Over the past two weeks, other than attending the personal yoga classes and going to Phoebe’s house, Victor had been mostly staying at home. Today, while he was out, he found something amiss.
Everyone who walked past him turned around to stare at him. There were even a few times when he actually caught sight of people secretly taking photographs of him.
He looks so handsome! Is he some comic character?
Is he a celebrity? He is so elegant!
He seems to have a mixed ethnicity. He looks so gorgeous. His eyes are so charming!
Oh no! I have been lovestruck. He’s looking at me!
Along the way, weird thoughts flooded Vincent’s mind continuously. When Vincent looked at himself in the mirror, he only felt that he looked good and was not really bothered. However, when others looked at him, it seemed that Vincent had undergone an astonishing change.
For instance, when he went to the café for a meal, the waitress actually secretly passed him her mobile number, and many girls came up with different excuses to get his contact information. Vincent found this all very puzzling. Even if he was handsome, he should not be receiving so much attention.
After he finished his meal with Phoebe, she glanced at the seat on the left. Vincent immediately asked, “What’s wrong?”
Phoebe pouted and said, “That girl keeps peeking at you. You are very charming, aren’t you? Recently, you have changed a lot. Hmm, because I am always with you, I don’t feel anything. But you seem different from the first time I saw you. You look too stunning now!”
Vincent immediately teased her, “Have I become more good-looking?”
Phoebe touched her red lips and said, “You could say that, but it is more than that. You exude a charm, no, a scent. It smells good and is so captivating!”
Vincent was taken aback. “A scent?” He quickly sniffed himself and said, “I don’t smell anything.”
Phoebe laughed at once and said, “Only women can smell it. It’s the manly scent, the smell of hormones!”
Vincent lost control of himself and burst into laughter. However, he remembered what Phoebe had said.
Hormones and attraction are closely related, as hormones can influence human’s mood, behavior, and sexual desire. Some of the hormones that are involved in attraction are testosterone, estrogen, dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin, oxytocin, and vasopressin.
Have I adjusted my body into a perfect state, whereby it exudes a special scent that has caused this scenario?
Testosterone and estrogen are sex hormones that can increase libido and physical attractiveness in both men and women. Testosterone can also enhance confidence, dominance, and competitiveness, while estrogen can enhance femininity, nurturing, and empathy.
Dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin are neurotransmitters that can create feelings of excitement, euphoria, and happiness when we are attracted to someone. Dopamine is also associated with reward, motivation, and addiction, which can explain why we crave the presence of our crush. Norepinephrine can increase alertness, attention, and heart rate, which can make us feel nervous and jittery around our crush. Serotonin can regulate mood, appetite, and sleep, which can explain why we lose interest in other things when we are in love.
Oxytocin and vasopressin are hormones that can promote bonding, trust, and attachment between partners. Oxytocin is also known as the “love hormone” or the “cuddle hormone”, as it is released during physical contact, such as hugging, kissing, and sex. Vasopressin is also involved in sexual behavior, as well as territoriality and aggression, which can explain why we become possessive and protective of our partner.
After dinner, Vincent naturally went to Phoebe’s house. He took out a bottle of red wine from his car, and after enjoying two glasses or so, their desires were quickly ignited.
After everything, Phoebe was still in a daze and took quite a while to recover. Then, she looked at Vincent and said, “I nearly died just now!”
Vincent quickly said, “I will take note next time. You frightened me just now!”
Phoebe shook her head. “The feeling is great! Vincent, you are the most perfect man that I have ever met!”
Phoebe lay in his arms and scratched his chest like a kitten. After a while, she said, “Vincent, let’s end our relationship!”
“What?” Vincent could not understand what had just happened. They were having a good time in bed earlier, but things suddenly changed. Just as Vincent was about to use his mind power to explore Phoebe’s thoughts, she opened her mouth.
“My boyfriend is back. He has looked me up and talked to me for a long while. He wants me to go back to him!” Phoebe stared at Vincent, looking confused. She seemed to have made a tough decision.
