I Contracted Myself

The next whole day, Zhang Ping and Liu Sishan spent testing their abilities.

Compared to the Fire Eater, which Zhang Ping was already quite familiar with, he wasn't clear about the upper and lower limits of the Misty Body and Pure Water Body, even though he could use them.

That's why testing was necessary.

After a day of testing, he had a preliminary understanding of these two new abilities.

First was the Misty Body. This ability absorbed fear and converted it into mist. The absorption range was within ten meters of him, meaning he couldn't absorb fear from targets beyond ten meters.

Moreover, the mist had strong offensive power, but each attack consumed a portion of it. In other words, the mist was a consumable, and the stronger the target, the greater the consumption.

Generally, attacking flesh and blood didn't consume much mist, but energy bodies and hard substances consumed more.

Finally, by absorbing the target's fear, Zhang Ping could sense the level of their fear.

The more frightened the target was, the more fear he could absorb and convert into mist.

On a side note, to test this range, he discovered a little secret: Liu Sishan was afraid of bugs.

Next was the Pure Water Body test.

The advantage of the Pure Water Body was that it could transform his body into pure water, making him immune to most physical attacks. The downside was that the transformation took time.

It took about one second to transform from flesh and blood to the Pure Water Body.

Partial transformation was slightly faster.

Although the Pure Water Body could absorb water molecules from the air to restore stamina and heal injuries, the recovery speed depended on the environment. The higher the humidity, the faster the recovery; the drier the air, the slower the recovery.

In high-temperature environments, transforming into the Pure Water Body would instead continuously consume stamina, at twice the rate of his flesh and blood form.

Another drawback of the Pure Water Body was that insufficient water content would affect his height and physique.

When most of his body's water was evaporated, transforming back to flesh and blood would make him shorter and thinner, possibly even child-sized.

However, through this test, he discovered that changing his shape as the Pure Water Body and then transforming back to flesh and blood would result in some interesting changes. For example, if he controlled his back to grow wings and then transformed back, his back would indeed have a pair of wings, but they were entirely made of flesh and couldn't fly, resembling female mammary glands more.

But through this experiment, Zhang Ping realized he could perform cosmetic surgery on himself.

Finally, he borrowed Liu Sishan's water whip technique to create his own move, the chainsaw form.

Simply put, his forearms would transform into chainsaws that vibrated at high speed. However, this operation consumed a lot of his energy, allowing him to use it only once, and its power was far less than Liu Sishan's water whip, so it could only serve as a supplementary means to the mist.

After he completed the tests, Liu Sishan evaluated his performance.

His current strength was roughly equivalent to half a high-level Awakener, mainly because the mist had damage beyond its rank. Otherwise, he would at most be an intermediate Awakener.

Moreover, his weaknesses were too obvious.

His level was too low, and his stamina and mental strength were insufficient to sustain a high-intensity battle.

Additionally, his combat experience was too lacking. If a high-level Awakener underestimated him, he might be able to take them down. But if they were serious, his only option would be to flee, especially against fire and lightning Awakeners, where his combat effectiveness would be greatly reduced.

By the time the tests ended, it was already evening.

The two of them returned to the camp together.

Liu Sishan stopped at the camp entrance and said, "Alright, you go back to the tent and rest first. I need to go back to the city tonight to get something."

"Okay, be careful on the way," Zhang Ping nodded.

After they parted, Zhang Ping entered the camp, where many salt transporters were gathered around the bonfire, talking.

"Didn't expect Big Head Liu to die. No wonder we didn't see him last night."

"Last night was when the Salt Frost Tree's fruit ripened. Big Head Liu went too far to mine at noon and encountered a mutated White Ape on his way back. It's fate."

...

"Speaking of which, the atmosphere in the city has been strange lately. I heard that a bun shop owner woke up to find his wife had turned into a human skin, with the blood already blackened. No one knows how long it had been peeled off. The owner went mad on the spot."

"I heard about that too. The owner's wife was still eating buns in the shop the day before, and many people can testify to it."

As Zhang Ping passed by the bonfire, he felt a trace of fear emanating from the salt transporters, which he absorbed and converted into mist. He decided to join them and listen to their conversation.

"Hey kid, new here?"

A salt transporter next to Zhang Ping noticed his unfamiliar face and asked with a smile.

"Yeah, just trying my luck," Zhang Ping replied amicably.

Then he leaned in and whispered, "Actually, I know some inside information about what they were just talking about. I was so scared that I fled the city to lay low."

