Chapter 53: The Reason for the Time Crossing (Please continue reading on Tuesday!)

"Classification Research Report on Great Xia's Paranormal Abilities."

After the evening self-study session ended, Su Yi walked while flipping through the documents given to him by Teacher Mengxi before leaving. The moon was bright and the stars were sparse, and the night sky seemed draped in a luxurious black velvet cloak, serene and silent.

In the wasteland, there were many rating systems: human physical strength had ratings, building durability had ratings, and weapon lethality had ratings.

Only paranormal abilities possessed merely classifications.

This was mainly because everyone's ability was unique. Even within the same category, one person might be overwhelmingly powerful while another was weak to the extreme—much like the wind-attribute supernatural being he had killed yesterday.

There was a notoriously tricky fellow in the wasteland with that exact same ability, yet that individual could effortlessly summon devastating tornadoes; they were completely out of scale.

Still, Su Yi read through it carefully. This would be of great help in understanding Blue Planet's level of awareness regarding supernatural abilities.

Class E: "Manifestation of ability awakening exists, but is not pronounced."

Class D: "Physical strength far exceeds ordinary humans, with substantial enhancements in both power and speed."

Class C: "Capable of imbuing abilities onto weapons and objects."

Class B: "Possesses humanly incomprehensible abilities such as precognition, scouting, and clairvoyance."

Class A: "Capable of manipulating elemental energies such as wind, fire, water, and lightning to inflict large-scale destruction."

Class S: "Possesses conceptual abilities capable of altering the rules of space and time."

"Such a cliche argument." Su Yi raised an eyebrow as he looked at the grading system before him.

This was entirely categorized based on human levels of comprehension.

It utterly failed to represent strength, reflecting rarity at best.

Given the mindset of Blue Planet, they probably assumed that space and time abilities—which could affect reality—must inherently be superior to all other powers. Wouldn't that bring tears to the specialists who mastered niche skills?

If someone with peerless physical strength who could punch with tons of force were to fight a person whose only ability was to teleport away a cigarette lighter, they wouldn't even know how to counter it.

However, the mere existence of this classification indicated that Blue Planet had already encountered individuals with similar abilities.

Silently mocking it in his mind, Su Yi shoved the document into his shoulder bag.

Winter nights only grew colder. Having adjusted his physical structure and restrained his power, he unexpectedly experienced a rare sensation of chilliness all over his body. The clothes he wore today seemed a bit too thin, and sweat beaded on his back, only to be chilled by the infiltrating wind. For some reason, it felt alternately hot and cold.

He had been busy all night yesterday without eating, had only eaten two steamed buns in the morning, and hadn't touched anything in the evening because of the mushrooms.

A sense of hunger inevitably welled up.

Coincidentally, a fast-food restaurant specializing in takeout by the roadside was still open. Having skipped the construction site these past few days, he didn't have much money left, and there were instant noodles at home that he could eat upon returning.

After pondering for a moment and feeling rather hungry, Su Yi went over to buy the cheapest set meal. He walked a bit further and sat on a wooden bench at the bus stop, facing the cold wind, and opened the plastic lid covering the food container.

"Officer, why is there a chair here?"

Lori Xi reached out and stroked the heavily worn wooden bench.

It was highly unusual for such indoor furniture to appear outdoors.

"Right here? This is where people wait for the bus."

"A bus?"

"It's a big carriage you can board as long as you pay money."

Su Yi used his chopsticks to point at the sign overhead.

In the wasteland, riding together only happened during combat and mission execution; the concept of public facilities benefiting the common people simply did not exist.

"However, it's useless to us. It costs money, takes a detour, and isn't even as fast as me running."

Su Yi explained as he stripped the plastic packaging off the disposable chopsticks.

Seeing him begin to wolf down his food, Lori Xi scratched her cheek, her face filled with guilt: "Officer, I'm sorry, I ate your dinner..."

Car horns blared incessantly in the surroundings. Despite the streetlights, many sedans still drove past on the road with their high beams on, alternating rapidly between light and dark, causing a slight dizziness.

"What's there to be sorry about? I gave it to you voluntarily."

This time he had ordered scrambled eggs with tomatoes on rice. Although a bit shabby, it tasted decent and, most importantly, was piping hot.

People always said that tears dampen braised pork rice, crying while striving to earn a million, but right now he didn't even have a bowl of braised pork rice.

Not receiving any subsidies after becoming a supernatural being was truly a painful matter. How could one manage to make a fortune without exposing the fact that they possessed powers?

It was truly a perplexing dilemma. Su Yi now deeply regretted constantly plotting killings, tactical formations, and assassinations back in the wasteland.

He had originally prepared to spend his entire life in the wasteland, so who could have predicted that he would cross back?

Otherwise, he should have learned some financial and internal affairs knowledge from his own "Sequence Three."

Every method of making a fortune that came to mind right now was explicitly listed in the criminal law.

Su Yi had worked hard to make himself normal again.

He had no desire to bite on a cigar, transform into an outlaw, and shout, "Putting on straw sandals and flying as..."

His mood was slightly gloomy.

Su Yi looked at Lori Xi, who was also from the wasteland. The sentiment of sharing the same wretched fate deepened. He raised his hand and picked out a piece of egg yolk from his meal, placing it on Lori Xi's plate.

"Here, you haven't tasted eggs yet. Have a piece."

"But Officer, you need to eat too." Lori Xi blinked, shaking her head resolutely.