Vincent cuddled Phoebe and asked, “Why? Is he better than me?”
Phoebe shook her head and said, “He is not as good looking or charming as you. You are much better than him in all aspects. But he loves me!”
Vincent immediately asked, “Do I not love you?”
Phoebe forced a smile and asked, “Do you love me?”
Vincent was dumbfounded. After a while, he slowly stood up and put on his clothes. He bent down and kissed Phoebe on her forehead. “I’m sorry. I truly enjoy the time that I have spent with you. I will not interfere with your life anymore. Also, I wish you and your boyfriend all the best!”
Phoebe looked affectionately at Vincent. She could not bear to part with him, but Vincent could tell that she was resolute with her decision. While he was in the car, Vincent felt a bit lost and confused. He felt that he was somewhat despicable.
Nevertheless, this had ended quite well as his relationship with Phoebe had come to a close. Moreover, his cancer had been cured and he now had a perfect body.
After having gone through so much, Vincent felt deeply that he should do something that he liked. He should live for his interests and hobbies, and not live like a dog, like how he used to!
By the time he reached home, it was already midnight. He parked his car and was about to open the door when he saw someone squatting outside, scaring him out of his wits.
Vincent slowly walked up and realized that the person looked familiar. It was a girl who was squatting with her head low, just like an ostrich. He pushed her shoulder and called out softly, “Ruby?”
Ruby lifted up her head and looked at Vincent, tears filling her eyes. In a hoarse voice, she cried out, “Vincent, where have you been? Why are you not home at such a late hour?”
Vincent curled his lips and said, “Who would know that you would be squatting outside my house in the middle of the night? Come in; it’s windy outside!”
After taking a hot shower, Ruby walked out of the bathroom and carelessly wrapped herself up in a towel. Her hair was still wet as she sat down on the sofa.
Vincent asked, “What happened to you? Why did you not dry your hair?”
Ruby lowered her head, not saying a word. As Vincent dried her hair with a towel, Ruby cried out, “I have broken up with my boyfriend!”
“Okay.”
Ruby was extremely dissatisfied. Right away, she lifted up her head and said, “Can you be a bit sympathetic? I have broken up with my boyfriend. Can you not comfort me? You are…”
Ruby did not finish her sentence, but instead looked at Vincent with her jaw dropped. “Who are you?” she gasped.
Vincent took out a hair dryer and plugged it into the electric socket. He then said nonchalantly, “Who else? Clearly I am Vincent.”
Ruby shook her head continuously and said, “Impossible. The Vincent that I know is not so good-looking. Tell me honestly, are you a monster?”
“…”
“Here is the hair dryer. After you have dried your hair, go to the room that you went the other time, and have an early night!
Vincent was lying on his bed, playing with his mobile phone when Ruby suddenly approached him. Staring at his face carefully, she asked, “Why did I not realize earlier that you are so handsome? You were good-looking before, but now you are stunning…” “Tell me honestly, did you have plastic surgery?” Vincent pushed away Ruby’s head which was almost touching his face. “Previously, my work environment has greatly affected my health. Now, I am recovering and I have been training every day, so that may explain it.” “It’s such an amazing transformation!” Ruby was simple-minded, so she believed what Vincent told her. However, because of Vincent’s flawless appearance, she still stayed beside him. “Hey, Vincent, I have just broken up!” “Oh!” “Should you not comfort me?” “Should I? I don’t think so!” Vincent put down his mobile phone and glanced at Ruby, feeling somewhat strange. Ever since he was able to control his mind power, he did not really read another person’s thoughts unless it
Vincent entered the painting space and immediately discovered that the very first queen insect had died. It was jointly attacked by a few other queen insects that appeared later on, dragged out from its nest, and died a horrible death. It was precisely at the moment this insect queen died that the measure of the Source Form in Vincent’s brain increased. Vincent then brought his consciousness into the painting space and gradually discovered that the Source Form’s increase did not only occur when the insect queen died. In fact, every time a living thing died, the measure of the Source Form would increase subtly. He did notice that there was a great difference between an ordinary insect and an insect queen. As the changes were minimal for ordinary insects, Vincent had not noticed the difference before. It was only when the insect queen died, and the measure shot up, that this great difference caught his attention. The entire space in the painting became the playground of the insects.
