Chen Bitong met Chen Chuan’s gaze squarely. As he looked into his bright eyes, he said, “The simplest way to show that you’re still you is through medicine.”

As he spoke, the two Chen Bitongs took out a transparent glass tube.

It contained things that resembled shattered green crystals. With just a flick, they started dancing about in a dazzling manner.

“This is the Relieving Powder that everyone in the Development Squad gets. It can effectively push your entire being to lean more toward the physical side of the spectrum, but it affects the mind.

“After taking the medicine, your senses will slow. You also won’t be able to use mental energy for up to three hours. If you take a lot of it, you’ll suffer a lot of other side effects, like fatigue, listlessness, and depression.

“For an average martial artist, losing a bit of fighting power won’t affect their survivability, but to the Image Imprinters, this is unacceptable.

“After all, they’re creatures leaning more toward the incorporeal side of the spectrum, so they will lose their ability to fight back if they’re affected by the medicine. They’re going to refuse to take it with everything they have.”

The Chen Bitong talking to Chen Chuan removed the cork and dumped all the medicinal powder into his mouth, but the other Chen Bitong froze. He refused to take the powder.

“If someone refuses to take the powder, then there’s something wrong,” Chen Bitong stated.

When he said this, the other Chen Bitong glared at him coldly. Then, he disappeared.

“The medicine test is just one of the methods. There is another one that can help you avoid this situation. You’ve begun mental training, so you must remember that the simplest method is to focus on your belief and strengthen your mental gemstone.

“Once your mental gemstone is strong enough, unless you surrender willingly or give up, the Image Imprinter won’t be able to affect you or make you assimilate.

“Others can also sense the determination contained in a pure mental gemstone. That’s something an Image Imprinter cannot do even after they’ve occupied another mind.”

Chen Chuan nodded.

“Also, after you’ve detected a problem, you need to think of a way to solve it. Most of the time, you can’t save those who have been corrupted by an Image Imprinter. In that situation, especially if you’re in the wild, don’t think about how to save the one affected, because neither you nor your team members can bear that risk.

“The corrupted know all of your information and plans. Even if you manage to chase the Image Imprinter out, you can’t guarantee that their mind hasn’t changed. If you don’t steel your heart to kill the corrupted, you’ll end up dead. You must remember this.”

Chen Chuan responded just as gravely, “I’ll remember it.”

Chen Bitong nodded. “Now, I’ll let you see the difference between a normal person and a person corrupted by an Image Imprinter. Since the corrupted inherits the person’s body, memories, and has its strength boosted, it’s even stronger than before falling prey to the Image Imprinter.”

Chen Chuan turned to the side and saw Yu Lie walking over. There was an arrogant grin on his face.

Judging by the situation, he should be a hologram. After all, there was no way he would look at him that way after the beating he received.

“You fought against Yu Lie just now. The one standing before you is a Yu Lie who has been corrupted. Try differentiating between the two,” Chen Bitong ordered.

Chen Chuan raised an eyebrow before walking over.

This Yu Lie had inherited the original Yu Lie’s personality and style, but he didn’t seem to have the memories of the fight just now, because he wasn’t scared at all. Before Chen Chuan could get closer, the corrupted Yu Lie ran over.

Chen Chuan decided to use the same strategy as before: He would let the corrupted Yu Lie grab him, then counterattack. But he immediately realized that things were different this time.

The corrupted Yu Lie seemed to have noticed his plans. Despite being a grappling expert, he avoided Chen Chuan and decided to dance around him instead of getting closer.

This meant he had to change his strategy, so Chen Chuan attacked. Just like before, there was no doubt who would win the fight. In less than half a minute, Chen Chuan defeated Yu Lie.

If he were to identify the differences between them...

“Did you notice it?” Chen Bitong asked.

Chen Chuan nodded and said with great certainty, “He was able to figure out my strategy ahead of time.”

Whenever he attacked, the corrupted Yu Lie was able to predict Chen Chuan’s movements. After this happened a few times, Chen Chuan gave up on winning through some strategy. Instead, he relied on his superior strength and speed to defeat the corrupted Yu Lie.

Chen Bitong explained, “Even when a martial artist begins mental training and compresses their mind, they inevitably leak some information about themselves.

“Since the Image Imprinter is an entity that clings to the mind, it’s really sensitive to such information and can detect it. Together with the martial artist’s experience and physical abilities, the Image Imprinter is able to correctly predict its opponent’s next step.

