The Ultimate Evolution

Sheyan was walking ahead and Zi was following behind him. Although they did not speak, they had a silent tacit understanding.

Sheyan soon stopped at the corner where the elevator were. If he entered the elevator, a series of verification processes would be performed and most of his equipment would be unloaded. By the time the elevator reached the top, he would have entered the real world. Even if Zi followed after him, unless she also had the permission to return to the real world, she would not see Sheyan.

Sheyan nodded to her as usual, and then said in a low voice, “Do you remember? When we were in Nice, you gave me a string of Dzi beads and told me that it was the key to the road of the strongest MT.”

For some reason, when Zi was called over by Sheyan, she felt somewhat shy and hesitant. After hearing the reason Sheyan summoned her over, she strangely felt a little disappointed. However, she still answered seriously, “I do. You think you can use that thing now?”

Sheyan nodded. “During the last mission, I encountered some very complicated things which directly led to my innate ability reaching the boundary, and I must break through it now. My intuition tells me that the beads you gave me will probably be the key to my innate ability breakthrough!”

Zi smiled upon hearing that. “Congratulations. By the way, Reef will probably attempt to break through to an Awakener soon. You’ll have to hurry up.”

Sheyan pondered for a moment and said, “You know that I’m a cautious person, so I hope you can tell me the origin of that string of beads. It may be very helpful for my breakthrough.”

Zi fell into silent contemplation. Her eyelashes were very long, so she looked really charming when she was in deep thought. Sheyan knew that Zi was not trying to hide anything; she was just trying to organise her words so as to explain a very complex thing in an orderly way.

“For a time, I enjoyed mountain climbing and exploring very much. One time, my climbing team encountered an avalanche, but I survived. This string of Dzi beads was obtained from the ruins of a lama temple on a snowy mountain somewhere between Tibet and Nepal. The lama temple is very unique in that what they worship isn’t a god, but a stone.”

“A stone?” exclaimed Sheyan in confusion. From what he knew, only followers of Japanese Shinto and some very primitive tribes in the world worship stones.

Zi continued, “If you’ve never personally seen that stone, you’ll never understand what a strange creation it is. It stood on the altar like a towering mountain, majestic and solemn. When I looked at it, I felt like I was in Nepal looking up at Mount Everest.”

“And the beads I gave you were placed in front of the sacred stone. When I picked up the beads, I saw a saying from the Epic of King Gesar written below in the ancient Tibetan language: “This string of beads contain the secret to being as strong as the Chomolungma.””

( TL note 1: Mount Everest is known in Tibetan as Chomolungma. )

( TL note 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_of_King_Gesar )

Sheyan listened intently and did not miss a single word. Zi suddenly smiled in self-deprecation.

“You must think that the saying is merely the exaggerated words of a lost religious sect, but when I first grasped that string of beads, a sentence drifted into my mind: “The path of the strongest MT is not for you”. It was exactly the same as the notifications we receive for a mission or something.”

Sheyan nodded. Zi paused, and then said, “I thought about it for a long time and finally came up with a more reasonable explanation. Do you want to hear it?”

“Of course.” A smile crept onto Sheyan’s face.

“Do you remember the soul equipment we got before, the Memory Pen?”

Sheyan nodded. “Of course I do. Mr. Sean Heim of Devon. I remember that he’s living happily in this world, while this Memory Pen was left behind by another Mr. Sean Heim in a parallel universe before he died.”

Zi took a deep breath and looked into Sheyan’s eyes carefully.

“Is it possible, then, that in another parallel universe, the ruined lama temple sect is thriving, and they have in their possession a secret method to becoming the most powerful MT? The sacred stone exists in both universes, while this string of beads has the incredible ability to resonate between the two planes. Could that be the explanation?”

Sheyan calmed down his heart and immediately expressed his doubt.

“What’s the purpose of the lama temple doing this? If your assumption holds true, then a strong person may be trying to awaken himself in a parallel universe, but you also told me that those who have powerful innate abilities are often unique and can’t be found in other parallel universes – otherwise, Zeus would have laid his hands on the Zi in his universe long ago! What worries me is the motive of the other side!”

