Chapter Eighteen: Memes and the Wishing Machine

“Humanoid Wish Machine?”

Ji Donglai raised an eyebrow at the entry, his eyes filled with surprise.

“Yes, Team Leader Ji,” Elder Yang replied. “This is the entry provided by the Precious Artifact Identification Technique. This life form from another world is essentially a humanoid wish machine.”

“The so-called martial arts they practice are merely manifestations of their wishes. I suspect that every person from this other world is a small, self-wishing machine.”

“That’s intriguing—everyone an esper? So this is the truth behind martial arts!” Ji Donglai said, a hint of regret in his eyes.

After all, they lacked the ‘wish machine’ entry, which meant they couldn’t cultivate those martial arts.

Esoteric abilities have always been remarkably weak in terms of self-preservation, showing extreme strengths and glaring weaknesses. Having this otherworldly martial art to compensate would be quite beneficial.

“Team Leader Ji, the key lies in the previous memetic entry,” Elder Yang reminded him. “This small wish machine possesses self-replication and proliferation functions.”

“Any life form with self-awareness that comes into contact with it will be irreversibly infected and transformed into a humanoid wish machine.”

Ji Donglai was taken aback. “You mean…”

“Yes. Dozens of people, including F-Superman, should have an additional wish machine meme added to their entries.”

Elder Yang smiled wryly. “To prevent further memetic contagion, the entire Dragon Concealment Base has been sealed off and isolated, forbidding any entry or exit.”

“That’s probably unnecessary,” Ji Donglai groaned, holding his head. “There are hundreds of other energy tidal burst locations with people coming and going—we can’t stop it.”

After a moment of silence, Ji Donglai said, “Let’s leave it be for now. Continue researching that experimental material. I found a better specimen; once caught, I’ll send it to you.”

Before he could cut the line, a video call request from the King of Shoddy Work appeared, stirring a bad premonition.

“Boss Lao, bad news,” the King of Shoddy Work grinned in the video. “Guess what? Hey, I lost that guy—I absolutely botched it.”

Ji Donglai scowled, uninterested in engaging. “Enough. Write a report later—a thirty-thousand-word reflection on this failure—and send it to me. Also, don’t video call me again. Have your operator contact me if there’s something.”

“Come on, Boss Lao, why so impatient? I just—”

Ji Donglai cut him off before the King of Shoddy Work could launch into his usual chaotic internet jokes. He then rubbed his temples and said to Elder Li, “That experimental material just ran away. I’ll send it to you once we catch it.”

Elder Yang nodded, then curiously asked, “That was the King of Shoddy Work, right?”

Receiving Ji Donglai’s confirmation, Elder Yang understood. The so-called King of Shoddy Work was infamous for constantly spouting stale memes, sometimes mixing two or three internet jokes and regional humor in a single sentence. His reputation was nearly universal.

...

In the afternoon, after Fang Can’s lunch break, he heard a distant thunderous explosion.

“Is there a demolition nearby?” he frowned slightly—it sounded like a series of continuous rumbles.

Not only him, but the students in the classroom also turned their heads toward the source of the blasts, only to see countless towering pillars of fire shooting skyward.

“This is definitely a battle between espers!” someone exclaimed in surprise.

At that moment, throughout the city, accompanied by the deafening roar, an invisible aura emanated from the western district of Z City.

The feeling was like the dread of being late for work or school on a Monday morning, weighing heavily on everyone’s heart, stirring a faint sense of panic that intensified the closer one got.

Ten kilometers away, it was the nervousness of being late for work; five kilometers out, the pressure of drawing the wrong card; a kilometer away, the terror of realizing you’re standing on a podium in front of a crowd wearing nothing but underwear...

Within a hundred meters, it was beyond mere pressure—ordinary people would instantly lose consciousness upon approaching.

“This feeling…” Fang Can furrowed his brows. “So familiar. Must be a psychic esper, right?”

As Fang Can pondered, the towering flames began to spread, the roar rolling toward the city center. Soon, air raid sirens blared throughout the city.

With the alarms, the entire city began to evacuate orderly and efficiently. Such incidents happened several times a year and had become routine.

Silently following the whole school’s evacuation, everyone knew this was just another false alarm.

Previous battles between espers rarely lasted long—usually over within minutes.

Sure enough, within two minutes, as Fang Can descended the stairs, the sirens ceased. The distant flames vanished. The teacher turned back, instructing everyone to resume classes.

“I knew it—always the same every time...” one student muttered.

“What a letdown. If it lasted a bit longer, we could’ve skipped class today…”

“Boring. I wanted to see a bloodbath…”

Listening to his classmates’ whispered complaints, Fang Can refrained from joining in, instead suspicious that the inexplicable pressure just now was no mere coincidence.

Unaffected by the brief disruption, Fang Can continued his studies step by step, pretending to be an ordinary student.

Compared to the days in the other world, where he trained until his hands cramped and occasionally self-harmed to boost his talent and physical conditioning, this was pure leisure.

Yet, the more comfortable it was, the more uneasy Fang Can felt—a sense that time was being wasted in the classroom.

After all, with the possibility of being transported to another world at any moment, who knew what conditions awaited there? Any improvement was valuable.

Knowing this vague restlessness wouldn’t help, Fang Can swallowed a dose of arsenic, allowing his genius mode’s calm to suppress negative emotions.

“I can’t spend too much time at school. I only need one night to master this knowledge. Next, I need to figure out how to leave this stage of school learning.”

Fang Can calmly contemplated how long it would take his Talent 2 to heal if he broke his arm or leg, weighing whether the gained study time was worth it.

The day’s study passed quickly. When Fang Can returned home, he drew his key from his pocket; his arm twitched slightly before he nonchalantly opened the door.

Only he knew that his talent, now activated in a reversal of fortunes, heightened his intuition to sense a top predator lurking subtly in the room.