I am the Clone of a Death Row Inmate

Chapter 169: Chapter 156: Eye of Truth

”A Pupil Technique?” Su Ze instantly thought of Liou Wenxin’s Eye of Evolution.

”That’s right.” Liou Wenxin nodded. ”Take my Eye of Evolution, for example. Even though it’s an S-rank skill, it’s only a Tier 2 skill, so its functions are rather limited.

”Its effects include enhancing vision, seeing through illusions and invisibility, night vision, and strengthening the eyes’ ability to capture and analyze Evolutionary Power... In essence, they can all be classified as enhancements to sight.

”But top-tier Tier 3 Pupil Techniques can even come with some spiritual attack capabilities. However, that’s not important for you, because your Spiritual Power isn’t exceptionally strong, so you wouldn’t be able to fully unleash the might of a spiritual attack.

”However, the Breaking Void and Dynamic Capture abilities that come with Pupil Techniques are very useful for melee combat. It’s just that most melee Evolvers don’t have enough skill slots, so they have to forgo them. But you don’t have that limitation, so you can definitely consider absorbing a Pupil Technique.”

After hearing Liou Wenxin’s advice, Su Ze quickly drew his own conclusions and asked, ”Are there any Pupil Techniques with attack capabilities that aren’t spiritual attacks? For instance, something with an Elemental Attack?”

Liou Wenxin asked, a little puzzled, ”Why that specific requirement?”

”I was just thinking, my Thunder God Body can conduct electricity through Evolutionary Power. If my Pupil Technique had a ranged attack—it doesn’t matter how strong or weak it is—I could use the Pupil Technique’s attack to conduct electricity. Then I could shoot two bolts of lightning just by blinking. The thought alone sounds pretty awesome.”

Liou Wenxin felt a bit helpless in the face of Su Ze’s bizarre idea, but the crucial part was, when she thought about it carefully, it actually seemed possible.

’Let me think... Among Tier 3 Pupil Techniques, the ones with attack capabilities are almost all spiritual attacks, and Spiritual Power can’t conduct electricity. A Pupil Technique with an Elemental Attack... I’ve never heard of one among Tier 3 skills.’

’Shooting fire from the eyes would be plausible, I guess.’

’Shooting water from the eyes? Blowing wind from them?’

’The mental image is pretty strange.’

After a moment of thought, Liou Wenxin’s eyes suddenly lit up. ”I just thought of a skill. It’s not purely a Pupil Technique, but it fits your requirements perfectly. Or rather, it would pair very well with your Thunder God Body.”

”What skill is it?” Su Ze asked.

Liou Wenxin sat up straight, like a teacher giving a lecture. ”There’s an animal called the Blind Snake. They live underground, and their eyes have degenerated to the point of being mere decorations. They’re as small as earthworms. However, after this animal evolves into an Evolved Beast, it changes drastically.

”First is their size. After many small animals evolve, their bodies swell up many times over, and the Blind Snake is no exception. An Evolved Blind Snake is as large as a python. Second is its habitat. Once the Blind Snake grows larger, its original environment can no longer satisfy its foraging needs, so Evolved Blind Snakes are generally found in desert regions.”

Su Ze asked in surprise, ”What kind of Pupil Technique could a blind animal have? Don’t tell me their vision is restored after they evolve into Evolved Beasts?”

Liou Wenxin smiled. ”No, but they evolved an ability that’s even more useful than eyes. The Evolved Blind Snake has a Pupil Technique. The principle is to project its own Evolutionary Power from its eyes, diluting it infinitely to fill the surrounding space. It then perceives its surroundings by sensing this field of Evolutionary Power.”

Su Ze instantly imagined the effect of this skill combined with his Thunder God Body. ’Evolutionary Power fills the surrounding space, and then I channel electricity into it... Isn’t that a fucking Ten Thousand Thunders Celestial Prison Guide?’

However, this point alone wasn’t enough to sway Su Ze. If it was purely for damage output, he might as well just absorb a direct attack skill.

The effects of the Pupil Technique itself were also very important.

Su Ze voiced his doubt, ”With this skill, wouldn’t you only be able to sense tangible things? For example, you wouldn’t actually be able to sense intangible energy, right?”

”That’s true for ordinary Evolved Blind Snakes, but the king among them, the Tier 3 S-rank Sand Blind Snake, possesses a skill called ’Eye of Truth.’ It can sense everything within its range, including energy fluctuations, and by contracting the skill’s range, you can enhance your perception of a specific area.”

”Contracting the skill’s range?” Su Ze didn’t quite understand.

”You can think of it as shrinking the area you’re sensing with Evolutionary Power. When the area shrinks, the Evolutionary Power within it becomes denser, forming what you could call a ’gaze as solid as matter,’” Liou Wenxin explained. ”At that point, if you combine it with your Thunder God Body’s electrical discharge, you’ll be able to shoot two bolts of lightning from your eyes, instead of just creating an electrical net that covers the surrounding area.”

”I get it!” Su Ze nodded repeatedly, now interested in the skill.

Although the Eye of Truth wasn’t a Pupil Technique in the purest sense—after all, the Sand Blind Snake itself is blind—it could achieve the same effects as other Pupil Techniques.

Other Pupil Techniques use the eyes to ”see,” whereas the Eye of Truth uses the Evolutionary Power released from the eyes to ”touch.” Only what can be touched is real, and it’s so sensitive that it can ”touch” the energy fluctuations in space.

