Epoch of Twilight

The powerful effects of the Wisdom Heart shocked Luo Yuan. Joy was written all over his face.

Soon, he wiped his excitement away and calmed down enough to look carefully at the information provided by the identification technique. He had noticed something.

It was a unique item. The evaluation of such an item was not new to him as the Haunted Locust Heart he wore on his chest was also a unique item. Luo Yuan realized that neither the Haunted Locust Heart or the Wisdom Heart were of a high level. The Haunted Locust Heart was only of a blue rank. Usually, low-level items had no effect on him, however, their value and effect were out of the ordinary, to the point that it was unbelievable. It seemed that these items were above average, and a common evaluation was not good enough for them.

Doubt rose within Luo Yuan, but the message was short, so he could not speculate any further. He could only observe that there was a pattern to these unique items, creating an indescribable mystery around them. They were significantly different from common evolved creatures. They were the miracle of evolution and had a minimal probability of being an infinite evolutionary basis.

All kinds of thoughts flashed in his brain, but Luo Yuan kept his impulsiveness in check, got up and walked towards the cave with the Wisdom Heart. Although the campsite was not far away and he habitually took care of all possible danger along the way, it was not entirely safe. He was not sure what side effects eating the heart would bring. If he fell into a deep sleep, he would turn into a pile of bones by the next day, no matter how strong he was. There were too many mutated bugs and underground creatures around. During the night, there would only be weak mutated creatures romping around, but even harmless creatures with limited strength could deal with a sleeping human.

Luo Yuan reached the cave soon. After telling everyone not to disturb him, he looked pointedly at Huang Jiahui, who was sitting in a corner.

"We should not disturb Luo Yuan. Let’s go out!" Huang Jiahui told everyone, getting Luo Yuan’s meaning. The two of them had developed great chemistry after spending so much time together. Luo Yuan had come back with joy on his face, so it was obvious to her that he had something he needed to do in secret.

Everybody else had sensed it to. Hearing Huang Jiahui, they all walked out of the cave without asking any questions. When everybody had left, Luo Yuan opened his hand. The purple ‘brain’ was in it. He hadn’t sent everyone away because he was worried that they would judge him for wanting this treasure all to himself. It was just that the shape of the Wisdom Heart was so unique that it would cause an uproar. Although he could explain, it was too much trouble to do so.

Looking at the heart, Luo Yuan was reminded of the ginseng fruit in Journey to the West. I did not matter that the people living through the apocalypse were not fictional characters like Xuanzang. Luo Yuan took a bite. The heart’s texture was like jelly, and the taste was not as good as he had imagined. It was bitter, with a tinge of sourness and tanginess, and almost impossible to swallow. Luo Yuan remained expressionless. He did not even frown as he finished half the Wisdom Heart in a few bites.

"Compared to the Wailing Herb, this is delicious." The thought popped into his mind. The Wisdom Heart was full of nutrients and essence of the tree. Luo Yuan was only half-way through it, yet he was already feeling full.

He decided to stop, holding the remaining half of the Wisdom Heart in his hand. This thing was too precious. It could actually increase his attribute points, so he kept whatever he could of it. Even though he might not be able to use it himself, the others still might.

He did not know if there would be any effect if he did not finish the entire thing, though. He placed half of the Wisdom Heart in a wooden basin and sat there patiently, waiting for the change to come.

A few minutes later, he felt an itch and numbness on his scalp.

"Here it comes!" Luo Yuan said to himself.

He took a deep breath and tried his best to calm himself down, but he felt uncertain. Changes in the brain were nothing like changes on the flesh. The brain was the nerve center and memory bank of the human body. Even the slightest mistake could cause a memory disorder, paralysis, or instant death.

It was not the first time he’d had changes made to his brain, though. There had been several instances, but those had been controlled by the system. His brain had been dazed for a little while, and then the transformation was done. They had been reliable and safe, with a zero-mistake guarantee.

Using the Wisdom Heart was an original way to trigger a transformation in his cerebral cortex. It was like a person doing business in Africa. If they got sick and there was no hospital, their only choice would be to look for a witch doctor, who was naturally a lot less reliable.

Luo Yuan stopped thinking as the itch and numbness on his scalp got so intense to the point that they grew painful. Moments later, his vision became blurry. The wall in front of him was like a block of butter melting under the high temperature, swirling and mixing into a colorful painting. His ears felt like a radio that had lost its signal. There was only silence and the occasional loud noises. His sense of smell and taste were affected too. He felt all sorts of tastes all at once - thick, bland, bitter, sweet and salty. His brain was filled with messy, contradictory, meaningless messages. Soon, his hands and feet were numb. Gradually, he lost all his senses. It felt like being paralyzed. All Luo Yuan could do was feel. There was nothing else to be done.

That was just the beginning, though. A few minutes later, he lost his sight completely. All he could see was darkness. Next, his hearing, smell, and taste were gone. When he lost his sense of touch, he felt like he had been completely isolated from the world. The was no light, no sound, nothing. He was not even sure if he existed. An unknown fear rushed inside his body, his emotions all messed up under these extreme circumstances. His fear was a self-instinctive sense of crisis produced by the countless cells inside his body.

He wanted to struggle and scream, but his strong Will stopped him. He knew it was futile. It would only send the wrong signals to his body, causing the evolution to fail. He could not stop. Just like a computer half-way through an upgrade, if he quit while the process was still going on, he would be left paralyzed.

Barely a few seconds had passed, but it felt like a million years to him. His grasp of time had changed and the thought processes in his mind became slow and cumbersome. Eventually, it halted. The very next moment though, his brain fired up once again. At the same time, he could see, hear and smell everything around him. His senses were coming back to him and he could feel a wave of emotions wash over him as his eyes grew wet. He had never realized, how wonderful the world was.

He felt different as he stood up, walking straight ahead in a fast pace. The world felt like a brand new place. Everything was colorful, every sound was rich. He took in the scenes around him greedily, later realizing that this was not the heart’s doing.

He had felt this way when he upgraded his Physique, but had not expected a similar effect this time around, when he upgraded his Intelligence. Just as he expected, he understood everything. If he was to use the upgrade in his Physique in the past as an analogy, then his upgraded Intelligence would be akin to an upgrade in a signal receiver. Once the receiver hit its limit, a blur would form on the screen as the remainder of the signal could not be processed. In a way, Luo Yuan had reached the limit of the signals he was able to handle.

He felt amazing. His thoughts were crystal clear and fast, childhood memories coming back to him in a split second. He could even remember the slightest details, the background of those memories. He was able to calculate the height of the cave accurately to the point that he was able to go into decimals. He could even calculate how many twigs a tree had on its trunk from a distance. Even if some parts were covered, Luo Yuan was still able to see through them.

He could see colors in all its glory and smell a thousand smells. Acute senses, complicated calculations, and long-lost memories... All these information flooded into his head, his mind crystal clear. Even questions and problems from the exercises his teacher used to give him in school came back to him when the memories flooded back. Though these memories were not worth mentioning, they were still flashing around with him solving them in his head.

After he solved the last question, he felt a sense of relief. His thoughts were now clearer than they had ever been, though his unsolved questions had not been completely forgotten; just placed in another part of his brain. When one is unable to answer a question, the question is placed elsewhere and will be marked in the mind as a question that was ‘to-be-solved’. As more questions piled up over time, one would have trouble studying as it slowed down their problem-solving abilities over time. Eventually, their thoughts would get slower and they would fail in school.