Apocalypse Forecast

Chapter 574: Chapter 481 Notification Letter_1

Peaceful days are always too fleeting.

Sometimes, Huai Shi even felt that the few days when he was entangled in various troubles seemed so tediously long that he could probably write a novel of one or two million words.

But once he settled into a calm routine, time flew too quickly for comfort.

Every day at eight in the morning, he’d open his eyes, have a meal, then faithfully practice the piano for two hours, attend Raven’s alchemy course in the afternoon, continue his research in metallography, and control the Soloist’s Stigma. After dinner, he’d play games, and before bed, he’d replenish ”Lord of the Flies” with Source Substance to speed up Beelzebub’s recovery.

Then he’d sleep until daybreak.

Ever since the exams ended, this had been Huai Shi’s daily rhythm.

After some consideration and hesitation, Huai Shi ultimately chose to fill out his college applications normally, preliminarily selecting a few universities in Jinling and Lin’an.

After all, with no clear direction, he might as well choose a few that were close to home.

From time to time, he would look at the invitation letter from the Ivory Tower and feel hesitant and troubled, but he would quickly put it out of his mind.

After all, the decision didn’t need to be made until September; there was still a lot of time...

And so, the days passed by one by one.

Huai Shi had finally reached the current stage’s limit in his control of the Soloist’s Stigma.

In fact, it took just over a month to truly master the Stigma—but at best, that could only be described as barely adequate. After activating the Stigma, he could seal that miracle of Sublimation within his body, preventing it from leaking out like air from a balloon, casting unnecessary afterimages even when yawning and wastefully consuming Source Substance.

However, when it came to facing the sixty-one afterimages that exceeded the norm by more than four times, it almost cost Huai Shi his life.

Truly mastering the movement and posture of sixty-one afterimages all at once was an utterly impossible proposition.

It was like having to control sixty-two bodies, including his own, all at the same time while ensuring that they did not interfere with each other—unless Huai Shi immediately booked a personality fragmentation surgery on the Darknet, forcibly dividing his Source Substance into sixty-two parts and syncing up sixty-two different thought processes...

To go to such lengths, one wouldn’t just suffer personality fragmentation—the soul itself would collapse. What’s the point then?

In the trial records of the Book of Fate, merely micromanaging six afterimages was already Huai Shi’s limit, let alone more... More would be utterly unnecessary.

During this process, Huai Shi’s control was not about mastering everything completely but about making the afterimages appear when he needed them most and in the numbers he needed.

As for everything else, there was no need.

After all, afterimages were just afterimages. Without infusing them with Source Substance, they were mere illusions, merely beacons for Huai Shi’s own disguises and transfers, sufficient to confound the enemy—which was entirely enough for Huai Shi at this stage.

If he truly needed minions, he still had that bunch of minions bred in Nibelungen.

After a long wait and nourishment of Source Substance, following Red Gloves and Qi Wen, the third minion, Mountain Ghost, finally emerged under the Soloist’s Stigma.

As for the Yin Souls below Mountain Ghost, only four had appeared so far, and it would be a long time before reaching the full count of nine.

However, this time when Huai Shi slammed the Book of Fate onto Mountain Ghost’s forehead, the personality record that he uploaded turned out to be Van Essen.

To be precise, it was the Fanatic recorded in the Philosopher’s Stone of the Green Crown Dragon, an executioner created by the Religious Judicature before ever setting foot on the Mayflower.

In terms of combat ability alone, he was the strongest of Huai Shi’s legion. Although the comparison was against the utterly useless, backstabbing Qi Wen and Green Day’s Current Circumstances secret agent Red Gloves, at least the grueling education and cultivation of the Religious Judicature were not for naught; he was proficient in direct confrontations, assassinations, poisons, and more.

The only downside was that his zealotry was a bit too intense.

Even though he was dead, this recorded personality still maintained its pre-death structure, where faith itself was an indispensable part of Van Essen’s personality.

But after he no longer had anything to do with the Stigma Genealogy, this faith strangely... shifted onto Huai Shi.

Unlike Red Gloves’ economy with words and Qi Wen’s sneaky demeanor, Van Essen appeared much like a middle-aged priest, always solemn and serious, occasionally blurting out a ”Sanctify!”

It made Huai Shi often wonder if Van Essen was possessed by a Lizard Man, causing Huai Shi to occasionally touch his own head to confirm he hadn’t turned into a dog-headed figure.

How should one put it... After listening for a while, it’s quite exhilarating!

During this period, there was another piece of good news.

After a long period of research and control, Huai Shi finally got a sense of the afterimage leap half a month after the college entrance examination.

To be exact, he finally sensed the faint pulse of the minuscule Source Substance within the afterimage.

Following the instincts within the Soloist’s Stigma, Huai Shi controlled his soul and raised his hand towards the Yin Soul five meters away. After concentrating as if in meditation for half an hour, he finally managed to capture the rhythm of the Source Substance’s pulse, and it resonated with his soul.

In an instant, Huai Shi’s vision blurred.

He didn’t appear five meters away; he was thrown out at two and a half meters, stuck to the wall, unable to pull himself off.

That could be considered a bit of success, right?

