Chapter 6: Illusionary Wraith (1/2)

Chapter 6: Illusionary Wraith

Luo Nan stared at his drawing for a long time before deciding that he didn’t need to add or remove anything. Then he took the completed drawn sketch and performed a simple 3D rendering, importing the sketch into the computer’s AI database. The sketch was run through an Image Processing Function in order to import his work of art into the recording.

The Phantom flying car’s AI capabilities are admittedly heaven defying, but this sort of specialized image splicing requires specialized software to process. The result created in this adhoc fashion completely didn’t look like a drawing. It appeared rather grotesque.

But in Luo Nan’s opinion, this low-quality spliced drawing was the best fit with his memories.

Luo Nan saw the enormous wraith clearly at this moment. It emerged from within the exploding flames, towering over a hundred meters. It roared in fury amidst the collapsing ruins and dust.

The explosive impact of its roar was like several heavy fists or like a giant wheel steamrolling through. It was so much that Luo Nan felt all his internal organs shape and morph. The flesh and blood all over his body erupted with a sound, and the air was pervaded with the odor of blood and death…...

He truly thought he was done for, for a moment.

This was the full view of what he saw, of what he felt!

The real world was not a fantasy film, and Luo Nan knew this. The things he saw and felt was really far too bizarre. So he returned to the scene of the matter once again, juxtaposing the scene’s environment, and watching the recording in reverse. He also observed the reactions in the surrounding areas.

And finally the result was…… dull, ordinary, and not the least bit surprising.

Was it a hallucination?

Luo Nan flexed and stretched his fingers, closing his eyes. He adjusted his breathing and silently chanted the twenty word mantra. The visualization of the diagram appeared in the void. The tetrahedron, inner sphere, and circumscribed sphere slowly rotated. Several blocked circuits ahead were slowly restored back to being flowing and unhindered.

Visualizing the diagram cannot be described simply as…… a hallucination.

The diagram visualization technique showed clearly that his Vessel took some slight damage. However, the Vessel was in the middle of a rapid recovery.

The long-distance marathon running training over the past several years did not give Luo Nan a particularly buff physique. Instead it gave him super outstanding endurance and recovery capabilities.

It wasn’t a huge problem, but Luo Nan was extremely concerned about it.

Actually Luo Nan had already come to a solution under his own logic, but he didn’t rush to conclusions. He thought deeply for a time.

Soon a list of relevant information appeared.

At the time of the incident, the initial “earthquake stage” was already over. The atmospheric pressure was 104 kilopascals, which was within standard basic levels of atmospheric pressure. The shock of the explosive sound reached nearly 90 decibels then, which did not reach levels of damaging one’s hearings. A 44 kilometer/hour wind was caused by the incident, aka a class 6 intensity of wind. Other than the above, the temperature, humidity levels, radiation values, and other data were all within normal ranges.

This was only a normal, maybe somewhat noisy, very windy day from just looking at the data. These circumstances caused two great young masters to be shocked out of their wits? Wouldn’t that be a joke?

And there was another point…...

Luo Nan used his finger to mark a distance in video analysis mode: There is a distance of 2.9 kilometers from the broken bridge to the heart of the epicenter. The sound waves should have a delay of approximately 8 seconds. But was this really the case?”

Cold hard data was much more credible than his memories, adding to the incomprehensible mystery. The data showed that the flying car Phantom received the powerful sound wave vibration earlier than the erupting flames by 7 milliseconds.

Sound had run past light…… This was obviously ridiculous according to common sense. The origin of the explosive sound and the flames was torn into two pieces in face of the data..

And so a clear paradox emerged between the flames and the explosive sound, between the explosive sound and the human reaction.

Luo Nan raised his head, no longer watching any images or videos. He leaned heavily back against the chair.

A hallucination? A bullshit hallucination!

There was clearly a sort of force from an unseen plane, a bizarre force that meddled in the relationships of everything here. It filled up what had been originally empty space!

The burning wraith was the indicator to this sort of force.

This wasn’t science…… What Luo Nan wanted wasn’t science!

The Formatting Theory that his grandfather created had entered into the realm of metaphysics from the very start.

Luo Nan had intimate fanatical feelings towards his grandfather’s theory, so much so that he could place the theory on the same level as his life. However, he could not find a clear reference to the theory from his results so far.

Though he did have the Appetite King, Hypnosis Master, and other tricks that have already exceeded the limits of ordinary people, the level of these capabilities weren’t conclusive. They absolutely have not reached the level of “Fundamental Changes” to say the least.

What would count as a fundamental change under self-formatting? What is the criteria for a fundamental change? If it’s a so-called supernatural force, what would be its manifestation?

Luo Nan was unable to find the answer from within the chaotic and complicated records of his grandfather’s experiments.

Five years had passed where he engaged in closed self-study, self talk and discussion. He felt that he was advancing step by step, but he was unable to reach a conclusion to the issue of this “criteria”.

But now a reference object had appeared!

His heart pumped out blood that was as blazing-hot as lava. Yet all Luo Nan did was breath in a deep breath. His ten fingers gripped his notebook, and he lowered his chin. He controlled the pounding of his pair of heart and body.

There wasn’t even time to celebrate before the tip of the iceberg of the force had been exposed. The force looked that it could return to the other world behind the dark screen at any moment…...

There was still a lot of work that Luo Nan had to do.

The car’s AI had finished switching routes at this time, changing roads to do a detour. However, the damage of an over 10 square kilometers area caused quite the effect on the city’s traffic. Several layers of traffic in the air were closed off even if it was early in the morning. The moving vehicles began to slightly stop up. The vehicles were incapable of speeding up.

Luo Nan deleted the data and gathered records saved automatically by the AI, to avoid revealing information about the burning wraith by deliberately making things more complicated. Then he opened the news channel to check relevant news on this “earthquake”.

The majority of media was still in the phase of broadcasting in the form of text messages since the time from the incident was too short. Only the Star Associated Press demonstrated the haughtiness of a world-class media. They promptly purchased the video shot by the unmanned sentinel drones in the vicinity of the incident. They spliced them to create a satellite shot, seizing the first resources.

This recording wasn’t even two minutes in length, yet it was pushed higher and higher on social media to receive greater and greater attention

The bird’s-eye view image was clearer, showing that the overpass was only really part of the outer perimeter of damage. The location of epicenter of the earthquake had completely caved in to form an enormous ruin. The caved area still was unable to be filled, revealing an enormous hole. Azure lightning continued to jump. It was an exceptionally eye-catching sight under the glow of twilight.

What sort of situation was going on inside the enormous hole? How many casualties were there? Not a single media outlet had a definite report.

The municipal administration and the police began to get involved at this time, guiding traffic in the surrounding area. The clean-up and rescue jobs had yet to officially unfold, but transport vehicles have already emerged in the air. They began to drop all sorts of engineering bots.

The government’s response time was already quite fast, relatively speaking…… At least they far exceeded their typical level.

The flying car’s movement speed decreased slower and slower. The police performed a few inspections on the passing vehicles as they cleared the way for traffic. One car would be inspected, yet another would not. Their criteria for inspection was unknown. It appeared not to be their usual practice.

Luo Nan won the pick.

A police officer to the side notified him to stop his vehicle. The police officer waited for the window to roll down before raising a request: “Sir, please turn off your vehicle’s radar and related equipment to avoid interfering with the search and rescue effort.”