Welcome to the Ability Shop!

Chapter 56 Public Declaration
Chen Xuan finally understood that any branch store could be opened as long as it had a storefront; the location of that storefront was not important.

In other words, it can be opened in this world, or in the world of other guests.

Once you have a branch, it's like opening a wormhole between the main store and the branch, allowing you to travel back and forth between the two locations—a very convenient feature. Even if he stops selling his abilities, it would be perfect for delivering transoceanic packages.

The prerequisite is that a large sum of money must be spent to prepare.

Now that he has a stable way to make money, it's not hard to save up more money by practicing alchemy. The only problem is that the rental contract must be legal and compliant, so the location of the store is still important. You can't just build a house on the roadside and call it a branch.

Besides, there's no loss even if he doesn't open any branches, so he doesn't need to rush to test this feature.

Jingle bell~
The wind chimes on the door curtain rang, and another customer walked into the store.

"Welcome." Chen Xuan put down the booklet and looked towards the entrance. He saw that the customer was the old man who had bought cigarettes. Behind him were several people, adults and children. It was obvious that they were his family without any introduction.

"Young man, I heard you went to the pedestrian square today too?" The old man, as usual, picked up a pack of Furongwang cigarettes.

The other woman pretended to look at the shelves, but her eyes kept glancing at the bar.

Who else could it be but the old man's daughter?
Chen Xuan was slightly surprised. He had completely covered his face while following the dinosaur, so how could she have noticed? However, he quickly realized that the connection was probably not in appearance, but in voice. Dozens or even hundreds of customers visited the shop every day; she might have run errands for the old man before and exchanged a few words with him.

"Who told you that? I was sleeping at home this afternoon."

He cleared his throat and replied with a smile.

Voice is something that can be easily changed; by slightly adjusting one's tone, one can change it to a different pitch.

"Oh, I heard it from Old Zhang next door. He might have misjudged." The old man was putting on a great show. "I also thought you wouldn't go. Judging from your previous personality, you're probably not the type to join in the fun. But you'll definitely miss out if you don't go this time! It's incredibly lively, more exciting than any variety show I've ever seen in my life!"

"Dinosaurs, right? I saw them on TV, they felt a bit unreal."

Chen Xuan noticed that his daughter had already looked away and was no longer paying attention to them.

"Well, who can argue with that? But it's definitely real!" the old man said, savoring the memory. "That one with the really long neck..."

"Auntie said it's called Thunder Dragon!" his son shouted.

"Good, good, it's a Brontosaurus. Everyone here saw it when it straddled the fence to eat the tree next to the zoo. It's definitely the real thing, it was even drooling!"

Chen Xuan feigned surprise and agreed, "That's amazing! You guys stayed up until now before coming back?"

"How could that be? There's a huge traffic jam on the road. All four bridges across the river are completely blocked. I bet everyone's just there to watch the spectacle. You wouldn't believe it, the cars on the street are lined up from one end to the other, you can't see the end of the line at all."

After settling the bill during their casual conversation, just as the old man and his family were about to leave, an unusual scene suddenly appeared on the wall-mounted TV.

"We have an urgent news briefing!"

"This station has received notification that an organization calling itself the 'Universal Security Agency' has launched a global broadcast and will issue a public statement in three minutes."

Then the screen switched to a three-minute countdown.

The customers in the shop looked at each other in bewilderment; they had never seen anything like it before.

The same was true for Chen Xuan. In the past twenty-six years, he had never seen a TV station stop all its programs and waste three precious minutes to play a countdown with colored bars. He had seen this standby screen filled with squares and colorful lines online, but that was a planned break between programs, not a sudden interruption of current programming to wait for an upcoming news release.

"what happened?"

"I don't know, we'll see later."

Three minutes felt like thirty minutes.

Not only did the old man and his family stay, but more and more residents of the community also entered the store and gathered in front of the television to discuss the meaning behind this breaking news.

Lin Qing also came down from the second floor.

She and Chen Xuan exchanged a glance, then stared silently at the television. As the countdown ended, a new image appeared. Judging from the background, it was a proper auditorium, with a stage, a backdrop, seating, and many reporters gathered below.

A man was standing on the podium.

He looked to be in his forties, wearing glasses and with a very refined appearance. For such a formal occasion, he wasn't wearing a suit and tie, but a white lab coat, as if he had just stepped out of a research lab.

"How could it be him?" the old man's daughter exclaimed in surprise.

"who is he?"

"Do you know this person?" a neighbor immediately asked.

