After dinner, Lin Yu and Ye Xin strolled through a nearby park, chatting casually as they walked.
"Brother Lin Yu, was that really you on TV and all over the internet?" Ye Xin asked, tilting her head curiously.
She asked because the person shown on-screen looked noticeably different from Lin Yu's current appearance.
"Ha, who else could it be?" Lin Yu chuckled, glancing around the empty path. Seeing no one nearby, he turned to Ye Xin with a grin. "Here, I'll show you."
Under Ye Xin's astonished gaze, Lin Yu shifted into his true form—his physique becoming sharper, more defined.
"See? How do I look after slimming down?" he asked with a grin.
"Mmm... you're quite handsome," Ye Xin admitted.
"Right? That's me!" Lin Yu replied smugly, reverting back to his usual appearance.
"Is that one of your powers?" Ye Xin asked, her eyes gleaming with curiosity.
"Yeah. Actually, the moment I awakened my abilities, my physique transformed into this. I only reverted to my original look to avoid raising suspicion," Lin Yu explained truthfully.
"I figured I'd pretend to lose weight gradually, just to keep things under wraps," he added.
"That's amazing. You don't even have to worry about dieting," Ye Xin said with a trace of envy. Like many girls, no matter how slim she was, she always felt the need to be thinner. Watching Lin Yu transform effortlessly made her sigh wistfully.
"I'll never understand you girls," Lin Yu said, exasperated. "You're already so slim, what more do you want?"
"It'd be nice to be as slender as lightning," Ye Xin muttered.
Lin Yu twitched at the corners of his mouth.
Xiaoxin, lightning is actually pretty thick.
And your whole body has practically turned into lightning...
"Brother Lin Yu, how does it feel to be a great hero?" Ye Xin teased with a smile.
"I've been thinking about that. Honestly, it feels awesome! Hahaha!" Lin Yu answered with pride.
"Pfft~ So shameless." Ye Xin made a face, feigning disgust.
"I didn't say it—netizens did," Lin Yu defended himself.
"Tch." Ye Xin rolled her eyes.
"Oh, right—Xiaoxin, your costume is ready. Want to try it on?" Lin Yu suddenly remembered the uniform at his place and turned to her.
"Really? Okay, let's go now!" Ye Xin's eyes lit up with excitement, anticipation shining on her face.
The two wandered through the park, eventually reaching a different exit. They left through it and made their way back to the apartment complex.
"Wait for me a bit," Lin Yu said as they arrived at the building. Standing in the corridor between two units, he unlocked his apartment door and stepped inside.
"Here, try it on." Lin Yu returned moments later with a superhero uniform, white with black accents and a design of ball lightning across the chest. He handed it to Ye Xin at the door.
"Okay, I'll try it now." Ye Xin accepted it and went back into her own unit, closing the door behind her.
Lin Yu leaned casually against his doorframe, eyes on Ye Xin's across the hall, waiting.
"Brother Lin Yu, look! Do I look cool now?" Ye Xin emerged a few minutes later in the uniform, cautiously peeking into the corridor before darting across and pulling Lin Yu into his apartment. She shut the door behind them with a grin.
The apartment building they lived in was modest in size. Besides Lin Yu and Ye Xin, who each occupied single-bedroom units at the end of the hallway, the floor included four more rentals—two with two bedrooms and one living room, and another two with three bedrooms and one living room.
Except for the top floor where the landlord resided, the entire building followed this symmetrical layout. Whether it was the landlord or the designer, someone clearly had obsessive-compulsive tendencies.
"You look awesome," Lin Yu said sincerely, giving Ye Xin a thumbs-up.
Her uniform mirrored his own—white with black patterns—but instead of the probability cloud on his chest, hers bore the image of ball lightning.
The suit had been specially designed for her by the Silicon Lifeform Xiao Ai, and in it, Ye Xin looked every bit the heroic figure.
"Hehe, I knew it! I look good in everything!" Ye Xin giggled proudly.
"Since you're happy with it, it's settled then," Lin Yu nodded.
"Mhm, I really like this uniform," she said, admiring the fit.
"I'll get you a few more sets," Lin Yu offered.
"Sure, just let me know when they're ready."
"No need to wait. I'll give them to you now." Lin Yu grinned mysteriously, then called out in his mind, "Xiao Shu, prepare some more outfits."
[Understood.]
The system's response came swiftly. Xiao Shu, Lin Yu's secondary auxiliary personality, required no extra instructions. She instantly began manipulating the quantum fluctuation probability of the void to construct matter.
The glowing white rune sphere in Lin Yu's mind shifted and spun. A prompt surfaced:
[ Quantum fluctuations in the void, forming the required matter and form, with a probability of 100% ]
Then, to Ye Xin's growing astonishment, three identical sets of her uniform and three of Lin Yu's own appeared before them. Lin Yu gathered the six outfits effortlessly.
"Here, take them. With the one you're wearing, these should be plenty to rotate through," he said, handing her the neatly folded sets.
"Wow... Brother Lin Yu, just how many powers do you have?" Ye Xin asked, dumbfounded. Though Lin Yu had already revealed several abilities, this conjuring-from-thin-air trick still caught her off guard. "You're starting to rival Saiki Kusuo."
"Hah, I've got quite a few. I'm not much behind Saiki Kusuo, really," Lin Yu admitted honestly. If he truly wanted, he could acquire any superpower he desired—perhaps even outclass that superpower department store altogether.
"Seriously?" Ye Xin asked, eyes narrowed in skepticism—though deep down, she was already half-convinced.
Lin Yu's endless arsenal of abilities... Could he really be as powerful as Kusuo Saiki? That was terrifying.
"Of course. Why would I lie to you?" Lin Yu smiled.
As long as he didn't reveal his two most formidable powers—Probability Control and Infinite Dimensional Ascension—there was no harm in showing Ye Xin the rest.
It was better to plant the idea now: let her assume he had a broad range of powers, like Saiki Kusuo, so she'd be more comfortable acting alongside him in the future.
"Xiaoxin, do you believe me now?" Lin Yu spoke directly into her mind through his mental power.
"Ah!" Ye Xin gasped. "Whoa, is that... telepathy?"
"Close, but I can't read minds," Lin Yu replied through the same mental link.
While similar, mental power wasn't exactly telepathy—though the differences were subtle.
Telepathy, mental power, divine consciousness... they're essentially facets of the same thing.
Think of Professor X, with his powers of telepathy and mind control—telepathy to read thoughts, mind control to influence behavior.
Mental power and spiritual consciousness function similarly. They extend perception beyond the five senses, allowing one to see, hear, and sense things out of normal reach. This extended awareness—often called spiritual or mental scanning—lets one observe unseen details and hear unheard voices. It can even be weaponized to attack another's spirit or soul, though it lacks the mind-reading aspect of true telepathy.
When it came to tracking human traffickers' hideouts, relying on telepathy alone—especially without scanning ability—was unrealistic. To use spiritual consciousness, Lin Yu needed to awaken mana, its most basic prerequisite. Given the urgency, he had instead awakened the most practical ability for that situation: enhanced mental power.