Chapter 874: World dominated by the mind

Several law enforcers, armed with guns and controlling their 'Abilities', had already surrounded Li Qi, treating him as a formidable enemy.

They had been investigating this strange entity, the 'Murderous Infant', for a very long time, and it was extremely difficult to deal with.

Because this anomaly was a Fusion of the emotions of an 'infant', a 'mother', and an 'abuser', it possessed both the innocence and pain of an infant, the weakness and helplessness of a mother, and also a hidden, violent characteristic, much like the criminals who abused mothers.

At the same time, they shared a common core, which was the 'Cotton Disaster' of this era; the suffering of men, women, and children ultimately transformed into the three consequences of abuse, being abused, and death, giving birth to this monster of terrifying strength.

The only fortunate thing was that, precisely because of the mental presence of women and infants, this anomaly's aggression was not strong, but it would still attack passersby when startled, and there had already been multiple victims.

They had been trying to deal with this terrifying monster, but today, it was resolved by a strange man who happened to pass by.

Who was this?

They didn't relax their guard at all, even though Li Qi seemed approachable.

Because they knew that the only difference between themselves and monsters was that they hadn't gone mad yet.

Those 'Abilities', that power beyond Mortals, all used 'mental power' as fuel.

In other words, these law enforcers were actually all mentally traumatized patients; they all had some degree of mental illness, and most of their thinking was twisted, yet... even twisted, they hadn't become monsters, but had persisted in their own existence, becoming a part of maintaining the city's order.

However, not all Ability users became law enforcers; becoming a law enforcer required extremely strong self-control, the ability to suppress one's pain, and to dedicate oneself for the sake of more people.

Most Ability users, on the other hand, were dangerous individuals; they were mentally sensitive and all problematic, easily losing control once their inner wounds were touched.

Those who only lost control when their wounds were touched were already the 'good' ones; they were mostly sensitive, introverted, taciturn, living their lives withdrawn from society. The more dangerous ones had eccentricities that ordinary people couldn't comprehend, such as finding pleasure in cannibalism and tasting human flesh, or assassins obsessed with 'relieving others' pain', or even self-proclaimed 'artists' who were bomb fanatics, or painters who liked to paint with flesh and skin—those were even more troublesome.

Ability users who weren't law enforcers were all very dangerous, and even the law enforcers themselves walked on a cliff's edge, risking losing control at any moment.

Therefore, although the existence of Ability users was a secret, every single one was actually under strict surveillance, and any unmonitored existence needed immediate contact and evaluation.

Li Qi was just such an unknown, suddenly appearing Ability user, and naturally attracted the attention of the law enforcers.

Li Qi was well aware of this.

"You all work very hard," Li Qi turned his head and looked at the law enforcers behind him.

Enduring psychological trauma, suffering the torment of various negative emotions daily, yet still having to deal with these monsters that appeared due to negative emotions.

Dealing with these things would only exacerbate their psychological problems, wouldn't it? At that point, they could only rely on themselves to alleviate it.

If they couldn't alleviate it... emotions would keep accumulating, eventually leading to self-destruction and becoming new monsters.

A group of monsters, self-restrained by willpower, and then going to restrain other monsters.

This itself was very interesting. Was this the power of 'civilization'?

Perhaps, civilization itself was their mental trauma?

A very interesting situation: clearly deeply wounded by this world, yet still deeply loving this world, choosing to restrain themselves, and protecting Mortals with everything they had.

Li Qi had never experienced such things; he had no psychological shadows since he began his cultivation, and his journey had been relatively smooth sailing. When he encountered problems, he usually had assistance from various parties, and he also worked hard himself.

It could be said that although he encountered many dangers and difficulties, he had never been 'betrayed'; he only encountered enemies that needed to be challenged, so there wasn't that much psychological harm.

Even Li Shiwei was like this.

But these law enforcers were different; they had generally been betrayed by this world.

