This... wouldn't work.
On a bustling street, Cid leaned against a wall, hiding in the shadows as he watched the numbers above the heads of the women passing in front of him one by one, a milk tea straw held between his teeth.
In yesterday's great battle, Itogami Island had actually suffered relatively little damage from the aftershocks.
After all, although the battle had first broken out on Itogami Island, the enemy had still been in its first phase back then. It was still in the air, and he had crushed it single-handedly.
By the time the second phase began, their battlefield had already shifted out to sea. A mere Ultimate Dragon God did not have the ability to create any major disturbance in front of him from such a distance.
Only after the opponent erupted and broke through, fully reaching the Beyond Dragon God realm, did the two of them truly begin their all-out battle. They fought their way through every alternate dimension on the planet and even damaged the planet's structure itself.
Itogami Island had been lucky in that regard. Since the two of them had started fighting there, it was basically treated as somewhere they had already passed through, so it had not suffered too much damage... compared to other places.
Oh, "Beyond Dragon God" and "Ultimate Dragon God" were names Cid had come up with himself. After all, when fighting, he needed some kind of combat-power unit to make judgments with.
As for the strength designations announced by the major factions... Cid's gaze shifted slightly to the right. Setting aside the fact that every faction had its own naming system for the different tiers of strength, unless he focused his senses carefully, those so-called A, B, C, and D ranks did not mean much to him. Every time he ran a test, he had to find a B-rank first just to confirm how much power he should use.
If you did not pick up two ants and compare them side by side, how could you tell which one was bigger just by standing there and looking?
Under those circumstances, how could Cid possibly use the factions' naming systems to determine his own strength? Naturally, he had to find his own units of measurement and divide the tiers himself.
In Cid's perception, The Great Red and that little girl named Ophis were quite suitable as combat-power units. At the very least, when someone reached that level of strength, he could feel a certain sense of being observed, and he did not need to focus completely to get a rough sense of the power gap.
So in Cid's personal combat hierarchy, the tiers were ordinary person, Dragon God-level, Strong Dragon God-level, Ultimate Dragon God-level, Beyond Dragon God-level, and then... even Cid himself did not know. Beyond Dragon God was something he had only come up with during yesterday's battle.
The Great Red, that little girl named Ophis, and the two otherworldly Evil Dragons that ambushed him a year ago, successfully leaving him in a sorry state and making him fall into the Three Realms Negotiation Hall, were all Dragon God-level. As for Strong Dragon God-level...
Cid tapped the ground beneath his feet and lowered his head, looking at the planet that had almost fallen apart yesterday.
Purely in terms of scale, the planet beneath his feet, which had fused three worlds together, was Strong Dragon God-level. Well, only in terms of scale.
Its body was far too bloated, its instinctive Wisdom was too low, and its power was extremely scattered. To put it simply, it was like an overweight man who could not reach his own back to scratch an itch. In terms of actual combat power, The Great Red could destroy this blue planet in a few hours.
In Cid's understanding, aside from himself and one thing he was not sure should count, only Son Goki had ever reached the Ultimate Dragon God realm.
In the first stage, Son Goki evenly divided the power inside his body and reached the level of an Ultimate Dragon God. In the second stage, he swallowed most of that power in one go and barely reached Beyond Dragon God through sheer numbers, though he dropped back down very quickly.
Only in the third stage, after erupting and breaking through, when he comprehended the realm of "Heaven, Earth, and Man in Harmony," did he officially reach the Beyond Dragon God realm. He really did have the air of a protagonist. It was just a shame about that Genki Dama.
He had the potential to reach an unknown realm, but he was still limited by the countless beings of the world. Cid had simply banned the special attack of the will of all beings attached to it, and the remaining power, which was merely fifty times the power of Weakening Shadow, was crushed outright by his fully restored stats. Otherwise, that Genki Dama might really have killed him once.
As for "Great Bliss: Billionfold Sensitivity, Slaaneshi Utopia," there was no need to say much. Though he really did not want to acknowledge a move with such a completely mismatched style, judging by the fact that it had risen again to ten-billionfold sensitivity in less than a few seconds, this thing had indeed reached a realm where someone could step on their own foot and climb into the sky.
It was also a terrifying mental judgment-level move. If the target had no soul or mind and was only made of matter, the judgment would automatically succeed.
