Soul Trigger

Chapter 22 Cognitive Golem
The burning sensation made Ji Li try his best to hold back his distorted face. The next moment, his eyes blurred and he had actually entered a gray space.

A large amount of black matter rose and reorganized before his eyes, and as the temperature rose, it gradually gathered into a black statue.

When the temperature reached its peak, the statue finally took shape, and the burning sensation gradually receded from the left arm.

“…What the hell!?”

Ji Li in the soul space took several breaths before he recovered and looked at the dark statue:
It was a female figure surrounded by black fluid, with her hands folded together and spread downwards, as if holding something.

The details of the whole body are vague, and only the female features resembling those of Jin Misa and the long, fluffy hair can be seen. What is more eye-catching is the pair of rabbit-like ears on the head.

There is a pedestal under the statue, on which are inscribed densely packed words, but the most eye-catching one is a number that occupies the largest area:

1.

【Cognitive Golem: Daughter of Shadow】

[Current contact level: 1]

[Your existence has been recognized by a powerful human spirit, and this special recognition deepens your connection with the world.]

[The power of the statue can only maintain its form and increase the connection level, and it may be able to continue to improve. ]

The statue was indeed just taking shape, with many parts still having flying fragments and a mist-like structure frozen in mid-air.

"Is this something that was created because of Jin Misa?"

It was too abstract. He hadn't figured out the reasons for gaining cognitive points twice before, and now he was even making art directly in his soul space.

Strictly speaking, however, these three times of obtaining cognitive indexes all have something in common, which is the words in the prompt: "deepen your connection with the world."

In other words, as long as you take actions that are recognized by the curse and can "deepen the connection with the world," you can gain a cognitive index.

The statue’s description mentions recognition, and by this reasoning, recognition from others seems to count as an act of deepening connection to the world.

But can ordinary people do it? And to what extent should they be recognized?

There are no definite answers to these questions yet, and more practice is needed to discover the patterns.

Ji Li walked forward to look at the statue, and then he found that there seemed to be something in the statue's hand. The moment he reached out to touch it, a large amount of black gas rose up and blocked his vision -

After the black air quickly dissipated, the gray space in front of me changed a lot:

It was still the same gray world, but Ji Li was standing on a large suspended stone fragment, and the ground was smooth. There were other floating sharp stones around, like a mini asteroid belt, slowly circling the stone fragment where Ji Li was.

A statue suspected to be named "Daughter of Demonic Shadow" was placed at the edge of the fragments, and in the center of the fragments appeared an ordinary-looking glass display case with two objects neatly placed inside.

One was a faceless bone, and the other was a black, hairy, curved object. Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be a rabbit's foot, much smaller than the faceless bone.

"It's changed... or should I say, evolved?"

After taking a look at the new soul space, he found that Odin was half-crouching on a smaller piece of debris, floating next to the large debris under his feet, and slowly circling around.

He came to the glass display case in the center, which was divided into two parts, left and right.

The space on the left is spacious, with neat cubic spaces cut out from the inside by transparent glass. The faceless bone is placed in one of them, floating quietly in it.

There is also a cubic space cut out in the right part, but it is much smaller than the large grid of the faceless bone and appears a bit narrow. The tiny rabbit foot is placed inside and is also slightly suspended.

Ji Li looked at the black rabbit's foot:
[Personality Fragment: Shadow Rabbit's Foot]

[Soul Quality: Incomplete]

[Feature: Shadow Step. When stepping in the shadows, you gain a slight increase in movement.]

【Cannot be materialized.】

That's it?

Ji Li raised his eyebrows, thinking that it was completely incomparable to the Faceless Bone. Not only was it "broken" and of lower quality than the Faceless Bone when he first got it, but it was also just a fragment, not a personal entity.

He tried to inject it with the Cognitive Index to see if he could "repair" Shadow Rabbit's Foot, but it seemed that the personality fragments could not be repaired, and there was no hint of strengthening.

However, just as he cast his gaze towards the faceless bone next to him, a new message popped up in front of him: [Do you want to consume a certain amount of cognitive points to merge the faceless bone with the shadow rabbit's foot? ]

"You're really becoming more and more like a third-rate trash online game..."

Ji Li sighed, looked at the 15 cognitive points he had just obtained and the function of the shadow rabbit's foot, and said without being too pretentious: "Integrate."

The two of them simultaneously turned into pitch-black fluid and gathered together. When they condensed into shape again, the Faceless Bone was still the Faceless Bone, but there was an extra pendant like a small decoration in the corner of the skull, strung there by a black buckle. It was a small rabbit's foot.

This fusion is really simple and crude.

Ji Li thoroughly evaluated the shape of this mobile phone hook and checked the properties of the faceless bone again:
Personality Entity: Faceless Bone

[Soul quality: inferior]

[Enhanced state: single spiral]

[Features: Willpower Amplification Level 2, Affinity Amplification, Afterimage Step. ]

"It has an additional feature, and its name is also different from the Rabbit's Foot in the Personality Fragment state..."

Ji Li transformed into a faceless skeleton directly in the soul space, and found that his bony feet were stained with some flame-shaped black lines, spreading from the soles of his feet to his calf bones.

After performing several sets of sprinting and moving actions, the Ascension Protocol gave specific values:
Compared to the previous faceless bones, the average speed has increased by 8%-14%, and the flexibility has also increased by about 10%.

"An unexpected improvement..."

Based on previous experience, if the faceless bone continues to be upgraded, the afterimage step should also be enhanced.

However, the cognitive index in his hand may not be able to be further improved. He looked at the cognitive index and saw that there were only 10 points left.

The fusion just now only consumed 5 points. It is obvious that the improvement is proportional to the consumption. The Afterimage Step is obviously not an earth-shattering ability.

But the focus should be on the word "shadow".

According to Ji Li's understanding, this personality fragment related to the shadow should come from Bunny Girl. Considering how this guy performed in the Lingbo Prison, it seems worth looking forward to.

Ji Li wanted to continue testing whether the Afterimage Step had any other effects, but he seemed to have stayed in the soul space for a little too long, and for some reason he felt that his body was gradually being pulled away.

When he suddenly opened his eyes in reality, he saw Jin Misha's somewhat anxious face.

And a slap flying towards his cheek——

Ji Li immediately raised his hand to block it, and with a quick thought, he managed to dodge it:
"…What the hell are you doing?"

"You're alive!?"

The girl's gray eyes lit up:
"What do you mean I did? You suddenly lost your eyesight and became like a zombie, sitting there grinning foolishly. I shook you for a long time but you didn't move. I could only try to see if a slap in the face would work..."

"Are you sure you don't want to smear my face so that you can feel more balanced?"

"I'm not, I didn't, don't talk nonsense!"

Shaking her head, Jin Misha stopped talking nonsense with Ji Li:
"So why did you suddenly develop dementia? What are the aftereffects?"

She made a shooting gesture to her head and said, "Do you want me to let the old woman take a look at you? But this time the medical expenses can only be shared by us at most..."

"You should be the one with dementia, little brat."

"Oh, it seems that everything is fine." Jin Misha laughed. "Then hurry up and eat. After you finish eating, I will help you think of a way to contact your family..."

"There's no rush for that." Ji Li touched his chin, looking at Jin Misha eating while thinking about the statue in his mind.

Then he thought about it for a while, and slowed down his voice:
"Yisa~"

Jin Misha shuddered like a rabbit with its fur standing on end, and looked at Ji Li with a chill on her face:

"…What are you doing?"

(End of this chapter)