Lishan, inside the old martial hall.
"Dead from fright?" Lin Tuo couldn't help but think this as he saw the proto-elephant collapse in his palm. When he read the log's description, he finally let out a sigh of relief.
"So timid, huh…" he muttered softly, lifting a magnifying glass to carefully observe this ancient lifeform.
He didn't discover much from the inspection, but something else caught his attention.
"It seems I can directly bypass the isolation barrier, taking matter and life from inside the sand table. And through the Evolution Sand Table's spatial channel, their size is proportionally reduced…"
This possibility wasn't something he had overlooked before.
After all, that "incarnation" of his still resided within his body.
"Because this proto-elephant is unique, it doesn't cause a logic conflict. That's different from the situation with my avatar… Hm, this is quite an important discovery."
Lin Tuo pondered for a while, then a thought flashed:
If he placed his avatar inside the sand table and shifted his consciousness, wouldn't that mean he could appear anywhere within the sand table world?
But after hesitating, he didn't attempt it right away.
Instead, he returned the unconscious proto-elephant to the sand table. When he saw it wake with a start and stagger away in terror, he allowed a faint smile to curl at his lips.
"Let them continue evolving for now. I wonder if proto-humans will appear today." Shaking his head, Lin Tuo switched the sand table into "Observation Mode."
The old room filled with shifting light and shadow, the desolate primordial land vanishing—replaced by a bustling modern metropolis.
Yancheng, miniaturized countless times over, unfolded before him.
At this moment, under the early morning glow, the city was slowly waking up.
Sunlight slanted across skyscrapers and high-rises, casting chaotic shadows.
On the city roads, countless cars were already moving in an orderly fashion.
"So this is the gap between civilizations." Comparing this to the primitive continent in Creation Mode, Lin Tuo couldn't help but sigh. He then glanced at the "current Ether concentration" indicator.
The prompt read: Low, with an upward arrow beside it, suggesting it was recovering. But with the naked eye, the faint blue-white aura was barely visible.
"As expected, Ether doesn't restore quickly." Lin Tuo exhaled lightly, then turned toward a distant mountain peak at the sand table's edge.
This was a peak even steeper and more treacherous than Lishan.
It was still part of the Taihe mountain range, though much farther from Yancheng. Half its mass extended outside the sand table's boundary.
Lin Tuo spread out his right hand. With a thought, a miniature version of himself appeared in his palm.
His avatar.
Yes—after much consideration, Lin Tuo had decided to run an experiment using it.
From his observations yesterday, the avatar was nearly identical to his main body—in every sense.
To be precise, it was essentially his "self" inside the sand table's spatial dimension.
Switching his perception, he had already confirmed that whatever power his body gained through digesting Ether, his avatar shared equally.
The two bodies had exactly the same strength, both drawing on the same limited pool of Ether. Aside from the difference in size, they were indistinguishable.
Even basic functions were synchronized.
If Lin Tuo's main body ate, the avatar wouldn't feel hungry. If the avatar ate, the main body would feel full.
"Completely ignores the conservation of energy."
But given the Evolution Sand Table's peculiar nature, whether energy was conserved wasn't really the point.
What mattered was—if so, then he might be able to use his avatar for physical training, accelerating the digestion of Ether.
Once the idea took hold, Lin Tuo didn't hesitate. He placed the avatar at the base of that perilous Taihe peak, then withdrew his hand and shifted his consciousness.
His vision blurred.
At the foot of the mountain, what had been a puppet-like avatar suddenly came alive, Lin Tuo's eyes glinting with awareness.
He moved his body a little, looking around. Not far ahead, the mountain loomed, half-covered in green.
In the east, the sun had just risen. The air was still cool. Mist drifted across the endless Taihe range.
"This is it." After orienting himself, Lin Tuo drew a breath and dashed forward, his speed sharp and swift, like a startled swan, racing toward a particular place.
Soon, a trail of stone steps appeared before him.
It was hardly a "road," more a narrow stairway carved from rock, steep as a ladder to the sky.
Lin Tuo didn't know its exact origins, only that his grandfather had brought him here once as a child, saying the "Sky Ladder" had a history of hundreds of years, once leading to a temple that long ago collapsed.
