For a split moment, Di Tian lay where he was in a daze.
"What is this.....feeling?"
Without understanding how or why, an incorporeal "sense" akin to a radar extended from his consciousness over the three meters radius around him, picking up an influx of details.
Di Tian found it incomprehensible. Presently, he had a near-microscopic closeup of the objects within that radius; suspended dust particles in the air, flying insects, water droplets....this perception even extended to subtly capture temperature shifts, humidity levels, and faint electrical signals in the atmosphere.
But the next second, he leapt to his feet and hurriedly exited the tree park without wasting any time.
It was no joke. Thanks to his newly gained passive consciousness of his external environment, Di Tian had vaguely sensed it when the outsiders left earlier, but who was to say they wouldn't be coming back any minute now?
It wasn't until Di Tian's hostel was finally in sight that his nerves calmed a bit.
"This....." As he was more relaxed now, Di Tian spared some attention to the 'radar' function once more.
Actually, if Di Tian had some knowledge about the cultivation levels and their unique features as reference, he would know that this "radar" was actually none other than the fabled "divine sense" unique to fifth stage cultivators. Strangely, the earlier changes in Di Tian's mind space seemed to have sparked a variant prototypic development of this feature, even though he had not started cultivating yet. As a matter of fact, his condition was especially unique as this Divine Sense could qualitatively rival that of a sixth stage cultivator even.
Di Tian shifted his thoughts and tentatively pinched his skin. It was soft to the touch, as smooth as a newborn.
He knew very well how badly injured his body had been just some moments ago, so this was yet another marvel. But, on the subject of marvels....the Grand Primordial Helix was the Big One. Infact, Di Tian suspected it was the source, directly related to his body recovery and new 'radar' function.
Even now, he could vaguely sense it in his consciousness. But thanks to the information influx that followed its entry into his Soul Space, Di Tian wasn't entirely clueless about it.
The Grand Primordial Helix was actually a pair formed from two traces of the Primordial Chaos Spirit Seed's essence.
Surprisingly, not even those chasing after the Supreme Primordial treasure knew that it wasn't the badass attack weapon like they imagined, but a natural treasure of the same rank; a seed in its growth stage formed from the Void of the Primordial Chaos.
The point was, Yi Ming, having established an initial connection with it, understood its true value and changed his plans accordingly. A seed containing an embryonic lifeform formed from the Primordial Chaos, how badass would it be upon maturity?
Was it innate dao affinity? Law comprehension? Innate physique? Luck? Providence? These features barely did justice to characterize the intrinsic talent it would possess.
Now, under normal circumstances, the seed would have metamorphosized in a number of years under Yi Ming's nurturing, birthing an Innate Lifeform that would be life bound to him due to the refinement connection between them. But in the earlier situation where his death was almost guaranteed, Yi Ming had resolutely chosen to activate a forbidden technique to escape with the majority of its essence.
In crude terms, Yi Ming simply abandoned his physical body to fuse his soul into the seed, replacing the Embryo's spirit. The harmless light explosion that swept across the planet was the result of one of the three traces of the Seed's essence that escaped in the process. Meanwhile, Di Tian unfortunately bore the brunt of the forbidden magic that destroyed Yi Ming's physical body due to proximity. But, this wasn't entirely without gains as the other two traces of the Primordial Chaos Spirit Seed's core merged into his sea of consciousnes in the process, becoming the Grand Primordial Helix.
"It's only two strands of the full essence, and I've gained this special ability to split my consciousness and extend it outside my body for microscopic observation," Di Tian marvelled as he thought, feeling that this was only the tip of the iceberg. "And that's not excluding the fact that there might be....more abilities in store?"
Subconsciously, a split portion of his consciousness withdrew to observe the mystical structure in his mind.
He was so caught up in this that he didn't notice the young man moving in his direction until the latter entered his "radar" zone.
"What the...." Di Tian jumped, then relaxed when he realized who it was. At the same time, he smiled wryly.
"Hey man, where have you been? I was looking for you all day!" The youth said in an exasperated tone. This was Jiang Po, Di Tian's roommate and course mate. "You forgot your laptop in class, so I brought it back with me to the apartment."
"Oh," Di Tian said, feeling a little strange. Somehow, the past half hour had unknowingly numbed the reality of his day.
Jiang Po continued speaking, "I had to visit the software company after class for my interview, so I didn't come back to the apartment immediately." He paused. "You went back to look for it, didn't you?"
A small sound echoed behind them, and the two turned suspiciously. It was nothing; some drunkard just popped open a bottle in an alley nearby.
"Oh, by the way, there's some ruckus on the Internet about the global flash grenade occurrence that happened a moment ago," Jiang Po was apparently a very chatty fellow and animatedly started reporting all the nitty-gritty details in typical tirade-worthy fashion.
"A three-seconds flash bomb that affected everyone on the planet?" Di Tian's interest was fueled by a suspicious conjecture forming in his mind. "How many minutes ago did you say this occurred?"
"About sixteen minutes, I think," Jiang Po said, stifling a yawn. "People all over the world are sharing their experiences on the Internet. It's really wild."
"Oh, didn't you experience it too, since this was a global event?" Di Tian asked.
"I was asleep," Jiang Po said. "I only woke up when I heard the loud noise from a car crash that happened in the next street. Apparently, the flash grenade thingy caused a bit of damage, mostly road accidents."
Di Tian did not bother asking about the details. As it was, he just wanted to return to his apartment and analyze the night event.
Without knowing, a seed of ambition had already formed in Di Tian's heart.
As an avid reader of manga and webnovels, Di Tian had spent a lot of his teenage years imagining himself as the main character of innovative cultivation plots; dying and transmigating into an alternate world where he would rise to prominence, randomly gaining a goldfinger or mystical ability that would set him on path to some badass destiny...In fact, his initial interest in coding was because he wanted to build prototypes of cultivation systems, those sentient AIs present in the stories of some main characters.
Now, Di Tian's experience this night was proof to him that his mystical imaginations were not altogether impossible. Now, it seemed he had chanched upon a goldfinger of his one, and all that was left for him to do was to explore it to figure out its uniqueness.
The Grand Primordial Helix, just what mysteries did it hold?
He couldn't wait to find out.
*****
The tree park Di Tian just exited welcomed some new visitors that suddenly appeared out of nowhere.
Young Miss Auna, Da Sha, the stout man and Li Mei were back. But this time, there was an additional person; a middle-aged man whose features bore a striking similarity to the Young Miss.
It was her father, the present patriarch of the Auna Clan.
"This is the most incompetent you've been," Patriarch Auna said with a somber tone as he chided his daughter. "The minute you received the distress signal from Li Mei, you should have informed ne immediately, not sneaked off to play detective!"
"I'm sorry, Father! I didn't think it through," Young Miss Auna said in an apologetic tone, but it was clear from the expression on her face that she was feeling wronged and victimized. Patriarch Auna scuffed and ignored her antics altogether.
"Let's just hope I discover something," he muttered as he spread his Divine Sense to scan the environment.
"As expected, nothing," After a thorough scan of the tree park, he found nothing. Sighing, he spread his Divine Sense further, capturing the mortals in the region.
"Hhm?"
Almost immediately, he picked up on a particular young man.
It was Di Tian.