Chapter 217: Skill

Lin An listened, fell silent for a moment, then asked back:

"So what?"

"So you mean we should lock up Mo Ling?"

"To prevent her from dying accidentally? Thereby destroying the whole battle zone?"

Wen Ya instinctively glanced at Mo Ling; the little loli lowered her head without speaking, showing no expression.

Chu An nodded to indicate:

"That's right, just as I told you before."

"Maybe you can luckily survive, but others might not..."

Lin An raised his hand to stop Chu An's next words, then reached out to touch Mo Ling's head:

"Don't worry, I won't lock you up."

"If that day really comes, what then?"

After saying that, he stared straight at Chu An, and their mental power began to communicate.

Lin An thought clearly: Mo Ling is a member of his squad, fighting for him.

If one day she dies, an existence that would not be attacked by any undead would die.

That could only be a human player like her killing her and breaking through his protection.

If so, Mo Ling incarnating as a calamitous undead, destroying the battle zone—what then?

Those who killed my people must pay the price!

To protect others, to guard the battle zone while being bound hand and foot?

What a joke, he Lin An isn't that great.

Anyway, using the ghost infant's skull to teleport away, just change location—let Mo Ling finish her revenge here.

As for threatening the safety of all Huaxia?

If even a single undead can achieve that.

Then let destruction be destruction.

In the mental link, Lin An and Colonel Chu communicated:

"I will protect her safety as much as possible; Mo Ling is very useful. I cannot not use her just because of risk."

"Moreover, aren't you also merging with a spirit body?"

"Why say such a meaningless question, or do you want to lock up both yourself and Mo Ling?"

"No."

Chu An pulled out a chocolate bar from somewhere, chewing it slowly:

"What I mean by locking up is not imprisonment."

"But rather, when she dies, remember to retrieve her corpse, especially the skull."

"Mo Ling has merged with the entire spirit body except the skull. This also means she might have the traits of a ghost infant."

"Undead, are the split-off spirit body's grudge portion."

Lin An's gaze stalled:

"You mean!?"

"After she becomes an undead, perhaps she can be reborn!?"

Chu An nodded, indicating to end this topic:

"That's right, but it's only my guess. If this really happens, I hope you can lock my and Mo Ling's corpses in the ghost infant space."

"Maybe, maybe we could have a chance to revive..."

For some reason, Lin An always felt something was wrong.

Up to now, Chu An has never shown him his personal talent, only saying he has detection-type ability.

As for his strength, it is rank 0 level 1.

There's no way; the man before him clearly isn't afraid of death.

Moreover, Chu An is willing to give him even S-rank props; combined with his reasons, Lin An also can't find any problem.

But he always feels that after Chu An pointed out Mo Ling's danger, his purpose was merely to lay the groundwork for his earlier words.

Is he overthinking?

For some reason, Lin An feels that Chu An's problems are increasing.

He had also asked Colonel Chu why he chose to follow him instead of serving the Military Region.

Chu An's words were very short:

"First, staying by your side offers greater hope."

"Second, the highest order I follow is to protect Huaxia civilization."

"Civilization and nation are two different things."

When Lin An wanted to ask more, Chu An simply stayed silent, telling him he would know later.

Lin An secretly sighed in his heart; dealing with someone like Chu An, he really had no way.

Not fearing death, unafraid of pain, appearing to have no attachments, his thinking is absolutely rational.

Trying to threaten him physically or mentally is simply unrealistic.

If Chu An sincerely helps him, just his ability and IQ could make him a capable assistant.

And he also needs such a person by his side.

Wen Ya, An Jing Tian, and Gao Tian, though not stupid either, are still far inferior to Chu An, whom even he can't see through.

Sitting back in the vehicle, Lin An closed his eyes to rest, using his telekinesis to control the alloy weapon to clear the zombies along the way.

The road leading to the equipment test site was remote, but already quite a few zombies had begun to appear.

According to Chu An, the test site itself had plenty of support staff, and nearby there was a family quarters disguised as a town.

After all, the confidentiality level here isn't considered high.

Wangjiang and Lingjiang lie on the outskirts of Huaxia, while high-level military region confidentiality facilities are usually distributed in the interior core.

Gao Tian stood on the car roof, frequently drawing his bow and shooting arrows, while the other Awakened Ones used their skills to clear nearby zombies.

Without using firearms, in open areas gunfire easily attracts large numbers of zombies.

Whoosh!

A flash of streaming light pierced the corpse horde.

The crowd watched enviously as the flying sword continually accelerated, a fleeting flash, and after comparing it to their own skills they couldn't help but sigh.

Lin An had not activated combat instinct control, so under pure telekinetic control the flying sword could only manage simple acceleration and deceleration.

Without skill assistance, using pure telekinesis alone, it's still too difficult to control the flying sword...

Sizzle!

The alloy long sword floating and following outside the car, after a simple acceleration, once again pierced a zombie's head.

When bursting forth its speed was like a silver stream of light, but when turning it seemed somewhat clumsy.

The zombies wore gray work uniforms, appearing to be already very close to the equipment test site.

Inside the vehicle, Colonel Chu glanced at Lin An's soul‑returning sword sheath behind him, then looked again at the flying sword that was 'turning around':

"The method is wrong."

"What?"

Lin An opened his eyes in doubt and looked toward Chu An:

"What method is wrong? My way of using it?"

"You can see what equipment I have, right? Telekinesis isn't meant for combat—I'm just forcing a simulation."

Chu An spoke calmly, cutting him off:

"No, I mean your control method is wrong."

"Do you think that because you have no skill, controlling the flying sword is just like throwing a stone?"

"You can't control it like your own body—it's stiff and awkward, and you still have to think about the attack direction."

Zhang Tie turned his head at the sound and curled his lip:

"Lin Dui isn't wielding a sword to slash people—don't those flying‑sword novels all say you need sword techniques, secret arts, to learn?"

"That's just how it is without skill."

As the person with the most skills in the team, Xiong Hanzi felt the effects of skills deeply.

Berserk charge, flesh and blood healing—each time he used it he had no idea what was happening.

Lin An achieved this effect by controlling the flying sword with sheer computing power, forcibly simulating it as a skill, which in his view was already pretty badass.

Chu An unwrapped the energy bar, lowered his head, and replied:

"Wrong."

"You've never thought about what a skill actually is?"

Lin An stopped controlling the flying sword, which hovered in mid‑air, lost in thought:

"What do you mean?"

Chu An ate the energy bar in one bite, speaking as he ate:

"The essence of a skill is a program the system has prepared for you."

"This program can autonomously judge a large amount of information—such as your environment, your state when you release the skill, the enemy's position, angle, and so on."

"That's why."

"Even though using a skill consumes our spiritual energy, it also consumes mental power."

"Aside from a few simple skills, almost all skills are tied to mental power."

"Like Zhang Tie's berserk charge—he just locks onto a target and then mindlessly rushes forward, so it doesn't consume mental power."

Lin An felt a stir in his heart upon hearing that.

He had never had time to think about these matters, after all there had been too much going on lately.

Besides, in his past life he basically had no skills at all.

"You mean the program's calculation consumes our mental power, and after the calculation finishes it consumes spiritual energy?"

"Basically it's like driving a car."

"Using a skill is like the system driving for us—it calculates the route and speed, then consumes fuel to start the car?"

Chu An nodded and added:

"That's right."

"So we can completely create our own skills."

"Create skills unique to us."