Chapter 31: The Beyond Extraordinary Mentifery Superpower

Tang Mu grinned after his eyes took in Little Green's dazed expression. Without saying anything, he placed the black iron rod he had manifested with his imagination to the side before stretching out his hand again.

He went through the process from before and visualized something else. He worked unhurriedly to understand the workings of his superpower as he constructed his target image within his thought center.

In the meantime, something enigmatic was happening deep within Tang Mu's physical embodiment. An almost inconspicuous jolt passed through his mind, and his unlocked Galactic Chakra trembled slightly.

Right on cue, the blood-red crystal floating in the chakra space also experienced some fluctuations. Its green eye with a black vertical slit for a pupil throbbed and turned into a spinning vortex. This whirlpool quickly absorbed the pinkish-orange foggy psionic energy within Tang Mu's unlocked chakra space before letting out an incomprehensible force.

The incomprehensible force seemed to resonate with some vague and abstruse omnipresent law as Tang Mu utilized his awakened Mentifery superpower to construct his intended image in his mind. Then, through that paranormal resonance, Tang Mu focused his psionic abilities and gradually manifested a solid black arrow within his outstretched hand.

However, Tang Mu didn't just stop at that. He was intent on mastering his core superpower. So, he went through the same motions and continued manifesting various objects with just his thoughts and imagination.

The other manifested objects were a cup, shoes, and a steel sword. Tang Mu had brought all of them into existence with his thoughts, imagination, and some expenditure of his psionic energy. This series of miracles showed how extraordinary the Mentifery superpower he had just awakened could be.

Wonderful!

A Cheshire cat's grin outlined Tang Mu's face after he finished his experiments. He had basically understood how his Mentifery superpowers worked after he manifested the four objects beside him.

As long as he had a clear image of the structure of what he wanted to manifest, he would bring it into existence using his imagination by expending a percentage of his psionic energy and spiritual force. And as long as he had the 'energy' to spend and the required knowledge, he could literally manifest his thoughts and visions into reality.

Such was the extraordinariness of his awakened Mentifery superpower. His imagination could create reality.

Moreover, as his powers grew, he would maybe gain the ability to manifest complex things like advanced technological constructs, intricate processes, and even biological organisms full of life. Such was the potential of such an extraordinary superpower.

Tang Mu smiled, feeling like he was in the ninth heaven. He then focused on the other fragments of the mysterious knowledge he had absorbed during his breakthrough.

This was knowledge about darkness and space manipulation that he had acquired from the mysterious source rune he had swallowed along with the crystals of origin essence during his breakthrough.

The absorption of the knowledge didn't directly allow him to obtain the two abilities of space and darkness manipulation per se. Instead, it had ingrained two complex arrays containing the occult runes of both domains deep within his mind and soul.

Tang Mu wasn't a runic engineer. He obviously didn't understand the occult and metaphysical conundrums behind the runic arrangements of those two arrays. But even then, he could effortlessly recall their complex structures due to the knowledge he had received. He could even visualize them just by closing his eyes and focusing a bit.

Since I have the knowledge in my head, can't I rely on it to manifest these mysterious arrays into reality?

Such a thought passed in Tang Mu's head, causing his excitement to spike. In a flash, he focused his mind and started visualizing the simpler of the two arrays.

He followed his previous experiences and instincts to manifest the visualized array structure into reality with his willpower and thoughts. However, that time around, the process was a bit more complicated.

Yes, the image of the mysterious array slowly congealed into something like a fleeting and illusionary pentagram filled with occult runes around Tang Mu. It even covered the entire first-level platform of the Star God Pagoda's Celestial Gallery in a veil of darkness. However, the manifestation process took more than five minutes and consumed quite a significant fraction of Tang Mu's remaining psionic energy.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

This was an ability that he couldn't currently use in battle.

"So, you can already use your Mentifery superpower to manifest darkness and spatial runes," Little Green said with obvious surprise. "This superpower is beyond the realms of the abnormal." She seemed unbothered by the darkness around the platform.

Tang Mu nodded without dispelling the veil of darkness. "As long as I have complete knowledge of something within my mind, I'll be able to manifest it with my imagination after spending some energy. This includes runes, physical objects, and other things I'm yet to comprehend."

"Understandable," Little Green said. "But as I can see, your superpower also has some limits. For instance, those other objects you manifested have just disappeared."

"Eh!" Tang Mu let out a gasp and looked to the side. The veil of darkness he created with his Mentifery didn't obstruct his vision. He could see that the manifested iron rod, arrow, cup, shoes, and steel sword had, at some point, disappeared.