Li Qi could even directly deduce what they had experienced.

The one on the left, a young man with a seemingly mocking expression, whose mother was forced by debt, and whose last bedding was taken by creditors. She huddled with him in the wind and snow. He was still young then, and by the time he found his mother's body cold, he was already tightly held by the stiff corpse. He spent a day and a night in hunger and terror, finally biting off his mother's hand to escape. This incident severely traumatized his mind, and he thus developed his 'Ability'.

The taciturn man with a resolute face on the right grew up on the battlefield; artillery fire and mountains of corpses made up most of his memories. His Awakening and loss of control were caused by the death of a close comrade. However, as a young veteran, he still obeyed orders and became a law enforcer after his recovery. He was also the captain among the three.

As for the one in the middle... even more bizarre. She was a woman, expressionless, looking like a typical 'three-no' type, seemingly without any emotional fluctuations, like a tool.

She was a test subject of the Royal Institute's 'Artificial Ability User' project. Since psychological trauma could awaken Abilities, then 'manually creating trauma' seemed to become feasible.

Through drugs, brainwashing, education, PUA, sleep deprivation, and other methods, they forcibly implanted the psychological trauma of the current 'strongest Ability user', hoping to replicate the same 'Ability' through the same trauma.

They succeeded halfway; although most experimenters went mad, a 'absolutely loyal' copy of the strongest Ability user was born.

However, although the abilities were the same, she was more prone to losing control, and her control over her abilities was vastly different. The institute judged that she needed to experience some things to fill her life experience, so she was assigned to a law enforcement team.

How to put it...

All beings in the Desire Realm probably faced this problem, right?

The Desire Realm was dominated by mental power.

What Li Qi saw was not just the problem of three people, or this one world; his capacity was now very broad. From a small perspective, from these three people, he could see what a world where mental power could distort reality would ultimately become.

mental power, in a sense, could even be said to be 'creating something out of nothing'; merely relying on this could change reality, which would indeed greatly affect the world's structure.

However... for the Desire Realm, the desires of Mortals should still be minor matters, and what they could influence was only their immediate surroundings. Their capacity was too small, and their emotions were naturally not that intense.

Even their 'self-perceived' intense emotions that could destroy the world were, in the eyes of someone like Li Qi, merely small ripples.

The troublesome part was the desires of the Great Powers.

Their anger, their madness—those truly could distort large areas of space-time, and even create certain 'wonders'.

At such times, even if Mortals only slightly touched those emotions, it would directly lead to madness or even their brains being overloaded by the information.

Li Qi looked at them without speaking, thinking about his own matters in his mind.

However, the three law enforcers dared not just stand there.

The veteran pointed his gun at Li Qi and said, "Speak, stranger. Where did your ability come from? What is its nature? What is its type?"

"Type?" Li Qi was roused by the other party and heard a term.

He hadn't heard this term before, but he immediately deduced its meaning.

It was this world's classification of abilities: Control type, Enhancement type, and the unclassifiable 'Mysterious type'. This was this world's cultivation system, right?

The Control type primarily involved strengthening one's inner trauma and emotions to produce the characteristic of 'manipulating external objects'. Abilities such as telekinesis, mind control, and even brainwashing all stemmed from this. The specific principle of realization was actually to convert emotions into power, influencing the outside world, and even using this method as an energy source to cast spells. It could be considered a type of Demonic Dao cultivation method; it was very systematic and quite good, the most promising type.

The Enhancement type was about strengthening oneself, from enhancing physical fitness to gaining certain extraordinary abilities, such as becoming like a spider, turning into a ghost, or beast transformation. In Li Qi's view, it was essentially 'giving up on treatment'.

Indulging inner pain, relying as much as possible on instinct to stimulate oneself, directly allowing the inner power to completely distort one's self. It seemed to make one stronger, but that came at the cost of one's sanity, like a credit card that seemed to have an infinite overdraft limit—you could swipe it endlessly, and power would continuously flow out no matter how much you overdrawn.

