"Not long ago, many villagers lived here, but as you know, ever since the anomalous entity appeared, all the villagers moved away."
Bai Ye leaned against the hood of the now silent car, lit a cigarette, and blew out smoke. His expression was hard to discern through the swirling haze.
"Why did you suddenly start smoking?"
Duan Chen asked curiously.
In his memory, Bai Ye had never smoked.
Hearing Duan Chen's question, a slight smile faded from Bai Ye's lips. He looked at the cigarette between his fingers.
Bai Ye murmured to himself, "Yeah, why did I suddenly start smoking?"
A brief silence fell between them on this topic.
However, Bai Ye quickly regained his spirits and walked forward, one step after another.
"This town is deserted anyway."
Wang Zihao followed behind, unfolding his ancient scroll, which transformed into a small screen hovering in mid-air, filled with constantly flashing, futuristic colors.
Wang Zihao's tone held a hint of shock.
"This village is actually quite large!"
"Indeed, just as teacher Bai Ye said, the entire village completed a mass relocation. Oh, no, it should be the entire town."
Duan Chen said nothing.
Wang Zihao pondered for a moment and then proactively suggested, "Instructor, Teacher, please don't resist next."
Duan Chen turned his head in confusion and looked at Wang Zihao, asking, "What's wrong? What happened?"
Bai Ye also didn't quite understand what he meant.
Although he didn't speak, his eyes clearly conveyed his bewilderment.
Wang Zihao didn't hesitate and explained why he said that.
"The abilities of my ancient scroll are not just for searching, recording, and reconnaissance; it has other functions as well."
"It's just that I usually don't use them. For a town of this scale, it's necessary to utilize the other abilities of my ancient scroll."
"What kind of abilities?" Duan Chen was curious.
He had copied Wang Zihao's ancient scroll abilities before, but the copied abilities could only be those that the other person had already used. Therefore, he didn't know what other abilities the ancient scroll possessed.
Or rather, the power unleashed by the same ability could vary greatly depending on the person.
Wang Zihao smiled slightly, "As long as you two don't resist."
Duan Chen deliberately suppressed his mental resistance and suddenly felt his vision blur, as if something was being injected into his mind.
A groan suddenly escaped his throat.
"Ah... it's so full!"
With a whoosh, Duan Chen was startled and immediately opened his eyes, looking at the person who had spoken.
He saw Bai Ye's face flushed red, appearing as if he were drunk. He was half-kneeling on the ground with difficulty, one hand supporting himself on the dark earth, and the other holding his temple.
He was moaning intermittently.
His posture was much more disheveled than Duan Chen's.
Wang Zihao's mouth twitched in embarrassment. He awkwardly explained, "Because this ability involves the mind, everyone reacts differently."
For example, Duan Chen's reaction was merely an uncomfortable grunt.
But Bai Ye's reaction...
Duan Chen couldn't bear to look and averted his gaze.
When Bai Ye came back to his senses, about ten minutes had passed since Wang Zihao had infused him with the ability.
His mind suddenly recalled what he had just done.
Instantly, Bai Ye's face turned beet red. He jumped up, furious, and left the spot where he had been kneeling, pointing at Wang Zihao.
"You, you, you, you!!"
Wang Zihao pouted innocently, "Everyone's state is different, so their reactions are naturally different."
"I didn't know Teacher would react like this."
With that sentence, he completely absolved himself of responsibility.
Bai Ye felt that he had lost all face.
However, at this moment, Duan Chen returned to his senses and looked at Wang Zihao with surprise, "This ability of yours is quite good!"
He hadn't expected that another ability he wanted to copy would be extracted from Wang Zihao.
Fortunately, he had activated his copying eye technique, the Eye of Thievery, while Wang Zihao was using his ability.
It had to be said that the Eye of Thievery was the most useful ability he had so far.
Duan Chen's mind-reading ability was also very useful, of course.
But generally, he wouldn't use it on his companions.
In the upper right corner of Duan Chen's vision, he could see a bright battery indicator.
Because he had just copied Wang Zihao's ability, he could easily understand that this bright battery icon represented his spiritual power reserve.
Currently, the battery was at one hundred percent.
This meant his spiritual power reserve was still one hundred percent.
Another thing was the small square beneath the battery.
He could tap it with a single touch, and instantly a map would appear. The map appeared in a semi-illusory mode, and it could also be converted into a three-dimensional stereoscopic pattern.
This was the map of the town.
Wang Zihao explained, "This is one of my abilities, Ancient Scroll: Dataization and Data Transmission."
"You should be able to see a battery-like symbol in your vision, which represents spiritual power reserve."
"I have connected all three of our minds, enabling telepathic communication."
"However, the difference is that other abilities used on you rely on your own spiritual power. If you run out of spiritual power, you won't be able to see the map anymore."
Bai Ye asked curiously, "Why are there three small red dots on the map?"
"Huh? Wait, why did they turn green?"
Wang Zihao explained, "These dots represent us. They were red because I forgot to set them earlier; green is correct now."
"If you see red dots around you, it means there are other intelligent life fluctuations, so be very cautious."
"It's quite a useful thing," Bai Ye's eyes lit up.
"It would be even better if this could be converted into a portable and freely usable anomalous object."
But he knew that this was just him indulging in wishful thinking.
Wang Zihao added, "However, our telepathic communication uses our ancient scroll channel."
"If the distance between us becomes too great, the telepathic communication will break."