Sitting on this bed, still a little in shock from everything she’s mentioned… it’s easy to see that even my earlier commitments and thoughts on what I should do, were too shallow.

I need to take the time to come up with real strategies on how to hide my strength and survive different situations. To do that, I need to know where I stand right now.

I pull up my information:

James Delinion

5 Rose Man–Spiritual Root

Mana: 159/160

Taming Maintenance 1 mana/ 1 human biomass – no cultivation

Transferred Gifts:

Passive Scan: Max

Active Scan: Max (Increased Strain)

Healing Aura: Level 3 Exp: 159/160

Beneficial Taming: Level 1 – Exp: 0/10 rounded down

1 xp per 1 human sized biomass – no cultivation, tamed 1 xp per 1 human sized biomass – no cultivation, under direct control per day.

Current Direct Tames

No cultivation/no contract Cockroach - 1

Healing Constitution

Proficient Languages: Common Speech (English)

Literate Languages: Common Speech

Okay, it’s a little frustrating that I’m so close to a level up… it looks like I will need far more insects to make this work.

Wait.

It appears the bigger the creature, the more xp is given. Well, at least for non-cultivating creatures or spirit beasts. So, it might be pertinent to choose bigger creatures.

I mull over this a bit.

No, that might not be the best idea. If I’m going to stay under the radar, I need to choose creatures that are small and can be spread out better.

Or to put in “Ai terms,” can easily get into small places.

This makes me curious though… How small CAN I go?

Picking my teeth, while thinking, I use my scanning ability to see what microorganisms I can find. I immediately find that I cannot tame these microorganisms.

However, as I dive deeper into the reason, I find out something quite shocking.

These micro-organisms have absorbed the qi of the world and cannot easily absorb mana because of their limited capabilities.

It is still possible, if they haven’t fully absorbed the natural qi of this world!

Urgently, I scan for any signs on my body of microorganisms that haven’t completely absorbed qi.

While doing so, I subconsciously flick away the piece of food stuck in my teeth.

Which, of course… was the only positive reading on my entire body!

Desperately, I drop to my knees to search for the piece of food. After a minute or two of this, I realize my stupidity.

Getting to my feet, I then do an area scan for the food and creatures, which instantly provides the location.

Sigh.

Picking up the tiny piece of burger meat, I can see the outline of a small hair in the meat.

Well, this is nasty.

I tame the creatures immediately. After I’m sure I’ve tamed the bunch, I look at the below information from my now detailed scan:

Deinococcus Radiodurans

Microorganisms – Bacterium (1463 bacteria)

Barely Contracted Bacterium: Maintenance Cost is 50 Mana (Pre-Complexity, Pre-Intelligence) / 1 human biomass (2.4 cubic meters) worth.

Maintenance allows for control over individuals/groups and removes need for sustenance or respiration of any form. After initial contract, individuals are still allied to contractee.

Pre-Contract Complexity Correction:

To prepare for contracting, this bacterium is being changed to handle both qi and mana. When completed, automatically contracted and the terms will be greatly in favor of the contractee.

Pre-Contract Intelligence Correction:

To prepare for conscious contracting, this bacterium is being brought up to hive-mind sapience. When completed, automatically contracted and the terms will be greatly in favor of the contractee.

Complete Obedience:

Extremophile Regeneration:

Noticing the large 50 mana cost, I check into it and see that maintenance will change to 20 mana once fully contracted.

With such a large upkeep, I’m sure it will turn into something great… right?

Well, I can at least feel something is happening with them. In fact, it’s feels as if they are replicating constantly now. I’d definitely be okay with a giant sentient slime creature, if it turned into that. Though, it would be nice if it was humanoid shaped.

Nonetheless, this looks like it is a long-term project.

From here, I think on previous situations I’ve gone through since I’ve been here, like with the old man. In a cultivator world, everyone worth anything will have spiritual sense.

The real question is: To what extent does spiritual sense penetrate the mind and body. If it does a full scan, revealing everything, then I might be just be screwed.

However, if I am to use the old man as a case scenario, it appears he just had a general idea on my abilities, based on my intention at that point in time. It is possible that he could get a full read on my abilities. Considering Gong’s reaction to my abilities, I would have gotten a much stronger response from him.

Most likely, spiritual sense users can easily read either my mind at that moment or my intentions. If something like that happens while I am looking at the scan sheet… they could know everything.

I never was one that read or watched mind game or telepathy-based novels, so I’m not really sure of the best countermeasure for this.

What I do know is that I only felt a prickling feeling when he did it… and that his eyes appeared to be seeing right through me. I also felt it a few times since that meeting, but luckily it had stopped before I had healed Lin and Ai.

Though it could have just been my imagination. There is always the possibility he was allowing me to know he was ‘listening’ in.

Since I don’t know when or if I’m being observed, limiting information might be the best method to combat it.

If they don’t know that I can go further, it will allow me to catch them by surprise, in terms of information warfare.

Thus, I worked the scanning ability to provide only enough information to understand the situation, but not enough to show that it is anything more than strong intuition. Only for urgent or special situations will I pull out the full ability.

Now, a screen won’t show up, but I can still get an idea of what I’m viewing.

To practice, I look at one of the webs nearby. I feel it is an extremely strong web that could be made anywhere between extremely sticky or non-stick, potentially even water repelling. As I look at it closer, I can see a sheen on it, showing this kind is the water repelling version.

I can work with this. I also believe this might allow me to come to conclusions in a more conducive way. I’ve been getting lazy, relying on this all the time and not worrying about the consequences.

As I continue to test this in different ways, I’m able to find a fresh way to use it. Extrapolation.

Intuition.

This version of scanning has an almost negligible strain on me. I’m able to use the intuition to come to conclusions about other events, pushing the ability slightly to verify what I come up with.

While not exactly predicting the future, it allows me to get an idea on what might happen or be happening, without blowing up my brain.

It’s easy to imagine how I could use this in combat, if I train in combat. I feel like if I just relied on the original scanning aspect, I would have come up with this far too late.

Already Gong’s advice is paying off.

Next, I want to consider my healing abilities. This one is harder to obscure. I first try to consider whether I can use my healing abilities to cause damage in myself, while healing others.

The idea behind it would be that I’m using my “lifeforce” to heal others.

Unfortunately, I’ve discovered that neither my constitution nor healing aura allows for that.

They distinctly only heal beneficially, optimize, or purify. Which also cuts out any healing-based attacks.

So, just wantonly overpowered healing.

Great.