This High Martial World is Too Crazy!!!

Chapter 18: Chapter 18: Memes and Wishing Machines

”A Humanoid Wishing Machine?”

Ji Donglai raised an eyebrow at the term, a look of astonishment in his eyes.

”Yes, Leader Ji,” Elder Yang said.

”That is the term provided by the Precious Object Appraisal technique. This lifeform from the Otherworld is, in essence, a Humanoid Wishing Machine.”

”The so-called Cultivation Techniques are merely things they manifest after making a wish. I suspect every person from the Otherworld is a small, self-contained wishing machine.”

”Interesting. So everyone over there is a superhuman? That’s the real secret behind the Cultivation Techniques!” Ji Donglai said, a hint of regret in his eyes.

After all, they didn’t have this ”wishing machine” trait, which meant they couldn’t practice those Cultivation Techniques.

Superhumans had always possessed surprisingly poor self-defense capabilities. They tended to develop in one extreme direction, resulting in very pronounced strengths and weaknesses. These Cultivation Techniques from the Otherworld would have been an excellent way to compensate.

”Leader Ji, the key point is actually the memetic trait mentioned before,” Elder Yang reminded him. ”This miniature wishing machine has the ability to self-replicate and spread.”

”Any sentient lifeform that makes physical contact will be irreversibly infected, turning into a Humanoid Wishing Machine.”

Ji Donglai was stunned. ”You mean...”

”That’s right. The profiles for the dozen or so people involved, including Superman F, should now list the ’wishing machine’ meme.”

Elder Yang gave a wry smile. ”To prevent the meme from spreading further, the entire Dragon Hideout Base has been sealed off and quarantined. No one is allowed in or out.”

”That’s probably pointless,” Ji Donglai said, pressing a hand to his head. ”People have likely gone in and out of the hundreds of other locations where energy tides erupted. It’s unstoppable.”

After a moment of silence, Ji Donglai said, ”Let’s leave it at that for now. You continue studying the current test subject. I’ve found an even better one here. I’ll have it sent over to you once it’s captured.”

Before he could end the call, a video request from the Meme King popped up, filling him with a sense of foreboding.

”Boss, we’ve got a situation,” the Meme King chirped through the video feed, grinning. ”Guess what? Heh, I lost our guy. He was a real pro.”

Ji Donglai’s face darkened. Too annoyed to engage, he said curtly, ”Enough. Write a report. I want a thirty-thousand-word reflection on your failure submitted to me. And don’t video call me anymore. Have your handler contact me from now on.”

”C’mon, Boss, don’t get so worked up! It’s givin’—”

Without giving the Meme King a chance to spout any more pre-Cataclysm internet slang, Ji Donglai immediately hung up. Rubbing his temples, he said to Elder Li, ”The test subject I just mentioned has escaped. I’ll send it over once it’s been recaptured.”

Elder Yang nodded, then asked curiously, ”Was that the Meme King just now?”

After receiving an affirmative reply from Ji Donglai, Elder Yang understood completely.

The so-called Meme King was a character who spouted terrible jokes anytime, anywhere. Sometimes he would even cram two or three popular internet memes and regional gags into a single sentence. His reputation was so widespread that practically everyone had heard of him.

...

In the afternoon, after his lunch break, Fang Can heard a series of loud rumbles from far in the distance.

’Is that a demolition site?’

Fang Can frowned slightly. Something felt off. The sound from the distance was a continuous series of roars.

He wasn’t the only one; the other students in the classroom were also craning their necks toward the explosions. When they looked up, they saw countless massive pillars of fire surging into the sky.

”That’s definitely a fight between superhumans!” someone exclaimed.

Now, accompanied by immense roars, an invisible pressure emanated from Z City’s West City district, a pressure that could be felt across the entire city.

It was a feeling like being late for work or school on a Monday morning—a heavy, slightly panicked sensation in the pit of everyone’s stomach. The closer one got, the more intense the feeling became.

Ten kilometers out, it was the anxiety of being late for work. Five kilometers out, it was the stress of a bad gacha pull. One kilometer out, it was the terror of realizing you’re on a stage before a massive audience, wearing nothing but your underwear...

As for within a hundred meters, ”pressure” was no longer the right word. An ordinary person would lose consciousness the moment they got close.

’This feeling...’ Fang Can couldn’t help but frown. ’Why is it so familiar? It must be a psychic-type superhuman, right?’

As Fang Can pondered this, the giant pillars of fire in the distance began to spread, advancing toward the city center along with the thunderous roars. Then, an air-raid siren blared across the entire city.

At the sound of the siren, the city began an orderly and practiced evacuation. This sort of thing happened a few times every year; people were used to it.

He silently followed the rest of the school’s students during the evacuation, but everyone knew this would be another false alarm.

Fights between superhumans rarely lasted long, usually ending within a few minutes.

Sure enough, less than two minutes later, while Fang Can was still heading down the stairs, the air-raid siren stopped. The distant pillars of fire had vanished. A moment later, a teacher turned around and told everyone to go back to class.

”I knew it. It’s the same every time...”

”What a letdown. If they’d just kept it up a little longer, we could’ve gotten out of class today...”

”Boring. I want to see rivers of blood...” ℯℯ𝑙.

Listening to his classmates’ whispered complaints, Fang Can didn’t join the discussion. Instead, he wondered to himself, ’Was that strange pressure from before really just a coincidence?’

Unfazed by the small interruption of the superhuman battle, Fang Can went back to his routine, methodically playing the part of an ordinary student.

Compared to his old life in the Otherworld, where he’d trained until his hands cramped and occasionally had to self-mutilate to improve his talents, his current school life was practically a vacation.

But the more comfortable things were, the more uneasy Fang Can felt, as if he were wasting precious time in a classroom.

After all, in a world where he could be transported to the Otherworld at any moment, there was no telling what he might face. Any small improvement he could make was for the better.

Knowing this strange restlessness wasn’t helping, Fang Can casually swallowed a grain of arsenic while he studied, allowing the calmness of his ”Genius Mode” to suppress the negative emotions.

’I can’t waste too much time at school. I could learn all of this material in a single night. I need to figure out how to get out of this phase of my education.’

Fang Can calmly considered his options, wondering how long it would take for his ”Talent 2” to heal a broken arm or leg.

He weighed whether such an action was a worthwhile trade-off for the study time he would gain.

Lost in these considerations, the school day quickly passed. When he got home, his hand paused for a fraction of a second before he pulled the key from his pocket. Then, as if nothing had happened, he proceeded to unlock the front door.

But only he knew that his ”Turnabout” talent had passively activated. His heightened intuition could sense that a predator—one at the very top of the food chain—was hiding inside the room.