Fooling Xie Xu

Tu Ran glanced at the pile of pale, squirming grubs and felt her stomach turn.

"I'll say it again—I don't eat bugs! I won't eat bugs! Don't you ever invite me to eat bugs again!"

Fatty flinched at her sudden shout, shrank its neck, and mumbled, "Fatty... understands."

Tu Ran took a deep breath, looked at the crestfallen Fatty, and realized she had indeed been a bit too harsh.

She wiped her face and softened her tone. "I know Fatty meant well, sharing food it loves with me. It's just that seeing these bugs makes me a little... queasy. No appetite."

She respected dietary differences between species, so she couldn't use the word "disgusting" to describe food Fatty loved.

"Fatty understands. Then why won't the boss let Fatty keep eating?"

"One of them has an inner core. Eat it and you'll get a constitution that lets you eat whatever you want without gaining weight."

Fatty's eyes lit up immediately. "Really? Eat whatever and not get fat? Fatty wants that inner core!"

"No!" Tu Ran refused sternly.

"Why? Does the boss want to eat it? But the boss isn't fat either?"

"I won't eat it, and you can't either."

Tu Ran explained patiently, "If you eat it and run into other two-legged creatures, and they see you've got an inner core in you, they might slit your throat without a second thought and dig it out. Think about it—wouldn't that hurt a lot?"

She was guiding Fatty along.

Sure enough, Fatty shrank its neck. "Then Fatty won't eat it. Fatty doesn't want its throat slit. That'd hurt."

"Mm, that's right." She patted its head reassuringly. "Exercise is more effective than any other random method. I believe Fatty can do it."

Fatty nodded. "Fatty believes it can do it too."

"Now, first, pick out the grub with the inner core." Tu Ran glanced at the remaining grubs wriggling between Fatty's wings and took a few steps back, putting two meters between them.

"Finding the inner core is Fatty's mission. Fatty can handle it, right?"

"Right!" Fatty looked determined.

The boss had finally entrusted it with a task, and it had to do it well—it couldn't let the boss down.

Watching it bury its head in the search, Tu Ran smiled with satisfaction.

Fifteen minutes later, Fatty found the glittering inner core among the mashed remains of the grubs.

Tu Ran used two twigs like chopsticks to carefully pick up the bead, then placed it on the spare clothes she'd set aside for disposal, wiping off the sticky, unidentified gunk.

The bead came out gleaming. Tu Ran tucked it into her backpack.

She was going to bring this bead back to the Federation.

She hadn't forgotten that she was still working under Xie Xu.

Entering the Threshold wasn't just serving the Federal Government—it was also serving Xie Xu.

Since she'd agreed to it back then, she had to bring something back.

An alien creature was out of the question.

The moment she stepped out of the Threshold, the first thing she'd face was the Federation's stationed troops. If she walked out with an alien creature, she'd be sent straight to the Research Institute.

Xie Xu's private lab would never get its hands on it.

In the past, the original body had delivered massive amounts of Threshold resources to Xie Xu through the Memory Reader.

Xie Xu's private research institute had a Memory Reader—connect it to the brain, and it could read memories from a specific time period and record them for repeated viewing.

That method was even better than holographic recording rings.

But Memory Readers were expensive and rare—only a handful existed in the entire Federation. The Federal Government couldn't equip every Pioneer with one, so they had to settle for holographic recording rings.

Xie Xu had participated in the development of the Memory Reader, mastering all the firsthand data, and later spent a year building one in his private lab.

Gotta admit, the guy had brains.

The original body almost always found time after leaving the Threshold to visit Xie Xu's private lab, connect her brain to the Memory Reader, upload everything she'd seen in the Threshold, and share it with him without reservation.

Including things she'd deliberately hidden from the holographic recording rings.

When she went back this time, Xie Xu would definitely ask her to connect to the Memory Reader. Everything that happened in the Threshold would be exposed.

She could destroy the holographic recording rings, but she couldn't destroy her own memories.

If she didn't comply, he'd grow suspicious.

And what Xie Xu might do once suspicious—she couldn't even imagine.

So, to keep him from suspecting anything, she needed to prepare something more valuable to give him, something that would keep his attention so he wouldn't have time to doubt her.

What was the best thing? An inner core, probably.

Such a novel item would keep him busy enough to ignore everything else.

But she was reluctant to hand over a powerful inner core.

This "Perfect Figure" one, though, fit perfectly.

The core itself was useless to her, and she didn't need it.

Just treat it as a gift for him.

Tu Ran felt smug; she wasn't the least bit sorry about it.

After [Perfect Figure], Tu Ran encountered more bizarre abilities like [Deaf to Reason] and [Dreamless Sleep].

[Deaf to Reason]

Description: Can briefly block out external sounds, allowing the user to focus on their own matters.

Level: Beginner

[Dreamless Sleep]

Description: Literally what it says—after taking it, you sleep without dreaming.

Level: Beginner

Overall, they were the kind of abilities that were neither here nor there, but since they had no side effects, Tu Ran swallowed them all.

Now she had six beginner abilities. Tu Ran tried to call up the panel to see if she'd reached the number needed to synthesize an intermediate ability.

The moment she opened the beginner ability panel, a line of fluorescent green text popped up.

You now possess six beginner abilities, meeting the minimum number required to upgrade to an intermediate ability.

Consume any five beginner abilities to upgrade the sixth into an intermediate ability.

Proceed with upgrade?

Tu Ran looked over her six beginner abilities.

[Instant Shift], [Phantom Realm], [Dreamless Sleep], [Deaf to Reason], [Blooming Harmony], [Landslide].

So, if she wanted to upgrade one to intermediate, she'd have to abandon the other five?

But scanning them all, aside from [Dreamless Sleep] and [Deaf to Reason], she couldn't bear to part with any of the other four.

[Phantom Realm] was used to confuse enemies. Though it was a support-type ability, it was the one she wielded most smoothly, and its range of applications was broad. Other abilities might be sacrificed to upgrade this one, but there was no way she'd ever give it up!

[Instant Shift] let her escape in critical moments—it was her trump card. She'd never considered abandoning it.