Absolute Gate

Chapter 28 The Fortress of the Mind
The ghostly chicken gizzard is even more foolish and blind.

As soon as he was released, he rushed in one direction.

Endless Summer couldn't stop it, and then a short while later, the chicken gizzard returned on its own, transforming into a tattoo, which was beyond a kilometer range.

"What's wrong with you?"

Endless Summer tried several times with the same result, and when she got desperate, Chicken Gizzard shouted, "Let me go! I've thought of a solution! I'm sure I can solve it!"

But it was no use; as long as he was a thousand meters away from Endless Summer, he would automatically return to his back and become a tattoo.

"Brother Xia, don't you know that his mind has been warped by a complete mess?"

Wu Zhongcai realized that Wujinxia was unaware of this matter.

"A complete mess?"

Wu Jinxia pondered for a moment, then remembered something and said with annoyance, "How did he get infected with this stuff?"

"I told him to take you to containment chamber 013!"

Without a doubt, the ghostly gizzard, with its grotesque appearance, is now considered useless.

They're no longer following orders; they're just looking for trouble.

Wu Zhong glanced at Yang Chunsha.

Wu Jinxia said in a deep voice, "It doesn't matter whether she hears you or not, just say it!"

"The ghost tattoo is the only calamity artifact I possess; is it just going to be useless like this?"

When Yang Chunsha heard "it doesn't matter," she was not only displeased, but also horrified.

She covered her ears and ran away, saying, "I don't want to hear it! You guys talk, I'm going to leave first."

Endless Summer flashed forward and stomped her to the ground: "Stay put!"

This dark tunnel is this woman's territory; if she disappears, even Endless Summer won't be able to find her.

She might even use earth magic to seal it, trapping Wu underground.

Therefore, Endless Summer will not let her go too far away from her.

Buzz! Wujinxia shuddered, purple light illuminating the surrounding rock walls, and lava flowed across the rocks. In an instant, everyone was immersed in a magnificent purple environment, which was obviously to shield them from the watchful eyes of the Night Wanderer.

Wu Zhong glanced at the woman lying on the ground covering her ears and told her everything that had happened at the 985 base.

Wujinxia was shocked after hearing this: "You didn't bring the chicken gizzard out?"

"The chicken gizzard broke as soon as it arrived?"

"You escaped all by yourself, just because I told you to 'go through the pipes in containment chamber 013'?"

Wu Zhong nodded: "Yes, apart from Gu Yue and a few sentries later, I haven't encountered anyone else."

"It's all thanks to you, Brother Xia, that you drew all the attention. And without your intelligence, I wouldn't have been able to escape the wolfhounds' pursuit."

Endless Summer scrutinized Wu Zhong with unprecedented seriousness: "This isn't just a matter of my intelligence; you... you're truly a rare breed..."

Wu blinked, not understanding what he meant.

Yang Chunsha shuddered and muttered, "So this is how to counter the Laughing Grenade?"

An amateur, who can't even use a gun, escapes from the 985 containment chamber, takes down the sentries, and shakes off the tracking dogs, all with just a few pieces of intelligence and basic welding skills.

Is this really the first time encountering a calamity? Being hit by a laughing grenade and then being able to undo the damage yourself?

Wu Zhong looked down at her: "It's very simple."

Yang Chunsha was stunned, then covered her ears and shouted, "I didn't hear it, I didn't hear it!"

Wu Jinxia released her foot, took out a pill-like object, and stuffed it into Yang Chunsha's mouth: "Get up. From now on, he is your elder brother."

“If you disobey him or run away without his permission, no matter where you run, I will detonate you remotely.”

Yang Chunsha felt a bitter taste in her mouth and didn't know what she had eaten, but there were all sorts of terrifying things in the Disaster Realm.

She could only nod with a long face.

Wu Zhong pointed at himself in astonishment: "Huh? Whose older brother? Me?"

"She can use magic, but I can't do anything."

Endless Summer patted him on the shoulder: "Don't underestimate yourself, you're much better than this woman."

"She only knows magic, while you are a natural containr, you just lack the means."

"You'll master these various methods sooner or later, but your ability to decipher calamities during crises is truly rare."

Wu Zhong said, "What kind of trait is this? It was just a flash of inspiration."