"It seems that the objects I bring into existence with my superpower can only last for a short time." He sighed dejectedly.

"You shouldn't feel down," Little Green consoled. "From what I have seen, the creations you manifest with your Mentifery should remain in reality for about 30 minutes if all other factors remain constant. Within this time, they will have already served their purpose."

"Moreover, you should understand that the Mentifery superpower is extremely sensitive to your thoughts and willpower, and you're literally using your mind to continue warping reality. Thus, if you remove your attention from the visualizations of your manifested objects, they will slowly disappear and cease to exist."

"Of course, how long the creations last in reality depends on the mental powers of the person who cast the ability. For a typical rank one, this can be a few minutes. But your case is different. Your exceptional mental strength and willpower attributes can already match that of a rank-two being. That's why your creations with your Mentifery superpower take about thirty minutes to disappear."

"Following the same reasoning, the creations manifested from the imagination of powerful divine beings would take billions of eons or longer to disappear. In fact, there are some who believe that this multiverse we live in is just some creation imagined and manifested into reality by some ancient mighty being. And if that being stops imagining it, it will slowly start to disappear and eventually vanish into nihility."

"Are you for real?" Tang Mu couldn't help but chuckle, thinking that the imaginations of those people were absurd. But then, he thought of his superpower and quickly shut up.

"This indeed is a possibility," he said, eyes flashing with a trace of doubt. "Could everything about me be something born out of the imagination of some being?"

Little Green chuckled at that and dispelled the darkness around the platform with a wave of her arm. "Don't overthink such things. What I just said is a theory that is yet to be proven. There are many more theories explaining the birth of the multiverse. But you don't need to concern yourself with them. They won't affect you, a weak rank-one being, even if they hold some truth."

"I understand," Tang Mu said and let out a breath.

Little Green beamed. "From what I have seen, you can effortlessly manifest simple physical objects using your awakened superpower. But we still need to understand the energy demands of your ability. This will allow you to use it comfortably in battle."

"So, let me ask you this. How much psionic energy did you use to manifest the iron rod, arrow, cup, shoes, and steel sword?"

"Maybe 20% of my total energy reserve," Tang Mu said in a not-so-confident tone. "I'm sure I used about 5% to create the first iron rod. I should have used an additional 15% to manifest the arrow, cup, shoes, and steel sword."

"Oh!" Little Green nodded. "This implies that you used 20% of your energy to manifest about 9kg of simple physical objects. Going by this, I can deduce that the limit of what you can manifest after expending all your current psionic energy should be about 45kg."

"That's true," Tang Mu agreed. The math behind this was simple.

"Then, how much energy did you use to manifest that array that created the veil of darkness?" Little Green asked.

Tang Mu closed his eyes and felt the pinkish-orange misty energy within his unlocked Galactic Chakra. After a few seconds of thinking, he looked at Little Green and said, "I'm only remaining with about 40% of the total energy I had before using the ability. So, I must have used about 40% of my full reserve to manifest the array."

Little Green nodded, her eyes flashing with a strange light. "The array you manifested with your Mentifery is a rank-one runic configuration that conceals a small space or an object in a veil of darkness. With your current powers, you should only be able to cast a maximum of three arrays at such a level. Moreover, that's on the condition that you completely master your abilities."

"That's indeed the case," Tang Mu said. He felt he could manifest the veil of darkness only one more time before expending all the psionic energy contained within his unlocked Galactic Chakra.

Little Green smiled. "This is an estimate of the extent of your current abilities. But don't just rely on these estimates we've just deduced. Instead, practice your ability until you grasp it completely. And by grasping, I'm referring to using it almost by instinct and comprehending to what extent you can employ it in battle."

"You can constantly ask yourself these questions. How many kilos of a physical object can I manifest with my current energy pool? How often can I manifest an ability conjured from a runic arrangement in a given period? Answers to such questions can prevent you from overestimating your abilities and trying to manifest impossible items during critical moments of a battle."

"I understand," Tang Mu said. He had already thought of all these issues. But he would give them more attention after listening to Little Green's advice.

Little Green's smile widened, and her eyes twinkled. "There's one more thing I need to emphasize. Your bond with the star orb has strengthened after your breakthrough to rank one. Try to understand the advantages resulting from this after you head out."

"A strengthened bond with the star orb?" Tang Mu's eyes wavered with a bit of haze. But before he could ask anything else, Little Green waved her hand, and his body disappeared from the Star God Pagoda. She had chased him out even before he could say his goodbyes.