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Chapter 455 Caroline's Metamorphosis - Quantumization [4000 words]

[Martial Arts Battle in Tiandu, Tianwu Training Base]

"So, these are the fragments of the special experimental object you encountered in Yueshan City. Let me see them."

In the metallic training room, the cold light of tactical lamps fell on the black fragments on the table, reflecting a dull luster.

Caroline's finger hovered three centimeters above the fragment, and a stream of pale green data rolled rapidly in her pupils.

That was her performance after connecting to the Star Envoy Association's core database and matching it with the data of the mysterious black fragment in front of her.

After a moment, Caroline withdrew her hand and frowned, saying, "No matching record found. The energy reaction of this fragment is very special. It has both traces of erosion from the abyss and patterns of mechanical modification. It doesn't seem to be a product of the old era, but more like a new experiment in recent years."

She paused, looked at the Heavenly Dao, and her green pupils held a hint of seriousness.

"Of course, there is another possibility. Its data access level is higher than the data access level I currently have, so I don't have the right to access it."

"As expected."

Heaven didn't seem to care too much, or perhaps all of this was within its expectations.

It's obvious that this is something that will only appear in the next season.

Therefore, it's perfectly normal that Caroline in this season doesn't know the true nature of this thing.

Thinking of this, Tiandao immediately leaned back on the sofa and casually flicked the black fragments to the center of the table.

After a moment's thought, Caroline said, "Should I go to headquarters and request higher access to the data?"

As a disciple of Grandmaster Ennett, Caroline naturally possesses such abilities.

But Heaven refused.

"no need."

Caroline thought for a moment, then nodded.

She understood that since Heaven had said this, it meant that Heaven must have made some decision.

Although she didn't know what the Heavenly Dao's decision was, she never interfered with the Heavenly Dao's thoughts.

While she doesn't interfere, Caroline will still use her own methods to help the Heavenly Dao reduce trouble.

She then opened the tactical tablet beside her and pulled up an encrypted file.

"The follow-up plan for Yueshan City has been released. Headquarters will send people to take over the Yueshan City branch for three months, until the selection of a new branch president is completed."

Caroline paused, then pointed to a blurry photo of a corpse on the tactical tablet.

"Also, the true identity of that 'branch president' has been found out."

"The real him died half a year ago during an exploration of the occupied area; what returned was an imposter."

"Its mimicry ability is very special; it can replicate the host's memories and some of the star source fluctuations. Unfortunately, no one in the branch has discovered it."

“That’s normal. After all, most people are blinded by the ‘gift of power’ and even if they discover something, they pretend they haven’t.”

Tiandao popped open a can of orange soda, the hissing sound of the bubbles bursting was particularly clear in the quiet training room.

He tilted his head back and took a gulp, the icy liquid sliding down his throat.

“I’ve seen that thing in Elijah’s memories, but unfortunately, that guy seemed to know that Moon Mountain City wasn’t a safe place, and he left three months ago, which is why I didn’t stay in Moon Mountain City for long.”

"Alright, I've done what I was supposed to do. The rest is up to others."

As soon as he finished speaking, the Heavenly Dao's gaze fell on Caroline.

Since the trial on Longevity Island, the aura Caroline exuded after fusing with the Miracle Stone has become increasingly peculiar, even his Star Eclipse Heavenly Eye could not easily see through it.

With a hint of curiosity, the Heavenly Dao asked, "Caroline, to what extent has your 'Law of Exchange' progressed?"

Upon hearing this, Caroline made no further movements, but simply slowly raised her right hand.

The moment she raised her hand, her arm suddenly glowed with a translucent light.

The lights in the training room shone through her forearms, casting blurry shadows on the floor, making even the fabric of her clothes appear as transparent as frosted glass.

Upon seeing this, the Heavenly Dao immediately activated its Star Eclipse Heavenly Eye. In its azure eyes, Caroline's body outline transformed into countless pulsating quantum light points.

This surprised him secretly.

It should be noted that even laws-level abilities will present clear energy trajectories in the eyes of his Star Eclipse Heavenly Eye.

But Caroline now feels like she's caught between 'reality' and 'illusion'.

The light spots on its body sometimes condensed into shapes, and sometimes diffused into mist, making it impossible to pinpoint its true nature.

"This can't be a simple blurring effect, can it?"

Tiandao put down the soda, leaned forward slightly, and spoke with an unusual curiosity in his voice.

"What did you combine 'exchange' with?"

"My 'quantum soul'."

