Lin Wuming looked back, thinking he had experienced an auditory hallucination.
"What's wrong?" the nurse behind him asked.
"No, nothing..." Lin Wuming shook his head and straightened up again.
Since both his hands and feet were in casts, leaving him nearly immobilized, he had to rely on others to move.
However, Lin Wuming wasn't overly worried about his injuries. Aside from the doctor's assurance, the main reason was the "Inner Force" he had awakened. With the "Inner Force" as a boost, healing injuries should be child's play, right?
The only thing Lin Wuming was concerned about was that his "Inner Force" seemed a bit strange.
After a day of adaptation and experimentation, Lin Wuming discovered that this "Inner Force" didn't quite align with his preconceived notion of its setting.
Though, it was possible he just hadn't grasped the specific knowledge of meridians and acupoints yet, which was why he couldn't access the full potential.
However, the "Inner Force Projection" part was becoming increasingly proficient, and strangely so.
The feeling Lin Wuming got was... that this "Inner Force" was less like a power for combat and more like an invisible "hand," or many "hands," that could move objects, or be used for offense and defense according to his will.
For example, when he wanted water, the cup on the bedside table would float gently to his mouth. The same went for getting food or any other object.
It gave Lin Wuming the illusion that his hands weren't injured at all.
—Could this be the legendary "Dragon Capture Palm" or "Crane Control Skill"?
Lin Wuming couldn't help but daydream. He secretly wondered if he should ask the doctors here for some basic pointers. After all, it seemed he had transmigrated into a world where martial arts were common, so basic knowledge shouldn't be hard to find.
This wasn't a baseless conjecture; the white-haired boy he met during the fall yesterday looked exactly like a master.
Moreover, the girl sharing the same room with Lin Wuming looked completely unfazed when she saw him moving objects remotely, as if it was an everyday sight.
This only strengthened Lin Wuming's hypothesis.
Perhaps this girl was also a martial arts expert—Lin Wuming now saw everyone as a potential master—so maybe he could ask her first.
Although Lin Wang was already middle-aged before he transmigrated, the body he occupied was only thirteen or fourteen, appearing younger than the girl in the next bed. It should be perfectly normal to ask a "senior" for guidance, right?
"Uh... Beautiful lady?" Lin Wuming tried to strike up a conversation.
The blonde girl glared at him, her emerald eyes blazing with hostility, as if they were sharp swords ready to pierce him!
Because the girl was so intimidating, Lin Wuming's first attempt at flirting ended in failure.
After seeing the girl's face clearly, Lin Wuming immediately realized his mistake—
From her facial contours and features, this blonde, green-eyed mixed-race girl was indeed a small beauty. But the problem was that several intersecting scars crisscrossed her face, almost destroying the right half of it!
He hadn't noticed this before because her hair concealed it, and he had been focused solely on "cultivating his Inner Force."
Calling such a girl "beautiful lady" out of habit was likely to sound more like mockery than praise to her ears.
Yet, apologizing didn't seem appropriate in this situation either. Lin Wuming felt awkward and simply lay back on the bed sheepishly.
"Idiot!" A bluntly critical assessment came from the neighboring bed.
"Torami, you can't bully your roommate!" Just then, the doctor pushed the door open and entered.
"Sakurai-sensei," the blonde, green-eyed girl—Torami Toumi—said, "I'm not bullying him."
"It was my mistake first, I apologize sincerely..." Lin Wuming seized the opportunity to apologize, then looked at the doctor.
The doctor who entered the room was a very maternal woman; even her loose white coat couldn't conceal her proudly ample bosom.
Lin Wuming's gaze was naturally drawn to her, and then locked onto the name tag on her chest.
He didn't see the "Sakurai" that Torami Toumi had used to address her; the name tag read the three Chinese characters: "虎头步".
As a name, especially for a beautiful woman, it was rather strange.
However, Lin Wuming's focus wasn't here. He suddenly realized a detail he had been overlooking for the past two days since his transmigration.
—Japanese! The small text below the name, the words specifying her position and identity, were in Japanese!
Recalling carefully, it seemed Japanese writing was everywhere in the hospital and on the streets yesterday.
—And thinking even more carefully, the language I've been speaking and listening to all this time is Japanese!
A modern Wuxia world... in Japan?
"Are you thirsty, Wuming-kun? Would you like some water, or perhaps need to use the restroom?" Dr. Sakurai approached him and asked gently. "Oh? Torami, did you feed him water?"
Noticing the empty cup, Dr. Sakurai looked surprised.
"Why would I do something like that?" Torami Toumi said. "It's his own superpower, some kind of psychic ability, right?"
"Superpower? Psychic ability?" Lin Wuming instantly shot up from the hospital bed. "What do you mean by that?"
"Ah, I see!" Dr. Sakurai suddenly understood. "I did hear the other doctors mention it."