Zi’s fair face blushed slightly. She glared at Sheyan, but after that, her expression turned into a frown as she said, “Your concern isn’t unreasonable. If the other side has set a trap, it’ll be really dangerous for you because you won’t have a lot of powerful equipment in the real world. Maybe you can wait until we finish our next world? With you, AK, Reef and me together, the risk will be a lot lower.”

Sheyan shook his head with a serious look on his face.

“No. If I’m not mistaken, in the next world, we’ll probably encounter the mastermind who’s been plotting behind our backs. That guy’s ability is a perfect match for his bizarre schemes! I must become stronger to make sure that all of us return alive. Now that I know more about the beads, I already have an idea of what to do.”

“But now that I’ve heard what you said, I’m starting to worry instead. What if that string of beads is really a trap?”

“Then you should give me some encouragement,” said Sheyan very seriously.

“What kind of encouragement?” asked Zi in doubt.

Suddenly, she found that her shoulders were crudely and forcefully pressed by Sheyan, and the distance between them quickly shortened until he invaded into her psychological forbidden space. She knew she could resist him and should resist him, but feeling the strong masculinity getting close to her face, her whole body felt soft and weak.

While she was in a daze, she suddenly recalled a Skype mood message she once saw many years ago: “Everyone will meet a bastard that they cannot resist one day.”

“Have I… Have I finally met the bastard that I cannot resist?”

With such distraction and doubt, Zi was surprisingly meek. Not only were her red lips attacked and ravaged, Sheyan had even put his tongue into her mouth and did as he liked inside. Sheyan had also seized this rare opportunity of Zi falling into a trance to move his dishonest hands along her curves and into her clothes.

Perhaps in the Nightmare Realm, it was rare to see a man pushing a woman against the wall and doing whatever he wanted. A man who was passing by intentionally coughed, which immediately woke Zi up from her trance and confusion. She instantly felt Sheyan’s hardness and, of course, her own wetness….

She pushed Sheyan away with embarrassment. She raised her hand, preparing to give him a slap in the face, but Sheyan quickly took a few steps back with a smile that made Zi’s heart beat faster. He made a gesture of blowing smoke from his finger gun, then walked into the elevator while laughing out loud.

***

“Women are indeed creatures that can fill a man with fighting spirit.”

Sheyan, who had just woken up, lay lazily on the hammock in his beach trousers. He picked up a fresh coconut and took large gulps of the juice inside. After a good burp, he was still dissatisfied, so he picked up a betel nut and chewed on it slowly.

Next to Sheyan’s hammock hung a string of beads that seemed to be made of a strange material. It was precisely the string of Dzi beads that supposedly hid a huge secret within it. However, it now looked very different.

The moment Sheyan touched the ordinary-looking string of beads after he returned, the shell of the beads had suddenly dissolved to reveal the object’s true appearance.

This string of Dzi beads was composed of 36 stone-like beads. On each bead were five dots that looked bizarrely like eyes. Under the sun, the beads gleamed with a barely-visible, five-coloured, mist-like glow. It was a string of colourful Dzi beads, which was very rare even in Tibet.

There is a saying in an ancient poem: there are tears on the moon pearls in the sea, and mist on the Lantian jade on a warm day. From that, once could tell how precious these beads were.

(TL: Lantian jade is a type of famous Chinese jade.)

When Sheyan held the beads, he felt like he was holding a bunch of burning charcoals; he could only throw them away quickly. After some time, the temperature of the beads dropped. Sheyan estimated that it would be dark before he could safely hold them and feel for himself “the voice inside the head” which Zi told him about.

There was at least three more hours before dark, so Sheyan lay down in one of the sparse coconut-tree hammocks by the sea, feeling the familiar sea breeze on his skin, listening to the sound of waves melting into his bones, and just chilled out. He emptied his mind, thinking nothing and doing nothing so that his brain would also have a chance to rest.

Finally, it was dark. Although Sheyan was still lying down with his eyes closed, his right hand had already grasped the string of colourful Dzi beads hanging next to the tree!