11: Chapter 11: The Extraordinary Gone, Back to Mediocrity!

Three days later.

The night was deep. A June night in Jiang City carried a hint of coolness as the wind blew from the river in the east, passing through the streets and alleys, rustling the leaves of the roadside trees with a soft sound.

In the west of the city, an old residential area, first floor.

The lights in Wang Ming's home were still on.

This was an old two-bedroom apartment. The wallpaper was somewhat yellowed, and the living room featured an old-fashioned sofa and a small television. On the coffee table sat several boxes of medicine for post-operative recovery, beside which was a bag of half-eaten fruit.

Wang Ming sat on the sofa, wearing a loose T-shirt, holding his phone and scrolling through short videos.

This was the college student who had asked "Bro, it's really not a Golden Core?" in the consultation room.

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His post-operative recovery was going well. The puncture wound in his waist had mostly healed, and the follow-up ultrasound showed that the kidney's morphology was normal, the fluid had subsided, and all indicators were within the normal range.

From a medical perspective, he had already fully recovered.

But Wang Ming always felt something was off, yet he didn't know where to start.

During the period before the surgery, although there was obvious pain in his waist, his mind had been exceptionally clear—clear to an abnormal degree. During class, he could remember almost everything the teacher said after hearing it once, his speed in solving problems was more than twice as fast as before, and he even had a wonderful illusion that everything around him seemed to slow down under his perception. The speed at which his classmates spoke, the rhythm of their walking, and even the movement of the wind blowing through the curtains became delicate and gentle.

That feeling was wonderful.

It was as if the world had applied a special filter for him.

But now, his waist no longer hurt, and the discomfort had vanished.

That magical feeling had also vanished along with it.

He had turned back into that ordinary college student once again.

Wang Ming put down his phone and stared blankly at the ceiling for a while.

"Son."

His mother's voice came from the kitchen.

"Is your leave from school almost up? Your body has recovered well enough, so you can head back to school when the time comes. You can't neglect your studies; it wasn't easy to support you through college."

"Okay," Wang Ming replied absentmindedly.

His mother nagged a few more sentences about taking care of his health, and Wang Ming responded with non-committal noises before getting up and returning to his room.

Lights out.

The room went dark, leaving only a bit of dim yellow light filtering in from the streetlights outside.

...

Outside the window, among the branches of an old locust tree, Su Ye withdrew his gaze.

He crouched on a thick branch, his body steady. The night wind blew at the corners of his clothes, yet he remained motionless. If this were a week ago, he absolutely could not have done this. He had been crouching here for an unknown amount of time, yet his body was stable, his condition was good, and he didn't feel the slightest bit of numbness.

In Su Ye's hand was a palm-sized notebook, covered in densely packed writing.

During these three days, Su Ye had conducted continuous observations of Wang Ming through various means.

Calling to ask about post-surgery recovery in his capacity as a Standardized Resident Trainee was a normal follow-up process and wouldn't arouse any suspicion. After work, he would personally come to the vicinity of Wang Ming's home to observe his daily actions, mental state, and physical performance from a distance.

After three days of observation, the results were clear.

Su Ye flipped open the notebook and glanced at the summary he had written by the dim light of the streetlamp.

"The appearance of the Rudimentary Golden Core caused Wang Ming to feel discomfort; this was the first reaction after the mutation appeared. The Rudimentary Golden Core crystallized in the kidney, belonging to the Water-type evolution path, which aids in mental evolution. The pain and discomfort Wang Ming felt were the Rudimentary Golden Core 'assimilating' the host, or rather, promoting evolution."

"During the Assimilation period, the host gains benefits corresponding to the attribute. Wang Ming's Water-element Golden Core corresponds to the mental system, which is why his thinking sped up, his perception became sharper, and his memory enhanced during that time."

"Now that the Rudimentary Golden Core has been removed, the Assimilation is interrupted, and the host has returned to normal from the mutated state."

"The specific buffs on Wang Ming have completely disappeared."

Su Ye closed the notebook and sighed softly.

This was the result of his recent observations.

He had originally held onto a sliver of hope, wanting to see if any specific traces remained on Wang Ming after losing the Rudimentary Golden Core—even just a little bit would mean that the Assimilation process of the Rudimentary Golden Core would leave irreversible changes in the host's body.

But there were none.

Wang Ming had completely returned to being an ordinary person.

Once the Golden Core is removed, everything resets to zero.

This also meant that the appearance of the Rudimentary Golden Core wasn't because Wang Ming himself had some special constitution, but was purely a matter of being "chosen by heaven." Spiritual energy had saturated his kidney and happened to crystallize there; for another person, the result might have been completely different.

A matter of probability, then.

Su Ye put away the notebook and leaped lightly down from the tree.

He made almost no sound when he landed. The moment the soles of his shoes touched the ground, his legs naturally absorbed the impact.

On his way home, with the night wind brushing against his face, Su Ye looked down at his hand.

Under the moonlight, the skin on the back of his hand shimmered with a faint luster—not an oily sheen, but a jade-like moistness that was delicate, smooth, and full.

Three days.

Absorbing three to four wisps of spiritual energy every day, totaling eleven wisps.

Every wisp was accompanied by burning heat and stinging pain, but every wisp also brought tangible changes.

The skin was the first to change. Starting from the fifth wisp, he noticed his skin had become exceptionally tough. Last night he performed a test, lightly dragging a utility knife across his forearm. The blade slid over the skin's surface, leaving only a white mark without even breaking the epidermis.

He applied a bit more force.

It still wouldn't break.

Not until he used extreme force did a shallow red mark barely appear on the skin's surface, oozing a tiny bead of blood. Moreover, in less than ten seconds, that red mark vanished.

This was no longer the skin of a normal human.

Absorbing the spiritual energy of heaven and earth.

It had already made Su Ye's body different from ordinary people, including his previous stance on the tree branch—his body was light and his leg strength was astonishing, requiring no technique, relying purely on physical attributes.

Besides the skin, changes were also occurring inside his body. The path that the spiritual energy took every time it entered his body, from the center of his forehead to his Dantian, was gradually solidifying into a real channel. At first, that path was vague and temporary, dissipating after the spiritual energy passed through. But as the number of absorptions increased, this channel became clearer and more stable. Su Ye could even feel its existence when not absorbing spiritual energy, as if an invisible meridian had been added to his body.

His perception range stabilized at around thirty-five meters, expanding by another five meters since the fusion was completed.

This was the benefit brought by "Cultivation."

The specificities brought by the Golden Core would disappear upon removal, but the spiritual energy already absorbed remained eternally within Su Ye's body.

It was his own.

Su Ye put his hands in his pockets and looked up at the night sky.

There weren't many stars as the city's light pollution was too heavy, but his perception could capture those extremely thin threads of spiritual energy high in the sky. They were finer and fainter than those on the ground, as if they hadn't had time to settle yet.

Spiritual energy was continuously flooding into this world.

The concentration was increasing.

The speed was accelerating.

Su Ye withdrew his gaze and quickened his pace.

He needed to become stronger.

Before this world completely changed.