Mental Power Ability was not exactly rare, but it was not as common as Rihanna had thought. At least the Ye Clan did not seem to have many books related to this power. Or maybe they had it in their inaccessible levels, but she dared not ask too many questions to the Reference Master. She was sure that a record of all the people accessing the Library and all the topics they were going through would definitely go to the Clan, and she did not wish to stand out too much.
Picking up some scrolls encoding the basics of Mental Power Ability, she flipped through their content to understand where she currently stood, and what to expect in the future.
'A person having this ability will generally start off with being able to hear the thoughts of people around.....check. Will take a lot of practice and control to be able to control thought reading.....yeah, tell me about it! It develops to being able to enter a single person's mind at a time and reading their thoughts and memories....Yup, that's the place where I am stuck!......with experience and control, can read many people's mind at the same time....really?! One person seems to have become my limit!
....This will further develop to being able to control another person's mind and turning him into your puppet for a short time...wow! This sounds like a fiction or fantasy! So basically, I can turn them into my puppets?! Interesting!......the time period will increase with more experience and control...yeah, everything becomes better with experience and control! But how am I supposed to control it?!....
.....Merging Mental Power Ability with other powers?!...What? I can mix Mental Powers with other powers? Little Purple....why have you not spoken in such a long while? What is this book talking about?'
'You never asked me to speak.'
Rihanna felt like rolling her eyes at him. As if that had ever stopped him from speaking out his thoughts!
'Yes, you can merge your Mental Powers with your other powers. I do not know about the process, since I never had Mental Power Ability. But I have seen people entering another person's mind, and leaving elemental explosion strings in there. They act as bombs....something like those time bombs or virus in your other world. If the person tries to defy your orders, or the person has completed the given tasks and is no longer useful....then the strings will explode and the person will die.'
Rihanna raised her eyebrows in surprise. This sounded like such an evil scheming method. What a torture for a person knowing that they have a live time-bomb inside their brain!
'What else?'
'Well.....you could probably consider your teleportation skill as one of the merging methods as well.'
'Huh?!'
Rihanna frowned in contemplation, quickly scanning through the book in her hand.
'Users of both Mental Ability and Space element can combine both to create teleportation portals for themselves. With experience and control, they can not only increase the distance of teleportation, but can also carry one more person along with themselves. Not known if they can further develop to carry more people, like a group. No reference available!'
'I do not know much about this one. I had heard that there was someone who could teleport an entire town of people, and even non-living materials. But I never saw it myself.'
Rihanna fell into contemplation. This sounded so farfetched, and way too strenuous. At least at her current level it was unthinkable!
'So that means that I have Space ability as well?'
'You barely fall in the edges of a Space Ability User. You have a tendency of using more of wind Elemental Power with your Mental Ability than Space Ability.'
'So I am not actually teleporting?'
'You are, but since your Space Ability is very small and not much explored, the wind actually increases the speed of your movement beyond the visibility of naked eyes, and you move through a gap in the Space with this high speed. But the gap you are able to create is very tiny, which is why the distance you teleport is very short.'
'Hmmm....then how should I develop my Space Ability?'
'You should know that even though it sounds good that you can teleport, your body is actually much too large an object for your mind and space ability to control at the same time. You should pick up smaller objects and try moving them from one place to another by creating space gaps. But you will need Comprehensive Space Power Ability Books for further understanding.'
Rihanna fell silent. The more she studied, she realized how much more she was lacking and needed to study. No wonder cultivators lived such long lives. They needed to live long in order to understand the full capability and potential of their abilities. And most times even these long lives were not enough.
Suddenly something random seemed to flash through her mind.
'Say....do Devil Cultivators use Mental Power Abilities?!'
'Not much.....but their Mental Powers are a bit more than general cultivators. That is because they lack the spiritual root, and have to use forbidden methods to create a different means of cultivation.'
Rihanna looked up in shock.
'Devil Cultivator's do not have a Spiritual Root?'