Endless Summer sighed, "It's that flash of inspiration that so many people can't achieve."

"Having seen many strange and dangerous things, you will indeed have experience and know how to deal with them. But how much experience is too much? Sometimes experience can actually kill you."

"Ask her yourself what would happen if she were affected by unknown negative effects..."

Yang Chunsha adjusted her glasses: "Either despair or death... If you're lucky, you'll be imprisoned or crippled."

"That's why I never dare to take on missions that require fighting against unknown monsters, even if the reward is high."

"Because these kinds of missions are actually posted by others to lure greedy people to risk their lives and exchange their lives for information."

"The Laughing Grenade is actually alright; it's a signature weapon of 985 universities. I've personally witnessed a Silver-level expert being taken down by a single grenade and an air shield, and then dragged away by firefighters like a dead dog..."

"On the platform, there is actually a bounty for intelligence missions to crack the Laughing Grenade, worth 300 bits."

"But no one dared to take the job, because it would offend Unit 985, which would mean facing off against the world's most powerful containment force. Or it would mean infiltrating Unit 985 to uncover their secrets."

"No matter what method you use, if you are not careful, you may be completely surrounded by the containment forces, which will make things extremely difficult."

"Unlike you, who tested the law with your own body and broke it in a flash of inspiration. Whether you relied on luck or something else, 'testing the law with your own body' is the simplest but also the most difficult and dangerous way to break the law."

"Almost all information about catastrophic objects with negative effects is obtained by countless people risking their lives to find out."

She became very sad as she spoke.

Don't be fooled by how much money she earns; she spends a lot too.

She just wanted to get by and never dared to take on any high-level missions.

Missions like today's, where she helps powerful individuals escape, are already quite dangerous. And yet... she messed things up and ended up in Wujinxia's hands. How tragic!

Wu Zhong pondered for a moment and said, "Is it that difficult? If someone who was hit by the Laughing Grenade and was arrested doesn't commit a capital offense, they should at least be released, right?"

"In that case, they would naturally know how to solve the problem. Even top universities like 985 have their oversights, which could lead to someone uploading information to the mercenary club? For example, uploading it while dreaming."

Wu Jinxia smiled: "You think it's that simple? Kid, the 985 Unit has memory deletion capabilities."

Wu suddenly realized, memory erased? Oh, then it's alright...

Wu Jinxia looked at him and said, "But speaking of which, I never expected that you would have such a strong mental resistance, no, even a mental fortress."

"Mental resistance? Mental fortification?" Wu Zhong tilted his head.

Yang Chunsha couldn't help but interject: "The warriors from 985 and that ghost were both afflicted by the tangled mess of mental distortion, but you weren't. You must have some kind of mental resistance effect on you."

Wu Zhong touched his face: "I actually have a second characteristic?"

Endless Summer shook her head: "No, it's probably just a characteristic of the doors you weld."

"However, absolute characteristics cannot be viewed one-sidedly, but rather as two sides of the same coin, or even multiple sides of the same coin."

"Just like the example of the eternal thirst effect I mentioned before, the positive and negative aspects are all human evaluations; the characteristics themselves are neither good nor bad."

"Good fortune may be a harbinger of misfortune, and misfortune may be a harbinger of good fortune; this is a common occurrence with unusual and calamities. A single characteristic can have multiple effects and often produce remarkable results in unpredictable areas."

“In your case… I guess the moment you possessed this characteristic, you welded your ‘heart’ shut shut.”

Upon hearing the last part, Wu Zhong was visibly shaken.

Huh? The door to the heart?

"Yes, the heart is a door too!"

Endless Summer said with delight, “Strictly speaking, it is the Gate of the Heart, and combined with the fact that the gate you created can only be destroyed by you, and no one else can destroy it.”

"So your heart is protected from external erosion, which is like a solid wall around your mind, blocking the distortion of your mind."

Wu Zhong pondered, "The gate to the heart can still develop cracks. It's not like the passage is absolutely blocked. Can't a distorted mind invade it?"

Wu Jinxia shook her head and said, "Well, don't try to understand conceptual things with a physical mindset."

"As I understand it, this should be a purely conceptual door, rather than your mind being molded into the shape of a door. Do you understand what I mean?"