“If you want to defeat it, aside from overwhelming it with brute strength, like you did just now, you can also train up your mind. Without a strong mind, you can only ever perform defensive missions in the rear while you’re in the merged space. If you want to be in control on a strategic level, you need to attack, not just defend.”

Chen Chuan agreed with that. It was the same as the principles a martial artist should adhere to. Defense was for the sake of protecting oneself while also looking for a chance to counterattack. If he never counterattacked, he would only ever get beaten up and never be a threat to his enemies.

So, he was going to have to crank up the intensity of his mental training once he went back to his room.

When Chen Bitong saw that what he had said had sunk into Chen Chuan, he didn’t delve into this topic any further. “Let’s continue.”

Chen Chuan nodded and followed him.

Over the next half a month, Chen Chuan went to the training center every day and learned something new practically every day. Some of the things he learned could be applied in other classes, which meant that they were useful for various complicated situations.

This was the culmination of the twenty years Chen Bitong spent fighting at the front lines, but why was he in such a hurry to teach it to the younger generation? It felt like he was in an incredible rush.

All those who couldn’t keep up were kicked out without mercy.

Chen Chuan alone had been receiving instructions from Chen Bitong from the start and had yet to be kicked out, even though it had been half a month. That was rare.

Even the military officers stationed in the merged space noticed this and reported it to the World Ring Defense System.

Advisor Pei, too, received the report. After some consideration, he contacted Liang Guanghai and said, “Special Officer Liang, it seems like Chen Bitong regards Captain Chen very highly. Our theory is correct. I just wonder what the higher-ups are going to do about Chen Bitong.”

“They haven’t come to a conclusion about the previous case yet, but they want Chen Bitong to continue staying in Central City. Some people are singing a different tune, though. They think that he shouldn’t stay in Central City for too long,” Liang Guanghai stated.

Advisor Pei was taken aback. “Is it... because of that?”

“That single crack has affected the entire situation, and we have yet to close it. We can’t proceed with many of our plans at the original schedule. We have to bring them forward now,” Liang Guanghai said gravely,

“Isn’t that too soon?”

“Something came over, and it’s been so active that we noticed it right away. There’s no guarantee, though, that it’s the only thing that came over. If there are more, they’re going to bring about unpredictable changes. We must somehow weather through this storm. Either way, it means that we won’t be able to carry on with our original plan.”

Advisor Pei considered the words before asking, “Should I tell Captain Chen about this?”

“Find time to tell him. He can and should learn about this, considering his rank. Also, we can’t really say what’s going to happen in the future,” Liang Guanghai said.

“I understand.”

Advisor Pei’s expression turned grim. When he looked outside the window, he saw multiple airships at the mooring point.

Recently, more airships and cruise ships had gathered in Central City, and they were all here for one thing.

Things were different this time. Due to the gap, it was highly likely that accidents would occur.

But he was going to leave this to the higher-ups.

Advisor Pei turned around, grabbed the telegraph set, and sent a telegram about the recent situation. Once he was done, he sent a message to Chen Chuan through the secret channel and asked him to meet up when he was free.

Chen Chuan had just finished his lesson and gone back to his room. When he received the message, he decided to set the meeting for tomorrow, since it was a day off.

Then, he checked the date. It was already the middle of March. Wei Changan and the others were supposed to come by now, but they called him earlier to say that the things they had to wrap at their agent companies were quite complicated and some people had cashed in on favors to ask them to go on emergency missions, so they weren’t able to leave.

As for Luo Kaiyuan and Feng Xiaoqi, they believed that since they were a team, they should wait for Wei Changan’s group so that they could come to Central City together and take care of each other. They were only going to come to Central City around April or May.

Chen Chuan liked this arrangement. His schedule was really packed, and it would be quite hard for him to help so many of them settle down if they came now.

He examined himself and found that his mental gemstone was shining gently in his mental space.

It had become much brighter and more compressed in a month.

Mental training was supposed to go slow in the beginning, but Chen Chuan had the tempering method and Hongfu to train with every day.

The jade cores he got were also a good help, especially when it came to helping his mind recover. This allowed him to improve much faster than normal.

At this point, the incense sticks Xue Shou had suggested to him weren’t useful anymore. This meant that he was already used to the current level of training and could proceed to the next stage.

So, he tapped on his Realm Pass and contacted Xue Shou.