Am I really hallucinating?

Chapter 7 Violence Index
Lin Yilin's office temporarily became Zheng Fan's base, and he was no longer a wandering ghost.

This is a good thing.

This also enabled Zheng Fan to test, understand and master his current situation more easily.

Although he possessed a minimum of adventurous spirit, he was still a typical lazy man. And according to Lin Yilin, if he was discovered, he would be captured by those uniformed people called the Management Bureau.

A small firm like hers is not qualified to keep phantom individuals.

Lin Yilin arrived at the office early in the morning. As soon as she opened the door, she saw a black cat passing by with its two tails wagging.

"Good morning, Mr. Illusion."

"Well, good morning." The black cat spoke in response, then changed back to Zheng Fan's appearance and stood up. "I'm almost used to animals walking on four legs. It's not very difficult."

Lin Yilin went to the desk, sat down and opened her laptop.

Watching Zheng Fan's casual transformation, Lin Yilin pondered and asked, "If Mr. Illusion turns into a giant dragon in a fantasy story, can he breathe fire like those dragons?"

Hearing this, Zheng turned the dog's head over - he had indeed turned his head into the shape of a dog.

“I can shape the appearance, but I can’t do other things like breathing and magic for now. Forget about a dragon. I can’t even take off after turning into a bird.” Zheng Fan said, stretching out a hand that turned into a bird wing and waved it.

“Is it because you don’t understand the structure?”

"There's no way to understand that structure. Do I still need to look at the setting collection of fantasy creatures?" Zheng Fan said helplessly as he changed the dog's head back into a human face.

"It may also have nothing to do with that. It's just the lack of some more convenient medium." Lin Yilin thought for a moment.

Hearing this, Zheng Fan stretched out two fingers and held the black bead obtained from another illusion: "Do you know anything about this thing?"

Lin Yilin shook her head: "I don't know."

Zheng Fanto caught the bead and said, "What a shame. I thought it was the superpower currency of this world, such as some kind of magic beast crystal core, monster inner elixir, etc."

"Except for the illusion itself, the supernatural side of this world is not so unified. Each illusion will express completely different power according to different events, psychology, etc. It's incredible." Lin Yilin explained.

"What special power did the knocker have before?"

"Illusions that come from human bodies are generally not that exaggerated. If I have to say anything, it's just that it's good at chopping people, but other than that, it doesn't have any abilities that are beyond imagination."

"Seriously, it's pretty impressive that I was almost killed by you after taking two bullets." Zheng Fan said.

"You are far inferior to Mr. Illusion. My earthworm has become like this now." Lin Yilin stretched out her hand and conjured up her own earthworm.

Without Zheng Fan's blessing, these earthworms no longer had the strange python-like body shape they had before, but they were still much larger than Lin Yilin's original appearance, equivalent to some small and medium-sized snakes.

Its original harmless appearance was no longer there. The cracked mouthparts on its head kept opening and closing, ready to bite off a piece of flesh from a person at any time.

Lin Yilin said: "This is the first time I've seen this happen. You didn't give me any other powers, but instead caused my original abilities to mutate."

"Come to think of it, what's up with these earthworms of yours? You said that the source of your superpowers is illusion, which means you already had an illusion?" Earthworms also crawled out from under Zheng Fan's feet. They were giant monster earthworms just like the ones that night.

Even if he got off Lin Yilin's body, the ability that he had changed before fell into Zheng Fan's hands.

Lin Yilin took in this scene and replied, "When I was a child, I was marked by an illusion. The ability to summon earthworms was extended from this mark. The illusion has never tried to find me for so many years."

It felt like there was a lot of stories, but it wasn't something worth getting happy about. Zheng Fan didn't ask any more questions, thinking about going out for a walk later.

Although he is temporarily cooperating with Lin Yilin, he naturally understands the principle of not putting all the eggs in one cage. It is important to see if he can find a few more "hosts" in case of future needs.

How should I put it? Miss Lin Yilin looked like she could easily die. Zheng Fan was not too sure about the fact that she showed no expression even when she was stabbed in the chest.

He paced around the office, his eyes scanning the calendar on the wall.

"Is there a 31st in April?" On the calendar, after April 30th, a "31st" was handwritten in bold black pen, which was very eye-catching.

The men in uniform seemed to have mentioned April 31st before.

There was no extra number 32 on the May calendar, but an extra red number 30 was inserted in between the 30th.

"Of course there is no April 31st in the White Peace World, but it is not necessarily the case in the Gray Block. It feels like there is a bug in the real world. There may be one extra day at the end of each month." Lin Yilin's slender fingers tapped quickly on the keyboard, making a sound, and she took the time to explain.

"If the black mark is the black world, then what is the red one?"

"A world of violence." Lin Yilin's world of typing on the keyboard came to an abrupt halt. She looked up and said, "Red symbolizes a world of violence, one of the most fundamental components of human beings."

"Elaborate."

Lin Yilin stroked the mouse with her finger and thought: "The world of violence is actually deeply rooted in the normal world, and only occasionally overlaps and expresses itself through certain people. The extra 30th in some months will make the violent world surface in full force. It will be very lively then."

“What happens when violent worlds overlap?”

"Of course it's violent incidents. Fights, murders, cruelty... These things will keep coming up for various purposes, but on the other hand, it's also a good opportunity to get the violence index."

"What is the violence index?" Zheng Fan listened to Lin Yilin's mouth uttering unfamiliar terms.

"Hmm..." Lin Yilin pondered for a moment, as if thinking about how to explain: "In layman's terms, it's like 'combat power'."

"Combat strength?"

"Most of the indicators named by someone in history can roughly summarize the intensity of violence of individuals and groups. But the violence index is not entirely an expression of combat effectiveness. The index itself will in turn affect the combat effectiveness of the existence. Participating in violent activities in a violent world can increase the violence index."

At this point, Lin Yilin paused, stared at Zheng Fan and said, "Of course, because violence is the foundation of all worlds, many things are born with a high violence index, and most of them are illusions from the black world."

Zheng pointed at himself and asked: "Is my violence index okay?"

He felt that he should be able to do well.

Since he was a child, his most confident strength has been fighting.

Some people even called him a natural born killer, which sounded a bit childish, but the teacher who taught him for several years in the original world did describe him that way. However, Zheng Fan felt that this teacher who read novels every day might have gone a little too far.

Even if it was true, it would be basically useless in modern society. Of course, I was referring to the peaceful society before he traveled through time. Even if he could play professional games, he didn't have that strong desire to perform.

"The lowest level of fuzzy estimation is probably the [gang] level." Lin Yilin looked around and said, then pointed at herself: "Someone like me is a second-level [chicken], only slightly better than [nothing]."

"Pfft, what kind of graded title is this?" Zheng Fan couldn't help but think that people who play with certain memes too much will probably get a disease where "seeing a chicken reminds you of old friends."

"Because they are 'weak as a kite'. This is a rough estimate of the violence index. It becomes more and more vague as time goes on. Each level is expressed by the most easily summarized phenomenon in people's impression. 'Gang' is the fifth level, and between it and 'chicken' there are two levels: 'fight' and 'cluster'."

After that, Lin Yilin added: "Normally, the 'cluster' level and above is already rare on weekdays."

"Then it seems that I am really good at it."

"You're too modest." Lin Yilin returned her gaze to the computer. "In the records of Xixikeke Street, there haven't been any illusions with an initial violence index above 'cluster' for more than ten years. It's already rare."

(End of this chapter)