Half an hour later, there were nine crystalline fragments by Chen Chen’s feet.
A mouse weighed around 100 grams. Chen Chen weighed 70,000 grams, which was seven hundred times the weight of a mouse.
Judging from the previous radiation experiment, a mouse was able to withstand the full radiation exposure of a single crystalline fragment. This implied that Chen Chen should be able to handle the combined radiation exposure of 700 crystalline fragments without much issue.
In that case, it should not be a rash decision to absorb nine crystalline pieces at once.
Just like the observation as seen in the movie when exposed to crystalline radiation, Chen Chen’s nose began to bleed. A large spot on his shirt was dyed red by the blood.
Chen Chen vaguely estimated, he had lost approximately 100 millimeters of blood from the radiation exposure, which was equivalent to the amount of half a bag of blood donation.
The bleeding from Chen Chen’s nose quickly halted as he stopped the irradiation process. He shut the laptop, packed up the USB drive along with the crystalline fragment that was exhausted of its energy, and started thinking.
The research report of the crystalline fragments was released as well. As expected, they were aluminum-magnesium tetroxide, which was the chemical formula of spinel.
Based on the market price on the Earth Federation, a spinel the size of a fist sculpted into an artful sculpture should be worth hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars.
However, it would appear that Chen Chen had the slightest interest in auctioning off these spinels. He had Cheng Cao crush the spinel into powdered pieces, mix them into the trash along with other glass shards and whatnot, and had them disposed of.
After getting rid of the trash, Chen Chen finally sat back in the laboratory and began experimenting with his newly acquired powers.
To start things off, he sat in front of the test table with a recorder set up in front of him and started recording.
After that, Chen Chen stared at a black marker pen placed on the table. As he invoked a thought, he had the sense that there was a string latched on to the object in front of him.
Chen Chen tried to lift it gently and the marker pen proceeded to be lifted!
From Chen Chen’s point of view, the marker pen hung in mid-air and spun in circles repeatedly. It was like it was suspended in the air by some string.
Stop!
Chen Chen issued an order in his mind to get the marker pen to stop spinning. As expected, the spinning marker pen suddenly paused as if the air surrounding it had frozen in place. It was suspended in the air, unmoving.
Upon witnessing this scene, an idea suddenly occurred to Chen Chen. He tried closing his eyes.
“Click!”
A noise immediately followed after, it was the marker pen clapping against the surface of the table.
“Influenced by the line of sight? No, probably not…”
Chen Chen kept his eyes shut. He turned his head and scanned the table in his mind.
Surely, thin strands began to emerge in his vision. With his eyes still closed, he was able to sense the smooth and cold surface of the table as well as a long strip of object laid on the table.
Following Chen Chen’s will, the marker pen that fell on the table slowly dangled in the air again.
“I knew it, this ability doesn’t have anything to do with the user’s vision. The visual aspect only serves as an aid to help better visualize the ability’s effects. Upon losing sight of the targeted object, the ability’s manipulation effect on the object is subconsciously cut off as well.
“It should be possible to overcome this behavior with more practice. At the very least, this proves that the ability doesn’t stem from the user’s sight, but something else deep inside the brain…”
Chen Chen mumbled to himself in a low voice with his eyes still closed shut.
The experiment was still going on.
Chen Chen allowed himself to faintly feel the floating marker pen. He felt the marker pen’s build, temperature, and shape. Unlike touching it with his hands, these sensations were transmitted into Chen Chen’s mind in another form.
It was a truly wondrous feeling. Unlike the sense of sight, hearing, smell or touch, this was a brand new sensation. Chen Chen had never felt something like this in his twenty-plus years of living.
When he tried to apply some force, he heard a small clacking sound coming from the marker pen in front of him. The body of the acrylic pen became slightly deformed.
“This is the power at work. Is it able to transmute some form of energy in the mind into direct kinetic energy used to manipulate objects?”
Needless to say, these were all mere speculations on Chen Chen’s side. Want to find out what sort of energy this was and the workings behind transmuting mere thoughts to kinetic energy? It was going to require an intensive amount of experimentation.
Next up, Chen Chen put down the floating marker pen. He began to reach forward with his conscience with his eyes still closed. In his mind’s eye, he felt a large number of strands extending forward from his mind, they began reaching in front of him…
However, these strands were unable to extend any further after reaching out close to a meter.
“Looks like the ability is only able to extend about one meter outward. The range of control appears to decrease as the distance increases.”
Chen Chen made a brief analysis. After that, he tried to replicate the same effect in his mind except this time, he was extending them outward across all directions.
This time, the strands reached their limit at about half a meter out.
The range could extend up to a meter if probed in one direction. By equally distributing them across all directions, their area of effect was limited to just half a meter.
Though it was not a particularly impressive number, Chen Chen was not dejected. After all, these powers could be further improved with more practice. Chen Chen could also endlessly extract crystalline to build his power capacity.
“If this ability isn’t limited by sight, couldn’t it essentially replace my sense of sight as another form of sensory device?”
Chen Chen considered silently. He slowly lowered his head in a manner like he was staring at the table, the only difference being that his eyes closed shut…
In Chen Chen’s perception, he was gradually zooming into the test bench. What was once the smooth surface of the epoxy tabletop zoomed in until it turned into a rough and bumpy-textured surface.
Zooming to this extent was not easily achievable, he had to maintain a constant stream of focus.
“No, I’m only able to zoom slightly above a hundred times at most. I still can’t see the bacteria, let alone the molecular structure…”
After a while, an involuntary frown appeared on Chen Chen’s face.
Even though he was able to zoom a hundred times into a selected object using the ability, he was unable to zoom into the microorganism scope. He was still largely unsure if this was due to his current power concentration or influenced by other factors.
Still, it did make sense since the size of bacteria were generally between 1 to 5 microns. Humans would need to magnify their vision three hundred times just to see the outline of bacteria. For further observation, magnification of above a thousand times was required.
Sensing the molecular structure of a substance was on a completely separate plane since a magnification of a whooping two million times was needed.
Chen Chen wondered, was there any chance of amplifying the ability on a microscopic scale in addition to an enhancement on the macroscopic scale?
The way Chen Chen saw it, if the subsequent upgrade of the ability in the movie was interpreted as an upgrade in terms of quantity, then enhancing on a micro-scale should be considered an upgrade in quality.
As Chen Chen was immersed in deep thought, he suddenly felt a sharp sting at the tip of his nose. A gush of blood flowed out.
“Approaching my limit…”
Chen Chen calmly opened his eyes. He felt groggy and his head was spinning. He proceeded to go to a sink and splashed cold water on his forehead and the bridge of his nose.
The water used in the laboratory was filtered underground water with a temperature below ten degrees. The moment Chen Chen splashed his face with the water, he felt a chill emanating across his body, jolting him to his senses.
The bleeding from his nose finally stopped after some more time had passed.
Deciding to stop the experiment, Chen Chen got back up and packed up the USB drive. He then turned around to leave the laboratory and had Cheng Cao take him back to the Symphony of the Seas.
As Chen Chen took his leave, the electronic lock indicating green turned red as the laboratory operated by Little X locked itself down…