Vincent felt that something was about to grow out from between his eyebrows. Finally at the end of his meditation, with sufficient mind power, the thing broke through and came into the real world. Vincent saw the external world, not with his eyes or with the introspective senses that he had been using earlier. Instead, he was actually observing the world from an entirely different angle. His mind power had broken through the limitations of his body and was influencing the real world. The real world that he saw through his mind power was made up of information formed by dots and lines. There were no colors or light, only information in the form of dots and lines. From the moment Vincent extended his mind power to explore the world, he could feel a vast amount of external information flooding into his brain. The humidity of the air, the size of the room, and the length, structure, quality, and density of his bed all continuously gushed into his brain. Suddenly, Vincent realized that
Vincent hunched over his cluttered desk, the now-familiar hum of the silver hourglass thrumming beside him. Plans for the painting space sprawled across his notebook, a testament to weeks of tireless brainstorming. Vincent came up with plans for the future of the painting space based on his ideas. Since he had 1368 units of Source Form at his disposal, a number painstakingly accumulated through past experiments, Vincent yearned to craft a world more intricate than anything he'd attempted before. Vincent had decided to create a world with a bigger framework of rules, so that he would not need to keep changing and adjusting it in the future. Of course, that was merely the framework. Vincent would not be able to design a large-scale world for the time being even if he wanted to.Vincent had spent a long time thinking about it. He envisioned a robust framework, a Krynnspace world built upon multiple planes, a universe entirely separate from his own. Gone were the whimsical ideas of parall
As the echoes of the failed experiment faded, Vincent's lab, once a crucible of hope, lay shrouded in silence. Yet, within that stillness, the seeds of determination took root. Vincent knew that the path of a pioneer was paved with setbacks, each a stepping stone to the pinnacle of discovery. With the painting space stirring, Vincent turned his gaze to the canvas of creation that lay before him. The space, a mirror to his ambitions, rippled with the potential of the untapped. It was a realm where the laws of nature bowed to the whims of the creator. A tremor rippled across the canvas of creation before him. The painting space, a reflection of his ambitions, writhed with the raw power of the untamed. Here, the shackles of reality loosened, bending to the will of the creator. And Vincent, for a moment, was its master. He stepped through the shimmering portal, the air crackling with nascent life. As he stepped into the painting space, the air thrummed with the power of life itself. The
Vincent looked at the space within the Scroll of Creation, his brow furrowed in surprise. He had never thought that the planes could be blown up like a balloon. Gone was the confined canvas he'd known before. Instead, a vast expanse stretched before him, a boundless plane that seemed to mimic a real world. It was so huge that Vincent could not even see the boundary of the plane. It seemed boundless; Vincent felt as though it was a real world. The implications were staggering. No longer was he limited by a tiny stage; he was now a sculptor with a celestial canvas. Vincent could feel a large amount of energy and matter welling within the plane. He could simply apply the rules and he would have been able to sculpt this world to how he wanted it to look like and create the world that he wanted. A thrill of exhilaration coursed through him. He could feel the raw energy and pulsating matter within the plane, a blank slate begging for his touch. This was the crucial step, the metam
Yesterday, just before dawn, the world witnessed a phenomenon unlike any other, some experts say it was an eclipse. The sun, the lifeblood of our planet, vanished. Not in the graceful ballet of a solar eclipse, but in an abrupt and unsettling blackout. Experts scrambled, news networks buzzed with speculation, and a collective unease gripped the globe. The internet, the ever-present hum of communication, fell silent in a matter of ten minutes, leaving behind an eerie quietude. Theories swirled like dust devils in a desert – a one-time anomaly, a solar flare of unprecedented magnitude, even whispers of alien intervention. “The eclipse had caused the country to slip into chaos. An unidentified magnetic field had appeared and caused the world’s communications network to go down in a mere 10 minutes…” “It is very rare to see a global eclipse…” Vincent, nestled in the familiar comfort of his new pet shop, watched the news reports unfold on a dusty television set. S
