His sister's treatment fees were soon paid. Without any further worries, Yang Xi's family gradually returned to their normal life.
However, the topic of Heroes and Espers had become taboo at home. For the convenience of his plans, Yang Xi chose to move out of the house.
His current job was an intern reporter at the Deer Harbor Evening News, and his monthly income was about 3,500 Azure dollars. Of course, there would be additional commissions for writing manuscripts.
But right now, he could only rent a single room less than 30 square meters in a neighborhood called Bright Moon Community on the outskirts of Deer Harbor.
"This is the key to the room. The monthly rent is 1,500 Azure dollars. The deposit is one month's rent, and you will put down three months of rent from the start. Water and electricity will be taken care of by yourself."
"The kitchen and bathroom outside are for communal use, but you have to be mindful of the hygiene."
The landlord gave Yang Xi the keys and left. When the other tenants saw that there was a newcomer, they came out to greet him.
This 140 square meter apartment had been divided into four single rooms by the landlord.
The master bedroom was rented by a mother and daughter. The mother was in her thirties and was teaching mathematics at a primary school next to the community while the daughter was in kindergarten.
The other person was a third-year student. In order to take the graduate entrance exam, she chose to rent a room outside.
The last person had yet to return.
The female teacher said, "It's rare that a newcomer came today, why don't we all gather together to hold a welcoming feast for Little Yang?"
The student shook her head and declined. "I'm going out to eat tonight. You guys go ahead."
Seeing that the atmosphere was a little awkward, Yang Xi smiled and rejected the female teacher's suggestion. What he wanted to do now was very dangerous, so it was best to avoid interacting with these people as much as possible.
Truthfully, he didn't wish to cohabit with others either. However, the rent in Deer Harbor was too ridiculous. This was the best choice he could make at the moment.
After returning to his room, Yang Xi started to search for commentary videos on Spirit Espers. There were actually a lot of them online.
Although Espers only took up 1% of the population, there were still over 100 million Espers among the population of over 10 billion in the 53 districts of Planet Azure.
It was very difficult to get into a formal Hero school. Therefore, if a grassroots Esper wanted to develop his Esper Ability, he would have to rely on learning from these educational content creators' videos.
In actuality, according to the Espers Act, Espers who did not have the certifications for professional Heroes were not allowed to use Esper Abilities without permission. However, the Joint Council could not monitor Espers around the clock. Thus, it was actually very common for people to use their Esper Abilities privately. Only when it threatened public safety or other people's lives would the relevant departments and Heroes Association come knocking.
Yang Xi chose the most popular video, made a bowl of instant noodles and sat down with a can of iced cola as he started viewing the video leisurely.
"Spirit Espers need to learn how to control their output power. Just like electric fans, our Spirit Power can be divided into many levels…"
Yang Xi quickly digested the contents of the commentary video. According to the video, one should first use his strongest Spirit Power output to activate an ability, then set that as the maximum level. Then using the same method, use the lowest amount of Spirit Power to unleash the same ability, subsequently setting that as the first level.
From there, one can find the middle level between the first level and the highest level, slowly separating the ability accordingly into different levels. The exact number of levels depended on the person.
At the end of the video was an advertisement for a shop called "Omniscient Eye". Naturally, this was the content creator's personal store. It sold Spirit Force Meters, and was advertised to cost only 200 Azure dollars. This device could measure Spirit Power accurately.
Thanks to this video, Yang Xi, who did not have a deep understanding of the Esper world, now learnt the unit that measured Spirit Power: SP.
An ordinary person's Spirit Power was around 10sp. Elementalists, Specialists, and those who needed to control elements or objects had around 20sp. Spirit Espers' spiritual powers were slightly higher, reaching around 25sp.
Only Espers like Body Enhancers had relatively weaker Spirit Power, measuring around 10 plus SP. The weaker ones were not much different from ordinary people.
Regarding the concept of Spirit Power, there were many differing opinions in the Esper world. What was more acknowledged was that Spirit Power originated from the soul, and was a kind of strength that came from the depths of the soul.
Emotions such as happiness, anger, sorrow, and joy could stimulate changes in one's Spirit Power. Of course, this change only affected the Spirit Power that a person "used" in that moment.
Take for instance a person with a Spirit Power of 10sp. When in a state of sleep, the Spirit Power that was "projected" towards the outside world would only be about 3sp to 5sp. When this person moved about during the day, his Spirit Power would basically reach between 7sp and 9sp. Only when his emotions were stimulated could his projected Spirit Power reach 10sp, or even beyond 10sp.
The Spirit Force Meter measured the level of Spirit Power projected as spirit waves (also known as spirit particles; it was said that Spirit Power also had wave-particle duality).
In order to measure his strength more accurately, Yang Xi had no choice but to buy the Spirit Force Meter at the content creator's 'gold-trapping' shop.
