Light Barrier Novel Chapter 25

Light Barrier - Chapter 25: Cat Talk

Following the usual protocol, the Adjudication Bureau assessed newcors based on four main aspects.

Strength, speed, ntal power, and control.

This fifteen-day special training revolved around enhancing these four aspects. Nan Jin was in charge of strength, Zhong Wei was in charge of speed, and Senior Sister Luo was in charge of ntal power and control, which corresponded to the transcendental characteristics of the three of them.

…

“I’m back.”

Late at night, half past eleven.

Exhausted after a day of training, Gu Shen returned to his apartnt, pushed open the door weakly, and leaned against the wall to steady himself.

The special training today was too brutal.

After the Jingzhe Dream ended, Nan Jin had dragged Gu Shen to a boxing ring. It was nominally for strength training, but in reality, it had been a beating session. Nan Jin was a top expert in lee combat and proficient at targeting vital points. She had tortured him in all kinds of ways. Gu Shen had been like a sandbag being pumled relentlessly, beaten until he was black and blue, barely clinging to enough consciousness to still stand.

This wicked woman had drilled him for a full six hours… And the intermittent rests in between had amounted to less than twenty minutes.

These six hours had felt like a century.

So much so that Gu Shen’s legs had been constantly trembling on the way back.

“ow.” The mont the orange cat heard Gu Shen’s voice, it owed happily and trotted out of the room.

“Here, food.” Gu Shen wasn’t in the mood to pay attention to this silly cat. He opened a large bag of cat food, tossed it to a corner, and went to wash up.

Then he collapsed on his bed, bone-tired.

His entire body felt like it was falling apart. It was hard to imagine that, according to Nan Jin, this was just the so-called ‘appetizer’ and ‘warm-up exercise’.

How terrifying would tomorrow’s training be?

In fact, Gu Shen wasn’t afraid or timid. On the contrary, in the boxing ring today, every ti he was knocked down, he would imdiately get back up.

Getting back up wasn’t about showing off but because he didn’t want to stay down.

He let out a deep breath.

Gu Shen stopped dwelling on this matter. He stretched out his hands and looked at the calluses on his palms in satisfaction.

Today’s training was very fruitful.

He was already beginning to get used to using Jingzhe to replace normal breathing, and every breath took away a third of his ntal fatigue.

Oftentis, only in extrely quiet and limited spaces would Gu Shen feel that he was real…

Like now.

There was not a single sound in the sealed room.

Not even the sound of wind.

Gu Shen slowly closed his eyes and drifted asleep. The experiences of the past few days flashed through his mind.

Real yet surreal.

He didn’t know when, but at so point, he had pushed open the door to the transcendental world.

There was a sense of unease in Gu Shen’s heart, as though sothing was missing. He reached out a hand and felt around under the pillow. After touching the Ruler of Truth, he felt much more at ease.

Hmm… I’m relieved now.

In the future, it’s probably better to bring the Ruler of Truth when I go out, just in case anything happens. After all, I was even lucky enough to encounter A-009 on a train, so anything could happen.

“The feeling of comprehending the Jingzhe Breathing Technique… How is it?”

Orange, the cat, tiptoed to the bed and jumped onto it, its eyes shining.

Chu Ling was online.

Gu Shen rubbed his chin and thought for a mont. “This breathing technique is very powerful. I feel lighter than ever.”

“This is only the beginning. Your good days are coming,” Chu Ling said. “But you need to be careful these days. Soone has their eyes on you.”

Gu Shen imdiately beca alert. “Is soone… targeting ?”

“Yes. This person is nad Han Dang.” The orange cat licked her paws, ca to Gu Shen’s side, and raised her paws. The bedroom projector automatically turned on, displaying file after file in the blue light.

From an unknown distance away, Chu Ling was controlling the system here to display Han Dang’s information.

Gu Shen frowned.

He had already vaguely guessed that there were conflicts and differences within the Adjudication Bureau.

At the end of his previous interrogation, Chief Justice Yan Shicheng of Azure River had ntioned a na.

Zhu Wang!

At the ti, he felt that there would be so twists and turns in the future.

“Han Dang is Zhu Wang’s disciple, and his status and strength are comparable to Senior Sister Luo’s. He’s also a ntal-type transcendent.”

In the depths of the Deep Sea archives, Chu Ling retrieved all the information about Han Dang, from his date of birth to his honors and dals… After skimming through it, Gu Shen clicked his tongue in wonder.

This man nad Han Dang had an outstanding record and was indeed a dazzling new star in the Adjudication Bureau’s younger generation.

He was truly worthy of being the equal of Senior Sister Luo.

When Gu Shen saw the latest information about Han Dang’s actions, things instantly beca clear to him.

All his sleepiness was gone.

“He ca to Oto City and imdiately went to the old building to investigate the fire…” Gu Shen sat up, his fatigue vanishing from his body. He quickly skimd through the electronic files. From a distant cloud server, a packaged video was still uploading.

