Chapter 54: Looking Back
Philip silently stared at his system and noticed the addition in his Profession: Half-Dreamwalker.
"..."
He wasn't sure if he would be irritated by the 'half' or be happy since he was now a 'dream walker'.
He chuckled to himself and turned his gaze to his karma.
He realized that once his karma went back to -10, he would no longer experience sudden misfortune like before.
This made him believe that only when his negative karma exceeded 10 would it bring him trouble.
'Co to think of it, my karma stopped decreasing after the Evans was caught yesterday...'
Philip smiled and temporarily set this matter aside as he imdiately focused on the reason for his failure earlier.
'There are three prerequisites to be a ntalist: First is to temporarily borrow strength from core mories; second is have at least an IQ of 150 or any equivalent asurents of ntal strength; and lastly, be able to summon the illusionary door.'
Philip realized he was only capable of the last prerequisite and felt the problem may lie in the other two.
He reflected back on his life, trying to recall the ti he unlocked his cores.
'So far, there were only two instances where I was placed in great crisis. First is when I escape from the hidden governnt unit and the second is when I flee from Steve, a soulless player.'
He suspected he had unlocked his core mories when he was only four years old. After all, it was very unlikely for a child of his age at that ti to defeat a force with more influence and power than his. Only with the support of mysticism, he would be able to destroy them.
Philip had forgotten about the details of the escape and never gave it more thought after he started living in the forest.
Moreover, as he grew, he noticed that he couldn't recall them and initially thought that it may be because of his poor mory. However, now with his high ntal stats, he could now try to recall them by entering into 'Spatial Cognitive State'.
Philip closed his eyes for a mont before he summoned nurous illusionary screens that showed fragnts of his childhood mories without him entering an astral state.
From the screens, he watched himself eating hard bread with other children aged three to ten years old. There were also much younger but they were separated in another room.
Then, the screens changed and showed children reading books with an old man holding a stick in front. The area was dark, illuminated only by torches and lamps hanging on the wall.
All the children's actions were systematic, as though they were humans without feelings other than studying. If the child got sleepy or lazy, the old man's teacher would imdiately punish the child by beating them with a long stick and not giving them food.
Philip then saw himself in the far-end corner. Like others, he sat straight while holding a thick book in his arms. His gaze was dark and lifeless, and only the light from the torches beside him reflected in his eyes.
The child, Philip paused for a mont before he raised his head at the ceiling. He darted straight to where the screen was located, as though sensing soone was spying on him from another tiline.
Once the child's and his eyes t, He felt insurmountable dark emotions surging through him, filling him with great exhaustion and hopelessness for the future. These emotions drowned him and made him forget how to breathe and live.
Upon realizing this, Philip's head imdiately throbbed and quickly willed his mind to make the screens disappear.
He buried his head on the pillow and gripped his chest, trying to calm his racing heart.
This abnormality continued for minutes before he raised his head to look at the ceiling above.
Breathlessly, Philip organized his chaotic emotion and thought,
'Why do I feel the four-year-old noticed that I am looking at him? No, that's ridiculous.'
He shook his head and laughed self-depreciatingly, trying to dispel this absurdity.
'But what I can be sure of is that I have no recollection of my agony. Yes, I could rember the other children and clearly could tell who was who, but my emotion that ti? It seed that there were none.' Philip frowned.
He realized that there was a big secret behind his lack of childhood mories before being adopted by Mother Theresa and Father Xiang.
'Did I choose to forcibly forget them because I knew it would only bring pain and suffering?' He considered.
Although Philip had so recollection about them, like he knew he destroyed the unit and saved the children, he couldn't tell how he did them. It was as though he wasn't he before and the now him wasn't the Philip that suffered back.
At first, he wanted to keep going, but a sense of foreboding stopped him. He believed that whatever secret it was, he wasn't ready yet.
'Is this related to opening the cores?" he wondered. "I seed to have a deep impression that I had a strong inclination towards self-destruction."
Philip didn't dwell on it, knowing his mories were incomplete. Instead, he focused on the newer mory he had.
'Co to think of it, during Steve's hunt, I rember being able to run through the forest for hours,' he thought. 'Normally, with my current child body, I would struggle to run for more than 10 minutes. Is this the mory I was searching for?'
Excited, Philip concentrated on rembering every detail of it and noticed that he had indeed temporarily possessed super endurance at that ti.
'Yes, that ti was indeed abnormal. Have I unlocked one of my core mories to save myself from the hunt?'
Earlier, Sam had explained that the cores had different levels - the more significant and impactful the core mory in one's personality, the more powerful the cores are. Thus, upon unlocking it, one would be granted a supernatural ability in retrospect to the core levels.
Mainly unlocking one's core was akin to an adrenaline rush and was difficult to distinguish.
Mostly, cores will temporarily boost physical prowess and ntal thinking. So of the powerful cores will give ntal powers like telekinesis and mind control.
Philip speculated that the core he had unlocked was the mory of being with his adoptive parents. When his peaceful life was interrupted by an attack from another soulless player, he unconsciously borrowed tenacity and strong will from it, allowing him to outrun the rcenaries.
'As for how I close it,' he thought, 'Maybe it's when I find out my parents are still alive and are living sowhere unknown... or to the ti when I deliver my revenge to Steve...'
Philip smiled, knowing he had fulfilled the first prerequisites.
'So that cos to the 150 IQ...'
He then glanced back at his system and noticed his ntal stats:
__________________
ntal: 14 ( 27)
__________________
Seeing this, Philip believed that he finally found the reason.
'Does a ntal stat of 14 equivalent to 140 IQ? But how about the 27 attributable stats?'
Philip thought for two seconds before concluding,
'I think a ntalist requires a base stat and not the total ntal stats I have. That is also the reason why I was able to summon the door but couldn't enter it. Yes, the stat points made as though I had satisfied all the requirents.'
'Does that an that the attributable stat points are borrowed from the system and not considered as mine? So that's why Sam expressed earlier that my case was abnormal. It was indeed uncommon for soone to borrow ntal strength from others...' Philip chuckled.
Philip felt he knew the answer and heaved a sigh of relief. The only thing he needed to do was to increase his base ntal stat.
He quickly thought of ways to achieve this.
'First, I could morize all the books in the library, understand, and master them. Yes, I can start with Conrad's collection of books. This will also aid in acting more like Conrad in school.
'Second is to squeeze my brain to maintain a cognitive state for more than 5 minutes and stay in an astral state for more than an hour.
'Third, I can make use of the pain brought from upgrading my physique to the limit and endure it...'
Philip massaged his temple. Whatever way he chooses, it requires perseverance and hard work... and pain.
Thus after he closed the system, he imdiately took all books related to Conrad's major and sat on the chair to study.
Just before opening the books, he realized it wasn't enough. He quickly went to Maris and borrowed so of her books. He believed that before he started with college courses, he had to study the primary and secondary school lessons first.
Later, when he felt it was enough, he quickly deactivated his 'Mystique Identities' uniqueness. Only when he changed into his original disabled body then he started studying.
Thus, for the whole night, Philip read all the books while enduring the restlessness and pain in his body.
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