'...I didn't mention this before?'
'NO! But how can they cultivate without a Spiritual Root?!'
'Devil Cultivators have existed for a very long time. They existed even in my time. So the methods of Devil Cultivation were created a very, very long time ago. These were mostly cultivators who had either been robbed of their Spiritual Roots or had half a Spiritual Root. I think the person who designed the basics of this method was himself a great and powerful cultivator. Through some means he had discovered that a Spiritual Root is not always required for cultivation. However, the means to achieve the same level of power as person with Spiritual Root, the Devil Cultivator has to absorb life and spiritual essence of other cultivators, and that can often lead to the death of their victims.'
'Sounds like there must have been quite a massacre created by people following the Devil Cultivation methods?!'
'Why else do you think these cultivators go around religiously eradicating Devil Cultivators? That is the only way to keep their society safe.'
'Is that the reason you have been wanting me to keep low about my cultivation? That others might regard me as a Devil Cultivator?'
'Hmmm. Your ways of cultivation are alien to this world, and that can easily raise suspicion. It is better to keep a low presence, at least till you are strong enough.'
'But...Artreya and Ye Luo know that I cultivate in a different way.'
'They have had the chance to been very close to you in the dimension. They have more understanding about the way you cultivate, and can easily verify that it has nothing to do with Devil Cultivation methods. It is actually similar to their own methods, but also slightly different. Moreover, Artreya is already your contracted servant, so he will not reveal anything unless he wishes to die from repercussion. However....you should be careful about Ye Luo. Though you have a seemingly good relation with him now, it might not always be so.'
Rihanna paused once again, contemplating his words seriously. She was well aware that people did change. Even back on earth, she had seen people changing for money and power and better opportunities. Though she could be deemed as the lucky few who did not have to face any form of betrayal personally, but that did not mean she was unaware of how the world worked. As her thoughts turned about, something else surfaced in her memory.
'You told me to let that woman go....the woman who was the Leader of the Dorminions. She was left with a torn Spiritual Root. Then she can still turn to Devil Cultivation?!'
Now Little Purple fell silent. Truly he could not say that he had missed out on this detail at that moment. But then, who asked this girl to be so random in her approaches! Sometimes her plans were so half baked, and he had to come up with spontaneous solutions to keep her alive!
'We'll face it if it comes to that. We should leave some rivals alive, so they can keep challenging you to grow stronger. And...wait! you were the one who was resistant to the idea of killing her for good!'
Rihanna felt her lips twitch. This fellow rarely exposed his silly side. To think he had completely forgotten that it had been her own idea. Well....she had forgotten it too.....not like she would say it aloud!
'Ahem....we were talking about merging different abilities. So now I have Mental Power Ability, Fire Element, Ice Element, Wind element, and also a bit of Space Element...wow! That seems like quite a lot to handle together!'
'You have forgotten Water Element.'
Rihanna blinked in surprise.
'When did I get Water Element? Why don't I know about it?'
'The natural spring.....in the underground temple...in Poison Swamp. Remember how you took a bath in the pool in the medicinal field inside the temple, and absorbed the warm energy of the pool.'
'Oh....so that warm and refreshing stream of energy was water Element?'
'Hmmm.....but it way too little, so your Water Element has not been activated as yet. However, Ice is a mutation of Water, so if you did not have some Water Element within you, you probably wouldn't have been able to absorb the Ice Energy either.'
Rihanna raised a brow, nodding slowly in agreement.
'How do I activate it then?'
'You can't do it in the normal way since you don't have a root. You will have to await a fortuitous encounter where you can absorb a large amount of pure water power to be able to activate it. Like you absorbed all the pure Wind Power in the Illusion Matrix created inside the Underground Temple.'
Rihanna could still feel a shudder at the memory of what had taken place! She had absorbed willy-nilly everything without understanding, and almost exploded! She was truly too stupid.....and her luck was just too damn good!