64: Chapter 64 1100 Atmospheric Pressure

The moment Chen Mo's body submerged into the sea, ink-black seawater enveloped him from all directions.

He did not use his Force Field.

The Force Field would isolate him from the water pressure, and what he needed right now was precisely that pressure.

He came here to let his body feel the gradual increase of water pressure inch by inch, to feel the changes in load brought by every meter of depth.

He actively swam downward, stroking with his arms, his body streamlined as he dived rapidly.

The surrounding light vanished rapidly.

The surface water of the Mariana Trench still retained a hint of deep blue afterglow, but by two hundred meters deep, it had turned into absolute darkness.

In this darkness, his Mental Perception became his only sense.

Thirty seconds later, he passed the two-thousand-meter mark.

This depth already exceeded the deepest point of Beier Lake.

While swimming, Chen Mo scanned the surrounding waters with his Mental Energy: two thousand one hundred meters, two thousand three hundred meters.

The water pressure at this depth was about the same as the bottom of Beier Lake; his body felt almost no pressure.

His muscles were not sore, his bones did not creak, and the pressure on his skin was not even as intense as his warm-up at the start of his daily training.

At this depth, a huge silhouette appeared within Chen Mo's range of perception.

It was a giant squid, over fifteen meters in length, its tentacles slowly unfurling in the seawater like a mass of dark silk floating in the darkness.

Its eyes were as large as basketballs, presenting an eerie grayish-white color, but those eyes were not looking at him.

Instead, the moment the water current fluctuations caused by his descent swept over it, they contracted sharply.

Then, its entire body darted to the side at a speed far exceeding expectations, disappearing into the deeper darkness.

Sixteen meters.

Chen Mo remembered the data he had checked before; the recorded body length was between ten and thirteen meters, but this one had far exceeded that.

At this growth rate, the legendary giant sea monsters capable of dragging sailing ships to the bottom of the sea would likely appear for real before long.

He did not pursue it. The squid had escaped very quickly, but it was not his target.

He continued to dive.

Four thousand meters. Five thousand meters. Six thousand meters.

Upon reaching six thousand meters, Chen Mo finally felt the pressure.

An oppressive sensation of being squeezed inward from all directions simultaneously.

His chest and abdominal cavities were compressed from the outside in by the water pressure.

Capillaries slightly protruded beneath his skin, and his muscles began to tense involuntarily.

His body was passively resisting the water pressure, just like doing low-intensity static resistance training in the air.

But this level of pressure was still too light.

His body was automatically repairing any minor damage, the repair speed so fast that he could barely feel the existence of the damage.

Six thousand meters was just a starting point.

He continued downward.

Eight thousand meters.

The pressure increased abruptly.

Chen Mo felt his muscles being compressed simultaneously from all directions, forced inward by the water pressure from the outside.

Muscle fibers were forced to deform under the pressure, sarcomere spacing was compressed to the limit, and the sliding of myosin and actin was obstructed.

The articular surfaces of his bones began to press against each other, cartilage was compressed and thinned, and the synovial fluid in the joint capsules became viscous under high pressure.

His bones began to make faint creaking sounds.

Pain appeared.

It was a sharp, throbbing pain drilling outward from the crevices of his bones.

His body had entered the range of "feeling pain" from "being able to endure."

Chen Mo paused for a moment in the darkness, feeling this long-lost sensation of pain.

In the last few weeks at Beier Lake, the pressure at the bottom of the lake could no longer give him this feeling.

Now, the pain had returned.

He continued to dive.

Nine thousand meters.

His internal organs began to be compressed and displaced. His liver was pushed upward, compressing his diaphragm.

His stomach and intestines were squeezed toward his spine, and his kidneys were deformed in the retroperitoneal space.

Capillaries began to burst, blood droplets seeped out from his pores, dispersing into pale red filaments in the seawater, only to be crushed and scattered by the water pressure.

Ten thousand meters.

His bones were humming.

Not a sound, but a vibration—micro-vibrations produced by the trabeculae inside his bones when bearing extreme pressure.

His skin was torn with countless tiny cracks, extending from the epidermis all the way to the dermis.

His bone marrow cavities were compressed, and the hematopoietic tissue inside emitted a deep, aching itch under high pressure—an itch more unbearable than pain, seeping out from the deepest parts of his bones.

Damage was accumulating.

Repair was also proceeding simultaneously.

The Infinite Growth ability was running automatically, and spirit energy particles were continuously pouring into his body under the guidance of his Mental Energy.

Repairing torn skin, rebuilding burst capillaries, and filling every tiny crack in his bones.

Destruction and repair were happening simultaneously, and his muscles were rapidly strengthening in the cycle of tearing and Rebirth.

Each time a repair was completed, his muscle fibers became slightly denser than before, his bone density increased by a notch, and the resilience of his capillaries was enhanced by a layer.

Eleven thousand meters.

Chen Mo's feet touched the bottom of the trench.

The tactile sensation was fine sediment, a soft mud formed by the mixture of plankton remains and mineral particles that had settled to the seabed over hundreds of millions of years.