“His name is Jiang Yiheng, and he’s a big name in several academic fields,” she explained. “Anyone who pays even a little attention to cutting-edge technology knows who he is. He graduated from a top university in China, earned his doctorate from a top university in the United States, and later became a Yangtze River Scholar. He has research projects in many countries. In particular, his laboratories, which he leads, are world-leading in nuclear physics, superconducting physics, bioelectronics, and biomimetic mechanics research.”

Hearing her say that, Chen Xuan vaguely remembered it.

When he was still working at a big company, he heard his colleagues talk about this big shot, but since programmers don't have much to do with these fields, he didn't pay much attention to it.

"Hello everyone, I am Jiang Yiheng, the current head of the Weixian Agency." The person on the stage pushed up his glasses and said in a cheerful tone, "I apologize for taking up everyone's rest time tonight. I only learned about what happened at the Jiangcheng Zoo an hour ago."

"lie."

Chen Xuan heard Lin Qing mutter softly.

"Now that things have come to this, I can't keep beating around the bush. Yes, those so-called 'abilities' online do exist, and they could be found in any of you."

As soon as he said this, the flashbulbs in the audience went off non-stop!
The customers in the shop were also in an uproar!
Jiang Yiheng continued, "But I don't like to call it an ability. In my opinion, it's more like a curse, a poison that can bring people short-term benefits but becomes like a bone-deep infection in the long run. It comes from the erosion of other worlds, or rather, the gravitational pull. The specific reasons are still unclear, but the intuitive feeling is that our world is becoming riddled with holes."

He pressed the remote control in his hand, and a video appeared on the large screen behind him.

"Isn't that our city's botanical garden?" someone immediately recognized it.

"The Great Forest Scenic Area, I visited it last month."

The video shows an incongruous space amidst the trees cultivated to mimic a tropical rainforest. Its edges are jagged and twisted, while its interior is a dull, dark green. This green blends in with the surrounding forest, permeating each other like a painting ruined by water.

"This is erosion," Jiang Yiheng said again. "As you can see, the space in our world has shrunk; it has been invaded. Even with strict controls, intrusion points of moderate to severe levels are difficult to eliminate in a short time, and may last for five, ten years... or even longer. Here, I must strongly condemn those thugs who activated and expanded the intrusion points in the Jiangcheng Botanical Garden! They deliberately lured a large number of residents to that place, trying to create a sensational effect, essentially placing tens of thousands of ordinary people in extremely dangerous situations!"

"Leaving aside the intense radiation and gravitational distortions caused by the overlap of the two worlds, there are countless dangers on the other side of the intrusion point, such as unknown bacteria and viruses, harmful species, etc. It will also make the masses more susceptible to mutation... This utterly disregard for life is no different from that of terrorists. The only difference is that they not only kill people, but also bring serious chaos and destruction to social order! What's even more hateful is that they are fully aware of these side effects!"

"The security agencies have consistently chosen to conceal this information precisely because of this concern. Everyone having a gun is terrifying enough, let alone those unpredictable and difficult-to-defend-against capabilities? According to our statistics, for every additional intrusion incident, the crime rate in that area increases by 2 percentage points. I can now assert that crime in Jiangcheng will significantly increase over the next three years, and a considerable portion of it will be related to crimes committed by capabilities!"

Upon hearing that crime would increase, everyone immediately became uneasy. "Really? Will the police be able to catch those who use their abilities to commit crimes?"

"You're overthinking it. What else can they do besides trying to smooth things over?"

"If they could catch them, the group that caused trouble in the botanical garden would have been caught long ago."

Chen Xuan coughed twice, "Keep your voice down, the TV hasn't finished talking yet."

Jiang Yiheng raised his hand, signaling the reporters to be quiet as well. "Furthermore, I must emphasize that the organization has never persecuted or controlled anyone with abilities. Instead, it has always maintained good cooperation with them. The simple fact is that some members of the organization are people with abilities. How could they persecute themselves? This is an obvious slander by the enemy. Sadly, many people who are unaware of the truth believe it."

"Therefore, starting today, the VIII Agency has decided to change its original course and openly demonstrate the necessity and legitimacy of our work to everyone. We welcome cooperation from governments and agencies worldwide to jointly combat intrusion and strengthen the prevention and crackdown on ability crimes. The agency is also willing to share the results of its past ability research, transforming it from a curse into something that can truly benefit humanity."

"Similarly, to prevent the abuse and misuse of our abilities, we plan to open recruitment to the public. Anyone who doubts their own abilities, or those who have abilities but don't know how to use them, can come to the recruitment point to take tests, get answers to their questions, or even join the Weixian Agency family to contribute to protecting world stability!"

His last words were powerful and resounding.

The audience erupted in applause!

(End of this chapter)