"The sales actually exceeded a million."
Yang Xi secretly clicked his tongue. He didn't expect that making videos would be so profitable.
As his thoughts drifted thus, he developed the thought of earning a living on the streaming platform too. After all, the Internet was very advanced now, and the original paper media was gradually declining.
"Perhaps the next step for me should be to develop myself in the direction of the media and solve the issue of financing."
After doing all this, Yang Xi looked at the time and realized that unknowingly, it was already 2am.
"Time to wash up and go to bed. I still have to go to work tomorrow."
Holding a bunch of toiletries, he was about to enter the bathroom when the door of the apartment was pushed open.
It was a young woman in her twenties. Her black wavy hair contrasted well with her fiery red lips, and she wore an open-necked top and hot pants, revealing her snow-white thighs.
Yang Xi was also a man and couldn't help but take a few more glances.
This must be the last tenant.
"Hello."
Yang Xi nodded politely towards her. The girl seemed to have cried earlier, and the makeup around her eyes was smudged.
"If you don't mind, I'll use the washroom first… Ugh!"
Reeking of alcohol, she stumbled into the bathroom and immediately threw up into the toilet bowl.
It seemed that she had drunk quite a bit. Seeing this, Yang Xi developed some guesses about her profession.
Rapidly, the clean floor tiles of the washroom were covered with the girl's footprints and vomit. Even on account of her jade-like legs, such a messy scene also deducted quite a number of points from her aesthetics.
"Hey, are you okay?"
Yang Xi watched as the girl lay motionless against the toilet bowl. He walked over and tapped her on the shoulders, but realized that she had already fallen asleep. Long lines of smudged black tears extended all the way from her eyes to the corners of her mouth. A red mark could be seen on the left side of her face. Yang Xi counted silently. There were four fingers mark in total.
She was slapped by someone?
Seeing that he couldn't wake the girl up, Yang Xi decided to call Ding Lan out to help. After all, men and women shouldn't touch each other.
Although it was late, he still hardened his scalp and went to knock on the mother and daughter pair's door.
"Wou~ Little Yang, it's already so late. Why aren't you sleeping?" The female teacher yawned as she opened the door sleepily.
Yang Xi pointed at the girl in the bathroom. "Could you do me a favor and help her out? She is afterall a girl. It's not convenient for a man like me."
Ding Lan took one glance at her and shook her head. "I think you should just let her be. This isn't the first time anyway."
"It's getting late, I have work tomorrow. Little Yang, you should go to bed early too."
After saying that, she closed the door, leaving a stupefied Yang Xi hesitating at the door.
It seemed that this girl had a disagreement with the female teacher before. As for what it was, Yang Xi couldn't be bothered to ask.
Helpless, Yang Xi could only step in.
"Hey, hey, hey, can you get up?"
Yang Xi held onto a last trace of hope as he patted the girl's face. Finally, after realizing that she was simply as drunk as a dead pig, Yang Xi could only carry her out of the bathroom.
Fortunately, this girl was rather skinny and it was simple for Yang Xi to carry her.
He didn't have the key to her room, and Yang Xi was too lazy to open her bag and search for it. He directly placed her down on the sofa in the public area.
Initially, he wanted to find a blanket to cover her with. However, since he had just moved in, Yang Xi only had one piece of blanket himself. Thus, he could only find a coat to cover her with.
[Detected Esper Ability: Brain Overload]
[Esper Ability: Brain Overload
Introduction: Increase the brain's computational ability by leaps and bounds within a short period of time.
Evaluation: Grade-F. The potential is very impressive, but the original owner does not seem to realize that she has Esper Abilities…
Seeing the evaluation, Yang Xi was speechless.
Esper Abilities needed to be trained. Other than some geniuses who awakened with Grade-A abilities, most people were Grade-F when they first awakened their Esper Abilities.
Many people who had awakened their Esper Abilities were confused. They only knew that something was different and only after being exposed to external stimuli would they realize that they were Espers.
For example, Yang Feifei's Esper Ability only came out once when she happened to encounter a human trafficker, knocking him out with her spiritual attack. Only then did she realize that she had an Esper Ability.
"Unfortunately, this girl probably just thinks that she's a little smart sometimes…" Yang Xi shook his head." It's just that her smart brain isn't used on the right path. Otherwise, she might even be a top student now. "
In the end, Yang Xi decided to strip this girl's Esper Ability. Firstly, this girl did not know that she was an Esper. The most important thing was that the Esper Ability Brain Overload when coupled with Spirit Shock, would undoubtedly become a powerful killing combo. Yang Xi decided that he had to be more decisive. At most, when he had collected more Esper Abilities in the future, he would give this girl some compensation.
An unfamiliar yet familiar substance was soon removed from the girl's body, forming a red bead.
['Brain Overload' stripping complete!]