web crawler.

[Algorithm selection completed. Evolutionary Algorithms, loading…]

Outside, the crystal ball under his hand glowed brilliantly, and the shadow of the butterfly in the dome reflected Dong Zheng’s figure, its huge colored wings slightly agitated.

[Loading completed]

A huge wall was constructed behind him. After allowing Dong Zheng inside, this country was once again isolated from the dangerous outside world. Dong Zheng stood in the middle of the information highway and watched as various things in strange colors operated in an orderly manner. A bright red ball of light rolled over from the other end of the road. He held out his hand tentatively and gave it a light touch—

Whoosh!

In that instant, all the lights in the hall were extinguished. The star sand in the crystal ball suddenly dimmed. Dong Zheng felt as if a stick had slammed into his head, and the huge sense of shock almost shook his brain into a paste. Information highway, web crawlers, firewalls, everything was gone.

He groaned in pain. Unable to support his body, he fell directly to the ground. Meanwhile, an overwhelming weakness swept over Cui Zuojing at the same time. The youth’s figure flickered a few times, but in the end, he did not disappear after all.

“Brother!”

“Hey!”

Allen and Dong Linhai hurried to support Dong Zheng. When Allen saw his pale and sweaty face, he remembered the things in the hospital and said, “Do you have a headache? But Cui’er didn’t do anything?”

After saying this, Allen raised his head. He saw that Cui Zuojing’s brows had furrowed and that he’d staggered a few steps, causing him to almost fall to the ground. Widening his eyes, Allen quickly changed his words. “Okay. It seems that you really do have a headache.”

“Congratulations, Mr. Dong Zheng. You have successfully awakened the ability—Program Kernel.”

As soon as the butterfly’s voice fell, the staff in the awakening hall hurried out to everyone and shouted, “Sorry, there is something wrong with our power system. It is currently under emergency investigation. Please don’t panic and leave in an orderly manner.”

Allen and Dong Linhai exchanged glances. They each went to Dong Zheng’s side and moved him through the crowd to a door on the side of the hall, where they took out the key.

“Hey! You can’t go in there! Get away from that door!”

After opening the door, Dong Linhai leaned sideways to support Dong Zheng and, at the same time, crouched down and hugged Victor in his arms. He smiled at the staff member, made a goodbye gesture, and closed the door briskly.

Dong Linhai helped Dong Zheng to the sofa, patted his face worriedly, and whispered, “Brother? How are you doing?”

Dong Zheng shook his head laboriously. He had such a terrible headache. Everything was spinning so much that he could only close your eyes.

Cui Zuojing appeared at his side out of thin air. “Spiritual overdraft. Like Fu Zhe at that time, you’ve awakened the ability to develop your brain.”

Fu Zhe heard the movements and came downstairs. When he saw Dong Zheng, he understood clearly and lightly touched Dong Zheng’s eyebrows. “You need to take a good rest.”

The moment his voice fell, Dong Zheng instantly lost all consciousness and fell into an unprecedented sleep.

After a while, Allen finally asked, “Okay, what’s going on? Can anyone explain?”

Cui Zuojing stood on the side with his arms crossed and said, “In the Pure White Realm, people awaken different abilities. Some people have the ability to control other things through their own consciousness. Obviously, Dong Zheng belongs to this class.”

“He subconsciously released his ability during the awakening process and caused the awakening hall to become paralyzed. But, he ended up overdrawing himself. Program Kernel…this ability is a bit interesting.”

Consciousness control, it must be very powerful.

Dong Linhai glanced down at Dong Zheng, and when he thought of his own ability, his eyes dimmed.

Fu Zhe said, “I hypnotized him so that he can get the best rest at the fastest speed and recover as soon as possible. Don’t worry. You must have all completed the awakening. If it is convenient, please allow me to draw up a strategy for you to practice your abilities.”

 


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Axvii
Axvii
4 years ago

Based on the five elements of the pure white realm, linhai's ability to bend spoons can't categorized yet, I wonder if he is actually as strong as his brother, anyways damn dong zheng just hacked the awakening hall like a super computer I'm amazed. And allen is like what he said, the flash lmao.

Thanks for the chapter ❤️

Rei
Rei
4 years ago

Just making a random guess. Maybe Linhai can actually control anything made of metal. Maybe at his level now he can bend spoons but later on he’ll be able to control any objects made of metal

Dreamer
Dreamer
3 years ago

As expected of our protagonist, he’s ability is something OP. Didn’t expect it to be related to codes and a digital world. Very interesting…

Awwww my heart goes out to poor DL. If I were him I’d also feel down and super self depreciating, comparing myself with other people. I hope he doesn’t get jealous or develop any antagonistic feelings towards DZ that will eventually tear them apart. DL stay strong! Grow up! Mature and become better! You’re definitely hiding potential!

QutiePie
QutiePie
6 months ago

I don’t think DL will actually go against DZ. Sure, there’s jealousy, but not outright hostility. My only worry is that DL might take a shortcut and make a deal with that ‘demon’ mentioned in the labyrinth arc.