Even more ridiculous was that since Son Goki was made of her absolute love, reflecting it back would only make her step on her own foot and climb into the sky even faster.
So why was the style so wrong?!
Forget it. He would stop thinking about that for now and quickly figure out this bizarre ability that had somehow evolved.
Cid sucked the last of the milk tea from his cup, crushed it into a ball, and threw it into the trash can. Then he sighed. Thanks to her, he felt as if his entire self had started becoming strange.
There were a lot of people walking along the street, and since Cid was hiding in the shadows, looking upward, he looked like someone cooling off in the shade while spacing out. Because of that, no one noticed his odd expression.
In Cid's eyes, the numbers above the heads of the women walking down the street varied in size, but even the largest did not exceed two digits.
Some of the numbers shone with a dazzling light, while others gave off a much dimmer glow.
After doing a rough count, he found that younger, more energetic people tended to have smaller numbers above their heads, but the light they gave off was dazzling.
For older women, around thirty or forty, the numbers above their heads were generally one or two points higher than those of normal girls, but the brightness had dropped quite a bit.
The girls who were clearly elementary school students had numbers that rarely exceeded five, and their glow was nowhere near as bright as that of high school or college students.
So... the numbers gradually increased with the passage of time, and junior high or high school was the period of rapid growth.
As for the brightness of the glow, considering the difference between Delta and Kuroka Toujou in actual combat yesterday, Cid wondered if it indicated the speed of absorption. There was too little experimental data... he really could not tell.
The colors above everyone's heads were different. Beyond that, there were single colors and multiple colors. Only a dozen or so high school girls had a single color, while most people had two or more colors.
All right. Observation complete. Time to begin the experiment.
Cid bit off the last skewer in his hand and threw the stick into the same trash can as the milk tea cup. Then he stood up and began searching seriously.
Although his consciousness had come infinitely close to blacking out yesterday, Cid had not actually lost consciousness, so he still remembered the path his airflow had taken inside Kuroka Toujou and Delta's bodies.
That meant he only needed to find any female passerby with a bright multicolored glow, and he could roughly figure out the principle behind this ability. After all, his body's autonomous evolution could not exist independently of his main body.
The effect might be poor since he was not doing it, but that did not matter. What mattered now was figuring out the principle behind this ability. Even if it was another version of her, she could not possibly bypass him and create an ability that even he himself could not understand.
"Hey, young man, could you move aside? You're blocking the way for me and my boyfriend."
"Hey, old man, don't stand there. Didn't you hear what Sayu said?"
The voices came from behind him. The path looked wide enough for several people, but since they were being fairly polite, Cid had been planning to step out first and come back to observe afterward. Until he heard someone call him "old man."
He glanced back. Hmm. A hot girl in a long purple dress, and a guy carrying a pile of shopping bags. A delinquent high schooler, maybe? They seemed to be a couple, maybe?
Still, with the dozens of shopping bags in the delinquent high schooler's hands, plus the hot girl walking beside him, it made sense that they needed Cid to move.
It was also worth noting that the number above the hot girl's head had reached eight, and its colors were an unprecedented blend of multiple types.
"…Hey, old man, what are you trying to do to Sayu-chan?!"
When he saw Cid looking over, the delinquent high schooler panicked for a second or two, but quickly steadied himself and snapped at him in a fierce tone. The guilt in his voice, however, did not escape Cid.
"Dear, this young man was probably just startled by you, so he turned around to look. A delinquent should be a little more open-minded."
The hot girl seemed speechless at her boyfriend's clumsy attempt at acting tough and tugged lightly on his arm.
"Hmph, Sayu-chan, I told you. You belong to me alone. I'll always protect you…"
"Right, right. Sorry, I was in the way."
To spare himself and the hot girl from being embarrassed to death by this green delinquent high schooler, who had clearly watched too many TV dramas and was trying far too hard to act tough, Cid considerately spoke up to smooth things over.
"Hmph. Watch where you're going next time, old man, or things won't end this easily…"
All right, that still annoyed him a little.
Cid gave the high school boy a cold look. The guy had no idea his girlfriend was embarrassed by him, and instead seemed to think he looked cool and delinquent. Cid took a step back, leaving enough room for them to pass.
Then, after the high school boy walked past him and his girlfriend was about to brush by, Cid turned forward as if he were about to leave. His shoulder accidentally bumped into the hot girl's shoulder.
