It was common knowledge that as Academy City's current strongest Level 5 esper, Accelerator's ability—Vector Control—could remain active twenty-four hours a day without interruption.
Even while asleep, his ability continued to function instinctively.
In other words, it was practically flawless.
Based on the intelligence the researchers had gathered so far, Kobayashi's displayed level of mastery over telekinesis had already begun to resemble Accelerator's Vector Control in several key aspects.
The people present were all professional researchers and had observed countless espers over the years. Except for a very small number of special-type abilities, no esper power could normally be kept active around the clock.
Even if sleep was excluded and only waking hours were considered, maintaining an ability for extended periods was still extremely difficult.
After all, esper abilities relied on brain computation capacity as their foundation—and the human brain simply wasn't built to sustain such high-intensity processing for long.
Put more simply, it was a matter of mental stamina.
And this "mental stamina" wasn't limited to intelligence or concentration. It also included physical endurance. If even one of these factors fell short, mental stamina would be exhausted.
Once mental stamina ran dry, brain calculations would slow down, break down, or stop entirely—resulting in the inability to continue activating one's esper ability.
One of the major reasons Accelerator was the undisputed strongest esper was precisely because his mental stamina was effectively inexhaustible, allowing his overwhelmingly powerful ability to remain active indefinitely.
Now—
Kobayashi was beginning to display the same trait.
Although this conclusion was drawn from secondhand reports rather than solid experimental data, the researchers present specialized in studying the accelerator's ability in the first place. Under these circumstances, it was only natural for their thoughts to turn in this direction.
"Seriously, what are those 'Hunters' even doing?" someone complained.
"It's been almost ten days, and there's been zero progress. A bunch of frauds, if you ask me."
Compared to sitting here speculating based on hearsay, the most effective method was obvious—
Obtain the experimental subject and conduct direct research.
Everyone in the conference room was among the top researchers assigned to this project. If they had even a single viable research sample on hand, they wouldn't be sitting here staring at each other empty-handed.
The middle-aged man sighed.
"Capturing an experimental subject is a sensitive task to begin with. Aside from the 'Hunters,' no other Dark Side organization is willing to accept this kind of job."
Then, as if pulling himself together, he continued with renewed energy:
"Putting that aside—for now, we can conclude from the available data that experiment 007 Esper ability already demonstrates similar versatility and endurance to Accelerator's, though it still falls short in raw output. This leads us to a clear conclusion: telekinesis is the ability type best suited for our project. Only telekinesis can exhibit versatility comparable to Vector Control even at lower levels."
Vector Control, in and of itself, wasn't particularly special.
It was merely one of the countless esper abilities found throughout Academy City.
However, Accelerator's Vector Control was different.
Not only had it reached Level 5, but more importantly, under his control, Vector Control had become a near-omnipotent ability.
There was almost nothing that couldn't be accomplished through it.
The goal of the Dark May Project was to forcibly elevate other espers' ability levels by imprinting Accelerator's cognitive patterns onto them.
In the ideal scenario, its ultimate objective was the creation of a "Second Accelerator."
Once Accelerator's personality data and thought patterns—the mindset of the strongest esper—were in hand, what remained was selecting the right ability type for the test subjects.
The more compatible the ability, the closer the results would approach the project's strategic goal.
Until recently, among the more than two hundred experimental subjects in the project, only a handful had shown any improvement at all—so choosing the optimal ability type hadn't even been a consideration.
But now, with steady breakthroughs in experimental progress, several subjects—aside from the runaway Kobayashi—had successfully increased their ability levels.
The Dark May Project was finally gaining momentum.
Under these circumstances, taking budget and resources into account, it became necessary to plan the next stage carefully.
"There's no question about it," the middle-aged man declared.
"Telekinesis is the most suitable ability type for the next phase of development. We'll prioritize telekinetic espers for enhancement. As for other ability types… they can wait."
Someone immediately raised a voice...
--objection.
"However, two nitrogen-manipulation espers have already reached Level 3. That suggests this ability type also has significant development value."
"From the standpoint of versatility and similarity," another person countered,
"Nitrogen manipulation still falls short of telekinesis."
If the goal was to create a Second Accelerator, then aside from abilities directly similar to Vector Control, the most ideal types would be those that manipulate gravity or electromagnetic force—two of the fundamental forces.
Any other ability would struggle to replicate Vector Control's near-universal applicability.
The Dark May Project team's fixation on similarity wasn't blind imitation—it was because only abilities with similar characteristics could properly align with Accelerator's thought patterns and produce optimal results.
At a macroscopic level, Accelerator's Vector Control could be approximated as an ability that manipulates force itself.
Of course, Accelerator could manipulate all types of force, regardless of category or nature.
The project didn't demand such an impossible standard.
Controlling even one of the four fundamental forces would suffice.
Even then, achieving the Accelerator's level of freedom would remain impossible.
Whether electromagnetic force or gravity, such abilities would still need to obey the laws of physics—they could never be used completely at the esper's whim.
Reaching that level would likely require Level 5 in the first place.
Those considerations belonged to a later stage of the project and could be set aside for now.
Abilities that directly manipulated fundamental forces were already highly valued, and their users would never have been assigned to the "elimination" pool in the first place. As a result, the project's experimental subjects included neither Electrokinesis users nor Gravity manipulators.
Thus, the researchers were forced to settle for the next best option—
If they couldn't manipulate force directly, they would use other abilities to influence it indirectly.
Nitrogen Manipulation.
By controlling nitrogen—the most abundant component of Earth's atmosphere—one could indirectly approximate effects similar to force manipulation.
Over the past month alone, two experimental subjects with nitrogen manipulation had successfully broken through and advanced to Level 3, becoming powerful espers.
(End of Chapter)
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