Chapter 489 - 486: Activated Mutation

Chapter 489: Chapter 486: Activated Mutation

HUUUUMMM...

A violent ringing assaulted his ears again, and the team leader fell backward uncontrollably.

His last memory before he fell was the empty sky and the numbness that enveloped his entire body.

...

The film was still rolling, and the team leader’s story hadn’t ended.

After an unknown amount of time, he suddenly opened his eyes and looked up at the sky.

A thin layer of mist covered the blue sky, a gentle breeze rustled the green leaves, and the thick smell of rust in the air had, for some reason, vanished.

’What happened?’

The team leader felt his thoughts were a chaotic mess, and his whole body was numb. He lay there on the ground for a long time before the events from before began to surface one by one.

He shot up into a sitting position on the ground. The blurry double vision was gone.

’Where are they?’

The team leader struggled to his feet and looked back in the direction they had come from. He found that all the team members had vanished. The forest was empty, with only the swaying of the large trees.

He suddenly realized that he felt incredibly calm inside. Even though he guessed his team members might have met with disaster, he felt no sense of urgency whatsoever.

The team leader stood rooted to the spot, rigid for a long time.

’No feeling of suffocation... and I’m not hungry anymore...’ he thought, calmly realizing something was wrong.

’Right now, neither my body nor my mind feels normal.’

The team leader slowly placed his hand over his heart.

He still remembered how, just a moment ago, his heart had been pounding violently from the lack of oxygen, but now it was unnaturally calm.

It was as if... it had stopped.

His palm rested on his chest for a long time, but he couldn’t feel the familiar beat of his heart.

’Huh? No heartbeat?’

He quickly tried to feel for it again, more carefully this time.

Finally, a faint beat gradually reached him.

THUMP... THUMP... THUMP...

’There it is again... Was it just my imagination before?’

He looked at his palm, which was still a bit numb. Perhaps that was why he had misjudged.

’And that smell of rust... where did it go?’

The team leader realized there was something wrong with his sense of smell, too. He subconsciously touched his nose.

Wait! Why can I touch my nose?

’Where’s my gas mask?’

He quickly looked down and saw that his gas mask had fallen on the ground when he collapsed. He wasn’t wearing it.

But he didn’t feel any sense of suffocation now. The once-choking air seemed to have been suddenly purified, leaving no smell at all.

’My breathing...’

He discovered his breathing had also become extremely faint. In this oxygen-deprived environment, his breathing should have been rapid. Why was it so shallow?

Everything had become very strange.

The team leader knew very well that either the environment had undergone a drastic change, or there was something seriously wrong with his own body.

Not only that, he realized he was far too calm—one might even say completely unperturbed.

The disappearance of his teammates and the changes in his body should have sent him into a panic long ago, yet he was incredibly composed, as if nothing could stir him.

Having survived the disaster, he should have been trying to escape, but he felt no sense of danger at all.

’What in the world is wrong with me?’

He looked at his hands, then at the gas mask on the ground, and bent down to pick it up.

Just then, the notebook the Researcher had given him fell out of his pocket and onto the ground.

The notebook seemed even more yellowed than before, and the writing on it had become somewhat faint and indistinct.

The team leader picked it up as well.

Because the situation had been critical, he hadn’t carefully read the later pages.

He hooked the pages with his numb fingertips, and the part he hadn’t finished reading appeared before him.

The Researcher’s handwriting was very neat. Aside from the reason for the accelerated oxidation, the following pages contained some scattered conjectures:

"Accelerated metabolism, energy depletion, insufficient oxygen..."

The team leader’s gaze swept over these fragmented phrases, finally landing on one term—Consciousness Enhancement.

’Consciousness Enhancement? What does that mean?’

The team leader didn’t quite understand.

Fortunately, there were short explanations next to these terms:

"Consciousness originates from the electrical signals between neurons. An increase in electronic activity leads to an enhancement of consciousness..."

Seeing this sentence, the team leader immediately understood what it meant.

Consciousness, in essence, is the reaction of neurons in the brain to external stimuli.

When stimulated, neurons release electrical signals. These signals resonate within the neural network, becoming what we call consciousness.

The more stimuli, the more intense the resonance, and the stronger the consciousness.

A newborn receives few stimuli; the resonance of electrical signals is weak, and its consciousness is incomplete. As stimuli increase, the resonance strengthens, consciousness becomes clearer, and eventually a balance is reached.

When an adult is subjected to intense stimuli, they can easily develop a mental illness precisely because this balance is broken, and their consciousness is impacted.

Mental illness is just an adjustment mechanism. The resonating electrical signals need time to reach a new equilibrium.

But even after adjusting to a new balance, their consciousness is different from that of a normal person.

In short, consciousness originates from the resonance of electrical signals.

’But on this Sky Island, electronic activity is enhanced...’

This meant that even a small stimulus could produce intense electrical signal resonance, and the balance of consciousness would be instantly shattered, leaping to a higher level.

’Doesn’t this mean that as long as you’re on this Sky Island, you’ll go insane?’

The team leader wasn’t a dedicated researcher, nor did he understand specialized biological knowledge. He could only draw such a conclusion based on his existing knowledge.

However, he felt the Researcher’s meaning was more than just that. But with the Researcher’s fate unknown, he couldn’t get to the bottom of it.

’I haven’t felt my consciousness being enhanced, though...’

Those active electrons should have already filled his body, but aside from feeling unnaturally calm, his thoughts hadn’t changed at all.

’What does it really mean?’

Suddenly, the team leader thought of a possibility:

’Could it be... that my consciousness has already been enhanced?’

Connecting this to the changes in his own body, a terrifying hypothesis suddenly formed in his mind.

He hastily found a branch on the ground, snapped it forcefully, pulled out a wooden splinter, and jabbed it into his numb fingertip.

’Just as I thought. No blood.’

Even when he pulled the splinter out, no blood flowed, and he felt no pain at all.

The team leader stared at his fingertip, his brow furrowed.

He once again placed his hand in front of his nose, feeling his faint breath.

Then, he held his breath.

One minute, two minutes, ten minutes... His hand remained in front of his nose the whole time.

He counted down silently in his mind. The longer time went on, the more his terrifying hypothesis was slowly being confirmed.

’No feeling of suffocation. The truth is, I don’t need to breathe. My lungs only started working because I *thought* I needed to breathe.’

’Then... what about my heartbeat?’

He placed his hand on his chest once more. This time, he didn’t need to count for long.

He only needed to silently repeat in his mind, ’I don’t need a heartbeat,’ and then count down from three...

’Three.’

’Two.’

’One.’

Just like that, his heartbeat... stopped.