Welcome to Ability Store

History deity... is this even possible?

Although this "deity" significantly differs from traditional conceptions of a deity, it still left Chen Xuan quite astonished.

This is akin to humanity merely relying on thoughts and prayers to determine the world’s trajectory; willpower no longer being an ethereal concept but becoming the fingers that secretly manipulate destiny.

"Of course, wanting it to be identical is impossible, after all, our thoughts are thoughts, your intentions have the same effect," Zhao Qian added, "According to the supercomputer simulation, the earlier the thought power is widespread in a world, the greater the divergence in future directions. The world line you are on is considered one of those less advanced in thought power development, basically aligning with the historical trajectory of Earth before its downfall, which in our observation is extremely rare."

"Theoretically speaking, such underdeveloped world lines usually find it hard to achieve anything significant, especially with conservative organizations like the Dimensional Limit Mechanism present, making the situation even less ideal. However, Mr. Chen, you became the first to complete the LV7 store manager mission, which truly surprised us greatly."

Her tone slightly rose as she spoke, clearly unable to suppress the excitement in her heart, "Perhaps there are errors in our simulation, and the information you provided fills this loophole well. This is your luck, and also our luck, your experience is crucial to humanity!"

Isn’t this the credit of the store manager’s ability?

Chen Xuan thought, somewhat puzzled.

At least the future Lin Qing first encountered proved that his world line hadn’t reached the point of ascension before it was doomed.

"Am I truly the first person to witness ascension?"

"Indeed, there’s no need for us to deceive you on this point."

He hesitated briefly and voiced a question that had long circled in his mind, "Exactly which number store manager am I?"

Zhao Qian glanced at the elderly man again.

Chen Xuan realized that whenever there was even slightly confidential information involved, she would consult his opinion.

This indicates that they do not really regard the store manager of the Ability Store as one of their own...

Thus, the statement of him being "humanity’s hero" might also be open to question.

Liang Mingzhe spoke, "I guess it’s several thousand? This number is not as easy to tally as you think."

A thousand? Chen Xuan was astonished by the four digits of store managers, "Why? Could it be that in other world lines there are also people possessing this ability?"

"No, our power only supports one store manager." The elder smiled, "As to why it’s hard to count, I’ve mentioned before, the time on world lines isn’t synchronized. Some ability users clearly took office before you but resigned later than you; while others will take office after you but sacrificed before you arrived here. This doesn’t violate the restriction of ’having only one store manager," but the time grand model in the multiverse involves extremely complex theoretical content, which I’m finding difficult to explain to you in a few words."

"Since you can only see one store manager at a time, I ought to have a serial number, right?"

"If you care about this very much, once the computer finishes analyzing and archiving the intelligence you brought, I’ll have an assistant pass it to you," Liang Mingzhe promised.

"Sure." Chen Xuan shrugged, "So next I should become an LV8 store manager? The store manager’s ability is also provided by you, so do you have the capability to restore human souls?"

The two didn’t answer him.

"What’s wrong?" He frowned.

Liang Mingzhe adjusted the frame of the glasses on his nose and stood up. He walked step by step to Chen Xuan, as if only separated by a glass wall.

"Your mission has ended, child." He paused, speaking in a slow tone, "You can rest now."

Chen Xuan was slightly startled.

"My mission... what is it?"

"You gained this ability, like many suitable users before, we couldn’t control who the ability gets bestowed upon, nor could we actively retrieve it. It will traverse countless world lines, finding the correct solution to ascension for humanity, this is the purpose of our existence here."

The picture in picture changed again.

This time Chen Xuan saw the interior of a deep well-like structure, its surrounding walls lined with equipment akin to computer databases, almost extending endlessly. Numerous indicator lights flashing and extinguishing resembled stars in the night sky. As the lens zoomed out, the external contour of the structure was revealed, which compared to the extremely intricate internal structure, the outside was much simpler: the silver-white metal shell constituted a silo tower-like container, with a surface nearly without protrusions, smooth as if formed in one piece.

This tower was painted with black number 01 computing well, alongside number 02, 03 wells, extending parallel towards the distance with the background of deep space.

Clearly, they were all installed on a massive spaceship.

The elderly voice resonated again, "The information on ability users is stored within these computing wells, it becomes the intelligence itself, and meanwhile can provide support for the next ability user. For instance, the store, guest room, exchange system you see... they’re all a part of it."

"So initially... it wasn’t in the form of a store?" Chen Xuan unknowingly murmured.

"Certainly not. Initially, it couldn’t even achieve the effect of ability transactions, it was more like a simple intelligence collector. After numerous iterations and upgrades, the information library reached its current scale." Liang Mingzhe raised his head, seemingly looking up at the screen, "The Earth became a forbidden area for humanity, but before it completely fell, people had already collected copious amounts of intelligence on invasion points and world lines, and with the cost of their lives sent it to extraterrestrial human bases."

"Though we haven’t personally witnessed ascension, we can still analyze lots of information about ascension from these data. The ’Open Heaven Gate" project was thus born—since the future tends to diverge into numerous directions, as long as we view them all, sooner or later we’ll know which is the correct path."

"And your experience further proves this: humanity’s goal of achieving ascension is exceedingly challenging, requiring utmost caution in choosing futures; amidst thousands of wrong answers, perhaps only one or two hold the true solution. Of course, we also don’t rule out the worst-case scenario, that is failing to find a correct path, in which case, we’ll have to forge one ourselves."

Liang Mingzhe sighed deeply, "Child, you should now understand, it doesn’t have a designed LV8 level function, once it detects the observer witnessed ascension, it will automatically end the mission."

Chen Xuan suddenly saw the reflection on the elder’s glasses.

There wasn’t his image on it.

The other party indeed was staring at a screen, but it displayed rows of scrolling green code.

Were they actually communicating with that heap of data?

Chen Xuan lowered his head, scrutinizing his hands, a rather uneasy premonition surged in his heart.

"You can give the next store manager to whoever you want, I want to go back."

The elder shook his head, "Sorry, that’s not possible."

"...What do you mean?" He asked almost gnashing his teeth.

"To transmit such massive information across world lines, relying on traditional electromagnetic communication is practically impossible, so what was transferred wasn’t the information, but the carrier of the information—thought power of ability user suitability. You ought to know what this implies."

Thought power... or Spiritual Qi... would become part of a human’s soul composition.

"Zhao Qian, show him." Liang Mingzhe turned back.

"But..."

"It’s alright, we needn’t hide from a hero." The other party gestured.

"Understood, teacher."

Zhao Qian pointed a finger, the picture in picture switched to a closed small room, walls of the room were unpainted cement walls, in the middle stood a swivel chair.

Chen Xuan saw himself curled up, laying still next to the chair, hands still gripping the shirt at his chest, except his chest no longer soared and fell.