He knew very well that ntal-type transcendents could often develop the ability of Profile, and the top-tier ones like Senior Sister Luo could even Profile the circumstances of the fire a day after it happened.

Senior Sister Luo had used her transcendental thods to restore the scene and had nearly seen through the Ruler of Truth.

This person nad Han Dang was the number one disciple of Mr. Tree’s long-standing adversary. It was self-evident why he ca to Oto City.

He’s coming for ! He’s here to investigate the fire and my transcendental ability!

“This is a segnt of the action video I captured.”

The video from the cloud was downloaded and imdiately started playing.

In the video, amidst hazy, swirling dust, Gu Shen saw the scene of a helicopter arriving at the sight of the fire. The following scene was truly heart-stopping. After Han Dang fell from the sky, all the guards imdiately prepared to attack. But for so reason, they all stood frozen in a daze and abandoned their weapons like puppets.

“Were these people hypnotized?” Gu Shen still had lingering fear when he recalled what happened in the afternoon.

Facing Senior Sister Luo’s Dream Induction, he had no ability to resist. Without exception, the guards at the fire scene had all been suppressed by Han Dang’s transcendental power.

“He went to the old building to investigate. Due to the lack of surveillance

caras, I don’t know what happened inside.” Chu Ling’s tone was still calm. “Fifteen minutes later, Han Dang erased the mories of these people.”

“This is too terrifying…” After watching the video, Gu Shen asked fearfully, “Han Dang’s transcendental power can manipulate people’s minds so easily. Who can be his match?”

“Han Dang is indeed formidable.” Chu Ling paused for a mont. “But perhaps… he’s not as powerful as you imagine. Without a doubt, only a transcendent can defeat a transcendent. But no one is perfect. Everyone has a weakness, and in life-and-death battles, this weakness is a fatal flaw.”

Gu Shen noticed an extrely eye-catching red docunt among the retrieved files. Is this a classified file on Han Dang?

Curious, Gu Shen moved the cursor to hover over it and clicked.

Instead of opening this file, a warning prompt popped up.

Then garbled characters appeared.

Finally, the screen was filled with a large red cross and two bold words.

[Insufficient permissions.]

Gu Shen was stunned.

All along, he had always thought that Chu Ling was omnipotent. Connecting to Deep Sea’s authority, providing amazing monitoring, analyzing real-ti data, planning strategic deploynts… This was simply another Deep Sea with the highest authority.

But this ti, she hit a wall.

“You seem surprised?” The orange cat licked her paws calmly. “I don’t think I’ve ever said I can do anything.”

“Yes…” Gu Shen said instinctively, “But… this is just Han Dang’s file…”

“You’re thinking that this is just Han Dang’s file. But above him, there’s still Zhu Wang, the sitting mbers of the East Continent Parliant, and even higher…” The orange cat turned her head. “I’m not omnipotent. There are still many things I can’t do now, but perhaps I’ll be able to do them in the future.”

Then she suddenly asked, “If I could open the file of the President of the Five Continents now, would you want to take a look?”

“I’d want to… but I wouldn’t dare. I don’t have enough heads to lose.” Gu Shen understood the sarcasm and imdiately cowered. “Have I unknowingly boarded a pirate ship?”

It’s really ironic. I was the one who advised Chu Ling not to do illegal things in the first place. But now, I’m the one used to the conveniences.

“Have you unknowingly boarded a pirate ship? Do you want to back out now?” the orange cat suggested seriously. “If you back out now, you might only get life imprisonnt. But if you’re caught later, it will be the death penalty.”

“Bah. What kind of unlucky words are you saying?” Gu Shen raised the orange cat in all seriousness. “We’re good and upright young people, and we have never done anything that violates the law… As long as we’re not caught, who will know?”

The orange cat felt a bit uncomfortable being lifted.

She struggled in protest.

But it was fruitless.

So she gave up.

“In short, you need to be aware that people are watching us, so you have to be vigilant at all tis.” Chu Ling sighed. “That guy nad Han Dang isn’t easy to deal with. He ca all the way to Oto City likely to sabotage your assessnt so that he can make use of the pardon order to launch an attack and overthrow Zhou Jiren.”

Gu Shen fell into thought.

“The worst-case scenario is that he used Profile and captured the existence of the ruler and began to suspect your transcendental ability. If you co into contact with him in the future, he will definitely test you. You have to think of a good counterasure.”

The orange cat wagged her tail, and the light in her eyes slowly faded away.

“Okay, I’m tired. If there’s nothing else, I’m leaving.”

A ow startled Gu Shen out of his contemplation.

Halfway through, Orange suddenly found itself being held in the air. It was first shocked and then furious. With a low growl, it hugged Gu Shen’s face and released a burst of yellow fus before swaggering away angrily.

Translation Note: I forgot to ntion sothing in a previous chapter. The author doesn’t really specify the gender of the cat and uses it, but there’s no pronoun for when Chu Ling is in control, so to differentiate, I’m using she/her when ‘Chu Ling is online’.