"Just letting you taste it; I definitely won't give you the rest. Eggs are very nutritious, containing protein, fat, and vitamins. They are the cheapest and most delicious source of nutrition."

Su Yi didn't care much for polite declining; it felt too pretentious. Before Lori Xi could agree, he casually stuffed it into her mouth and then continued shoveling food into his own.

Lori Xi was also from the wasteland, where concepts like sharing chopsticks or drinking from the same cup constituting an indirect kiss did not exist. While she cared for others, she herself was somewhat confused and uncomprehending regarding certain emotional nuances.

To this day, Su Yi had never seen her blush.

"From now until the end-of-term break, there are still 6 days. I currently have 140 left, which averages about 23 a day—that should be about right. The construction site pays more bonuses around the New Year; if I sneak over there quietly for a trip, I won't have to worry about the New Year."

From the bottom of his heart, no matter how hard life was—even before crossing to the wasteland when he had nothing—he rarely asked Ms. Xu for help.

Thinking about how the money she used to give was now designated as joint marital property, and half of it belonged to that old bastard, made him sick to his stomach.

"Oh, right, I never asked you—what kind of mission were you executing in the wasteland at that time?"

Su Yi paused his motion of eating the boxed meal and looked up at Lori Xi. He used to think this matter was unimportant and asking was useless since he couldn't go back anyway. But as more and more things arrived from the wasteland, and people even began injecting Type-T serum, it finally compelled him to inquire about wasteland affairs.

Lori Xi had said back then that she carried extremely important intelligence to report back.

Hearing this, Lori Xi looked around, entering a state of heightened alert, frantically confirming her surroundings.

"No one is watching nearby, and the noise is loud. Just speak." Su Yi said while continuing to shovel rice.

As a qualified soldier, one must never let down their guard at any time, and since he dared to ask, he was naturally prepared.

Only then did Lori Xi nod, recalling the events with an extremely serious expression:

"At that time, I received orders from the organization to board the ground-boring machine built by Granny, digging an underground tunnel to destroy a laboratory in the Holy Capital of the nation of Schueswar."

"Initial intelligence indicated it was a small facility conducting human enhancement research, and we only needed to plant explosives and immediately withdraw. But upon arrival, we discovered the scale of the laboratory far exceeded expectations; they seemed to be conducting some kind of teleportation experiment."

"Teleportation experiment?" Hearing this term, Su Yi repeated it softly.

"Yes, Officer. We suddenly appeared in the central area of the laboratory. The guards were denser than anticipated, and there was signal jamming. After a fierce battle, the captain had no choice but to order three people, including myself, to break through the isolation perimeter and report the situation to headquarters."

"During the evacuation, I was targeted by a very tricky fellow. It shattered my mask, and later the laboratory exploded. A high-heat reaction filled my vision, and suddenly I arrived here and met you, Officer."

Hearing these words, Su Yi finally understood why Lori Xi had constantly attempted to contact headquarters through her equipment back then.

He pondered, poking at the meal in his hands with his chopsticks, a flicker of doubt flashing in his eyes. The girl's crossing experience was completely different from his own.

To cross over inside a laboratory researching teleportation technology was far too coincidental.

Could Lori Xi's arrival this time not be a random occurrence of two worlds colliding?

Was it man-made?

If the wasteland already possessed the capability to send people over to Blue Planet, or rather, the ability to open a passage between the two worlds...

Su Yi didn't dare to imagine what would happen if this were true. Those lunatics in the wasteland who viewed resources as life itself would definitely make astonishingly reckless moves.

However, doing so should be extremely difficult. Su Yi had also considered many methods in the past, none of which had ever succeeded; human strength alone found it exceedingly hard to tear open the rifts of the world.

"I didn't manage to retreat; I don't know if the other soldiers completed the mission."

Lori Xi also understood that this crossing had saved her life. Had she not come to Blue Planet, given her physical state at the time, she would either have been killed or forced to initiate her self-destruct mechanism to perish together with the enemy.

Yet the shadow of mission failure continued to shroud her heart relentlessly.

The girl's facial expressions changed too obviously, with almost everything written on her face—so obvious that even Su Yi, who usually disliked reading expressions, could tell she was grieving.

"A failed mission can be remedied, but once you're dead, nothing is left."

Su Yi remembered that ever since Big Sister started the Sword-Wielders, she had educated her subordinates to protect themselves well and cherish their companions; he did not advocate dying for a mission.

He had always admonished everyone with this mindset.

Over 200 years had passed, things had changed, and people had parted ways—now there were even Sword-Wielding soldiers.

Before he returned back then, the Sword-Wielders had already towered proudly over the entire wasteland; he truly had no idea what could have happened to lead them to this state.

"But the mission is also very important," Lori Xi muttered softly.

Immediately afterward, her head received another crisp flick.

"Forbidden to think about it. Ah! Open your mouth, I'll share another piece of egg with you."

Consolingly, Su Yi used his chopsticks to pick out the largest piece of egg from the lunchbox and pushed it toward the girl's mouth, but suddenly his gaze turned cold and his movements froze.

"Someone is coming..."

There was an unusual presence approaching step by step nearby, clearly not an ordinary person.

Su Yi put down the food container in his hand and turned to look in the direction he sensed.

An elderly man with white hair was stepping closer, sighing as he walked.

"Alas, on such a cold night, two people sitting here sharing a single portion of scrambled eggs with tomatoes. Poor children... has Great Xia really come to this?"