Wu Zhong seemed to be thinking: "You mean that the gate to the mind is formless and intangible, detached from the turbid world, and is something at the conceptual level?"

"It is called a door because people believe that to enter a person's heart, one needs to pass through a portal, hence the name 'door to the heart'."

"This is essentially human imagination and metaphor. Since it is a metaphor, it actually represents a definition or a concept."

"That is to say, it has nothing to do with its form, but only with its function and the meaning of its existence."

"And its purpose is to 'guard the gateway to the heart.'" "My absolute characteristic is actually to open up and create this 'meaning of existence' called the door... What I welded shut was a setting."

Wu Jinxia was surprised that he had thought things through even more clearly than she had, and clapped her hands, saying, "Ah, yes, yes, that's exactly what I meant."

He was very pleased, and his eyes shone with delight.

Mental resistance traits are extremely rare, and a comprehensive mental fortress is even rarer.

Wu Zhong possessed a mental fortitude that came at no cost, a rare and precious treasure!
Endless Summer continued, "Perhaps you can't use other conceptual doors. But you can certainly use your own mind."

"Therefore, the day you inexplicably gained the ability, you automatically gained access to the mind."

"It's just that it's normal to you, so you don't feel it, but when it encounters external interference, it will exhibit the characteristics of the 'Absolute Gate'."

Wu Zhong murmured, "The Gate of Absolute Power, is that the name of my ability?"

Endless Summer shrugged: "Names are given by people. It's not right to keep calling someone 'Welding Door' all the time."

"In short, your characteristics should enable you to create all kinds of absolute doors. While the doors you create on the physical level are softly invincible, they are truly invincible on the level of mental concepts."

"Because of concepts, there is no such thing as soft or hard, only existence or non-existence."

"As you said, what you welded shut was the concept of 'guarding the gateway to the mind' itself, which is metaphysical, not something that looks like a certain shape."

Wu Zhong scratched his head: "Really invincible? The Laughing Grenade almost killed me."

Endless Summer was taken aback, then chuckled: "Oh dear, the Laughter Grenade isn't a mental distortion, it just forces you to laugh hysterically, your consciousness and thinking aren't affected at all."

Wu Zhong tilted his head. Indeed, he was very clear-headed; otherwise, he wouldn't have been able to solve the problem so calmly.

With a 'you should be content' expression, Wu Jinxia said, "Actually, your mental fortitude is the closest I've ever known to be to the word 'perfect'."

Even the most resilient mental fortitude comes at a price, such as the inability to sleep and the inability of the mind to rest.

"Absolute characteristics, you know, that's just how it is. When it appears in a person, it will definitely be very awkward and implemented without any regard for the consequences."

"There are no calamities or supernatural objects that are tailor-made for humans, so naturally they don't care about human opinions."

“But you are different. You have welded the concept of human civilization as a metaphor into your heart, which is naturally perfect.”

"For example, you will still accept the natural effects of hormones, nerves, external stimuli, and emotional stimuli normally, without resisting them."

“You will automatically resist unnatural and illogical conceptual distortions of the mind.”

"This is the most perfect mental fortress, costless and therefore without any sense of existence, so much so that you only now discover its existence."

"Unless it is a higher-priority catastrophic object, you are immune to all mental distortions."

Wu pressed on, asking, "What level of calamity could invade my mind?"

Endless Summer shook her head bitterly: "Who knows? Calamities don't have different levels. A has priority over B, B has priority over C, but C might have priority over A."

"When I say 'higher priority,' I might be referring to something whose mechanism happens to include 'breaking through the mind's door.'"

"For example, 'If you don't have the Gate of the Mind, you're fine, but if you do, you're bound to be affected.' Where can you find the logic in that? You know, all sorts of strange and bizarre things can happen."

"That's why I said that there are no unchanging rules to follow when it comes to disasters and anomalies; we can only learn the truth through practice."

"You won't know what you can't be immune to until you try it."

Wu Zhong's facial features contorted in pain: "Trying it will only lead to my death!"

"If the negative effects are extremely terrible, wouldn't that be gambling with one's life?"

Endless Summer spread her hands and said, "It's all about risking your life. The Disaster Realm is full of risks. Who hasn't risked their life?"

"Don't gamble easily, but if you really have no other choice, you'll have to gamble."

"Unless it's someone like her, a good-for-nothing who just drifts through life."

