Watching the distracted Lu Jing, Xu Yang took the opportunity to scrutinize her carefully.
Dressed in classical-style Green Clothes with a satin texture and a gray, skirt-like ruqun underneath—a little longer than knee-length, revealing her smooth calves—the sleeves and hem embroidered with patterns of flowers and birds. Paired with a light blue silk belt tied around her waist and carrying a long sword on her back, she indeed looked like the meticulously selected Green-clothed maid, truly elegant and delicate.
"The online world is richer than you could imagine," Xu Yang said casually, "try doing as I tell you, and upload your consciousness to the system bit by bit."
"Forget it." Lu Jing’s wariness outweighed her curiosity, and she didn’t think anything interesting would happen.
"If that’s the case, you’ll always be just a shallow user of the Digital Mind, hardly an expert. There’s still so much you haven’t touched." Xu Yang reminded her.
That’s right, Lu Jing thought. The costly Digital Mind must have more uses than this.
Moreover, she had already done so much with him, delving deeper... wouldn’t be bad, would it?
With this thought, Lu Jing unconsciously followed Xu Yang’s guidance, starting to upload her consciousness using the Digital Mind.
From the rate of neural signal conversion, Lu Jing’s processor "Zou Wu" had an upload rate of 11 million information units per second. With her current mastery of the technology, she could only convert 100 million units, needing 9.09 seconds to complete the upload.
In comparison, Xu Yang had installed the "Flying God-4" processor, and being an experienced user, his astonishing rate reached 89 million information units per second, capable of converting up to 12 billion units, roughly equivalent to 80% of the human brain’s total consciousness.
Due to the disparity in levels, when they uploaded their consciousness into the system at the same time, Xu Yang’s perception, sensory acuteness, and information synchronization rate were over a hundred times greater than Lu Jing’s.
He wandered effortlessly through the data space, whereas Lu Jing could only take labored, small steps.
"This is part of the terminal memory, where you can manipulate this area as you wish, being able to interact with all information subnetworks and work software." Xu Yang showed Lu Jing this dazzling area, where computational data was exchanged swiftly.
Lu Jing did as Xu Yang had described, cautiously making attempts.
With just a touch, she began to appreciate its wonders.
She used the Digital Mind to call up user-facing data packets, borrowing their resources to create spray paint drawings. Thus, the world gradually took on real color under the manipulation of Lu Jing’s mind.
Lu Jing rendered the thoughts in her consciousness onto the world before her. She was very timid and dared only to try a little at a time, like drawing on a blank piece of paper. Then, to her surprise, everything operated according to her thoughts—whatever pattern she imagined would appear.
In this area, she was omnipotent, like a deity creating the world.
Having tasted sweetness, Lu Jing’s painting strokes grew bolder.
This was the most enchanting moment.
Even the most skilled painter would experience deformation when transferring visions from his mind onto canvas, due to physical limitations. With a brush in hand, it’s impossible to paint exactly as one’s thoughts dictate, and the pigments of the objective world are never as vibrant as the imagination.
But here it was possible. Lu Jing was now a bundle of consciousness transformed into electrical signals. All she needed to do was stamp part of her thoughts down like a seal, and she could replicate the scene exactly.
She transformed her surroundings into the Witch’s Courtyard where she lived during her childhood. The inner white walls with black tiles, the outer alleyways and lanes—all were identical to reality. The childhood friends she thought of also appeared before her, moving and speaking according to Lu Jing’s thoughts, with voices that matched her memories perfectly.
This was extremely difficult to control—Lu Jing found that her thoughts could do so much in the information world, and she panicked at once.
As she let her mind wander, the courtyard fractured and disappeared like bubbles. Her childhood friends before her eyes suddenly became blurry blobs. Lu Jing, struck by terror, instinctively conjured a sword and chopped them into pieces, over and over again.
Then Lu Jing’s thoughts turned extreme. She thought of all manner of loathsome things and couldn’t stop herself, so she had to keep battling, endlessly fighting against her own tempestuous musings.
All sorts of monsters emerged, each more terrifying than the last. The more Lu Jing feared something, the more she couldn’t help thinking about it, so the things in her mind were continuously read by the system and brought to life.
She was utterly terrified!
In an instant, a surging flood overwhelmed Lu Jing’s thoughts.
She found herself on a warm sandy beach, with the sun high in the sky, surrounded by a bustling crowd, echoing with laughter.
Xu Yang lay on a colorful chair under a sun umbrella, eating watermelon with sunglasses, surrounded by the sound of the wind and the call of seagulls, the tide ebbing and flowing, with a hazy forest in the distance.
Lu Jing wanted to control the virtual space with her thoughts as before, but she couldn’t, as if Xu Yang’s will was suppressing hers. She could only conjure her weapons at most, carrying her sword of consciousness as she approached Xu Yang.
"I... I don’t know," Lu Jing said nervously, "what was all that just now?"
"Now you know what’s most important to pay attention to after uploading your consciousness to the terminal, right?"
Lu Jing stood still, trying hard to think.
Xiao Lu doesn’t seem as smart as Rinne, Xu Yang thought amused. If it were Rinne, she would have grasped it immediately. But it may also be due to the low level of consciousness upload, slowing down the thought process.