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The interface was still open in Ren's vision.
He read through it twice, slowly, because anything that carried implications needed to be read carefully.
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ABOMINATION SCAN: SUBJECT 01
Class: Eldritch Confucian Scholar
BASE POWER
The host's cultivation of Righteous Qi has been fused with a fragment of pure horror. The resulting synthesis has amplified the original cultivation approximately three hundred times its previous output while fundamentally altering its nature. The power is no longer purely righteous. It is not purely horrific. It is something the universe does not have a clean category for.
Effective rank: Mythical
NEW ABILITY: The Eye of Kongshi
Granted by the third eye. Named for the first teacher.
True Sight The eye perceives the essential nature of everything within its field of vision, bypassing surface appearance and projected intent. What it sees is what a thing actually is. This applies to living creatures, objects, formations, constructs, and spaces. Illusions, disguises, and concealment skills below Divine rank are transparent to this eye.Seed of Belief The eye can plant a single idea into the mind of a target through sustained eye contact. The idea takes root slowly, growing over time into a core belief the target experiences as their own. Speed of implantation scales inversely with target's rank. Low-rank targets: hours. High-rank targets: weeks to months. The target experiences no awareness of foreign influence.Memory Excision The eye can selectively delete short-term memories from a target. Range: line of sight. Duration of erasable window: up to six hours prior. Cannot delete long-term memories or skills.Ideal Presence The subject's presence recalibrates passively according to the observer. Each person who looks at him perceives him as physically and personally optimal according to their own unconscious preferences. This does not alter the subject's actual appearance. It alters perception only. The effect is subtle and cumulative.
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Ren closed the scan window.
He looked at Wei Liang, who was standing in the center of the room with his hands clasped behind his back, patient and still, the third eye open and cycling slowly through colors, reading the room.
What the fuck, Ren thought. Why is this man so overpowered.
You chose a B-rank scholar who had been cultivating Righteous Qi for years, had developed perception abilities beyond his rank, and had a personality architecture built around seeing what others refused to see. The Father skill amplified what was already there. You selected well.
I was not expecting Mythical rank.
The three-hundred-fold amplification is standard for the synthesis of Righteous Qi with horror-nature. The cultivation path and the horror fragment are not compatible. The incompatibility is what produces the output. It is the same principle as an explosion. Two things that should not occupy the same space do so anyway.
That is a very calm explanation for producing a Mythical-rank hunter in a basement.
I am a calm entity.
Ren looked at the scan results again. Memory excision. Seed of belief. True sight. And then the shared ability notification that had appeared underneath, flagged as a Host-Child acquisition.
He opened it.
HOST ABILITY UNLOCKED: Mist of Horror
Shared between Host and all Host's Children.
Release a red mist composed of condensed horror-nature. Range: adjustable, up to 500 meters from origin point. The mist does not obey standard physics. Wind cannot disperse it. Environmental conditions do not affect it. It cannot be countered or removed by any ability below Divine rank.
Effects within the mist:
Host and Host's Children regenerate instantly from all wounds, including fatal damage, as long as they remain within the mist's boundary.Mental resistance of all targets within the mist is reduced by 50%.Humans who die within the mist have a 2% chance to undergo spontaneous mutation into an Abomination. These Abominations are loyal to the Host.
Ren read the last line three times.
Two percent.
Yes.
Two percent of everyone who dies in the mist.
Correct. You were worried about building an army. I note that the mist provides a passive acquisition mechanism. This was not something you designed. It emerged from the synthesis.
You gave me a passive army-generating fog.
The Father skill generated it. I merely observed.
He looked at Wei Liang.
"Ha," Ren said quietly. "You gave me another extremely overpowered ability."
Wei Liang waited.
Ren scrolled back through the scan. There was a section he had noticed at the bottom, a small notation he had not addressed yet.
I can give him a title.
He considered that for a moment. His first Abomination. Mythical rank, perception abilities, memory manipulation, charisma that rewrote how people saw him. If Ren was going to build something in Victoria, he was going to need people who could move through power structures without triggering every detection system in the country. Wei Liang could walk into a court room and have half the room unconsciously convinced he was exactly what they wanted to see.
He needed a name for the group. Something that framed what they were to him, which was extensions of himself, instruments of a specific purpose.
He thought about it for a moment.
Surgical instruments. That was what they were, extensions of a doctor's reach, each one built for a specific purpose.
Wei Liang's power leaned toward perception, influence, memory. The finest instrument for delicate work, the one that placed things precisely, that guided and directed without cutting.
A needle.
System. What is the title process.
You designate a rank and a name. The designation is branded into the Abomination's existing mark. It is permanent. It cannot be removed or altered after application. The subject will experience the branding.
Noted.
He looked at Wei Liang. "I am going to give you a title. This is going to hurt."
"Yes, Father," Wei Liang said.
Ren typed the designation into the interface.
Surgical Apostle. Rank: No. 1. Name: Needle.
Wei Liang's third eye snapped shut.
A sound came from it, low and sharp. Wei Liang inhaled through his teeth. His hand moved toward his forehead before he caught it and held it at his side.
The eye opened again. The iris had changed. Text sat inside it now, burned into the shifting color, small and precise and permanent.
1: Needle
Wei Liang touched the skin around the eye carefully. His expression moved from composed to something genuine.
He went down on one knee.
"Thank you, Father," he said, "for giving me a name. From this moment I am Needle."
He paused.
"I will tell everyone I have changed my name."
"No," Ren said flatly. "You remain Wei Liang. To everyone. To the guild, to any official record, to anyone you meet in the course of your work. Wei Liang the scholar. That name stays."
"Yes, Father. Understood."
"Good." Ren looked at him. "Stand up."
Wei Liang stood.
"I have your first assignment." Ren crossed his arms. "You are now, by every measurable standard, a Mythical-rank hunter. You will need to find a way to explain that to the Hunter Bureau that does not involve mentioning me."
"I will handle it," Wei Liang said.
"After that, you will take the Victoria civil service examination."
Wei Liang's third eye swiveled slightly. Something in his expression shifted, the faintest hint of surprise, which was the most surprise he had shown at anything in the past hour. "The civil service examination."
"You want to change things. You said so. You said you proposed reforms to the emperor's court and nobody listened because you were too weak. You are not too weak anymore." Ren looked at him steadily. "Victoria has a court too. Get into it."
Wei Liang was quiet for a moment. Then: "You want a position in the Victorian government."
"I want someone I trust in a position to know what is happening in the Victorian government. There is a difference." Ren paused. "You have six months."
"Yes, Father."
"And disguise yourself. The grey skin and the red eyes will attract attention you do not need."
"Yes, Father." Wei Liang paused. "The third eye as well?"
"The third eye as well."
Wei Liang nodded. Then, without further ceremony, he stepped into the shadows near the far wall and was simply not there anymore.
Ren stood in the empty abandoned house and looked at the piece of skin on the floor.
He pressed one hand over his mouth.
The laugh came out anyway, short and quiet, the particular laugh of watching something begin.
"Haha," he said to the empty room. "This is going to be interesting."