Space Odyssey from Abandoned Mining Space Station

Chen Ming still focused his attention on the present.

Besides his progress in Spiritual Energy, he had also gained some tangible things.

Three Spiritual Stones.

Obsession, fear, and resentment.

Both fear and resentment were Resonating Spiritual Stones, and both were Spiritual Stones left behind after Psychics died.

Counting the Stone of Chaotic Words that Chen Ming could resonate with from before as well.

Perfect—one for each of the proxy bodies and the main body.

He had to find a chance to resonate with fear later.

As for resentment... he’d leave that for later. Since Zuo Jing had taken a heavy blow in the open, the hidden parts of Zuo Jing definitely wouldn’t stick their heads out now just to get beaten.

If he really wanted to find Zuo Jing’s actual Mind Control Psychics, it would probably take a long time, and largely depend on luck.

Even though, by now, the Stone of Chaotic Words’ training effect on him was already starting to diminish, and a new Resonating Spiritual Stone might not be that effective.

It was still beneficial overall.

And Chen Ming still remembered that his Stone of Chaotic Words had started out as a Low Whisper Spiritual Stone, then turned into a Delusional Spiritual Stone after coming into contact with a pirate captain who died with hatred.

The Delusional Spiritual Stone had then transformed into a Stone of Chaotic Words through those dimensionally infected aberrant flesh masses.

Which meant Spiritual Stones could actually grow.

He was already in touch with Dimensional Power; maybe he could replicate the Stone of Chaotic Words’ situation on the remaining Resonating Spiritual Stones.

And after realizing that he himself was also a Mind Breaking Entity, Chen Ming didn’t care at all about carrying a few more Spiritual Stones. They would always provide some auxiliary effect for his Spiritual Energy training.

Aside from the Spiritual Stones, the other tangible gains were those two Psychic prisoners.

One was the Black Mist Spirit Ability User who’d come to assassinate him quite some time ago.

The other was the Psychic who’d overestimated himself and tried to stop him on the Zuo Jing Space Station.

The Black Mist Spirit Ability User had already been sent beyond the Empire.

As for the Psychic, although Chen Ming had been keeping him in the ship’s cryo bay all this time,

once Chen Ming followed Thousand Faces onto Zuo Jing’s ship, he had already used Spiritual Energy to pilot the ship out of the Empire.

By now, it should be almost at the main body’s side.

Once the Enlightenment Nerve shipment arrived, Chen Ming could finally try using the Spirit Awakening Nerve Extractor on a Psychic to extract Enlightenment Nerves.

Chen Ming noticed his mindset had been changing quite fast.

At first, because of what he’d gone through, he didn’t really want to use these things on other Psychics, which was why Yan Xiong was still alive.

But after seeing so much of what Zuo Jing had done, Chen Ming no longer cared what methods were used on Zuo Jing.

Then there was the Chaos Origin.

The combat power and abilities of a Mind Breaking Entity spoke for themselves.

Anything left behind by such an existence held considerable value for Chen Ming.

Not to mention for An Wuping.

Once he was familiar with all the Spiritual Energy effects within the Chaos Origin, that Chaos Origin would be An Wuping’s greatest trump card.

The core capability he’d rely on for stirring up trouble and staying alive.

Chen Ming wasn’t worried at all about the Spiritual Energy effects in the Chaos Origin increasing in number.

In his view, he himself was a Mind Breaking Entity, and An Wuping was also a product of a Mind Breaking Entity.

The Chaos Origin’s impact on Psychics worked on the body.

It was various Spiritual Energy-natured substances waging war against each other in a Psychic’s flesh.

Since Chen Ming could exert absolute control over An Wuping’s body, the whole ”An Wuping becoming a Mind Breaking Entity” thing basically couldn’t happen, could it?

And if it did, Chen Ming could just kill the Mind Breaking Entity that An Wuping turned into.

Then use the Chaos Origin left behind by that Mind Breaking Entity to make a new An Wuping. No big deal.

Besides these gains,

there were also some other benefits that weren’t exactly tangible, nor strictly his own abilities.

For example, after going through all of this, An Wuping’s identity had completely stabilized.

With multiple sides backing that identity, even if Chen Ming suddenly jumped out now to question it, nothing would happen.

Unless Chen Ming brought out evidence that he himself was An Wuping.

But he wasn’t stupid.

So from now on, An Wuping was already a thoroughgoing Imperial People.

And judging from how Audan Star Realm had acted all this time.

Their intentions were actually pretty clear.

Chen Ming didn’t mind.

An Wuping had always been Chen Ming’s Deputy for operating within the Empire’s borders.

Of course he needed to develop himself, to find suitable opportunities to raise his own status.

Now that the identity was solid, joining a faction was naturally the best way to further raise that status.

And from what could be seen from the experiences of Chen Ming’s other proxy body in the Fourteenth Legion.

Joining a faction definitely had benefits, but also definitely came with constraints.

Take the biggest benefit of joining the Fourteenth Legion, for example.

It allowed Chen Ming and Bai Quan to communicate at close range.

He could basically get any sort of authority or special privilege just by asking.

Otherwise, he wouldn’t have been able to arrange An Wuping’s identity so smoothly, nor easily investigate the identities of so many people.

All kinds of equipment, including simulators and other such devices, even equipment left behind by another civilization, were all available and obtainable.

Especially that Catalytic Core he’d been researching recently; that was a real treasure.

As for the downsides, of course there were some. Sometimes tasks would be assigned and he’d have to do them.

Though up to now all the tasks given to him were research tasks—funding provided, equipment provided, research subjects provided—which he quite enjoyed.

But in the future there would definitely be tasks Chen Ming couldn’t be bothered to do.

Then there was the restriction on his person.

Of course, that might simply be because his Spiritual Energy was too outrageous.

Which meant many people would never be able to fully trust him.

That was normal, but still acceptable.

Chen Ming had long been used to staying in one place as long as he had things he liked to do.

His main body out exploring could stay at the Supreme Point for months without moving, and the proxy body in the Fourteenth Legion could also stay under the dome indefinitely; he didn’t care.

Not to mention that An Wuping’s performance hadn’t reached that level yet, so the restrictions on him wouldn’t be that heavy.

Joining a faction had both pros and cons.

Under normal circumstances, it was a tough trade-off.

But a proxy body was still just a proxy body; it only required some of Chen Ming’s own Spiritual Power and attention to maintain.

Proxy bodies could absolutely choose to join different factions.

His Spiritual Power was always improving anyway, and the number of proxy bodies he could control without affecting the main body and other proxies was always increasing.

If he needed more, he could just make another proxy body.

Joining Audan was definitely a... good choice.

Happened to be that Audan wasn’t too far from Gallo Star Realm, and also not far from the Edge Star Realm adjacent to the Mechanical Race.

By joining Audan, he might be able to provide indirect support, from other directions, to the things he planned to do later.

And Chen Ming was also curious whether the government and the military would treat Psychics differently.

That should be about it for the rest of the gains.

Chen Ming once again sorted everything out in his mind, then shifted his attention back to the Shuttle Boat currently sailing through space.