Lin Yilin's office temporarily became Zheng Fan's base, so he was no longer a wandering spirit for the time being.
This was a good thing.
Zheng Fan could also more easily test, understand, and master his current situation.
Although he possessed a minimal sense of adventure, he was still a standard slacker, and according to Lin Yilin, if his current situation were discovered, he would be captured by those uniformed people called the Management Bureau.
Her small office was not qualified to harbor illusion individuals.
Lin Yilin arrived at the office early, and as soon as she pushed open the door, she saw a black cat with two tails passing by.
"Good morning, Illusion Sir."
"Mm, good morning." The black cat opened its mouth to respond, then transformed back into Zheng Fan's appearance and stood up. "I'm pretty used to walking on all fours; it's not very difficult."
Lin Yilin went to her desk, sat down, and opened her laptop.
Watching Zheng Fan change forms at will, Lin Yilin pondered and asked, "If Illusion Sir transforms into a giant dragon from those fantasy stories, can he breathe fire like those dragons?"
Upon hearing this, Zheng Fan turned his dog head—he had indeed turned his head into a dog's appearance.
"I can create the appearance, but I can't do things like breathing fire or magic for now. Forget dragons, I can't even fly if I turn into a bird right now." Zheng Fan said, extending a hand and turning it into a bird's wing, then flapping it.
"Is it because you don't understand the structure?"
"How could I understand that structure? Do I need to go read fantasy creature setting books?" Zheng Fan changed his dog head back to a human face and said helplessly.
"It might not be related to that; it might just be lacking some more convenient medium." Lin Yilin thought for a moment.
Upon hearing this, Zheng Fan held a black bead, obtained from another Illusion, between two fingers: "Do you know anything about this thing?"
Lin Yilin shook her head: "I don't know."
Zheng Fan tossed the bead up and down, saying, "Too bad. I thought this was the superpower currency of this world, like monster cores or demon inner elixirs."
"Aside from the illusion itself, the supernatural side of this world isn't so unified. Each illusion expresses completely different powers based on different phenomena, psychologies, and so on. It's incredible." Lin Yilin explained.
"So what special power did the knocking ghost from before have?"
"illusions derived from human form generally aren't overly exaggerated. If I had to say, they're just quite good at cutting people. Other than that, there's no ability beyond imagination."
"Seriously, surviving two bullets and still almost cutting you to death is already very impressive." Zheng Fan said.
"Far less than you, Illusion Sir. My Earthworm has become like this now." Lin Yilin extended her hand and manifested her Earthworm.
Without Zheng Fan's enhancement, these Earthworm no longer had their previous python-like size, but they were still considerably larger than Lin Yilin's original form, equivalent to some medium-sized snakes.
Their original harmless appearance was also gone; their head's split mouthparts constantly opened and closed, ready to bite off a piece of flesh from a person at any time.
Lin Yilin said, "This is the first time I've seen such a situation. You didn't give me other powers, but rather caused my original abilities to mutate."
"Speaking of which, what's going on with your Earthworm? You said the source of superpowers is illusion, which means you already had an illusion originally?" Earthworm also crawled out from under Zheng Fan's feet, the same giant monster Earthworm as that night.
Even if he got off Lin Yilin, the power he had previously altered remained in Zheng Fan's hands.
Lin Yilin took this scene into her eyes and replied, "When I was young, I was marked by an Illusion. The ability to summon Earthworm extended from this mark. That illusion hasn't tried to find me all these years."
It felt like there was a story there, but not something worth being happy about. Zheng Fan didn't ask further, thinking about going out for a walk later.
Although he was temporarily cooperating with Lin Yilin, he naturally understood the principle of not putting all his eggs in one basket. It was important to see if he could find a few more "hosts" for future contingencies.
How to put it, Miss Lin Yilin seemed like someone who could easily die at a glance.
The way she showed no expression even when a knife was stabbed into her chest made Zheng Fan uneasy.
He paced around the office, his gaze sweeping over the calendar on the wall.
"Does April have thirty-first?" On the calendar, after April 30th, a "31" was handwritten in bold black marker, very conspicuous.
Those uniformed people also seemed to have mentioned April 31st.
And the May calendar didn't have an extra thirty-second, but the thirtieth was marked with an additional red thirtieth.
"Naturally, there is no April 31st in a White Peaceful World, but it's not necessarily so in the Grey District. It's like a bug in the real world; an extra day might appear at the end of each month." Lin Yilin's slender fingers rapidly tapped on the keyboard, making sounds, and she explained in her spare time.
"If the black mark is for the Black World, then what is the red one for?"
"Violent World." Lin Yilin's typing suddenly stopped, and she looked up: "Red symbolizes the Violent World, one of the most fundamental components of humanity."
"Elaborate."
Lin Yilin's fingers gently stroked the mouse, pondering, "The Violent World is actually deeply rooted beneath the normal world, only occasionally overlapping and expressing itself through certain individuals. The extra thirtieths in some months will cause the Violent World to fully surface. It will be very lively then."
"If the Violent World overlaps, what will happen?"
"Naturally, it will be violent incidents. Fights, murders, atrocities... these things will surge endlessly based on various motives, but on the other hand, it's also a good opportunity to obtain Violence Index."
"What is the Violence Index?" Zheng Fan listened as unfamiliar terms came out of Lin Yilin's mouth one by one.
"Hmm..." Lin Yilin mused for a moment, seemingly thinking about how to explain: "Colloquially, it's like 'combat power'."
"Combat power?"
"An index named by someone in Dadu's history, which can roughly summarize the violent intensity of individuals and groups. However, the Violence Index is not entirely an expression of combat power; the index itself will in turn affect existing combat power. Participating in violent activities in the Violent World can increase the Violence Index."
At this point, Lin Yilin paused, staring at Zheng Fan and saying, "Of course, because violence is the foundation of all worlds, many things are born with a high Violence Index, mostly illusions from the Black World."
Zheng Fan pointed to himself: "Is my Violence Index decent?"
He felt that he should be acceptable.
From childhood to adulthood, his most confident advantage was fighting.
Some even called him a natural killer, which sounded a bit chuunibyo, but the teacher who taught him for a few years in his original world did describe him that way. However, Zheng Fan just felt that this teacher, who read novels all day, might have gotten a bit carried away. Even if it were true, it would be basically useless in modern society, of course, referring to the peaceful society before he inexplicably transmigrated. Even if he could go into professional competitions, his desire for performance wasn't that strong.
"A rough estimate would be at least the 【Gang】 level to start." Lin Yilin said after observing him, then pointed to herself: "Someone like me is the second level, 【Chicken】, only slightly better than 【None】."
"Pfft, what kind of classification title is that?" Zheng Fan couldn't hold back his laughter. People who play too many memes probably get a kind of "seeing a chicken reminds them of an old friend" disease.
"Because of 'powerless to truss a chicken' 【a Chinese idiom meaning very weak】. The rough estimation of Violence Index becomes blurrier the further you go. Each level is expressed by the phenomenon most easily summarized in people's impression. 'Gang' is the fifth level, and between 'Gang' and 'Chicken' there are two levels: 'Melee' and 'Swarm'."
After speaking, Lin Yilin added, "Normally, 'Swarm' level and above are already rarely seen in everyday life."
"Then it seems I'm quite decent."
"You're too modest." Lin Yilin's gaze returned to the computer: "The Xixikeke Street records show that there hasn't been an illusion with an initial Violence Index above 'Swarm' for over ten years. It's already extremely rare."