Humans Shrunk 100 Times

Chapter 177: Mastery

Tang Jing continued, "So now I need to analyze you in the same way. As it appears, your growth is estimated by the overall quantity of food you consume. Your functionality goes without saying, as you can provide for everyone around you, especially when there is an abundance of food but no means of long-term storage. That's when your abilities are most effective.

"As for quantifying specifics, such as the limit of your provisions, the energy conversion rate, and the consequences when there is no food supply, I need to figure those out."

"And control is the most urgent matter for you to understand," Tang Jing added.

Yu Yuan was taken aback, "Why?"

"To be honest, in the beginning, your abilities were very helpful. Without you, Li Bo and Zhou Xuliang might not have survived until now," Tang Jing said. "But once life gets better, and there's a stable food source, your role diminishes significantly, and there might even be negative effects. For example, during today's meal, hardly anyone ate much."

"Is that bad? I ate for everyone," Yu Yuan chuckled.

"However, based on your previous performance, your energy supply only ensures people won't go hungry, but it doesn't address their appetites. For humans, food serves a purpose beyond survival; it's also about enjoyment. But with you around, that pleasure is lost," Tang Jing sighed.

"Oh..." Yu Yuan realized that what Tang Jing said was true. Even if he hadn't eaten for a few days, he would still crave food.

"So, control is crucial," Tang Jing continued, "I need you to shift from a passive role to an active one."

"How do I do that?" Yu Yuan asked, puzzled.

"That requires your own understanding and imagination. You need to better manage the energy you consume, not letting it be automatically absorbed by the environment. At the same time, it would be best if you could target specific individuals for nourishment. In other words, you can decide who stays hungry and who doesn't. You can even choose to overfeed or starve someone to death..."

"What?!" Yu Yuan was completely stunned.

"If you can achieve that, you'll become a combat-type esper, no, a killing-type esper," Tang Jing said with an evil grin.

Chen Mu couldn't help but sigh. Another promising young person was stepping onto an irreversible path.

Tang Jing's ability was like painting a grand picture for everyone, tempting them with incredible possibilities. However, Chen Mu knew that no matter who wanted to obtain that grand picture, the difficulty would be unimaginable.

Take Yu Yuan, for example. The ultimate goal set by Tang Jing for him was not entirely unattainable, but considering the current laws governing esper abilities, achieving it would be as difficult as ascending to the heavens. It required a combination of talent, diligence, and even a certain amount of luck.

From Chen Mu's own experience, esper growth emphasized reaching a qualitative change through quantitative accumulation. Even if the direction was correct, significant effort was needed to make any progress.

Just this alone probably screened out the majority of people.

Yu Yuan's excitement couldn't be concealed, as if he had already seen himself become invincible in battles.

In his elated state, he devoured the tomatoes even faster.

However, to finish eating the entire crate, it would probably take him several more hours.

At this moment, Chen Mu interjected with a question that everyone was curious about but embarrassed to ask, "Yu Yuan, do you need to go to the bathroom?"

"Not at all," the chubby guy seemed to have found another advantage, puffing up his chest proudly, "Not only that, since Li Bo and Zhou Xuliang joined me, they haven't needed to go either. No need for peeing or anything."

Li Bo and Zhou Xuliang silently lowered their heads, wishing they could pretend they didn't know this guy.

Afterward...

Tang Jing assigned a task to Yu Yuan, which was to eat tomatoes until he was full. If one crate wasn't enough, he could have another, and if tomatoes ran out, there were green peppers and eggplants. These three types of food were the most perishable, and everyone eagerly hoped Yu Yuan would finish them all in one go.

However, at the same time, he was required to continuously study and train his control abilities and keep a certain distance from everyone until the effects manifested. Although there hadn't been accurate quantitative calculations yet, preliminary experiments showed that 40 centimeters was the distance beyond which his energy absorption couldn't occur.

In other words, as long as they stayed at least 40 centimeters away from Yu Yuan, they wouldn't absorb his energy, which at least allowed everyone to enjoy a regular lunch.

...

Later on, Tang Jing went through the same process with Li Bo and Zhou Xuliang. However, their abilities had no negative impacts, so the urgency was not as strong, and the studious adults seemed somewhat lacking in interest.

On the other hand, Chen Mu chatted with Zhou Xuliang for a while and confirmed the capabilities of his storage space—it could ignore the mass of objects and only considered their volume.

Chen Mu's first thought was whether this could be used on humans. However, such an experiment could not be undertaken lightly, as there might be unforeseen side effects.

Upon his return, not much had changed at home. It was said that Du Jiajia's two cats were getting along even better. Of course, Little Yellow still wanted to be the boss, and Little White showed no intention of usurping that role, so Du Jiajia didn't feel much pressure.

Others didn't undergo significant changes.

Except for Wei Dalei, who now had an additional task of winding up springs every day. With the machine oil brought back by Chen Mu, many components worked more smoothly, and the elevator finally had some hints of automation.

Though seemingly a small matter, it was a significant step toward the future for Qiming. Automation was something humans had been avidly pursuing, even to the extent of entrusting thinking to artificial intelligence.

The improvement of the elevator made Chen Mu think of the originally planned high-level turret. Now, besides One Middle School, the relationship between Qingbei's friends and foes became more intricate. Without proper preparations, it would be hard to cope.

However, the difficulty of building the turret was significantly higher than that of the lookout tower before. This was due to the exponential increase in difficulty when building structures to a certain height.

The most obvious problem was how to construct a 2-meter-long vertical track without any fixed points in the middle. To prevent this metal track from bending, its diameter would need to be increased. But just the engineering complexity of such an approach was a significant challenge, not to mention the issue of material quantity.

Currently, Qiming could only utilize items on the ground and the first level of shelves. Although a few individuals, like Ge Yang, could reach the second level, it was still difficult to bring things down from there.

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