Chapter Six: The Tracks of Blood

For the first time, Xigu had a clear direction, and he felt a surge of energy throughout his body.

To reshape the world, to alter the future, to transform this dull and ordinary existence into a realm brimming with unbelievable possibilities—wasn’t that the most delightful thing of all?

He envisioned founding an underground organization hidden in the shadows, weaving legends and lies, watching the human world grow stranger and more fascinating as new ability wielders emerged… The very thought filled Xigu’s heart with anticipation.

Yet to achieve this, he first had to solve a problem.

How, exactly, could others acquire abilities?

At present, Xigu could easily alter his appearance, impersonate others, thanks to his control over muscles and bones. But if he were the only one with powers in the world—even if he disguised himself as various other ability users and staged countless dramas—it would be far too obvious, too easily exposed, and, above all, too boring.

Xigu wanted to be a spectator admiring the grand new era upon this world’s stage, not the lone actor performing a solitary act.

So, the urgent task was to understand how to create other ability wielders.

He began with his own body.

Xigu had tested every metric of his physique—not just external measurements, but genetic markers examined in laboratory conditions. He had anonymously sent samples of his own body to hundreds of gene testing companies and manipulated the university health check to get early readings of all his bodily data.

Unexpectedly, everything was normal.

Yes, absolutely normal.

Despite the fact that, unless Xigu deliberately allowed it, even needles forged of titanium could not pierce his veins, once his blood entered a test tube, the data matched that of any ordinary person—white blood cell ratios, blood composition, everything fell within the standard human range.

Crucially, his weight, body fat percentage, bone composition, muscle density—all these figures remained within medically typical bounds.

No matter how he searched through medicine, chemistry, biology, physics—there was no justification for how a sixty-kilogram human body, composed of basic elements and atoms, could unleash the power to destroy planets. Yet, he could do exactly that.

Moreover, Xigu’s “one percent daily growth” talent tree was so bizarre that it defied physical laws, twisting the very fabric of the universe’s fundamental rules.

After much thought, Xigu reached a conclusion:

His abilities were not tied to the physical body. Though they manifested through physical attributes such as strength and speed, their true nature was subjective!

They were not abilities explainable within a materialistic framework, but powers sourced from Xigu’s own subjective world!

With this realization, a hypothesis took root in Xigu’s mind.

If his abilities were subjective, could he use his “obsession,” “expectation,” “yearning,” or any other term that described the direction of his mind to expand the boundaries of his powers? Or even graft a portion of his abilities onto another living being?

Xigu resolved to experiment.

He began by studying ancient texts on “meditation,” “mental transformation,” and “summoning deities,” seeking to simulate the outline of his abilities in his mind, then attempted to materialize them.

He first defined his “ability” within his brain, imagined a vague form, and assigned it a nebulous definition—“energy,” “mist,” “spiritual force,” things of that nature.

But this attempt failed quickly; after over a month, Xigu felt no sign that his abilities were becoming tangible. Though he subjectively believed his powers were rooted in the mind, they remained confined to his own body.

He then tried other methods.

Instead of meditation, he sought concrete activation—attempting to move matter solely through imagination or intention, what one might call “psychokinesis.”

He would sit for hours each day like a seasoned monk, staring at a wad of paper or a plastic bag on the terrace, picturing them floating, using his “consciousness” to influence their state.

Naturally, this attempt also failed. His physical prowess continued to increase steadily at a rate of one percent per day, and he felt no emergence of “psychokinesis.”

It seemed, then, that while his abilities were strongly influenced by his subjective cognition, they were in fact restricted to his own body, unable to directly affect the material world without his physical presence.

Xigu pondered this. It was a promising direction for exploration. More importantly, this hypothesis inspired a new idea:

If “body” and “cognition” together created his current miraculous state, and both were indispensable—

What, then, was the definition of “body”?

For example, was his blood, once outside the body, still part of him?

His blood, once removed, was identical in composition to that of an ordinary person. This was a fact Xigu had already established during prior medical tests.

Yet he understood that his abilities were products of unreality—so even if the blood’s composition was ordinary, this did not contradict the existence of his powers.

Thus, Xigu made up his mind to study his blood.

He began with the simplest steps: putting his blood in close contact with other things—both living and nonliving. After hundreds and thousands of drops, observing reactions across mammals, reptiles, metals, and nonmetals, spanning the biological and artificial worlds—there was no reaction whatsoever.

Undeterred, Xigu decided to apply his finely honed control techniques.

Using fingernails sharper than diamond blades, cultivated over three minutes, he sliced open his muscle, controlling it so it wouldn’t heal in a fraction of a second, focusing all his attention on his blood vessels, feeling the flow of blood, and immersing himself in the chain of states as the blood moved from vessel to contact with the outside world.

A drop of blood—first flowing inside the vessel—then the vessel is cut, the blood slowly emerges, still within the muscle—then he guides it out—until it enters the air.

This time, Xigu wasn’t clear on his exact training goal, so he gave himself a vague instruction:

“To train the ‘connection’ between my blood and my body.”

Connection?

A nebulous command, and so Xigu trained for more than thirty days without success. Just as he was about to lose hope, one morning, after expertly opening his blood vessels, a faint, mysterious sensation radiated from the crimson blood, making Xigu’s eyes widen in astonishment.

And then he was ecstatic!

Without a doubt, the “connection” had been established—the conduit between blood and body had been built. Now he simply had to wait for the talent tree to strengthen and refine this link day by day.

With success in his blood research, Xigu turned his attention to other bodily substances.

He began with blood, then saliva, tears, sweat… Next came hair, muscle, nerve fibers, even exhaled air and the breath of the lungs.

The bodily fluids established “connections” with the body easily and successfully, probably due to precedent set by the blood.

But the other bodily materials could not be sensed after leaving the body, so attempts to create a “connection” in those domains failed.

Xigu was unconcerned. Since bodily fluids, represented by blood, could establish a “connection,” he could now take a glimpse through this narrow opening, attempting to combine them with other substances to see what might be created.