"What inside information?" The other person immediately asked in a low voice.

Zhang Ping noticed the surrounding salt transporters all pricking up their ears and smiled slyly, "I'll tell you, but don't spread it around. There have been several similar cases, all suppressed by the higher-ups. If you don't believe me, you can ask around. People have gone missing from Jiu An Furniture and Long Qiang Weapon Shop."

"I know about that. Three people went missing from Long Qiang Weapon Shop."

"I know about Jiu An Furniture too. I even bought a chair from them recently."

"Hiss, does that mean five people are dead?"

"Maybe more. The question is, how did they die to leave behind just a human skin, with the blood all blackened? How long must they have been dead?"

"What's even scarier is, were the people we saw before really human or ghosts?"

The salt transporters discussed fervently, and the atmosphere grew increasingly eerie. Some timid ones wanted to leave but were too scared to stay alone in their tents, caught in a dilemma with pale faces.

Zhang Ping stood among them, absorbing their fear and converting it into mist bit by bit.

He realized that fear had different qualities.

During the morning test, Liu Sishan's fear quality wasn't high. Although she was afraid of bugs, it wasn't extreme fear, more like disgust, with a low level of dread.

Tonight, the salt transporters' fear was of higher quality, akin to that of an audience watching a horror movie in a cinema.

As night deepened, the salt transporters gradually returned to their tents.

"I wonder how high the quality of fear between life and death would be?"

Zhang Ping sat by the bonfire, pondering.

In just two hours, the mist had transformed from a bracelet to a belt, which could now be used as a sword in battle.

Unfortunately, such opportunities weren't available every day.

The salt transporters couldn't be terrified by the same story every day.

Looking at the mist-formed belt, Zhang Ping had a thought: "What if I start telling ghost stories here tomorrow? Would I be able to absorb fear?"

"Or maybe, I could try pretending to be a ghost?"

One mischievous idea after another popped into Zhang Ping's head.

The mist was his only means to deal with high-level Mutated Beasts. He wished the mist could cover his entire body, forming thousands of weapons.

At that level, any enemy would be met with countless blades, chopped into mincemeat.

To achieve this small goal as soon as possible, Zhang Ping recalled all the horror movies he had watched in his past life. Gradually, he had an idea: pretending to be a ghost might actually work!

He decided to try it out, manipulating the mist to instantly cover his face.

By adjusting the thickness of the mist, his face gradually turned into a black skull.

"Ah!"

Suddenly, a terrified scream came from not far away, followed by abrupt silence.

Startled, Zhang Ping looked over and saw a salt transporter staring at him in horror before fainting.

Did he just scare someone unconscious?

Zhang Ping wiped his face, dispersing the mist-formed skull mask.

He hurried over to check on the salt transporter, relieved to find he was unharmed.

Although Zhang Ping had planned to pretend to be a ghost, he hadn't expected it to be so effective. He couldn't help but wonder if it was really that scary.

He tried to wake the salt transporter by pressing on his philtrum, but the man fainted again upon seeing his face, emitting a surge of intense fear before passing out.

"Forget it."

Zhang Ping moved the salt transporter to the bonfire and turned back to his tent.

Too bad he didn't have a mirror; otherwise, he could see how terrifying his black skull face was.

"Wait, water can reflect my image too."

He suddenly thought of a solution and transformed his lower body into a puddle of water. His face, covered by the mist, quickly turned into a black skull.

Although the Night Walker ability gave him night vision, water reflection required light. The tent was too dark, and the water's reflection wasn't clear enough.

He lifted a corner of the tent to let the bonfire's light in, then looked at his reflection, nearly stopping his heart.

It was an extremely terrifying face.

The dynamic effect of the mist made the skull face constantly change. The scariest part wasn't any particular face but the sense of death it conveyed.

Zhang Ping swallowed hard, feeling a bit scared.

This makeup was too eerie; he seemed to have created something truly horrifying.

"Ah!"

By the bonfire, the salt transporter woke up.

He sat up, frowning, and saw the tent corner lifted, revealing the terrifying face inside. His eyes widened, and he fainted again with a scream.

Oh, come on...

Zhang Ping looked at the unfortunate salt transporter, speechless.

This couldn't be his fault, right?

It shouldn't be, right?

He silently lowered the tent corner and dispersed the mist from his face.

Honestly, even he didn't dare to stare at that skull face alone for too long; it gave him the creeps.

But in battle, it should exert tremendous psychological pressure on the enemy.

It was like a special piece of equipment that could significantly weaken the enemy's state.