Chapter 139: Bubble World

Among the few theoretical lessons that Adam had attended at Layton Academy, there just so happened to be one on memory implantation.

It wasn't that he wanted to learn about this, but the lesson was mandator as it concerned the most fundamental laws. It was considered to be a serious crime for adapters to alter other people's memories for no just cause.

On the flip side, this lesson wasn't all that important because the majority of adapters didn't possess the ability to alter other people's memories, so most of the students didn't pay much attention to this lesson.

Regardless of whether it was Adam, Shae, Nie Yiyi, Hook, or even any of the opponents that Adam had encountered in the past, none of them possessed the ability to alter the memories of others.

This was an ability that was just as rare as it was prohibited.

The logic behind this was that an integral part of one's identity was their memories. Essentially, a person's past was preserved through their memories, and if their memories were to be altered, it was really fundamentally no different from committing murder.

If a person was no longer themself, could that original person still be considered to be alive?

This seemed to be a philosophical question, and it was also one that concerned blank slates.

Blank slates were humans who had had all of their memories removed before someone else's consciousness was installed into their mind. Essentially, this was an extreme form of memory alteration.

Thus, this scene had quite a severe impact on Adam.

He's clearly already accepted his fate, yet his memories have to be altered just because he expressed some dissatisfaction and poses a risk of exposing these dark secrets?

Adam was far from pleased to see this, and he decided to step in right away rather than wait any longer.

In reality, he had always been in the room, but somehow, no one seemed to have noticed him at all. Adam had never encountered a situation like this before, and he had made attempts to intervene and make some changes, but he continued to be ignored.

"Hey!" Adam turned to the adapter psychotherapist, and he was already prepared for battle. "I'm talking to you!"

However, the adapter continued to go about her business without paying any heed to him, and the same applied to Liu Shouyi as well.

In the real world, Adam definitely wouldn't have lashed out in a situation like this.

After all, he had no idea how powerful this adapter was, and judging from what Madam Tree had just said, she seemed to be an adapter who was on par with the lord of Shadow City, so he was definitely no match for her.

However, the good thing was that this was Liu Shouyi's psychic world. He had no idea how powerful these people were, and what decided their strength was Liu Shouyi's subconscious assessment of their powers.

Seeing as there was no reaction from the adapter, Adam decided to strike first.

At this point, he was already fused as one with Mummy, and he threw a jab with his bandaged fist. However, as soon as his fist came into contact with the adapter's body, it immediately passed right through as if he had punched nothing more than an illusion.

Immediately thereafter, the entire scene crumbled away like a soap bubble that had just been popped.

The bed, all of the facilities, Liu Shouyi, the room, the building, and even the entire psychic module were shattered in an instant like bubbles being popped one by one.

What's going on?

With the entire psychic world gone in an instant, Adam was left standing in a vast expanse of darkness. Peering into the distance, he could see that there were still other psychic modules further away, but there was no longer anything left here.

All of it had disappeared.

How could someone's psychic world possibly be like this?

The more Adam thought back over what had just happened, the more suspicious he became.

The first point of suspicion was naturally the unexplainable disappearance of this psychic module. The fundamental building blocks of psychic modules were one's memories, and aside from cases in which one suffered physical damage to their hippocampus, this method of memory erasure was completely unheard of.

The second area of suspicion was all of the parts of Liu Shouyi's memories that simply didn't make logical sense.

Just now, Liu Shouyi was clearly in an unconscious state, having already had his psychic world infiltrated by that adapter psychotherapist, so how could he have possibly been aware of Madam Tree's visit? In his unconscious state, there was no way that he should've had this memory.

𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

Furthermore, Madam Tree had already altered his memories and attitude toward work, but on the way here, Adam had still witnessed many elements of discontentment in Liu Shouyi's memories. If Madam Tree's visit had actually transpired in the real world, then he shouldn't have retained that memory of his argument with his brother in that mansion.

None of them seemed to make any sense.

It was almost as if these bubble-like psychic modules had been artificially implanted into Liu Shouyi's mind, and if that were the case, then this was also very perplexing.

At the moment, there were only two possible explanations that Adam could think of for this, the first of which was that Liu Shouyi was completely delusional, and this memory was purely a figment of his imagination. This would make some sense as delusions were very unstable, and they could be easily shattered.

The second theory was that another adapter had already entered Liu Shouyi's consciousness before Adam, and not only had they removed all of the seeds planted by Madam Tree, they had also left behind this piece of footage for those who came after them.

Adam was leaning more toward the second possibility. The reason for this was that what he had just witnessed had presented itself as a psychic module. If it had purely been a delusion that was so fragile that it could be shattered upon contact, then it would've only been a passing delusion that wouldn't have remained in his memory. Thus, it was self-contradictory for the memory to be sufficiently deep-rooted that it had formed a psychic module, but also so fragile that it could be broken so easily.

However, the second theory was just as bizarre. Which adapter would've possibly gone out of their way to do something like this?

Furthermore, that adapter had to have been an extremely powerful one.

With those questions in his mind, Adam continued to explore Liu Shouyi's other psychic modules, but failed to find any useful information. As for that bubble-like psychic module, it seemed to have only been a one-time entity that couldn't be revisited after it was destroyed.

What is going on in here?

After going on a long journey in Liu Shouyi's psychic world, Adam was currently standing in a shopping mall, still struggling to make sense of what he had witnessed. All of a sudden, he felt something flying toward the back of his head, and he reflexively dodged to the side, immediately following which a small counter in front of him was smashed into smithereens with a loud thump.

He turned around to find an anomaly whose entire body seemed to be entirely comprised of sludge.

This is an anomaly that has arisen from feelings of guilt.

Adam rushed back in retreat to open up some distance between himself and the anomaly. This psychic module contained a massive high-end shopping mall with all types of luxury items and accessories, making it the perfect paradise for most women.

This was a psychic module that contained a memory of a date that Liu Shouyi had gone on. Not far away, Liu Shouyi was on a date with his first-ever girlfriend, but the arrival of the anomaly had sent everyone rushing away in fear and panic, including Liu Shouyi and his girlfriend.

Adam had seen this type of sludge entity once before in Peter's psychic world. Peter was a man who had done many bad things, but due to the fact that he periodically received psychotherapeutic treatment, his guilt hadn't evolved into an anomaly, whereas this sludge entity had already become an anomaly.

The sludge anomaly possessed an enormous body that stood at close to four meters tall, the lower half of which was still completely in sludge form, while a pair of arms and a head had spouted out of its upper body. It was holding a pair of steel pitchforks in its hands, while a pair of horns were protruding out of its head, and its entire body was giving off menacing black energy.

According to Liu Shouyi himself, he had "compressed" many people in the past, leading to the guilt in his heart snowballing over time, despite his brother's best efforts to convince him that he wasn't at fault.

The more negative emotions he felt, the more powerful his anomaly became.

As for how powerful this anomaly was, Adam would have to find out through battle.

With his exceptional physical resistance in his current form, Adam certainly wasn't going to shy away from battle, and he immediately charged forward before launching himself up into the air, then brought his carving knife down in a vicious strike, fuelled by his enormous strength and the momentum generated by his bodyweight in free fall.

.

The anomaly also raised its steel pitchforks in retaliation, and a loud clang rang out as Adam was sent flying back by over 10 meters, while the anomaly was also forced back by seven or eight meters as its lower body squirmed back over the ground.