But suddenly one day, you would find the card was maxed out, and you couldn't even pay it back by selling yourself.

At that point, your entire sanity would completely fall into the abyss, or as this world would call it, 'losing control'.

However, the Control type could also lose control, especially the step of 'converting emotions into power', which was extremely prone to emotional rampage and then losing control. But no matter what, it was much stronger than the Enhancement type, which was a dead end from the start.

As for when the credit card would be maxed out, that depended on your 'credit limit', which was the resilience of your Dao Heart. Some Enhancement types would never max out because they could endure, even reaching the Eighth Grade in this world.

And for orthodox cultivators like Li Qi, with their firm Dao Heart and tenacious will, if they used such methods to strengthen themselves, they might even reach the Third Grade in both the Demonic Dao and Shaman Dao.

However, this was limited to the Desire Realm.

This power was essentially bestowed by the Desire Realm, not cultivated by themselves, and it was a very dangerous power for Li Qi.

The Desire Realm was the stronghold of the Demonic Dao; there was no telling what using the power of the Desire Realm casually would bring.

All mental power was only effective in the Desire Realm.

This was also the source of the third type, the Mysterious type.

The power of the mind was too strange, even difficult to classify. The so-called Mysterious type was a dumping ground where all unclassifiable types were thrown in.

This included lost control Enhancement types, Control types who went astray, and strange existences that couldn't be categorized from the beginning, those who had fallen into the Demonic Dao, or even those who were simply the manifestation of collective consciousness, just like the infant earlier.

Not all collective consciousnesses were monsters. If a collective consciousness emerged within an enlightened academy, then this 'Spirit of the Academy' would surely be communicative, and even friendly and wise.

But collective consciousnesses born in places like this were certainly mostly monsters and hostile.

Now, in this world that had just entered the industrial age, there were probably not many good collective consciousnesses left, while monsters were growing explosively. This should also be the reason why the law enforcers were so tense.

So, Li Qi nodded gently and said to them, "Relax, I have no hostility. I just... arrived here, and as for my type... Mysterious type, I suppose."

"Looks like a veteran, stable, experienced, and efficient in dealing with anomalies. Are you from some religious group?" The veteran captain saw that Li Qi had no hostility, so he took the initiative to show goodwill, put away his gun, and walked up to Li Qi.

"No, I'm... uh, it's hard to explain. You can understand it as I'm a strange entity that popped out of the Void Realm, but I have reason and can communicate with you, though you cannot understand me."

"An anomaly... is that so? Yes, you do look like one."

"There are actually quite a few rational anomalies, but they have all been contained. The outside world isn't suitable for you. Would you like to come to a place with me? We'll prepare a room for you," the captain said.

"Prepare a room?" Li Qi countered.

He actually knew what this was.

These collective consciousness Incarnations, similar to 'Academy Spirits', were very easy to get along with, but they also had their preferred environments, such as places with many people or many books.

So, to prevent these quiet anomalies from losing control due to external stimuli, they were contained, and an environment they liked, one that could stabilize them, was created to prevent them from exploding.

There had been cases like this before: a very friendly 'anomaly', a benevolent spirit born in a church hospital, but it eventually turned dark after witnessing too much death, ultimately devouring the entire hospital, causing hundreds of deaths.

In the end, the authorities could only report it as 'an unexpected fire' and sealed the hospital to this day. No one could handle it for now, and the law enforcers sent in basically never returned.

Moreover, these friendly anomalies could also be used as power; they generally possessed extraordinary abilities, healing the injured, manufacturing equipment, or even directly serving as combat power to assist the law enforcers—they were excellent helpers.

In the world of the Desire Realm, such an ecology was quite interesting.

"Yes, prepare a room. What kind do you like?" the captain asked with a smile.

Even if Li Qi wasn't an anomaly, it didn't matter.

Just bring him back first.