What It's Like Being a Vampire

Seeing that Xia Libing had almost finished explaining, Xiang Kun took out his phone and said, “I want to show you something.”

He then opened a recorded video and handed the phone to Old Xia.

After receiving the phone, Xia Libing looked at the video and frowned slightly, straightening her back, probably guessing what was captured in the video.

The video showed the outside of the warehouse where she and Xiang Kun had discovered the three “car thieves” in the afternoon.

From the angle, it was shot diagonally across the warehouse door, from a distance of more than twenty meters.

Obviously, it was taken sneakily when Xiang Kun had asked her to “co-manifest” the crispy pig’s elbow to distract the car thieves.

While attempting “Electric Mastery Flight,” Xiang Kun had handed his phone to her for safekeeping. However, after discovering the car thieves and wanting to report them but having no signal, she returned the phone to Xiang Kun.

In the video, the taller and thinner young car thief was preparing to jump onto the truck’s cabin when suddenly a dark object appeared out of thin air about half a meter above his head and fell, hitting him on the head.

Although the video was blurry and unrecognizable due to the distance and its quality, Xia Libing, the “initiator,” knew very well that the object that had appeared out of thin air was the pig’s trotter she had “co-manifested.”

It really got recorded!

It didn’t matter whether the shot was clear or not, what mattered was that the “co-manifested” object could be captured and remembered, which was the most critical point.

It seemed that it really was as Xiang Kun had previously speculated – “co-manifested” objects cannot be photographed, which is related to the subconscious mind of the “co-manifestors.” When the “co-manifestors” are unaware that the “co-manifestation” might be photographed, it can indeed be successfully recorded.

This also reiterated that the objects “co-manifested” were not merely illusions.

At this point, Xia Libing recalled and understood that Xiang Kun’s initial arrangement for her to hide near the warehouse and use “co-manifested” items to attract the attention of the three “car thieves” was not simply meant to help him set up “Super-connected Objects,” lay a basis for the car thieves’ fear mentality to make them more easily affected by the influence of the Eight-armed, Eight-eyed Wood Carving. The main objective was to find an opportunity to secretly capture her “co-manifested” objects.

So, what kind of existence are the objects that she and Xiang Kun “co-manifest?”

Xia Libing repeatedly rewound the progress bar, watching the process of the co-manifested items appearing and disappearing, and began to think deeply.

After she had watched the video several times, Xiang Kun finally said, “Actually, I had a systematic guess about the ‘Illusion Reality’ ability. I told you part of it last time, but the key part hadn’t been verified, so it’s always been incomplete. I’ve been wondering about the nature of the items we ‘co-manifest.’ On the way back, and just now, I’ve been trying to perfect this system, this guess. Old Xia, now feel the connection between you and the nine coins and a steel bead. Is there any difference?”

Upon hearing this, Xia Libing lifted her gaze from Xiang Kun’s phone, looked at the table, “co-manifested” a piece of crispy pig’s elbow, and tilted her head to feel for a while. When the pig’s elbow disappeared, she said to Xiang Kun, “I don’t feel any difference.”

Xiang Kun was not surprised and said, “The change might be too subtle for you to notice. After I captured the pig’s elbow you ‘co-manifested’ this afternoon with my phone, when I sensed the ten ‘Super-connected Objects’ on you, I found a very minor but distinct reduction in the response between me and them, and the degree was the same.

“This situation happened after recording the video, suggesting that capturing ‘co-manifested objects’ will have this effect on the ‘Super-connected Objects’ used in the ‘co-manifestation.’ Previously, when we subjectively observed and attempted to take a picture, the ‘co-manifested objects’ would disappear, which is the subconscious mind trying to avoid this reduction in the response between the ‘Super-connected Objects’ and me.

“Moreover, this subconsciousness only relates to the ‘co-manifestor.’ When you don’t know you are being photographed, you can’t avoid this from happening. When the response between the ‘Super-connected Objects’ used for ‘co-manifestation’ and me become weak to a certain extent, it may directly affect your ability to ‘co-manifest.’

“Although the way I ‘co-manifest’ is slightly different from yours, essentially, it still requires ‘Super-connected Objects’ to achieve it. So when I ‘co-manifest’ objects, I also have the same subconscious urge to ‘protect’ the ‘Super-connected Objects’ I ‘invoke.’

“As for why this is so, we have to start from the essence of the ‘co-manifested objects.’ In my guess, these ‘co-manifested objects’ are neither traditional illusions nor the materials they appear to be in the usual sense. Instead, they exist somewhere in between…”

Next, Xiang Kun further explained his speculations, hypotheses, and with his current knowledge and understanding of his abilities, constructing a system to explain “Illusion Reality” and other related “Super sensory System Abilities” to Xia Libing.

From the moment he first discovered he could sense the tissue with which he established “Super Sensory Contact” from a distance, Xiang Kun believed that his ability required an understanding and explanation from a microscopic, quantum field perspective.

Xiang Kun’s first assumption was that a tiny special particle could interlock with his consciousness in a complex manner, influencing macroscopic matter. He named this particle as the “Consciousness Entangled Particle.”

