chapter 41

A person’s real body could enter an illusion realm!

Zhu Xianyao’s vision blurred for a moment.

She could not comprehend this at all.

“How can physical people enter an illusion realm?” Zhu Xianyao asked.

Su Chen shook his head. “I can’t tell you either. This is really quite an interesting phenomenon. Kapius is truly worthy of his title; he was even able to fuse reality and illusion together into a physical illusion realm.”

Su Chen’s voice was filled with praise as his eyes practically glimmered.

Scholar overlords could only be understood by fellow scholar overlords.

Perhaps only Su Chen and Shi Kaihuang could understand how magnificent Kapius’s inventions were. Zhu Xianyao might not understand even if Su Chen explained it to her.

Zhu Xianyao directly replied, “I don’t understand why this would be useful.”

“Why it would be useful?” Su Chen said. “Let me give you an example. Say that a person’s consciousness is an ‘illusory’ existence, while a physical body is a physical existence. The Dark Spirit Race is able to convert their consciousnesses into physical bodies via the Consciousness Converter Instrument. That is a process of converting something illusory into something physical. In other words, turning something illusory into something physical might not seem like much, but it was able to create an entirely new race!”

Zhu Xianyao was stunned. “Are you saying that this current illusory-turned-physical realm can create another race that is similar to the Spirit Race?”

“No, I’m saying that an invention that seems pointless can actually have very important, long-term consequences. The utility of turning an illusory realm into a physical one might not be apparent now; after all, it depends to what degree this realm has been converted. But one thing is for sure; this is an impressive way of thinking.”

“What degree it was completed to?” Zhu Xianyao was confused.

“Yes, Kapius’s physical illusion realm wasn’t totally successful,” Su Chen replied.

“How do you know?”

“Because the Spirit Race doesn’t have this kind of technique. Kapius was the leader of the Spirit Race, and if he had succeeded, there’s no way he wouldn’t have made it publicly known. This implies that this attempt of his failed.”

“Where exactly did it fail?”

Su Chen glanced at their surroundings. “This physical illusion realm exists in the Projection Void, implying that it probably relies on this Projection Void’s unique attributes to remain stable. In other words, Kapius wasn’t able to take the most critical step…… Considering that he gave up here, he probably realized that this project was uncompletable.”

Zhu Xianyao laughed coldly. “Reality is reality, and illusions are illusions. If you could turn something illusory real, then would illusions still be illusions? I think that this Spirit Race leader was just letting his imagination run wild.”

Su Chen glanced at her in pity. “You’re like a frog in a well1.”

Zhu Xianyao angrily retorted, “What did you say?”

Su Chen shook his head. “I said that you will never understand the heart of someone who harbors enough ambition to swallow the whole world. Even though this plan of turning the illusion realm into something tangible failed, Kapius’s research on this matter wasn’t entirely useless. I can guarantee that his Radiation Plan was built with this theory as the foundation.”

“You’re telling me that Consciousness Enslavement is related to the research done here?” Zhu Xianyao was shocked.

The Spirit Race’s Consciousness Enslavement was the Zhu Clan’s nightmare. This was understandable, given the story of Wei Liancheng and his son. The Zhu Clan could only accomplish this through the power of their Demonic Emperor Bloodline, but every Spirit Race individual could do it easily.

And it was all because of Kapius — more specifically, Kapius and Menelaus’s cooperation, that laid the foundation for the fear that the Spirit Race represented.

“Not bad. So now you realize?” Su Chen stared at Zhu Xianyao in pity. “Even if it’s a failed experiment, it has a reason behind it.”

As he spoke, he reached in front of himself and made a grabbing motion. An item appeared in his hand — a teapot.

However, this teapot’s lid was covered in dense Origin Formation inscriptions. This was obviously an Origin Tool.

Zhu Xianyao was stunned. “Where did that thing come from?”

“From here,” Su Chen laughed. “Didn’t I tell you? This is a place where illusions and physical substances intermix. Kapius’s secrets are all here right before our eyes. It just depends on whether you can see them or not.”

As he spoke, he put the Origin Tool away.

Zhu Xianyao also made a similar grabbing motion, but no matter how much she waved her arms around, she could only catch air.

She turned around to look at Su Chen, only to find that every time he reached out in a grabbing motion, an item would appear in his hands.

All kinds of strange items appeared this way — Origin Tools, Origin Stones, books, exotic and rare ingredients, resources, medicines, talismans, scrolls, etc., as well as a number of strange items that Zhu Xianyao had never seen before.

Zhu Xianyao couldn’t sense any strong Origin Energy fluctuations from any of these items, which meant that they were not incredibly precious. However, she was still slowly being driven mad by the feeling of watching someone pull out item after item while she herself was unable to find anything.

“What is going on? Why can’t I sense anything?” Zhu Xianyao yelled.

“Because you can’t see these things with your physical eyes,” Su Chen said. “Use your consciousness energy.”

Consciousness energy?

Zhu Xinyao froze momentarily. She closed her eyes and released her consciousness energy as strongly as she could. When she was close to her limit, she finally sensed some faint rings of light encircling her body. These rings of light floated up and down, above and below her, changing positions every second.

Her consciousness energy was weak, so she could only barely make these things out. With Su Chen’s consciousness energy, however, everything in this place was extremely clear and even seemed to him like they had been laid out in an orderly fashion in front of him.”

“Focus your consciousness energy, then reach out and try to grab it.”

Zhu Xianyao did as he said. Her hand darted out and actually came back with an object, making her extremely excited. However, when she saw that the item in her hand was just a common vial, she immediately grew discouraged.

Su Chen laughed. “Don’t be discouraged. There aren’t many good things here anyways. Even though this place is Kapius’s research lab, that doesn’t mean that he absolutely has to leave his good stuff here. Most of what’s left behind is worthless junk…… Obviously, he left in a hurry.”

Zhu Xianyao’s expression sank. “Then why would the Spirit Race still send spies over here?”

“Because they were never trying to take away treasures in the first place. They probably came for this physical illusion technique itself,” Su Chen sighed.

To the Spirit Race, whose bodies were ethereal, this physical illusion technique had unimaginable value to them.

After Kapius’s death, his physical illusion realm technique probably hadn’t been passed down because it was a failure. But Menelaus or some other high-status Spirit Race individuals might not have thought the same. Perhaps they believed that this failed technique still had room for improvement and held its own value, as all kinds of different paths were still open to explore.

As such, Spirit Race individuals came one after another to this place, searching for this physical illusion realm.

“No wonder you’re acting so generously. You probably guessed this from the very beginning, right?” Zhu Xianyao shot a glance at Su Chen.

“Don’t put it that way. At the very least, the stones outside are quite valuable,” Su Chen said as he began to increase his gathering speed, particularly focusing on the books, experimental records, and ingredients. The principles behind the physical illusion realm were all contained in those items.

“They don’t belong to me anyways,” Zhu Xianyao harrumphed as she crossed her arms.

“What if I let you take them?” Su Chen countered.

“Ah? Why would you be that generous?” Zhu Xianyao asked in astonishment.

Before Su Chen could reply, a voice spoke out, “Because this place is going to collapse very soon. Everything will then turn into nothingness.”

1. A common idiom in Chinese and other languages. Essentially, the frog thinks they know everything, but they can actually only see things from a very limited perspective.