12: Chapter 12 Spiritual Energy

May 21st, the twelfth day since Chen Mo gained his ability.

Just past 4:00 AM, he woke up as usual.

There was no alarm clock; his biological clock had become precise to the minute.

The first thing he did upon waking was always to open the system panel.

Ability: Infinite Growth

Strength: 421kg

Mental Power: 1.9

He glanced at it, closed the system panel, got up to wash, and ate his first meal of the day.

Peanut oil mixed with glucose powder, plus two bananas and five eggs.

As for taste, that had long since ceased to be a consideration.

He was eating now not much differently than refueling a machine; he only cared about energy density, not the texture or taste.

He swallowed a few mouthfuls of peanut oil, chased it down with half a cup of glucose water, and then took a few bites of banana to suppress the greasy feeling in his mouth.

It was still dark when he went out.

The wind in the mountains carried the distinct chill of the early morning.

He ran up along the path he had worn clear up the mountain, reaching the training clearing in just over six minutes.

Today was a regular Strength Training day.

He left his backpack in the usual spot and began moving stones.

Bench presses, squats; he rested only forty-five seconds between each set.

After finishing the Strength Training, he did four sets of all-out sprints to push his heart rate to the maximum, then rested for three minutes.

Then he trained his core, hanging from a tree branch to do hanging leg raises, followed by variations of planks, and finally single-leg squats.

The entire morning's training schedule was very compact.

By after eight o'clock, he had already completed seventy percent of today's plan.

Sweat had soaked through his entire shirt, so he simply took it off, tossed it onto a rock, and continued the next set bare-chested.

Just then, the world flickered.

It wasn't light, nor was it sound.

It was a feeling. It was like someone had pressed a pause button for an instant and then immediately released it.

The ability on the system panel had activated.

He didn't see a prompt, because the system panel never popped up prompts.

But his body felt it.

Deep within his chest, an extremely peculiar sensation was spreading outward.

It was as if the Infinite Growth ability was extending outward in a silent manner.

Immediately after, that sensation turned into an extremely faint suction.

Then, something came in.

That thing seemed to penetrate all physical barriers, seeping directly into his body.

The moment it entered, he felt as if he had been submerged in warm water.

The soreness and swelling in his legs were rapidly fading.

The muscle near his shoulder blade that had been faintly tight just a moment ago relaxed completely after two or three breaths.

The tiny muscle fiber tears that were still in the recovery period were repairing at an astonishing speed.

This repair was not simply "it doesn't hurt anymore."

He could feel the muscle fibers reweaving; the quality after repair was denser and tougher than before the damage.

In less than a minute, that submerged sensation faded away.

Everything was gone.

The world returned to normal; the wind blew, leaves swayed, and birds chirped.

Chen Mo stood in place, motionless for about thirty seconds.

He confirmed one thing.

He was not hallucinating.

The body's recovery was real; the uncomfortable muscle on his shoulder didn't hurt at all now, and the time it took for his heart rate to stabilize from the post-training rapid pace was more than half shorter than usual.

The system panel's feedback was real.

Although he couldn't see or touch that thing, the system panel told him in the most direct way: it existed.

He began the second part of today's training.

Climbing mountains, looking for that thing.

He replaced all the remaining training content for the day, leaving only one task: searching on the mountain, finding the source of the feeling he had just experienced, and trying to figure out its patterns.

Running.

He ran for a while, then stopped to carefully feel the system panel's feedback, sensing if that faint suction deep within his body had reappeared.

If not, he continued running and moved to the next location.

His running speed through the mountain forest almost caught up with a bicycle in urban traffic conditions.

He quickly crossed three mountain peaks, traversed two valleys, and stepped over countless dead branches and fallen leaves.

Every time he crested a new height, he would stop and feel.

Most of the time, there was no reaction.

But when he stopped at the first location, in less than ten seconds, the feeling appeared again, weaker than the first time, vanishing in a flash.

The system panel's feedback also confirmed the existence of this thing again.

In the next two-plus hours, Chen Mo ran about thirty kilometers of wild mountain trails.

He found dozens of locations with reactions in total, and the feeling at each one was fleeting.

The amount absorbed over two-plus hours, when added together, was only an extremely thin layer.

But it was this thin layer that caused his strength to go from 421kg to 436kg.

It increased by 15kg.

It was roughly the effect of half a day of high-intensity training, compressed into two-plus hours of movement and perception.

He could clearly feel that his body had remembered that sensation.

It was craving.

Craving more.

Furthermore, after absorbing this substance, his body didn't feel like it had consumed extra energy; the recovery effect came very quickly, as if he had eaten a full meal out of thin air.

Standing on a protruding rock in the mountain forest, Chen Mo suddenly laughed.

It was excitement, and also a thrill of being moved.

On the twelfth day of gaining his ability, the Infinite Growth ability on the system panel had finally encountered what it needed.

He still didn't know where that substance actually came from.

Was it native to Earth?

Or did it drift from the Universe?

Or did the Earth itself actively guide it out from some deeper structures in the new environment?

He had no instruments to perform analysis, nor did anyone who had mastered the disciplines of the old era have a ready-made answer for him.

This question, perhaps even the authorities had not yet figured out the threads of.

But there was one thing he was very certain of.

From this moment on, the world was truly different.

This substance, judging by the feeling and bodily reaction just now, would trigger the evolution of living beings.

Not just humans.

Just now, when absorbing this substance, he could clearly feel the system panel feedback a default fact: his ability was actively absorbing these things, but the amount dispersed in the air was extremely minimal.

The portion that drifted to the surface of plants seemed to naturally seep in, but the amount was too small, making the changes in the plants that absorbed it negligible.

Animals relied on breathing and eating, plants on leaves and roots; all life stood on the same starting line.

It was just that others had no ability and could not perceive its existence.

And he was the only one sprinting with all his might on the track.

Although it was currently just an accumulation of these dozens of tiny particles, as it accumulated day by day, it would eventually create an unbridgeable chasm.

It was almost noon when he returned to the old house.

Chen Mo ate a large amount of food to replenish his energy, then sat at the table, opened his notebook, turned to the next blank page, and began to write.

Day 12.

Perceived the existence of a substance suspected to be Spiritual Qi for the first time during training this morning.

The ability actively absorbs this substance; after the body receives it, recovery speed increases significantly, and post-training soreness disappears in just a few breaths.

Based on two hours of high-intensity field tracking, the following patterns are confirmed:

This substance exists in the natural environment in the form of particles, extremely tiny and invisible, odorless and without tactile sensation, with no fixed distribution area.

After each particle is absorbed by the system panel, it can rapidly enhance recovery effects and directly boost strength to a certain extent.

The total amount absorbed this time was very small, but his strength increased by 15kg within two hours.

It is speculated that this substance primarily functions by directly entering living bodies, improving physiological limits, and strengthening the body itself; the system panel is actively absorbing it.

The effect of this substance on living organisms manifests as slowly strengthening physical fitness and repairing damage, but it cannot be actively stored or concentrated within the body by the organism.

At least at the current stage, this is the case.

It will quietly flow into the living body and leave faint traces of modification.

Ordinary people who absorb the dispersed parts of Spiritual Qi basically cannot perceive any changes.

At the same time, it is possible to enter the city to observe: whether Spiritual Qi exists, and whether anyone can actively absorb it.

The properties of this substance highly coincide with the suspected Spiritual Qi; in future notes, it can be directly referred to as 'Spiritual Qi'.

It has already begun to change this world.