In the reality of our cognition, most materials are composed of atoms, which are divided into atomic nuclei and extra-nuclear electrons.

Inside the atomic nucleus are neutrons and protons, protons are composed of two up quarks and one down quark, and neutrons are composed of one up quark and two down quarks.

So far, seventeen fundamental particles are known, divided into fermions and bosons. Generally, the smallest particles we comprehend are quarks and leptons within fermions. For example, electrons, which are common knowledge, are one type of lepton. With the accelerators and detection methods human currently have, these basic particles cannot be further divided.

In Xiang Kun’s hypothesis, his “conscious entanglement particles” could directly “work” on quarks and other particles, influencing them.

The composition and structure of an atom determine its type and characteristics, and the characteristics of an atom, to some extent, determine the properties of the matter it constitutes.

The formation of various different substances and different atoms is of course not as simple as assembling these basic particles like building blocks.

Within the atomic nucleus, the “strong force” between quarks is the strongest of the four fundamental forces. Attempting to “work” on this microscopic scale requires a vast amount of energy.

Disassembling particles in the environment, then manipulating them again and re-aggregating them, let alone manifesting a piece of Napoleon cake or a crispy pig’s elbow, even simply conjuring up a grain of real sand requires a tremendous amount of energy and causes a significant impact on the environment.

However, this understanding comes from the traditional, macroscopic material perspective. Perhaps at the microscopic particle level, Xiang Kun’s “conscious entanglement particles” have a more efficient and skilled way of “working”.

Xiang Kun speculated that the “conscious entanglement particles” might be able to operate in higher-dimensional spaces, or they might inherently exist in higher-dimensional spaces. Just as many problems that are difficult to handle on a two-dimensional plane can be easily, directly, and simply solved once a third dimension is introduced.

Unsolvable distance problems or light speed problems in three-dimensional space, when a higher-dimensional space is introduced, might also be solved in a simpler way.

After all, the items that are “co-manifested” do not make a sound when they appear or disappear, as if they truly “appeared out of thin air”.

Quantum effects are fascinating, with many phenomena that are difficult to understand in classical physics. However, macroscopic objects composed of microscopic particles do not exhibit quantum effects overall.

Because in usual circumstances, the spatial scale of most observable macroscopic objects is far larger than the de Broglie wavelength of the microscopic particles that comprises them, the quantum characteristics of microscopic particles are obscured as a result of statistical averaging.

Xiang Kun hypothesizes that his “conscious entanglement particles” could allow certain materials to directly exhibit some undiscovered quantum characteristics in a higher-dimensional space.

The items that Xia Libing constructed in her dreams based on “Emotion Infused Objects” and “Super-connected Objects” may have become “material” existing in another higher-dimensional parallel universe, and the “illusionary co-manifestation” in reality is simply the temporary lower-dimensional projection of that “material”.

This kind of projection should not consume much “conscious entanglement particles” because it always maintains a connection with consciousness.

However, if it has a permanent impact on the real world, such as leaving digital images or pictures in electronic devices, in order to maintain these impacts, it would result in a permanent loss of “conscious entanglement particles”. Of course, this explanation is a bit far-fetched because strictly speaking, once the “co-manifested objects” truly appear, they have already caused many permanent impacts on their surroundings, such as hitting the tall and thin man’s head. Or perhaps this impact is too weak, and the reduction of “conscious entanglement particles” can be ignored?

However, Xiang Kun is not a physicist, he doesn’t need strict inference and evidence. He put forward this hypothesis and guess, constructed this “illusion reality” system and explanation, only to provide a plausible system support for his and Old Xia’s “illusion reality”.

From the past experience of Xiao Pingguo, Liu Shiling, and Old Xia joining the “Super Sensory Item System” and “developing” various abilities, it can be seen that having a structured understanding and establishing a comprehensive ability system for various abilities is the key to further expansion and application. As more devices are used for observation and research in the future, and more data and principles are supported, the hypothesis and system can be further perfected and repaired.

Essentially, it’s the same as Liu Shiling’s “magic system” and Xiao Pingguo’s “other world monster system”, as long as it “works”.

The most important thing about this hypothesis is to convince himself.

And Old Xia.

However, after he finished speaking, Xia Libing stared at him blankly and didn’t say anything for a long time.

“How about it? Do you understand my explanation?” Xiang Kun asked.

Xia Libing scratched her head, picked up a pen and wrote a few things on the notebook, and then quickly crossed them out. After thinking for quite a while, she finally looked up at Xiang Kun and asked, “Are we really going to explain it that way?”

Apparently, she also understood the purpose of Xiang Kun’s hypothesis and conjecture, after all, she knew the situation of Liu Shiling and Xiao Pingguo.

Xiang Kun shrugged, “I think my explanation is pretty good, or do you have anything to add?”

Xia Libing scratched her head again, “I need to think.”

Xiang Kun then got up, “You should think about it tomorrow. You should get a good night’s rest, you haven’t slept well for two nights in a row, right? Let’s not dream tonight.”

As soon as he finished speaking, Xia Libing yawned.

Xiang Kun could clearly feel that she was really tired, even though she had joined the “Super Sensory Item System” and had the ability to “illusion reality”, physically, she was still just an ordinary person.