Seeming to notice the confusion in Lin Wuming's expression, she explained: "Wuming-kun doesn't seem to know yet. Although you suffered an unfortunate incident, you also benefited from it—your super ability has been awakened."
"Super ability..." Lin Wuming repeated the key phrase, his face still showing disbelief.
"Preliminary assessment suggests you're a 'Psychic' who manipulates psychic power, roughly Level 3 strength. A specific measurement will be taken in a couple of days once your injuries are more stable, and we'll have a more accurate test report then," Dr. Sakurai said gently. "But don't worry, your ability level won't go lower, so you're at least a Strong Ability user, and you might even become a Level 4 Great Ability user. Congratulations, Wuming-kun!"
"Level 3 Strong Ability, Level 4 Great Ability..." There were enough keywords now. Lin Wuming finally realized that he hadn't transmigrated into some modern urban Wuxia world, but rather...
"Academy City?"
Dr. Sakurai nodded: "Wuming-kun is aware of Academy City's system, right? Once you're officially registered as a Level 3, the monthly scholarship is quite generous. You won't have to worry about returning to your old life!"
Lin Wuming nodded dumbly. No wonder his "Inner Force" felt so strange; it wasn't "Inner Force" at all, but the superpower "Psychic Power"!
This explained all the strange inconsistencies. A versatile superpower like "Psychic Power" could indeed be used as an "invisible hand."
A moment later, Lin Wuming practically leapt off the bed: "Wait, so that 'starry-eyed' girl yesterday was Shokuhou Misaki!"
In that instant, Lin Wuming thought of many things, the first being that his identity as a transmigrator was no longer safe!
But then he immediately considered—So what?
Even if he told people, how many would believe him?
Besides, Shokuhou Misaki belonged to the good side, the benevolent camp, so even if she knew some secrets, it wouldn't matter... or rather, he had no other choice.
However, if Chairman Aleister or those insane scientists from the Kihara family found out about his origins, that would be truly disastrous.
Moreover, compared to a modern Wuxia world, Academy City was a much more familiar environment to Lin Wuming. Setting aside the idea of using his "transmigrator's foresight" to stir up trouble, living a peaceful and low-profile life shouldn't be difficult.
For starters, according to the market rate he gleaned from Dr. Sakurai, a Level 3 Strong Ability user's monthly scholarship was between 100,000 to 200,000 yen—more than enough to sustain a solitary life!
For Lin Wuming, who had been a seasoned salaryman, was there any more perfect environment for "lying flat" than this?
While chatting with Dr. Sakurai, Lin Wuming was already outlining his life plan for the next few years.
Lie flat! He would strive to lie flat all the way through A Certain Magical Index's main storyline, peacefully and discreetly enjoying his second life!
As for taking full advantage of this "transmigration" opportunity to achieve something... he regretted that he simply couldn't muster the motivation.
As a salaryman who had experienced the grind of society, or more bluntly, a "corporate slave," Lin Wuming was long past his chuunibyou phase. Saving the world or having a regret-free youth was no longer suited for his psychologically "old" self.
Of course, if it truly were a Wuxia world, that would be a different story. After all, the martial arts dream in a man's heart never fades!
After chatting with Lin Wuming for a while, Dr. Sakurai called the girl from the neighboring bed, Torami Toumi, and they left the room together.
Or rather, Torami Toumi was the doctor's primary patient, and Lin Wuming was simply being looked after incidentally.
Lin Wuming didn't mind, though. He lay on the hospital bed, continuing his eager attempts to test his psychic abilities.
With his four limbs currently immobilized, "Psychic Power"—the most classic superpower—was the perfect aid. It could completely substitute for his hands and feet, allowing him to move freely like a normal person.
He wondered if it was a standard feature for transmigrators, but Lin Wuming quickly mastered his superpower.
After another half an hour of training, he could even use his psychic power to lift his entire body, achieving "suspended flight."
"If only I had mastered this trick yesterday, I wouldn't have fallen so badly..." Lin Wuming muttered to himself.
He wasn't sure what the standard output of a Level 3 "Psychic" was, but after testing it himself, Lin Wuming found he could effortlessly lift a mass of at least half a ton.
As for pushing it further... unfortunately, there wasn't enough "weight" in the hospital room to experiment with.
So, Lin Wuming forgot his bodily pain, used his psychic power to move himself onto the wheelchair by the bed, and then, using his psychic power, pushed the wheelchair out of the room himself.
He was heading to the restroom. Having psychic power made it convenient and spared him the embarrassment of troubling someone else.
Fortunately, language and script were not issues, so finding the restroom was easy.
However, when Lin Wuming emerged from the restroom, he looked at the almost identical rooms on the entire inpatient floor and froze.
"Which room was mine again?"