Vincent steered his car along the winding roads that snaked through Shennongjia, Muyu Town, a nature enthusiast's paradise nestled amidst the verdant embrace of Hubei province, China. Though the tourist season hadn't quite peaked and it wasn’t the season for travelling, the town of Muyu bustled with a vibrant energy and various people from different walks of life. There were people distributing leaflets, as well as shops holding various events to attract customers. There were many performances at night as well. Billboards plastered across shops advertised enticing deals, costumed figures paraded through the streets, and the promise of nightly performances painted the town with an air of festivity. After enjoying himself, Vincent settled into a hotel and spent the night, soaking in the local charm, Vincent, with a determined glint in his eye, embarked on his true mission. He went up to the mountains the following day, venturing deep into the heart of Shennongjia. He had deliberately
Because of how useful the biological chambers were, Vincent returned to Earth to order more components. After four days, the materials finally arrived. He took them back to Gaia’s World and finished assembling them.Vincent’s laboratory changed significantly again. The room was now filled with standing biological chambers, various medical equipment, drawings of genetic templates, and a freezing chamber filled with many labelled genetic samples. It really looked like the kind of laboratory only an alien would have!Vincent put Sakuma’s deified body in one of the smaller biological chambers. He had forbidden the ant-people from approaching the particular biological chamber. Even though it had lost its consciousness and only the instincts of its physical body remained, it was still very dangerous.On the other hand, in another larger chamber was a more beautiful creature. It was the result of his experiments for the past few days. Inside the biolo
Vincent arrived on the southern sea, looking for traces of Sakuma. He knew the whereabouts of the creature using the Scroll of the World, but he did not want to capture it with a dimensional door. He wanted to catch it off guard and see if he could draw it into his dream world.His boat shimmered and disappeared. He used the dimensional door to teleport himself hundreds of miles and reappeared in another area of the ocean. Vincent immediately discovered Sakuma. It was currently playing under the ocean, boiling the area of ocean hundreds of meters around himself. A layer of dead fish floated on the water, and Sakuma began feasting happily. Water vapor hung over the ocean, covering the world in a layer of mist. The water of the ocean was bubbling. Vincent approached Sakuma slowly on his boat. Sakuma did not notice anything!Vincent found that Sakuma was five to six times bigger than the last time he saw the creature. Sakuma now looked about half as tall as a full-grown p
“Assimilate!”“Copy the genes!”Vincent could sense that after he set up the templates in the first cell, the rest of his deified brain cells were loading the power for controlling information. As the deified cells finished loading, Vincent felt a change in his mind space. His control over his power was completely different now. His cells could now handle a large amount of information at any given time, and he could change or alter his entire mind space whenever he felt like it. At this point, it no longer felt appropriate to call the space his “mind space” anymore. This was the “dream space” he had aimed to create.Vincent stood in his dream space. This space was pitch black and directionless. There was nothing around him, not even time existed in this realm. A thought flashed through his mind, and he immediately saw the space changing with the passing of the thought. He could see land starting to form under his f
As the ship drew closer, the sailor immediately saw the giant dark shadow under the water and shouted in panic, “There seems to be a rock up ahead!”The call startled everyone, and more sailors appeared on the deck, searching the open water for hidden rocks. The captain hurried to the front of the ship. “That is impossible, this is a very safe route! We have sailed this route many times! How can there be rocks all of a sudden?”Even so, they saw the dark shadow under the water slowly grow larger. A circular black area gradually appeared from under the water. Confusion filled the minds of everyone present, “What is that?”Boom! The water exploded as a large head rose up from the ocean into the sailors’ view. A huge black octopus erupted from under the ocean, its long tentacles immediately entangling the ship. The large suction cups on its tentacles were terrifying to look at it.“My God, what is that?!”