Because of the treacherous terrain, few ever climbed it.
Eventually, it was abandoned.
And this was the training ground Lin Tuo had chosen.
After a brief hesitation, he stripped off his shirt, wrapped it around his head and neck to cover his face. Though almost no one would appear here, it was better to be cautious.
Then, stepping forward, he grasped an old, weathered stone stele. The inscription was worn and unreadable.
"Rise!" Lin Tuo inhaled deeply, Ether rippling through his body.
Though his transformed physique didn't appear especially massive, now the streamlined muscles along his frame flexed and bulged. Effortlessly, he hefted the stone stele onto his back.
Then, crouching slightly, he began bounding up the Sky Ladder at a steady pace.
Meanwhile.
On a roadside not far away, a private car had pulled over.
Two young women, in their twenties, stepped out.
The first, wearing a sunhat, was peering intently toward the Taihe mountains, as if searching for something.
"I'm telling you, you imagined it. No way someone just dropped out of the sky."
Her friend leaned against the car door, arms crossed, exasperated.
But the sunhat girl was serious.
"I swear I didn't imagine it! Just now, when I glanced out the window, I saw a figure fall straight from the sky… Anyway, just trust me."
Seeing her friend's skeptical look, she stopped explaining, instead pulling out her phone, switching on the camera, and zooming in on the mountainside.
"Fine, fine, I believe you. Whatever. The world's gone crazy anyway. Yesterday they said an entire desert was sealed off, today you're saying Superman… who knows anymore—"
"Ah! Found him! Look!" the girl cried, almost shouting. Excited, she shoved the phone toward her friend.
The second woman blinked, then leaned closer.
On the screen, zoomed in and shaky but clear enough, was a figure carrying a massive stone stele, leaping steadily up the steep "Sky Ladder."
"…Holy crap! There really is a Superman?!"
Though the distance blurred the image, the scene was unmistakable.
It was Lin Tuo, training by carrying the stone stele.
Every leap seemed to fall into some rhythm, carrying an unusual beauty. He showed no sign of fatigue. Even if it didn't prove he had "fallen from the sky," the feat itself was clearly beyond normal human ability.
"Record it! Hurry, record it!"
Snapped out of her daze, the girl with the sunhat hit record.
The two said no more, just watched in silence.
"That stele is massive… and the stairs are so steep. He can't last long, right?"
"Probably not."
"How high do you think he'll make it?"
As they speculated, the timer on the recording kept ticking.
Five minutes…
Ten minutes…
Twenty…
Forty…
Their expressions shifted from curiosity, to shock, to blank disbelief.
By the time Lin Tuo vanished over the mountaintop, they were slack-jawed.
"Fifty-eight minutes and twenty-one seconds!"
Seeing the final video length, the two exchanged stunned glances.
On terrain like that, maintaining a steady pace for nearly an hour—while carrying a boulder—was simply impossible for a normal human.
"…I—I think I believe you now," the second girl muttered, dazed. "This guy… No, I don't think he's human at all!"
"The world really is changing." The girl with the sunhat tucked her phone away, her expression complicated.
Yesterday the world reeled at the mysterious Black Box. Today, they'd seen a "non-human."
It all felt like a sign of something greater.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm uploading the video," the girl said firmly, eyes gleaming. "I think… we just witnessed history."
"Phew, finally made it."
At the summit, Lin Tuo tossed the stele aside and braced against his knees, gasping for breath. Sweat soaked his body, his hair plastered wet against his forehead.
"How much Ether do I have left?"
[Host currently has 93 Ether points.]
The Evolution Sand Table's answer echoed in his mind.
"Ninety-eight last time… so I just digested five." Lin Tuo calculated silently. "My strength feels a bit higher again. Seems my body-tempering method works. If I persist, I'll eventually refine all the Ether and evolve my life level."
Still, he wasn't overly optimistic.
"Efficiency will only drop from here. The higher the level, the harder it gets. Figures—there's never a free lunch."
He shook his head with a wry smile, wiping his sweat with his discarded shirt.
As he glanced at the rising sun, he instinctively tried to switch his consciousness back—when suddenly, some strange instinct made him glance down toward the distant road below.
"…Why do I feel like I'm being watched?"
(End of Chapter)