Chapter 3: The Marvelous Use of the Fungal Broth and the Birth of the Second Talent

Bang!

At that moment, the sound of the front door opening echoed through the living room.

The apartment had three bedrooms and one living room. The left room belonged to Li Feng, the right to Zou Anmeng.

The two met eyes in the living room, then glanced toward the refrigerator—clearly, both had come in search of food.

“Smells so good,” Zou Anmeng said. “I wonder which neighbor is cooking mushrooms. So inconsiderate—it’s making me hungry.”

Li Feng opened the window and sniffed the air. “Sounds like it's from the upstairs family, the one with nine people including their parents. It’s nice; at least they sometimes bring down good food for us.”

“It reminds me of the fine matsutake mushrooms at the restaurant,” Zou Anmeng swallowed hard, eyes gleaming with longing.

“Fragrant, sweet, tender, and smooth! I still remember when Mom and Dad used to pack those premium matsutake mushrooms from the restaurant when we were kids. The three of us will never forget that…”

“It’s alright. Life will get better,” Li Feng murmured. “I’ll take you all out for a proper meal someday! We’ll live in a big house, become scholarly elites, and read the best books together!”

Liu Jun paid little mind to the hungry pair outside. After weighing the pros and cons, he made a call.

“Teacher Si? It’s me, Liu Jun. I’d like to request ten days off... Yes, I’m feeling a bit unwell.”

A gentle voice came from the other end—Si Anhe.

“Be careful. As the college entrance exams approach, the school won’t care much whether you attend or not.”

“But your grades are your own responsibility, and so is your life. After the exams, it’ll be hard to find such great training grounds, and you’ll lose the student discount on books.”

“Keep working hard!”

“Don’t worry. After high school graduation, you’ll be assigned jobs uniformly. I’ll arrange a good position for you, so you can strive to reach the third tier by age thirty...”

After ten minutes chatting with the teacher, Liu Jun hung up.

He couldn’t help but feel that teachers were like workplace bosses, skillfully painting big dreams. Surely they didn’t say the same to every student?

Honestly, most third-year high school students here were second-tier Psychic Masters.

In other cities, that would mean elite white-collar workers.

But this city was different.

Second-tier psychics here had no cultivation value.

Because they died in their thirties, with a peak period of only about ten years.

So after graduating from high school, they didn’t attend university but instead worked for the city’s development.

They earned resources to break through to the third tier while repaying the city’s free acid rain welfare.

A perfect win-win for both city and students.

This unique economic model had propelled Rehe City’s rapid rise.

Lost in thought, Liu Jun said to himself, “I need to develop the ‘Low Symptoms’ talent soon to hide my abnormalities.” He pushed open the window, gazing at the brilliantly lit city.

As an anomaly, once discovered, dying would be the least of his worries.

Those mechanical superpowered tycoons, big corporations, and mad scientists would be intensely interested in a mutant like him.

…

Time passed.

After taking leave, Liu Jun enjoyed a few comfortable days.

He gave a simple excuse to his two friends and, strengthened by his enhanced psychic energy, shielded their perceptions.

They no longer smelled any delicious mushroom aroma and hurried off to school every day, returning exhausted at dusk, often bringing back free food from the cafeteria for him.

Liu Jun’s attention these days was fixed on the pot of mushroom soup—his lifeline!

Idle mode running speed x2.

The mushrooms were accelerating evolution under the “Mushroom Soup” talent.

He even threw in household waste—tissues, fruit peels, books—and the pot slowly digested them.

A cheap trash bin, in effect.

However, the idle multiplier was disappointingly low.

After several tests, Liu Jun guessed that higher-grade energy materials would be needed later—using firewood to cook the soup—to catalyze even greater idle speed.

He also discovered something else:

The volume limit of the mushroom soup was very special.

Yes, another huge surprise!

He tossed in many objects—bed, table, chair—and the pot expanded to fill the entire room!

Currently, the soup ranged from the size of a bowl’s mouth to the size of a room. Who knew how large it could grow? Perhaps it could even contain the sun and moon—truly a super treasure.

It seemed anything big could be boiled into soup to evolve talents!

Maybe he could open a garbage dump?

Help clear waste, make money in environmental protection, and even cultivate talents from trash broth?

After all, it was a heavy industrial city producing a lot of waste.

