CHAPTER 48: CHAPTER 22: EXISTENCE MEANS POSSIBILITY

Before this, He Kao was just an ordinary programmer, monotonously busy day after day, just trying to stand firm in the turbulent society of this era. How could a young person like him not yearn for more exciting infinite possibilities?

The magician’s effect mentioned earlier, if the performances of those magicians could be real, then what would happen? He Kao is not a Hidden Moth, but he also wants to learn Techniques.

Even though Wu Yanjun refused his request, it doesn’t matter. Unless these people have collaborated to design a huge scam specifically to fool him, it has already proven the existence of the Hidden Moth and various Techniques.

Since they exist, it means there are possibilities; if they didn’t, that would be hopeless.

He Kao put the "original" of the Pendant in the company’s locker, while the fake brought by Xiaowu continued to be worn close to his body. In the next few days, he began to search online for various so-called Cultivation Secret Techniques and Qimen Secret Skills.

Are such things available online? Not only are they available, but there are so many that you can’t even go through all of them!

These things are hard to tell the truth from the false, or rather, they’re simply all fake. Some health-preserving content might have effects if practiced, but many important sections are missing.

He Kao leveraged his professional advantage, writing a program to capture relevant information from the internet, while also using the company’s AI platform to automatically compare and screen with artificial intelligence.

This program, when run, found many frequently repeating content fragments in a vast sea of data, and then integrated them through tracing, actually resulted in several sets of seemingly complete so-called Secret Techniques.

In fact, similar work was done by the research schools of ancient Eastern Country, who inferred that the then-popular "Ancient Texts of the Book of Documents" was an apocryphal book by examining numerous ancient texts.

The so-called "Ancient Texts of the Book of Documents" was a collection compiled by extracting quoted sentences of the "Book of Documents" from various ancient texts.

What He Kao did today was equivalent to the reverse engineering done by those ancient scholarly researchers—faking texts. If there had been artificial intelligence in that era, the relevant work would have been much simpler.

He Kao wasn’t trying to write any fakes, he was just organizing Secret Techniques, but in this process, he also discovered similar fakes.

For example, there’s a set of Alchemy Secret Manuals, written very vividly and in great detail, as if practicing it could make one an Immortal, yet a careful comparison with artificial intelligence reveals that it was all extracted from a web novel.

In this way, he first eliminated many identifiable fakes, so the remaining Secret Technique Manuals, whether by artificial intelligence or He Kao himself, could not be distinguished for their authenticity.

After seeing these manuals, He Kao confirmed one thing, that the Secret Techniques of major Magic Sects have indeed not been leaked outside, because Wu Yanjun mentioned the ritual for a Sorcerer’s promotion, which was absent from the Secret Techniques He Kao had gathered.

No content, then no content. It seems these can also be practiced, but how to choose? He Kao picked one Technique starting with visualization, online he could also gather many people’s Cultivation Insights, which seemed to pose no issues.

This Visualization Secret Technique is said to relieve fatigue, enhance beauty, improve physique, and enhance abilities in various aspects, while also awakening the Spiritual Sense deep within one’s consciousness.

He Kao is a straightforward person; once chosen, he started practicing.

So, at midnight, He Kao was meditating on his bed. The ideal was full, but the reality was skinny; he could barely last more than ten minutes before having to give up, for two reasons: first, it was hard to keep his back straight, and second, his legs were too numb.

His legs first went numb, then painful, and later some parts seemed to lose sensation. He was almost twenty-six this year and never practiced since young, so what was he doing with meditation?

He Kao had to end the "Cultivation" and loosen his legs, feeling them tingling with alternating cold and warmth, almost unable to move, and it took quite a while to recover.

What to do now? He Kao remembered other contents from another "manual," which said that if one could not manage cross-legged sitting, it wasn’t necessary to force it; sitting upright was also fine for Cultivation. Sitting upright meant sitting on a chair or stool, thighs parallel and posture upright.

Then He Kao got off the bed and sat on a newly bought wooden stool, starting to cultivate according to the Secret Technique’s content, he felt something, though he couldn’t describe what exactly, eventually feeling too sleepy and returned to bed to sleep.

He thought he had cultivated on the stool for quite a long time, at least an hour or two, but actually, when he checked the time, it had only been half an hour.

Such "Cultivation" might have a slim chance of awakening Spiritual Sense, for nothing in the world is absolute, and no one could claim this would certainly be ineffective. However, He Kao did not know that this action would bring him greater trouble.

Qian Guran had obtained the real Magic Beast Claw and had prudently distanced himself from trouble. Ye Yuxuan completed the promotion ritual and confirmed that He Kao was not a Hidden Moth. But what about the others, especially those who replaced the Beast Claw?

Some obtained the Beast Claw, just like Qian Guran, and hid away to conduct research. But they were destined to learn nothing meaningful from it because it wasn’t truly a Beast Claw, nor was it related to the Hidden Moth at all.

