72: Academy life, battles and research

Upon first entering Academy City, you were like Grandma Liu visiting the Grand View Garden; the city's advanced nature left even you, a child with memories of transmigration who considered himself quite mature, dazzled!

It took you a long time to recover from the shock of this Academy City, a place brimming with cybernetic machinery and wondrous abilities.

There were unmanned airships flying in the sky, various AI robots maintaining the academy's cleanliness and legal Order, metallic fluids that could combine, recombine, deform, and reshape, and various mechs and fighter jets, as well as steel armors combining machinery and abilities!

With numerous mech teams, Ability User teams, constant updates in scientific research, and the testing of war instruments, you felt this was the true world, a beautiful world where you wished to achieve peace!

You stayed at Professor Huaming's home and became friends with his son, Hua Ting. Hua Ting was also a young prodigy, a genius in scientific research.

At just thirteen years old, he was already participating in research with his father.

He even secretly applied to remove the restrictions of his energy suppression bracelet and awakened the ability of spatial fluctuation!

He independently established a research project on spatiotemporal dimension capture and study!

His aim was to find the key to connecting Tianchi Star with the Alien Demon Dimension, how to proactively attack and conquer the Alien Demon Dimension, and overcome the effects of ability sickness!

On an intellectual level, you felt like a complete novice compared to him, uncultured.

In this academy of abilities and technology, Ability Users were generally older than the geniuses on the technology side.

Except for those who unlocked their energy suppression bracelet at sixteen, awakened powerful abilities, and were specially recruited, only those who passed the Ability User examination at nineteen with excellent performance could reside in Academy City.

As for research-type geniuses, they were those who had made outstanding contributions to technological development before awakening their abilities.

They were specially recruited and approved to reside in Academy City!

Many technology-side geniuses, after being specially approved to enter Academy City, could apply to remove the restrictions of their energy suppression bracelet.

However, due to the factor of ability sickness, very few actively chose to remove them.

This led to technology-side research institutes being staffed either by elderly professors or child prodigies!

And adult technology-side geniuses, by the time of a new round of admissions, had already completed their studies and graduated, moving on to apply for jobs around the world.

You couldn't keep up with the academic research on the technology side, but you uniformly replied to the Ability User challenges that you were too strong, and to avoid unnecessary harm, you chose to decline their invitations!

This made many Ability User prodigies furious, gnashing their teeth. Everyone knew you were strong, but you didn't need to be so immodest!

Although you felt you had answered them honestly, they thought you were exceptionally arrogant!

They decided to teach you a lesson and show you not to underestimate them.

The main challengers who finally set up a duel with you were three: Lu Yue, whose ability was Son of the Earth; Moyu, whose ability was Mind Control; and Cao Jinglüe, whose ability was Gravity Manipulation. They challenged you to simulated battles and actual mech battles!

What era was this? Who still fought hand-to-hand? All battles involved abilities combined with technology!

They had their own independent mechs and tactics, believing they could suppress you in this aspect.

You indeed had no experience piloting mechs, but you felt that as a Son of the Sun, you didn't need a fragile outer shell!

With the guidance of your seniors, although your intelligence on the technology side was like that of a normal person, unable to integrate into the genius circle, you could only force your way in!

But in the Ability User circle, it was quite the opposite; even the genius Ability Users couldn't force their way into your circle!

The difference in abilities was too great!

When others asked how you trained, you could only silently feign confusion, "Do abilities even need training?"

Even the few super geniuses of Academy City, the top three on the Ability User ranking, fought you with all their might but failed to make you feel satisfied!

Thus, you declined all challengers, feeling that these Ability Users had no future, and that technology changing the world was more practical. You continued to follow Hua Ting, forcing your way into the circle of technological research.

Under the sunlight, you didn't cultivate much, yet your Ability User level continuously rose, from Awakening, to Transcendent, to King!

You soared, just a step away from becoming an Ability Sovereign!

You needed to weave a Sovereign Domain to become an Ability Sovereign, constructing a power of the illusory dimension, but the energy carried by the Son of the Sun was too vast, and weaving a Sovereign Domain required slow, painstaking effort.

Thus, without much cultivation, your Ability User level surpassed all students in Academy City.

Unlike you, they needed to constantly suppress their cultivation to reduce the impact of ability sickness on themselves, while you had no such worries, so your cultivation speed was so fast that it left others far behind.

At nine years old, your ignorant mind acquired a lot of new knowledge.

You attempted to purify ability sickness, with some effect; it could be cleared, but not eradicated!

However, this was already somewhat worthy of your title as Son of Hope, future savior.

The Ability Users of the Tianchi Federation would eventually see the light of day.

You independently set up a scientific research laboratory to study your own abilities, hoping to launch some beneficial technological products for the people!

However, this was not something that could be accomplished overnight.

In contrast, Hua Ting's dimension research project, which you followed, had made significant progress.

Hua Ting observed spatiotemporal lines from the dimension, and perhaps in the future, by pulling apart the dimensional lines, one could glimpse the profound mystery of world superposition and find a way to completely suppress the Alien Demon Dimension.

In the future, Tianchi Star might also, with Hua Ting's research, break out of the dimension, cross dimensions, and achieve another kind of splendor!

ability sickness was caused by the influence of the Alien Demon Dimension; this was a recognized reason on Tianchi Star. If the Alien Demon Dimension could be shaken off at the dimensional level, then ability sickness could also be defeated without a fight!

Regardless of the aspect, research on dimensional-level topics was very important!

At ten years old, you had already become the recognized number one Ability User in Academy City!

Your Ability User level, which surpassed everyone else's, even reaching the Sovereign Realm, meant that there were few people on Tianchi Star who could threaten you now!

Your growth was evident to all. Through unremitting efforts in scientific research, you also became a professional researcher, although not comparable to geniuses like Hua Ting.

But a ten-year-old researcher who could stand on his own, in some respects, was also a symbol of genius!

Your scientific research yielded some results: you invented a sun capsule, a medicine that could slowly cleanse ability sickness!

Although currently only the first model, and the cleansing speed was very slow, it was a very good start!

At the very least, besides the energy suppression bracelet, the public now had another means of resisting ability sickness!