Chapter 7: Esper Power Crystals

After a storm, the sky will eventually clear. Han’s business was like this too. A week after having his post pinned to the top, Han’s income slowly stabilized, earning 400 to 500 GC every day.

Of course, he can’t afford those high level power crystals, but he still got enough to buy the cheapest kind which contains random powers. Regardless of good or bad, having an esper title is good too.

So Han revisited the website called the House of Inheritance, and spent 10,000 GC plus an additional 220 GC of shipping on the transaction for a random esper power crystal. For a big company like the House of Inheritance, Han is just one of a million customers, so when Han asked for instructions the customer service rep just impatiently told Han that the tools and instructions will come with the crystal, it’s a simple process, and there was no need to worry.

Five days quickly passed, Han heard someone knocking at night, opened the door and saw a young man in blue uniform, with a package under his armpit.

The crystal arrived?!

Han quickly invited the delivery man into his house. After Han signed and received the package, the delivery man handed over a business card in both hands, smiled and says, “Mr. Han, I am Pegasus Delivery Company’s representative on Earth, if you need anything in the future, you are welcome to contact me. Right now our company is developing the Earth market, so things like shipping costs are all negotiable.”

Han kept the business card and thanked the guy. Wow, galactic delivery, using a ship that flew across the sea of stars to deliver. It was Han’s first time receiving a delivery from another planet so he couldn’t help with the excitement. Opening the box he found a submetallic sealed box that seemed like it was for rejecting detection signals. Esper power crystals were considered illegal because after all, these things are stolen from tombs and can’t be revealed to the public. That’s why a submetallic box with the signal isolation feature is used to contain the product, so that detectors that assess it will mistake it for a normal mineral rock.

A lot of illegal trades go down on the dark net, so the merchants always have a way to deliver these illegal products to their clients.

Han carefully opened the box, and within he found a black and dull looking crystal, a few pages of instructions, and a set of tools specifically made for the absorption of power crystals. Han took a closer look at the crystal. Its outer appearance resembled a worthless piece of graphite, and it’s too black to assess its purity. Also, not even the people at the House of Inheritance know what’s contained in that thing, that’s why they sold it to him for dirt cheap in comparison to other crystals. And about that tool set, it’s just a bunch of wires and a metal helmet that has two circular conductors at the temple spot of the head. The temple spot is the weakest spot that’s closest to the human brain, so that the esper power can be quickly transferred into Han’s brain. When Han read through all the instructions and made sure that he understood everything, it was already midnight. Han thought about it and stashed away the box into a drawer. Do it now or a few hours late, it won’t make a difference, got to finish today’s work first.

…

It took 7 hours and 52 minutes, Han noticed as he was checking the time after finishing writing today’s index numbers. As he got more practice, Han’s work efficiency was improving every day. After doing a bit of stretching, Han went to the washroom and washed his face, then he took the box out from the drawer and laid back on his bed. The metal helmet felt kind of cold sitting on his scalp, as he connected the cord with the black crystal. Suddenly a warm current began to enter Han’s brain, and the absorber has begun to extract the power from the crystal and transfer it to Han’s brain.

The energy that the esper power crystal contains will try to find a place to locate after entering the brain. All natural espers have a zero brainwave region (BR) where the energy for their power can settle in. Since Han’s an ordinary guy, his zero BR hasn’t been activated, yet the energy was already flowing in. What happens now? The only way to accommodate this surge of power was forcing the zero brainwave BR to activate!

The energy of the power crystal from other espers will automatically expand the user’s zero BR, but it must be used before the brain region closes itself or just before that happens. During this period of vulnerability, the moment the energy stabilizes in Han’s brain, it will form a permanent zero BR, and so someone ordinary like Han can automatically acquire the super power.

Time passed slowly, and Han started to wonder, the instruction says that a low grade power crystal takes around 10-15 minutes to finish transferring, but now it has been half hour and the energy transfer system is still active. It even sounded like the fans on his helmetwere speeding up. Han’s brain felt like it was about to explode, as if someone was trying to force something into his head.

Every day, Han works like a machine with only two hours of sleep, starting from the moment he opens his eyes. His body is already burnt out, now that he’s relaxing his whole body laying down on the bed accepting energy transfer, he accidently fell asleep…

……

Ceng ~ (A word that imitates a sound)

“Work, no, I have to start working!” Han got out of his bed in struggle, his body’s covered in sweat. The lights were not on, and it was dark outside of the window. Han’s suddenly became clear headed, and he reached under his pillow for his cellphone. He found it, but it’s shut down, Han was too focused on his work and he hasn’t touched his phone for a long time.

Turned on the lights, Han saw the hanging clock and it was 9 pm, thank god he didn’t miss the data collecting time, he was reassured and went to the kitchen to cook some ramen. He turned on his cellphone again, and countless number of texts swarmed in, the most amount was sent by Li Qi asking if Han was in any trouble and why his phone is always off. Other than him, there’s Wang Yan bragging about getting accepted by a university, and lastly, Jiang Xiaoyan getting rejected and saying that she’s going to go back home and visit her grandparents.

After checking his phone Han realized, so for the past three months after he discovered dark net his phone was off, that’s why he didn’t receive any calls or texts, he thought he was forgotten by the world.

About that black crystal, it already disappeared in the energy transfer machine and became a ball of energy inside Han’s brain. How long did it actually take? Han didn’t know since he fell asleep, but according to the instruction manual, the higher the level of crystal the longer it will take, and the legendary ones will take around 6 hours to finish transferring.

“It’s very cheap, so it probably didn’t take that long… maybe 45 minutes?” Han tried to recall the events before he fell asleep. Sitting in front of the computer, he began to think about his power, he can feel a strong warm current that’s flowing inside of his brain, and he can also feel energy throughout his body and a very well-rested mental state. But, he just doesn’t know how to get his power out.

What kind of esper did I actually become?

He started to think about all kinds of stuff until midnight came around and he decided to get back to work first. He will visit the Esper Administration Center tomorrow morning to sign up, and there’s a machine that is specifically for identifying powers, imported from another well-developed planet. It was said that it can also assess the esper level and force index.

……

The Esper Administration located at Pudong occupies a 40 story building. Everyone that walks past it feels nothing but fear and respect, and after all, the people that comes in and out of the building are either administrators or espers, people that belong to this era’s top privileged class.

The second morning, Han took the subway and arrived at the front of the building, waited for a bit and then walked onto the stairs. The security says with a cold face, “who you looking for?”

“Oh, I want to do the esper applications.” Han said.

“I see, please go to the front desk to take the application, and after you fill it out related personnel will come guide you through the application process.” The security quickly switched to a smiley face, pointing at the cute girl at the front desk.

“Of course, the treatment of espers is totally different.” Han never got that much respect in his life, he felt pretty good.

“Sir, please take the form and go see Mr. Li on the 17th floor.” The cute girl at the front desk handed over a form and said with a big smile.

Han nodded, folded the form in half and walked to the elevator.

“Wait for me!”

The elevator door was about to close, suddenly a huge hand came from the outside, followed by a big fat young adult squeezed in.

Han saw many fat people during his life time, but he has never thought he could see someone THAT fat, height above 2 meters, weighs at least 400 pounds. How is it still a guy, he’s a freaking meat mountain!