For those who got the Beast Claw, there were three possibilities:

First, there was a mistake; He Kao was not a Hidden Moth, and the Beast Claw wasn’t a Hidden Moth Object. This was the conclusion Wu Yanjun and Ye Yuxuan arrived at.

Second, the Beast Claw is certainly not ordinary, yet it requires further careful insight. Qian Guran judged this and simultaneously wanted to avoid more trouble; thus, simply hid far away, staying out of exposure.

Third, they couldn’t draw a conclusion, the Beast Claw might be a Hidden Moth Object or maybe not, overall unable to figure out the usage method. Looking at He Kao, he didn’t seem like a Hidden Moth either, so some might have given up, while others continued to observe secretly.

He Kao suddenly didn’t sleep well at night, sitting there practicing—someone wondered if this was the ritual to use a Hidden Moth Object? It’s no wonder they had such an idea, as each level of a Sorcerer’s promotion involves ritualistic emphasis.

That day, He Kao opened his eyes in the dark, nearly falling backward, and blurted out, "Who is it?"

"Keep your voice down! You won’t be in danger if you don’t move. I just want to ask you a few questions." Somehow there was an extra person in the room, sitting on the other chair across from him, their face obscured as if covered.

As he spoke, he turned on a flashlight pointed at He Kao’s face, while he himself stayed hidden behind the beam. This made it even harder for He Kao to see him clearly, but he could see the man was holding a gun in his right hand.

The heavy metallic feel suggested the gun was not fake. He Kao’s heart was in his throat, desperately trying to stay calm, he whispered, "What do you want to ask?" Not realizing his voice had already grown hoarse.

The stranger revealed something in his left hand too. In the flashlight’s beam, it turned out to be a Beast Claw Pendant, and he asked, "How is this thing used?"

Why is there another Beast Claw Pendant? Had the one he placed in the company locker been stolen? He Kao instinctively pulled out the one he wore around his neck and took a look at it.

The stranger said, "Don’t look, that one is fake... eh? It’s not something I made, could it have been swapped again?"

He Kao asked, "What are you talking about? Swapped?"

The stranger replied, "Yes, I swapped your pendant... now it seems it has been swapped again. I’ve studied your thing for a long time and found nothing, so I came back to ask you how it should be used?"

He Kao insisted, "What do you mean how to use it? It’s just a pendant, you just wear it."

The stranger inquired, "What ritual were you performing just now?"

He Kao answered, "I was practicing a technique."

The stranger asked, "Which technique?"

He Kao said, "The Huangting Visualization Method, it’s on the table." This cultivation technique, which He Kao had decided to practice, was printed out on five A4 pages on the computer desk in the living room.

The stranger asked, "Where did you get the technique from?"

He Kao replied, "I found it online."

The stranger asked several more questions but still didn’t get what he was after. Watching He Kao carefully, he didn’t appear to be lying. He finally tossed the pendant back to He Kao and pointed the gun barrel at his forehead, saying:

"Take this back, don’t do anything stupid, or you know the consequences!" After saying this, he turned and left the room.

When He Kao finally reacted, he opened the door to look down the hallway, drenched in cold sweat, but the man was already gone.

...

Liang Kai returned to his room and opened his phone to observe He Kao’s actions. He had secretly installed three surveillance cameras in hidden spots of He Kao’s apartment, equipped with infrared capabilities.

Returning the Beast Claw Pendant to He Kao was to make a final confirmation.

Since He Kao used a fake pendant, he couldn’t become the Hidden Moth. Now that he had gotten back the real pendant and suddenly disappeared from the room at a certain moment, it would confirm that He Kao is the Hidden Moth and the pendant is the Hidden Moth Object.

Previously pointing the gun at He Kao, he didn’t get the wanted result. It was impossible to shoot in the middle of the night in an apartment complex, and furthermore, killing He Kao now would achieve nothing, only spoil things.

He saw He Kao walk to the door, open it, peek outside, then come back. Would he use the pendant next?

He Kao first called his colleague Huang Xiaopang, who lived in the same building, and told him about the bizarre encounter. Following Huang Xiaopang’s suggestion, he actually called the police!

"... I woke up in the middle of the night and saw a shadow, holding a gun... yes, I didn’t get it wrong, it was a handgun."

This was He Kao’s report to the police, and if he hadn’t mentioned a handgun, the police might not have immediately come over. Finding a shadow in your house in the middle of the night without losing any valuable items, who knows if it’s just blurriness from sleeping or a nightmare.

But with a gun, it was different. In the Eastern Country, guns are strictly banned, and cases involving firearms are treated as major cases. The police quickly arrived and asked He Kao if he lost anything, but he said no.

As for the Bamboo Thunder originally hidden in the bedroom, Xiaopang had already taken them, but the police didn’t search He Kao’s apartment. The next step was predictable to anyone, which was checking the surveillance.

The police initially assumed it was another false report, but after checking the surveillance, they were unsure because the cameras on floors 19 to 21 of Sesame Apartment Building 3 were all conveniently broken. How could there be such a coincidence?

**