Chapter 30

Time passed in an instant. The foreigner lying on the operating table suddenly began to breathe heavily, his face turning red, and the monitoring equipment beside him started to emit urgent physiological alarms.

The doctors, well-prepared, remained calm and began to carry out the rescue in an orderly manner. Intubation, opening a vein, and administering fluids—all these routine rescue operations were carried out step by step.

Zhuochuan naturally felt no pressure; he was just waiting for the result, whether the patient would live or die.

He knew his waiting time wouldn't be long. For patients with severe conditions, the limit for resuscitation was about half an hour. Either the resuscitation would succeed, or it would fail, as the patient's physical condition couldn't withstand much longer, and the doctors wouldn't have much time to try various methods.

This is why the early warning system for life crises developed by Zhuochuan was highly recognized by the doctors, especially those on the front lines. They knew the difference between being prepared and unprepared. A missing drug or a missing instrument could make a huge difference.

This time, it was quick. After fifteen minutes, a smooth straight line began to appear on the electrocardiogram monitor, indicating that the resuscitation had failed.

At this moment, Zhuochuan also saw thick mist rising from the foreigner's body, the concentration of which was not much less than that of the old chairman of the listed company.

Zhuochuan began to absorb the mist as usual, following the fixed procedure.

The absorption process, which should have been smooth, encountered an unexpected situation.

When Zhuochuan had absorbed more than half of the mist, he suddenly found that the mist no longer rushed into his eyes but began to disperse in all directions, just as it had at the beginning.

Puzzled, he even took a few steps forward, but the mist continued to disperse. After about twenty seconds, the mist had completely dissipated. If the time Zhuochuan spent absorbing was included, the mist from the foreigner's body had lasted for a minute and a half, indeed on the same level as the old chairman.

Just as Zhuochuan was frustrated about what had happened, the old doctor sighed and said, "It's no use. The patient is too old and his body couldn't withstand it. Notify the family outside."

Zhuochuan woke up. This time, the patient didn't say anything before dying. He waited for a while and then went out with the doctor.

Outside, there were two foreigners and a local translator. After hearing the news of the failed resuscitation, they were saddened but, like other families, still thanked the doctors for their hard work.

A large part of their gratitude was due to the early warning from Zhuochuan's software. The doctors had already notified them that the patient was likely to die, allowing them to prepare mentally and to discuss and properly handle the aftermath with the patient.

Zhuochuan didn't pay attention to their grief. He was thinking about what had just happened. Why couldn't he continue absorbing the mist after absorbing more than half of it?

Was it just an accident? If it was an accident, there wouldn't be a big problem.

But the next critically ill patients told Zhuochuan that it wasn't an accident.

That day, two more critically ill patients didn't survive, and Zhuochuan couldn't absorb anything this time.

He began to feel a bit panicked. Originally, he thought that as long as he absorbed more soul power than before, he could develop new abilities, and he wouldn't have to consider the idea of learning combat skills in life-and-death situations, as Feng Lan had suggested.

But now, he couldn't even continue absorbing, so the idea of developing new abilities was out of the question.

Zhuochuan quickly found time to go to the New World to find the reason. This time, he found the answer quickly.

"Everyone has soul power, whether strong or weak. The upper limit of an individual's soul power is determined by three soul attributes: courage, resilience, and wisdom. As ordinary people grow, these three attributes gradually increase, and the upper limit of soul power also rises. Generally, the current total soul power of an individual is far below the upper limit, and it requires continuous training and learning to approach the upper limit. This process is very long, but once the total soul power first reaches the upper limit, it becomes easier to restore it to the upper limit after consumption, and the speed of restoration is related to the resilience attribute. Each time the soul power is completely consumed and restored, the upper limit will grow slightly."

From this answer, Zhuochuan quickly understood why he couldn't continue absorbing the mist. He had already reached the upper limit of his soul power through repeated absorption. To absorb more, he needed to increase the three attributes or consume the soul power he had already absorbed.

"This won't do," Zhuochuan thought. He knew he couldn't increase the upper limit of his soul power now.

There were only two ways to increase the upper limit of soul power: one was to systematically improve the three attributes, which required a long-term personal growth process, and he didn't have the time.

The other was to completely consume the existing soul power and then absorb it again to continue growing. His two major soul skills, time travel and soul devouring, which he named himself, were extremely powerful but did not consume his own soul power.

Previously, he thought this was a strength of his predecessor, but now he was at a loss. Without complete consumption, there was no growth.

If he could easily understand other skills that consumed soul power, he wouldn't have relied on continuous absorption to gain new abilities. He had searched before and found no relevant information. It was only through the hint from a mysterious person that he obtained the "soul devouring" skill.

The other way to more easily understand soul skills came from the course Feng Lan had taught, which he had considered as a last resort.

It was to experience life-and-death crises and understand in those situations. But life-and-death crises were not easy to survive. Zhuochuan remembered every word Feng Lan had said. It seemed that the person who survived the life-and-death crisis and understood combat soul skills was one of many who died.

Zhuochuan asked himself if he was living a stable life and, if necessary, could still retreat to the real world, so he didn't want to create life-and-death crises for himself.

The next day, Zhuochuan continued to go to the critically ill patients, hoping for a miracle, but each time it was in vain.

Zhuochuan returned to the New World to search for other methods, but just like before, no one could provide a clear path for a soul successor to understand soul skills before mastering soul power.

The mysterious person who had appeared online once did not reappear to guide him.

Zhuochuan had no choice but, to win the upcoming duel and stay in the New World, he had to swallow his pride and seek out Feng Lan, as he saw her as the only clue.

"That was something an elder told me. As for me, I don't know much about this. You see, I only have a one in ten chance of passing the citizen qualification exam and undergoing soul appraisal two years from now," Feng Lan shook her head, her beautiful eyes now filled with doubt as she stared at Zhuochuan. "I mentioned it in class just to make you more prepared, not expecting you to really follow that method."

"But you already have confidence in the duel next month, so why are you so anxious to ask me this question? Could it be that you're just pretending? Do you actually have no confidence at all?" Feng Lan didn't hide the purpose of her class, but when Zhuochuan asked her, she noticed something was off.

Zhuochuan sighed. After all, there were few people like Old Xu, who were similar to him before. And women, being more intuitive than rational, made it hard to hide anything once they got close to him.

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