“Sakuma… Sakuma…”“Boom!”“Rumble!”Sakuma was ramming into the stone wall, continuously launching attacks while controlling its power, manically trying to escape from its underground water dungeon. As it used its power, the water in the dungeon evaporated again and again, but fresh water kept flowing into the cell.Vincent observed Sakuma in its prison from a fist-sized small window above. It had been a while since he sent Sakuma into the water dungeon using a dimensional door. Vincent had been trying to find out the limits of Sakuma’s power. “Right now, the highest temperature Sakuma could control was 783 degrees Celsius. The lowest was negative 70 degrees Celsius.”Sakuma discovered where Vincent was and began launching its attacks toward Vincent furiously. However, Vincent was the one that gave Sakuma his power. All he needed to do was control the particles in his surrounding a
What is supernatural power?That was the question that had been bothering Vincent for a long time. To him, this kind ofcreatures shouldn’t be limited to be able to control only its own body. They should be able to interfere with the world and lives around it using mind power as well. This was what a real supernatural creature should be able to do and how mind power should really be used.This required a lot of knowledge about rules of the world. Temperature would be an example. What was temperature? General speaking, temperature was a physical quantity that expressed how warm or cold an object was. But on microscopic level,it measured how violently particles vibrated or moved. According to the kinetic theory, temperature represented the average kinetic energy of the constituent particles. Temperature was a result of the thermal motion of a large number of particles collectively.Vincent thought that a mythical creature would be able to detect t
Vincent poured a test tube of blood plasma into the slot at the top of the biological chamber. He pressed a button and the blood was injected into the seahorse. A day later, the seahorse’s consciousness and memories were wiped completely. Then, Vincent tried to place the soul of the Tree of Life into the seahorse. However, the soul was met with strong resistance, and the seahorse died almost immediately!As he extracted the soul of the Tree of Life, Vincent found that the soul had been weakened as well. The soul, which had been pure and without any form of consciousness before, had become tainted by the seahorse’s mind. As Vincent observed it, he sensed some very chaotic and confusing waves of consciousness being emitted.Vincent tried the same thing with several different kinds of sea creatures and failed every time. The contamination of the once-pure soul was becoming increasingly severe. Vincent knew that if he kept failing, the soul would fall apart.
The Port of London was located along the banks of the River Thames to the southeast of London. Vincent drove to the port in a brand-new Range Rover Evoque, and he could see the London Bridge and the beautiful night scenery in the distance. This was an important arterial road of London. Ships were coming and going very frequently, and it was still very busy here despite the falling darkness.From faraway, Vincent could already see the liveliness of the port. There were still many ships out on the sea. In addition, there were also many ships docking, loading or unloading their cargos. Ships of various sizes packed the dock, creating a busy scene.Vincent walked around until he found where the medium-sized and small-sized ships were docked. The port was twisting and turning. Vincent walked down a straight path and saw dozens of ships docked around. Among them, there were quite a few yachts!This one look good!In the distance, Vincent saw a yacht with three
“What do you think of this one?” a man in suit asked. He was standing beside Vincent and his face was filled with a bright smile.Vincent inspected the villa before him carefully and walked around its huge yard. It was a townhouse in Kensington, London, and it was over three hundred square meters in size. The villa had six floors including the basement and was very secure because Kensington was filled with many rich people. The public transport around the house was also very convenient. In addition, there were plenty of facilities around the house.After inspecting, Vincent found out that most parts of the house were painted white with great attention to details. It had the elegance of European designs, and the furnishings inside were also very modernized. Moreover, the yard was huge and one could sunbathe or play in it to relax.“I’ll take it,” he said with a nod. “How much?”The man’s smile immediately became more friendly. “The house originally costs nine million and three hundred