And the short leap of only two and a half meters had consumed one-fifth of the Source Substance in his body—if judged by the standards of ordinary Sublimators, that would have been enough to drain them completely.

After several explorations, Huai Shi discovered that the Source Substance consumption was not related to distance but to his proficiency in using the skill and his ability to control Source Substance.

The essence of the afterimage leap was to use the Soloist’s Stigma to momentarily transform Huai Shi’s body into Source Substance, converting it into a structure similar to a Yin Soul with a mass so minute it was virtually negligible. Then, through a brief resonance of Source Substance, he could achieve a sudden shift in space.

In this process, the Source Substance consumed by the spatial movement was less than one-fifth. What actually drained energy were the two drastic transformations—the moment he converted into Source Substance and the moment he reverted to his normal state—which led to a significant loss of Source Substance.

That is to say, if Huai Shi could adeptly control this skill, theoretically, he could achieve a transformation between Source Substance and matter without any consumption at all.

But how could that be possible?

Even in the most cutting-edge alchemy laboratories, the Source Substance loss during this process could only be controlled to less than one-thousandth. Away from the stringent laboratory environment and all the equipment, Huai Shi managing to reach ten percent efficiency would probably be his limit.

As for when the preparation time for the Afterimage Jump could be compressed to within a minute, and the distance extended to a hundred meters... well, that’s laughable.

One could only say the road ahead is long.

When Huai Shi wasted yet another day without any progress and climbed out of the basement dejected, he saw Uncle Fang with a solemn and tense expression.

”Young Master...”

The old man was holding a letter, ”Your admission notice has arrived!”

Huai Shi was startled and then came to a realization, waving his hand with a smile, ”What’s the big deal? Why get so worked up?”

Uncle Fang’s expression immediately grew even more complicated. He raised his hand, lifting a pile from his embrace—at least fifty thick letters, ”But this pile... they’re all...”

”What?”

Huai Shi’s eyes widened in disbelief.

「Half an hour later」

After taking a quick shower, Huai Shi returned to the living room, sat on the sofa, and looked up at the small mountain of letters before him.

He examined the seals and origins on each envelope, incredulous.

These were indeed admission letters from various universities, but why were there so many?

”Peking University, Tsinghua University, Dongxia’s University, Jinling Transportation University, Yuhang University... and what’s this?” After naming the top ten domestic universities, Huai Shi picked up another letter, spotted foreign letters, and grew even more puzzled. ”Americas Forever University? Texas Institute of Technology? Leland University? Yingzhou Kyoto University? And... Rome Empire University? This is fucking insane... what is all this?”

After Huai Shi checked all the letters, he discovered that the top fifty universities in the world had all sent him admission notices?

He scratched his head and looked up at Raven, who was enjoying the spectacle beside him. ”Do you have any clue?”

”You’re asking me? How would I know?”

Raven stifled a laugh, clearly finding joy in the disaster. ”But I think I’ve basically figured it out...”

”Figured out what?” Huai Shi was puzzled.

Raven said nothing more.

Only Huai Shi looked down at the pile of letters on the table. He lifted his hand, conjured the Sacrificial Knife, randomly grabbed an international express mail envelope from Yingzhou Kyoto University, and sliced it open. A thick booklet slid out into Huai Shi’s hands.

The outside was a sturdy hardcover of quality paper, but the three bold letters on the front made Huai Shi’s temples throb.

——’Diploma’

Upon opening it, he saw his own name on the first page, marked with Yingzhou pronunciation symbols to avoid confusion, as well as a three-inch ID photo of a Huai Shi who stared bewilderingly at the Huai Shi outside the photograph.

Both of them, just as clueless about what was happening.

Beside the name was the date, followed by Yingzhou University’s official seal.

The next line of bold, ink-heavy script made Huai Shi begin to question his life.

”Faculty of Science, Medical Department... specialized Doctorate... has completed... degree... conferred...”

Huai Shi lowered his head to examine the last page with his advisor’s signature and seal—an advisor he’d damn well never met—and felt the fantastical extent of this world had exceeded his imagination.

Not only had he never applied to Yingzhou University, but for them to send him an admission notice was one thing...

——But this was a fucking diploma!

He tossed it aside and then picked up another one.

Americas Ivy League Union Forever Blessing University. Upon opening it...

Well, this time it wasn’t a booklet; it was a sheet of paper fixed in a frame, embossed with the grand name HUAI SHI, certifying that this unlucky guy who had never even been to the school had successfully graduated from its most prestigious physics department.

Another diploma!

Peking University, Tsinghua University, and then Rome Empire University...

By the time Huai Shi had opened all fifty-three, he found himself looking at a table full of diplomas. He suddenly realized that he seemed to have graduated from fifty-three universities all at once.

Even boasting forty-three doctoral degrees and twenty-six master’s degrees, there seemed to be no field—from astronomy to geography to biochemistry and environmental materials—that he did not master!

He truly was a talent one wouldn’t see in eight thousand years.

”How come I didn’t know I was so fucking awesome?”

Huai Shi raised his head to look directly at the Fat Horse opposite him.

The Fat Horse snorted innocently.