The water temperature here was constant at around two degrees, and both the pressure and temperature exceeded the tolerance range of the vast majority of life on Earth.

Over one thousand one hundred atmospheres of pressure, with more than one ton of weight borne per square centimeter.

Chen Mo's body was already overwhelmed.

His bones developed tiny cracks under the pressure, the cracks extending from the surface of the bone cortex into the depths, and then being refilled and reinforced under the effect of his repair ability.

His muscles were trembling, every muscle fiber experiencing physiological tremors as they were continuously crushed by pressure exceeding their limits.

Chen Mo stood on the seabed, motionless, letting his body slowly adapt to this brand-new extreme environment.

Over one thousand one hundred atmospheres of pressure.

This number sounded huge, and standing here, every inch of his skin was being squeezed by over a ton of weight.

But Chen Mo knew very clearly in his heart that this pressure, compared to the 3.6 million atmospheres at the Earth's core, was not even a fraction of it.

The temperature at the Earth's core exceeded five thousand degrees, and the pressure was great enough to rearrange carbon atoms into diamonds.

And that was still just a part of the natural world, not the limit of the Universe.

Further out, the core pressure of Jupiter was tens of times that of the Earth's core.

The pressure at the Sun's core was thousands of times that of Jupiter.

The matter at the core of a white dwarf was compressed to weigh several tons per cubic centimeter.

His path was still very long.

Chen Mo closed his eyes, letting his spirit sink into every layer of his body.

The pain was still there, the aching itch was still there, and the oppressive sensation deep in his bone marrow was still there.

But these sensations were no longer torture, but feedback.

Every trace of pain was telling him that he was not yet strong enough.

Every bone crack was telling him that his density was not yet high enough.

Every displacement of his internal organs was telling him that he still needed to improve.

He opened his eyes and began to perform Basic Muscle Tension Control Training.

Doing resistance training at this depth was completely different from when he was at Beier Lake.

Every movement required mobilizing all muscle groups throughout his body to exert force simultaneously; not just his limbs and torso, but even the smooth muscles around his internal organs were passively participating in the resistance.

In the state of Unity of Spirit and Flesh, he could precisely control every single fiber from the soles of his feet to the top of his head.

He deliberately made his entire body's muscles contract in sequence, from tension to exhaustion.

Each time he reached exhaustion, the dissipated Spiritual Qi would pour in to repair him once.

Each time a repair was completed, the limit for the next exhaustion was pushed back a little further.

The rate of energy consumption was far greater than before.

Full-force resistance training under over one thousand one hundred atmospheres of pressure consumed several times the energy per minute than at the deepest point of Beier Lake.

He could feel the energy reserves in his body dropping rapidly, but he did not stop immediately to absorb spirit energy particles; instead, he let his body continue to persist in a low-energy state.

Only by continuing to work after exhaustion could he reach his true limits.

Not until his energy was almost completely exhausted did Chen Mo unfold his Force Field.

His Mental Energy spread out, invoking his system panel ability, and the nearby spirit energy particles began to pour frantically into his body.

The spirit energy particles released energy within his cells, replenishing consumption and repairing damage.

Cracked bones were refilled layer by layer with calcium, torn muscle fibers were stitched together with new protein chains, and the walls of burst capillaries were reinforced.

In just a few minutes, he was fully recovered.

Chen Mo did not surface to catch his breath.

spirit energy particles could themselves replace oxygen; cellular metabolism no longer depended on air inhaled by the lungs.

He could even use his Force Field to directly filter dissolved oxygen from the seawater, extracting oxygen from the water for his cells to use.

Underwater breathing? He did not need it.

In the blink of an eye, five hours had passed.

Chen Mo summoned his system panel.

His strength had increased by over 170 kilograms in five hours.

The efficiency of his hourly improvement was already more than double what it had been at Beier Lake.

And this speed was still increasing; as he continued to adapt at this depth, the training intensity could continue to increase.

And there was the mental exhaustion.

The erosion of Mental Energy from high-intensity training was another level of exhaustion compared to physical fatigue, and that deep-seated weariness still required sleep to recover.

Fortunately, after his Mental Power broke through 10.0, his sleep requirement had been significantly shortened.

He could now train at high intensity for two or three days, and only needed to sleep once—for two hours—to completely eliminate the accumulated mental fatigue.

The time consumed by sleep was basically negligible.

From the Spiritual Energy Revival until now, over a hundred days, he had walked to the bottom of the ocean at eleven thousand meters.

He had long since surpassed all humans on this planet, and also surpassed all life on this planet.

But he knew that in the face of the Universe, all of this was just the beginning.

The distances between stars were measured in light-years, the volumes of planets were measured in tens of millions of times that of Earth, and the surface temperatures of stars were measured in tens of thousands of degrees.

His current strength, in the face of the stars, was as insignificant as his former self.

In the distant deep space, there were countless planets, countless nebulae, and countless environments with Spiritual Qi concentrations far exceeding that of Earth.

That was where he needed to go.