As he spoke, he even dissed Yang Chunsha, who seemed completely unconcerned.

After figuring out why the Ghost Chicken Gizzard was ruined, Endless Summer was quite helpless.

"Oh well, the ghost tattoo is ruined, so be it. We'll figure something out later."

Endless Summer pondered, now that the Night Wanderer couldn't be found, the Ghost Assistant was useless again.

He needed Wu Zhong to have the ability to protect himself, so he could only tear off his own armor.

A purple light gathered at his chest, and something alive was moving within it.

Endless Summer reached out and tore at it, her face contorted in pain as she carefully pulled, as if tearing apart her own organs.

After a while, he removed the blob of purple liquid and then pressed it directly onto Wu Zhong's right shoulder.

At the same time, Endless Summer's purple armor reassembled, her right arm disappeared, revealing her ordinary arm.

"Ugh!"

Wu Zhong felt a sharp pain as the thing instantly eroded his entire arm.

He felt as if his arm was being chewed in a meat grinder, and the pain made him sweat profusely.

"Bear with it! This is my right arm, I'll lend it to you." Endless Summer said solemnly.

Wu gritted his teeth, speechless, and decided to tough it out.

After a while, the situation improved and the pain subsided.

Looking at the right arm, it appears normal.

Wu Zhong could sense that a living being was hidden within his flesh and blood, connected to his nerves.

With a thought, a ball of purple liquid overflowed, spreading across his right arm like countless tiny tentacles, forming a shimmering purple arm guard.

"Oh!"

Try punching the rock wall, and a dull cracking sound immediately comes.

The rock shattered, leaving a fist-sized crater; his fist was embedded in it.

The reaction force was mostly dissipated; he only jerked his arm, swung his shoulder backward, and staggered half a circle around.

"Boom! Boom!"

With another thought, he gathered purple light in his palm and shot it out, blasting an even deeper hole in the rock.

Wu Zhong bent down, picked up a piece of gravel, and crushed it into powder.

"This arm has a grip strength of two tons, the material strength is ten times that of special alloy steel, and it can also deflect about one ton of reaction force."

"The energy of the purple melting bomb is equivalent to 10 kilograms of TNT, but it does not have an explosive effect; rather, its power is concentrated on erosion and melting."

"Use it as you see fit, it's just using up my Yuan energy anyway."

Wu Jinxia's casual introduction only fueled Wu Zhong's excitement.

Yang Chunsha was practically drooling with envy, her eyes practically drooling with envy.

Wu Zhong said, "Is it your Yuan energy that's being used up? I'll use the Purple Melting Bomb sparingly. Anyway, it's enough to deal with the Night Wanderer. Its power is overkill."

Endless Summer chuckled: "There's no need to be frugal. I'll lend you part of my bio-armor; the main expense is the cost of putting it on you."

"As for the Purple Fusion Bombs, fire them as many as you want; you won't run out. I can charge seven thousand rounds with just one bit of energy!"

Wu Zhong stared wide-eyed. Seven thousand shots?

Yang Chunsha said with a hint of sourness, "What do you think? One bit of energy is a lot."

"Before Bitcoin was invented, the world of cataclysmic events used TNT equivalent as the unit, with one kilogram equivalent being '1 point of power'."

"Later, it was discovered that Bitcoin could increase the diversity of its holders, so the standard was changed."

"One bit of the new standard is equivalent to more than 7.7 bits of the old standard."

She spoke with a hint of pride.

"You think my 20 bits of Yuan Power is nothing? I practice hard almost every day, and I also constantly learn otherworldly magic to further improve."

"Many of the enlightened beings I've encountered only have a fraction of a bit of Yuan power, or even a fraction of a bit."

"I earned these 20 bits of Bit Power through seven years of relentless hard work and living paycheck to paycheck."

Wu was initially stunned; indeed, Yangchunsha was not weak at all.

They created a vast, dark tunnel system that can traverse five kilometers underground in an hour, which is no small feat.

But Wu Zhong then retorted: "Don't you have more than 16 Bitcoins? So you only managed to accumulate less than four bits in seven years?"

"..." Yang Chunsha's face turned purplish-red.

Endless Summer laughed heartily and vanished in a flash.

……

　P.S.: Sorry.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)