Caroline walked to the table and picked up a red apple that was placed next to the training equipment.

She raised her hand to hold the apple above her head, then suddenly let go.

The apple fell with the force of gravity, but passed straight through her hanging hand without making any impact.

Just a second before the apple was about to hit the table, Caroline's hand suddenly solidified from its semi-transparent state and steadily caught the apple.

“The core of the law of exchange is ‘equivalent substitution.’ I used the energy of the Miracle Stone as a medium to set ‘material form’ and ‘quantum form’ as equivalent terms that can be converted in both directions.”

She placed the apple on the table, ran her fingertip across its surface, leaving a pale green trail of light. The apple's skin briefly became transparent at the trail, revealing the core inside.

"The trigger condition is clear: it requires consuming 10% of my base star energy, and the conversion takes 0.033 seconds. This gap is my only weakness at present."

"After the transformation is successful, I will become a cluster of quantum-state light spots, completely avoiding physical collisions and energy impacts, because the carriers of these attacks are 'matter' and cannot act at the quantum level."

She paused, raised her hand to demonstrate, and her forearm became translucent again.

"But I can't attack actively in the quantum state either. It takes 0.033 seconds to solidify before physical contact can be made, just like when I caught the apple. First, I quantize it so that the apple passes through, and then I solidify it instantly to catch it."

0.033 seconds is what is commonly known as 'one frame'.

In other words, Caroline currently only has a brief 'one-frame' window of vulnerability; for the rest of the time, she can completely ignore enemy attacks, which is quite domineering.

But her abilities don't stop there.

Suddenly, Caroline's figure transformed into a silver-white streak of light, disappearing into the tactical tablet on the table like a signal.

The next second, the tablet screen lit up, Caroline's virtual avatar appeared in the center of the screen, and her voice came out through the speaker.

"The quantum form also allows me to travel through any carrier with quantum properties, such as networks, optical computers, and even star energy transmission lines, all of which can become my 'carriers'."

Silvery-white light shot out from the flat plate again, and Caroline solidified in place. The light particles on her hair merged into her skin, leaving a faint fluorescent mark.

"This is a derivative ability of my quantum mechanics, which I call 'quantum travel'."

She pointed to the interface of the tactical tablet and said, "As long as there is a flow of quantum signals inside the carrier, such as the circuits of the optical brain or the energy waves of the star energy pipe, I can integrate my quantum-state body into the signal flow and move at a speed of 300 meters per second." "But the restrictions are also very strict. The carrier must be in an active state, and devices that are powered off cannot pass through; the distance of a single trip cannot exceed 5 kilometers, otherwise the quantum light spot will dissipate."

She raised her hand to activate the star energy detector on her wrist, and the screen displayed 'Quantum conversion cooldown time: 30 seconds'.

"Moreover, there is a 30-second cooldown between the two transformations to prevent star energy disorder from causing the form to go out of control."

"If we can control quantum properties, what about information storage?"

The question of the Way of Heaven goes straight to the heart.

He was well aware that one of the most powerful properties of quantum mechanics is its information-carrying capacity.

If Caroline could store her consciousness in the form of quantum information, it would be almost equivalent to immortality.

Upon hearing this, Caroline's expression darkened. She walked to the window and looked at the artificial forest outside the training base. Her fingertips unconsciously traced a path on the glass, leaving a trail of quantum light dots.

"Theoretically, it is possible, because the core characteristic of quantum is information carrying. As long as the core database of the Star Envoy Association stores three core data, including my memories, personality, and star energy fluctuation frequency."

"Even if my physical body is destroyed, I can still reconstruct the quantum cluster using a template and then condense it into a physical form, but..."

She turned around, a hint of confusion in her green eyes.

"Databases store 'information,' but part of my self-awareness is the 'emotional frequency' unique to the soul. This non-data-driven quality cannot be quantum-replicated at all."

"Therefore, I have a feeling that if I die now, the 'me' after resurrection will have my memories, but she will not have my soul. At best, she will be a perfect copy, not the original me."

"understood."

After a moment of contemplation, Tiandao offered his analysis.

"If you want to achieve data immortality and soul immortality in the quantum sense."

"Then you need to find an anchor point in the realm of the soul, such as using the 'exchange' ability of the Miracle Stone to convert 'emotional frequency' into storable quantum signals, and then completely bind your own 'soul consciousness' and 'quantum information' so that you can fully restore it during reconstruction."

"Yes."

