All the heavens, starting as the ruler of the universe

Lin Yan withdrew his consciousness from probing the crystal core, and the wisp of starlight at his fingertips quietly dissipated.

"Alright, here you go."

The crystal nucleus floated from Lin Yan's hand and drifted toward Zhang Jingyuan.

"Brother Lin, can I awaken my superpower with this crystal core?" Zhang Jingyuan asked cautiously.

"No." Lin Yan shook his head. "The compatibility between this crystal core and your soul is too low."

"But..." Lin Yan changed the subject, "I can give you two options."

"First, as promised before, I'll give you a talisman, and you can choose any one from me."

Zhang Jingyuan's eyes lit up. Talismans were good things; they were simple, direct, and mindless, and most of them had very powerful effects.

"Secondly, I can help you activate your superpowers, and they will be perfectly aligned with your soul, without any side effects."

Zhang Jingyuan had just heard those three people say that some new humans who awaken superpowers will undergo special changes. Physical mutations are only part of it; more importantly, using superpowers will bring terrible consequences to themselves.

As for whether Lin Yan can successfully awaken his superpowers, Zhang Jingyuan is not worried at all.

"Is the superpower I awakened more powerful than the talisman?" Zhang Jingyuan wondered, somewhat conflicted.

"I don't know. The awakening of superpowers is related to your soul. It may be what you need most, or it may be your obsession, or it may be something you can't even imagine." Lin Yan couldn't decide the type of superpower that would awaken.

"Which talismans can I choose?" Zhang Jingyuan felt that if there were dog talismans and horse talismans among them, he wouldn't need to consider them.

"Ox, rooster, rabbit, dragon, snake, rat, these six." The six talismans formed a circle and slowly rotated.

To be honest, all six talismans were quite effective, but when Zhang Jingyuan thought about his supernatural abilities that were not limited to these, he felt an impulse.

Moreover, talismans can be exchanged for Source Points in the chat group, but it's not easy for Lin Yan to awaken a perfect-level superpower for me.

Zhang Jingyuan took a deep breath: "I've made up my mind, Brother Lin. I choose the second option: awakening my superpower."

Lin Yan nodded, raised his right hand, stretched it out in front of him, fingers spread, palm facing up.

Starlight surged from his fingertips, not spraying, not flowing, but gathering—like countless fireflies flying in from all directions, swirling, condensing, and compressing above his palm.

The starlight grew brighter and denser, eventually forming a fist-sized ball of light above his palm.

Then the ball of light began to rotate, not randomly, but in a regular pattern, like a vortex, like a star, or even more like a galaxy.

At the center of the orb of light was a small but clear black dot, and all the starlight was flowing into that black dot, as if filling it with something.

Zhang Jingyuan stared at the ball of light, not daring to blink.

The ball of light began to shrink, from the size of a fist to the size of an egg, from the size of an egg to the size of a walnut, from the size of a walnut to the size of a fingernail, and finally, the ball of light dissipated.

Zhang Jingyuan blinked his dry eyes before he could see that Lin Yan was holding a crystal core between his two fingers.

Unlike the one he held in his hand, this one was smaller, only the size of a soybean, but the light inside wasn't multicolored; it was golden.

"Here, this crystal core has the same frequency as your soul. Swallow it, and your superpowers will awaken."

Zhang Jingyuan took a deep breath, put the crystal core in his mouth, and swallowed it.

The crystal nucleus slid down my throat, cool as if I had swallowed an ice cube, and then it went down into my stomach, where it stayed there, motionless.

Zhang Jingyuan waited for a while, but nothing happened.

Just as he was about to ask a question, a surge of heat welled up from his stomach, rushed up his blood vessels, into his heart, into his brain, into his limbs and bones, and finally gathered deep within his soul.

"Ugh—!" he couldn't help but growl, his right arm trembling violently.

Under Lin Yan's gaze, it seemed as if countless small snakes were wriggling beneath the skin of Zhang Jingyuan's right arm.

The skeleton reorganizes amidst the explosions, and muscle fibers proliferate and compress wildly.

In just a few seconds, his right arm became thicker than before, his skin had a bronze metallic sheen, and his nails became jet black and sharp as knives.

Zhang Jingyuan, panting heavily, tried waving his hand.

"laugh!"

The air was torn apart, producing a piercing sonic boom.

He sliced ​​a piece of scrap steel in front of him with his fingertips as easily as cutting tofu.

"How are you feeling?" Lin Yan asked.

"Not bad, I feel full of power, and it tells me," Zhang Jingyuan waved his arm, "that my energy is currently too little, only enough to change a part of my body and maintain this initial form. In the future, I will be able to change my whole body, and the type will not be limited."

"Alex Mercer?" Lin Yan thought of the male protagonist who tortured and killed.

"Not only that, I can even transform inorganic weapons." As he spoke, Zhang Jingyuan's right hand transformed into an Extreme Cold series firearm from the world of You Lingfeng.

"But there is a limitation: the things I change must exist within my own perception," Zhang Jingyuan added.

"It's good for both close and long-range combat, and it combines offense and defense." Lin Yan nodded. This ability is pretty good in the wasteland world.

In this world teeming with superpowered individuals, a well-rounded superpower, while perhaps mediocre, also means fewer weaknesses.

Zhang Jingyuan was like a child who had just received a toy, extremely excited, constantly turning his right hand into various things: a shield, a hammer, a gun, and even a wooden telephone pole, cosplaying as the giant zombie from Plants vs. Zombies.

"Stop playing around, where is that Insect King they're talking about?" Lin Yan had to interrupt Zhang Jingyuan, otherwise he felt Zhang could play all day long.

"Brother Lin, it's not far away, I'll take you there." Zhang Jingyuan excitedly pointed in a direction.

As soon as he finished speaking, Zhang Jingyuan took a deep breath, and a sickening metallic scraping sound came from his legs.

His legs and feet instantly transformed into complex mechanical structures, with connecting rods and hydraulic devices extending outwards continuously.

The originally fragile body was covered by cold machinery, just like putting a mechanical exoskeleton on the legs.

"laugh--!"

With a sharp bang of high-pressure gas ejection, the ground beneath Zhang Jingyuan's feet instantly cracked.

He transformed into a blur, launching himself out in a posture that defied the laws of human biomechanics.

It was a pure mechanical burst of power. With each step, the mechanical structure of his legs would spray out white air currents, propelling him to run wildly across the ruins at a speed exceeding 100 meters per second.

Lin Yan raised an eyebrow slightly, starlight shimmering beneath his feet, and followed at a leisurely pace.

For Zhang Jingyuan, this way of moving around was absolutely fantastic.

He felt he was no longer a flesh-and-blood body, but a tireless war machine.

The steel bars and deep pits that would trip him up in the ruins were no match for his current lower limb strength. He simply stepped on the broken wall and jumped over it, and the mechanical cushioning structure at his knees perfectly absorbed the impact when he landed.

In just a few minutes, the two of them traversed a journey that would normally take her more than an hour to walk, and arrived at the entrance to the underground parking lot.

"Phew...this feels amazing."