Through this powerful perception, the Eye of Truth, like other Pupil Techniques, can see through invisibility and illusions, grant night vision, and instantly capture an enemy’s movements. Most importantly, it can conduct electricity... something other Pupil Techniques can’t do.

”Is the Sand Blind Snake Extract easy to buy?” Su Ze asked. He was a bit too lazy to go hunt one himself.

Liou Wenxin said, ”This type of Evolved Beast only appears in deserts, and S-rank Evolved Beasts are rare to begin with. It’ll probably be hard to buy one in Dongli. You can try asking Evolutionary Technology first.”

Su Ze first checked the official Evolutionary Technology website, but there was nothing. Then, he sent a private message to Xu Sheng.

Before long, Xu Sheng replied. The gist was that they had none in stock, but Su Ze could commission Evolutionary Technology to hunt one for him. However, the price was frighteningly high and not worth it.

Besides, there was no need to buy information on the Evolved Beast’s location from Xu Sheng this time. The whereabouts of the Sand Blind Snake were no secret. The closest location to Su Ze was the neighboring Great Desert Kingdom. As a nation built in the desert, it was certain to have Sand Blind Snakes.

A bit farther, across the Great Desert Kingdom’s Desolate Desert, Evolved Beasts ran rampant, and Sand Blind Snakes were definitely there too.

Su Ze suddenly thought of Atago, the prince from the Great Desert Kingdom whom he had met at an evolutionary studies conference. As a prince of the Great Desert Kingdom, he should be able to help with this matter.

’Good thing I added him as a friend back then...’ Su Ze opened his messaging app and sent Atago a greeting: My dearest friend, it has been too long. I have missed you greatly. I hope you have been well.

Before long, Atago replied to Su Ze’s message with warmth and courtesy.

And so, the two began to chat, trading messages back and forth. Su Ze was filled with a fervor akin to ”a master musician finding someone who truly understands his song,” which left Atago feeling both flattered and a little overwhelmed.

Their friendship warmed up rapidly until, at the very end, Su Ze casually mentioned that Atago should keep an eye out for any news related to the Sand Blind Snake when he had time. If there was an extract for sale directly, that would be for the best.

Atago, of course, readily agreed to his friend’s request and made a mental note of it.

Atago was more than willing to befriend a genius like Su Ze, and to show off his own influence, he would do his best to fulfill Su Ze’s request.

After finishing his chat with Atago, Su Ze temporarily set aside the matter of the Sand Blind Snake Extract.

He still had a few days before he would finish digesting the extract in his body. Besides, he needed to complete his ”Decapitation Plan” first before he could absorb the next vial. There was no need to be too anxious right now.

If there was no news from Atago by then, he would wait for Mr. Ya to return, and the two of them would take a trip to the desert to hunt a Sand Blind Snake themselves.

Just then, his phone suddenly chimed. Su Ze picked it up and saw it was a message from Ye Jin.

For the past few days, Su Ze had been in contact with Ye Jin every evening. Ye Jin had been keeping him updated on the latest developments in the ”Parasitic Murder Case.”

Based on Su Ze’s previous speculation regarding ”Sacculina,” the military had indeed made new progress. In the surveillance footage from near the crime scenes of several cases, they had captured different women appearing, and none of these women could be matched to any information in their databases.

These women had completely different faces, but they were all uniformly tall.

The military suspected that these women were the male victims who had been parasitized and had their gender changed, which would also explain their generally taller stature.

Additionally, the investigation found that all the victims had a history of soliciting prostitutes or engaging in one-night stands.

The killer likely used this method to get close to the victims.

All these clues corroborated Liou Wenxin’s theory about ”Sacculina.”

Su Ze unlocked his phone to check the message from Ye Jin.

[Ye Jin: Junior, according to our latest intel, the ”Parasitic Killer’s” next destination might be Dongping City. You need to be careful.]

Su Ze froze. ’The killer is coming to the capital, Dongping City?’

He glanced up at the sky outside his window; it was already dark, so he felt safe enough to reply.

[Su Ze: I’m an upstanding man who always keeps to himself and has no bad habits. That killer won’t be able to seduce me. But... is the intel reliable?]

[Ye Jin: We cracked one of the killer’s previous social media accounts. It contained a chat history with a netizen from Dongping. The two of them arranged to meet in Dongping City soon.]

[Su Ze: Can you confirm the identity of that Dongping netizen?]

[Ye Jin: The real-name verification on the account used stolen identity information. It seems he used that account specifically for soliciting prostitutes, so he was cautious and never revealed any personal information in the chat. However, he did boast about being a ”Butterfly Stage expert.” We don’t know if that’s true or not.]

[Su Ze: Can you track his location?]

[Ye Jin: He’s been offline for several days. But based on his previous location data, he seems to frequent the area around Dongli University.]

’Right near the university? Doesn’t that mean the Parasitic Killer will be coming to the area around Dongli University too?’

Su Ze decided to warn the male friends he knew to be careful lately and not fall into a trap.

However, he didn’t know many male friends at Dongli University. It was mainly just a few teachers and school administrators...

’But based on the information about that unknown netizen from Dongping—frequents the area around Dongli University, Butterfly Stage—it really could be one of the school administrators.’