Yet, excitement aside, Liu Jun was somewhat dismayed that after testing the soup’s expansion, the bed and chairs retrieved from the “Mushroom Soup” were soaked and had turned into mushroom-corroded wood fragments.

Still, Liu Jun remained indoors, nothing else happened, except he received a message:

Ding!

[Rehe Cloud Safety Guardian Reminder: Dear Liu Jun, as of March 20, 7791, your cloud memory service has expired. Failure to renew will lead to deletion of non-essential memories (such as your first love and anti-corporate protest experiences).]

He wasn’t too concerned—he planned to discontinue the cloud service.

On the third night of his leave, the two friends came home as usual, checked on Liu Jun’s health, and chatted about gossip.

“Let me tell you, Xu Changsheng’s had it rough again today...”

“Li Chengshan’s really no good.”

Apparently, Xu Changsheng had fallen seriously ill and was resting at home.

Liu Jun’s illness was fake; Xu’s was real.

According to the chubby kid who visited him, Xu’s personality had changed drastically—suspected to have developed cyber-psychosis. He’d gone from timid and cowardly to calm and composed.

“I heard he even made some very sinister expressions,” Li Feng mimicked a mischievous look, vivid as if he were there.

But no one laughed—there was a bitter sympathy, as if mourning a fallen comrade.

Liu Jun listened silently. He found Xu Changsheng’s personality change peculiar.

Hmm, something to investigate.

Good, all the more reason not to return to school.

“By the way, did you hear? A woman in District 12 gave birth to a natural-born Saint. The baby floated using psychic energy right after birth. The Rehe Heavy Industry military immediately protected the entire neighborhood and escorted the child the whole way. Terrifying!”

“Wow! That’s right at our terminal station.”

“I’m so jealous.”

“I envy his mother! Having such a son means instant elevation to high society—she’ll become the matriarch of a new scholarly elite family.”

“I wonder when they’ll produce a new AI brain model based on this baby?”

Liu Jun chewed his food, slightly surprised.

A natural-born Saint in Rehe City?

In this world, people naturally gifted with psychic cultivation talent were exceedingly rare.

Naturally occurring ones were one in a hundred billion.

In ancient times, such people were called the Literary Stars incarnate, born amid auspicious purple clouds, shrouded in mystery.

Historically, they were as rare as phoenix feathers and unicorn horns.

One person could defeat armies, fly and vanish, command thousands of swords, eventually becoming the stuff of divine legends.

As time passed, humans learned to divide their power and emulate their scholarly methods, ushering in the era of Confucian sages and Daoist saints.

Now,

Humans further harnessed their power, inventing artificial auxiliary AI brains, marking the age of universal cultivation.

In this era, geniuses born with Saint brains were immediately taken to be core members of major factions, nurtured intensively, and their brains served as prototypes for AI brain models.

Every AI brain model in use today is a replica of a natural-born Saint’s psychic talent.

Yes.

We use replicated genius brain modules to cultivate psychic energy.

They mass-clone brains, then crystallize, carbonize, and circuit them into AI brain products.

In summary, someone like Xu Changsheng, now reduced to a natural idiot without AI brain support, cannot cultivate psychic energy and can only stagnate academically.

“Why don’t you say something?” Li Feng looked at Liu Jun.

“I’m out of energy,” Liu Jun mumbled, head down, eating.

“Then get some rest,” Zou Anmeng said.

“Yeah, yeah,” Li Feng blurted out, quickly agreeing.

Both worried about Liu Jun but feared overburdening him with talk.

They’d grown up together in this rented room; none could do without the others now.

Even setting aside emotions, finding a reliable AI brain roommate in this city was too risky.

The trio of Xu Changsheng, the school beauty, and the chubby kid was proof—once suspicion arose, the group inevitably collapsed.

Yet sticking together wasn’t without benefits.

As Li Feng said, if any one of the three broke through to the third tier, they’d support the others as their inner circle.

After all,

Who better to serve as trusted aides than lifelong friends?

Banding together for warmth, one’s rise lifts all—a practical way for poor, low-tier youths to boost their chances of advancement!

After a moment, Zou Anmeng sighed, “Ah, if only I could have such a child, become the matriarch of a wealthy family, and never have to struggle again.”

Night fell.

After several days of eating the meals the two brought back from the school cafeteria, listening to their school gossip, Liu Jun finally reached the next stage.

The boiling mushroom soup churned, hitting 100% progress for the second time.

The second talent was born!