Shackles of Humanity

Just as day broke, the rescuers arrived. It was a small Floating Airship. The airship couldn’t land in the mountainous region, so it lowered ropes to hoist the survivors up one by one.

Only then did everyone notice that the Slave Soldier, codenamed 9527, was gone. Zhao Xiang was furious, saying angrily, "This is all your fault. He saved our lives, and you all still suspected him."

Qiu Yuan didn’t argue, climbing onto the airship in silence.

Yue Han, however, was red-faced, and she stammered, "I’m sorry. I didn’t understand the situation and wronged him."

...

Luo Kai had left. The spring breeze blew, and the world before him was a sea of green, a refreshing sight that lifted his spirits. He couldn’t help but feel cheerful, starting to hum a tune as he jogged through the mountain forest. As he ran, he realized he had a problem: he was lost. Unconcerned, he decided not to bother with directions and simply walked wherever the scenery was most beautiful. Eventually, he followed the scent of water and stopped before a small creek.

He stripped naked, jumped in, and took a thoroughly enjoyable bath. Then he closed his eyes, soaking in the water to sleep. The current swirled around him, constantly spinning and brushing against his skin as if giving him a full-body massage. Luo Kai let out a comfortable groan and dazedly drifted off to sleep.

An imperceptible current slowly seeped into his skin. Water molecules washed over his deepest cells, and his somewhat atrophied internal organs, nourished by the stream, recovered some of their vitality.

He slept for what felt like an eternity. When he woke up, it was already dark. Luo Kai stretched, a pleasant sensation spreading through his entire body, as if he were just recovering from a serious illness. Not only had much of his physical strength returned, but even his depleted Spiritual Power had recovered significantly. A jolt of joy went through him. ’I might as well just live here,’ he thought.

He got up and caught a few fish in the creek, then started a fire to roast them. Although there were no large fish in the creek and he had no spices to go with them, they were still incredibly delicious. He ate dozens before he finally stopped.

Then, with the strength to uproot a willow tree, he gathered some wood and built a small lean-to by the creek. He lay inside, completely satisfied. The roof of the lean-to was open, revealing the bright stars. The earth as his bed, the Starry Sky as his blanket—a scene he had longed for in his past life was finally realized in this one.

Normally, the woods would be full of mosquitoes and insects, but for some unknown reason, the area several meters around his lean-to seemed to be a forbidden zone for them. Not to mention mosquitoes, there weren’t even any crickets or grasshoppers. Even the mountain breeze seemed to curve slightly around it.

Luo Kai also noticed this strange phenomenon. He meditated on it quietly for a moment and came to an understanding. ’This is the Power of the Spirit, or rather, the physical manifestation of the Spirit. For instance, right now I don’t want to be bitten by insects, so my Spiritual Will naturally projects out of my body, forming an invisible force field that prevents them from entering.’

This Power was simply too profound, too immense. In other words, when a Living Creature’s Spiritual Will grew strong enough, anything could be made to bend to its will. The legendary ability to make thoughts reality was probably just this. This was truly a Power that belonged only to God.

Luo Kai thought of the beautiful woman from the philosophy lecture in his past life. ’Could it be that she already understood the Power of the Spirit back then? And what were these "human shackles" she mentioned?’

...

There was no shortage of food in the mountains, which was unfortunate for the local wildlife, given Luo Kai’s huge appetite. The Energy contained in the meat of wild animals far surpassed that of livestock. After a few days, his weak body gradually began to recover. His salt-and-pepper hair turned black again, the skin on his face tightened, his wrinkles vanished, and his muscles firmed up. He now looked like a young man in his thirties.

His physical Power had recovered to about fifty percent of its peak, but a full recovery would still be a long process.

His flourishing Spiritual Power finally gave him the time to carefully study ways to use water currents for combat. The highest virtue is like water; it is the softest substance in the world. In a place with abundant Water Element, such as a river, lake, or ocean, he could use water currents to trap enemies, but it was difficult to inflict any damage.

As if performing a magic trick, Luo Kai morphed the fist-sized ball of water in front of him into various shapes, then dispersed it with a wave of his hand, only to gather it again. Condensing a ball of water by the creek took about thirty seconds. In a dry area, it would be a different story; he might not be able to condense any water at all.

In the end, he could only sigh in frustration. This ability was definitely very powerful, but it required one’s Spiritual Power to be strong enough to overturn rivers and seas. Right now, he could only control a small current; he couldn’t even block the creek in front of him.

Lying on his bed of dry grass, he gazed at the stars in the sky. The unpolluted sky was like clear crystal, with specks of starlight embraced within, so beautiful it was breathtaking. A meteor streaked across his vision...

A meteor seemed to streak through Luo Kai’s mind as well. He recalled a science fiction novel he had once read, which described an incredibly powerful weapon. The weapon’s name was the Water Drop. It wasn’t a real drop of water, but it was shaped like one.

The weapon’s power lay in its dense structure. From a macroscopic perspective, the Cosmos is infinite, but from a microscopic perspective, a grain of sand, or even an atom, is also infinite. The smallest substances known to humanity are electrons and quarks, but electrons and quarks can still be subdivided further; it’s just that human technology lacks the means to observe them.

The Water Drop’s strength came from infinitely compressing even microscopic Space, thereby forming an incredibly dense structure. In this state, no substance could block its Sharpness. To put it another way, if the Water Drop were to expand, its small volume could cover the entire Earth, like a basin of spilled water. When it was spread so thin that only molecules were connected to molecules, it could envelop the whole world.

To put it more simply, when charcoal is compressed to a certain degree, it forms a diamond. A high-pressure waterjet cutter works on the same principle. A stream of water shot out under ultra-high pressure can even cut through metal.

Luo Kai’s Spirit jolted. ’Since a soft current of water can’t do any damage, why not find a way to make it hard? Something that originally existed only in science fiction might just become possible under the influence of Spiritual Power.’

No sooner said than done. He got up, walked to the side of the creek, and gently guided a mass of water to condense in front of him. His consciousness extended into the water, and a microscopic world unfolded in his mind. The image in his head was like a three-dimensional Microscope, showing the gaps between water molecules, and the large amount of air that Sorao’d within... What he had to do was strip the air away.

An unknown amount of time passed. The mass of water in front of Luo Kai grew smaller and smaller as the water molecules became more and more tightly packed. In the end, it was only the size of a fingernail, but it weighed several kilograms.

Luo Kai opened his eyes. His face was a little pale, but his spirits were incredibly high. Looking at the crystal-clear sphere of water before him, he couldn’t help but laugh out loud.

But at that very moment, the small sphere of water in front of him suddenly expanded and then shattered with a BANG. The force of the explosion was no less than a firecracker, and the shooting droplets of water stung his skin.

Luo Kai was stunned for a moment. He had forgotten one crucial thing: once the concentrated mass of water lost the support of his Spiritual Power, it would naturally rebound and shatter under external pressure. It seemed this method wasn’t viable. He couldn’t just focus his mind on reinforcing the water sphere forever, could he?

He lay back on his makeshift bed and continued to ponder. ’I have to find a way to keep the water in this compressed state. For example, if I place the compressed sphere in some kind of Solid container and leave a small opening, wouldn’t the release of pressure create a high-pressure Water Saber? But if I already had a weapon, this method would be pretty useless.’