"Mm!"
With a low moan, the hot girl instantly collapsed to the ground, her head lowered, while Cid turned back with a startled look.
"Ah! Sayu-chan!"
Hearing his girlfriend's voice, the high school boy turned and saw what had happened. He cried out in alarm, immediately locked onto Cid, dropped the bags in his hands, and rushed up to him, grabbing him by the clothes and slamming him against the wall.
"You damn bastard! What did you do to Sayu-chan?!"
Hearing that furious voice, Cid felt he probably ought to be angry. After all, the two people in front of him were just ordinary people. He could use his identity as a Magic Swordsman to beat them up properly. Yes, that would do.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to."
Pfft…
That so-called dual cultivation… no, the Harvesting Yang to Supplement Yin trajectory was actually quite simple. It merely used their connected bodies to open another channel, then used the other party's "individual existence" to mimic Cid for training.
Once the number above her head reached zero, it meant that the mimicked extraction had been completely drained. After that, the mimicry would be released, and the training progress produced by the mimicry would be brought out and stacked onto him. As for the side effects… it only required maintaining billionfold sensitivity.
To be honest, using someone else's existence to mimic him for training completely violated the law of conservation of mass. Given the essential difference between him and others, applying this training method was as absurd as borrowing a cat to lay eggs.
But that was magic, wasn't it?
After all, magic was a wonderful thing where the total amount stayed the same when split apart, yet somehow increased when combined again. There was no need to worry about it. All that mattered was knowing that the cat had laid an egg.
Each person's color was determined by their own attributes. At first, it would only be a single color, but as the number of body-linked partners increased, mimicking that "individual existence" became harder and harder. The main issue was that the Qi grew muddled. Qi mixed with Qi, and multiple colors meant he had to spend a great deal of effort sorting through and filtering them out.
As for the number above that hot girl's head, it basically covered every color system. After he made a lap through her body and came back out, the Qi body that had been mimicked for less than a millisecond carried nearly a hundred traces of other people's Qi. More importantly, none of them belonged to that male high school student. And what did that mean…?
Thinking about how the guy was all posture and no nerve, pretending to be a fierce delinquent in front of the hot girl, Cid could not help but find it funny. Forget the fact that the high school boy had only pinned him against the wall and did not dare actually throw a punch. Even if he really did get beaten up right now, Cid could still smile and apologize to him.
He had thought it was a pure young virgin meeting a caring older sister, but in reality, it was just a creepy loser high school boy being played in the palm of the hot girl's hand.
"Hey, what are you laughing at?!"
Maybe Cid had gotten a little too pleased with himself, because the other guy noticed his smile. That instantly provoked the high school boy into swinging his fist down.
"You actually dared to hurt Sayu…"
"Stop!"
The fist froze. The hot girl, who seemed to have recovered, held her head and stopped him from attacking.
"Thank goodness, Sayu-chan. Just wait a second. I'll deal with this guy who dared to hurt…"
"I told you to stop!"
"Uh… okay."
Seeing his girlfriend recover, the high school boy still wanted to show off his masculinity by throwing a punch, but after being urgently stopped, he could only stare blankly as his girlfriend stepped in front of Cid.
"Hey, young man. Want to exchange contact info?"
Holding up her phone, the hot girl raised an eyebrow and ignored her boyfriend's disbelief, staring at Cid with heated eyes.
"Um, Sayu, isn't this kind of…"
"We'd just be friends, Boyfriend-kun.
Also, could you not call me Sayu? I'm still more used to you calling me Shirakawa. After all, we've only been dating for a few days…"
"Huh?!"
He wanted to argue that she was his girlfriend, and that it felt too distant for a boyfriend and girlfriend to call each other by their surnames, but when he saw the irritated look on his girlfriend's face, the high school boy shut his mouth.
Looking at those heated eyes and her fairly attractive face, Cid smiled faintly, pushed away the phone in front of him, and walked toward the outside path.
"No thanks. I'm just not interested in that kind of thing right now."
"Ah, but Sayu-chan is the one asking someone else for his contact info. How can you refuse…"
"I told you, call me Shirakawa. Don't act so familiar with me. Ah… forget it. Give me my things. Let's end the date here for now."
Still a hopeless simp.
Listening to the voices behind him, Cid muttered silently to himself.
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