Caroline nodded, looked directly into the eyes of the Heavenly Dao, and replied, "Perhaps once I fully grasp the essence of 'exchange,' I will be able to find the answer I seek."

Knowing this, Tiandao leaned back on the sofa and opened another can of soda.

He looked at the quantum light points flowing around Caroline and suddenly laughed: "Caroline, now... even I feel a little threatened by you."

Although Tiandao was joking, for the viewers of the anime/manga world, his comment greatly enhanced Caroline's current "value".

Before Caroline could answer, the automatic door to the training room suddenly slid open, and Jing Liuli rushed in carrying a plastic bag.

"Threat? What threat? Is there another snack enemy that I need to eliminate?"

Seeing that Tiandao and Caroline were looking at her with strange eyes, Jing Liuli raised the plastic bag without caring.

"Ta-da! Look, I brought you freshly baked matcha mochi!"

She ran to the table and was about to place the plastic bag next to the black shards on the table when Caroline quickly stopped her.

"Be careful of glass; it's highly corrosive to ordinary objects."

As she spoke, Caroline used a special container to collect the mysterious black fragment.

Jing Liuli didn't care too much about this, since she and Tiandao had collected this thing together.

"What's the big deal? I feel fine with that thing, it's not dangerous at all."

"It's better to be careful."

Faced with Caroline's 'rigor', Jing Liuli ultimately didn't say much on the topic. She opened the plastic bag on the spot and distributed some sweet potatoes inside to Tiandao and Caroline.

He then picked one up and stuffed it into his mouth, puffing out his cheeks and mumbling something.

“Caroline, when I went down the corridor just now, I felt a very strange stellar energy fluctuation here. It’s not the vector force field of the Heavenly Dao, nor is it ordinary stellar energy. It’s like… many points of light are jumping around.”

As they were talking, Jing Liuli suddenly opened her eyes wide and looked at Caroline, her purple pupils gleaming.

"No, Caroline, how did your star energy become like this?"

"I touched it with my dream perception, and it felt like a light I couldn't grasp. What did you do???"

Upon hearing this, Caroline rarely showed an amused smile.

Her figure became semi-transparent again, and she reached out and gently touched the soda can of the Heavenly Dao.

The soda in the can suddenly 'disappeared,' and the next second it condensed into a ball of floating liquid in her hand, suspended in her palm.

Jing Liuli moved closer to Caroline and reached out to touch the floating liquid, but her fingers passed right through it.

"Wow, Caroline, what kind of magic is this?"

"A quantum state."

Caroline withdrew her star energy, and the floating liquid fell back into the soda can.

"I can briefly quantize myself and the objects I come into contact with, and objects in the quantum state are not harmed by any form of material matter."

"so smart?!"

Jing Liuli's eyes lit up as she said to herself, "Then I'll use my dream domain to trap the enemy, and Caroline, you can use quantum teleportation to flank them, while Tiandao will handle the frontal attacks. Who can stand against us then!"

That confident tone gave off a feeling that if I teamed up with XX, we could "ruin everything".

While watching the boisterous Jing Liuli, Caroline glanced at her tactical tablet out of the corner of her eye.

On the personal data panel of the tactical tablet, the words 'Current Star Energy Remaining: 95%' were clearly displayed.

It was obvious that the demonstration just now had consumed 5% of her star energy.

In a real battle, the costs will only be greater.

Jing Liuli stuffed the last mochi into her mouth and wiped her mouth with a tissue.

Then, he suddenly pointed to the black fragment that Caroline had placed in a container not far away and said, "Caroline, when I was in Moon Mountain City, I saw 'light spots' that looked like quantum data in its residual energy. Remember to keep an eye out for them later."

Upon hearing this, Tiandao and Caroline exchanged a glance, both seeing seriousness in each other's eyes.

Jing Liuli's dream perception can capture the most essential emotions of energy. Her discovery suggests that the research field of that mysterious force seems to have also ventured into the quantum level.

"But whatever it is, let's eat some sweets to replenish our energy first!"

Jing Liuli changed the subject and pushed the plastic bag between the two of them.

After all, the snacks in that plastic bag weren't just matcha sweet potato.

"Caroline, try this new strawberry-flavored energy bar, it tastes really good."

"it is good."

Sunlight streamed in through the porthole of the training room, falling on the three of them.

The black fragments inside the glass container on the table still gleamed with a dull luster, but the surrounding snack bags and laughter made this gloom seem particularly insignificant.

(End of this chapter)