When Li Shentan led Lian Yi out of the underground parking garage, Little Liren looked curiously at the girl from the Lian tribe. "She's alone?"
"Mhm." Li Shentan nodded. "She claimed she came out to gather medicinal herbs. Initially, she was just being playful and wanted to scare us when she encountered us."
But to Lian Yi's surprise, not only did she fail to scare this lunatic, she even ended up becoming his captive.
Si Liren pursed her lips and said, "She's already an adult, so why's she still acting so childishly?"
The words spoken from Little Liren's mouth sounded extremely odd. However, Little Liren had a look of maturity on her face as she made a matter-of-fact remark.
Si Liren was a little more mature than other children her age. After all, if she were any less mature in the company of a lunatic like Li Shentan, the two of them would probably be beyond redemption.
Li Shentan found an open area outside the underground parking garage and sat down. Then he continued questioning Lian Yi, "Did your tribe take in some foreign herb collectors at one point?"
"Yes," Lian Yi answered, "but it was only during the early years when there were a lot of active herb collectors in the area, and some of them accidentally got lost and entered Xiuzhuzhou by mistake. We haven't seen any more of them in recent years."
"So by allowing those people to go back, did you intend to use them to trick others into coming here so you'd have candidates to practice corpse refinement on?" Li Shentan asked again.
"No, we've never harmed any strangers before in our practice of corpse refinement. We had only started practicing corpse refinement so that our tribespeople who died from illnesses could live forever," Lian Yi said.
This answer took Li Shentan by surprise. He had assumed with the greatest malice and speculated the Lian tribe was a malevolent group, but it was not as he had imagined.
Meanwhile, their idea of using corpse refinement to let their fellow tribespeople who had died of illnesses to live forever seemed to fit very well with some of the obscure tribal mindsets.
Perhaps the Lian tribe had become sealed within this wilderness by the forested mountains after The Cataclysm, making them live a life of seclusion from the rest of the society, and they later came to possess such special means of survival.
The strength and technique displayed by Lian Yi when she used her concealed weapons was extremely shocking. Honestly, not many people could battle a superhuman like Li Shentan with such intensity. After all, he had mastered control over his own subconsciousness.
At the beginning, Li Shentan had shouted "is there a trap inside" into the underground parking garage. It was at that time that he started hypnotizing her. But to Li Shentan's surprise, his hypnosis did not succeed.
This made Li Shentan realize the young Lian Yi was probably a relatively stronger superhuman as compared to those in the Alliance of Strongholds. However, he was more powerful than her.
As for how he apprehended Lian Yi after that, there was no need to mention it. If it were any other superhuman who had come here, they would probably have died at her hands long ago.
There was also a peculiar reason as to why Li Shentan was so powerful now. It was just as he had said to Ren Xiaosu before: "I believe the brain's potential corresponds to how powerful a supernatural being can become. There's too many functional areas in the brain that humans are still unaware of, so when they unlock that potential, it will signal the dawn of a new world."
He had previously determined that when the brain reached 20% of its potential, humans could control external objects without any physical contact. When the brain reached 70% of its potential, humans would become on par with gods.
If they wanted there to be light, there would be light.
When the brain reached a 100% of its potential, those humans would evolve into a world consciousness and become an omnipresent force.
This was what Li Shentan had theorized, and he had only revealed it to a few people.
Right now, Li Shentan's superpower was only hypnosis, but he could always use it in a way that surpassed the power's limits, which was actually very illogical.
But he was able to do that because he not only hypnotized others but also himself.
To be precise, he hypnotized his own subconsciousness to fully unlock his brain's potential.
Of course, this was a very slow process. That was because if he forcibly increased the rate at which he unlocked his brain's potential, it would cause his body to collapse. Even Li Shentan would find that quite difficult to bear. Therefore, he precisely controlled the balance between how much his physical body could bear and raising his mental strength.
He could only unlock the next stage after his body had reached a certain level of endurance.
Many people thought the Demon Whisperer was powerful because he was born with that power. But they never expected that Li Shentan actually had an entire set of theories and methods that he could continuously use to strengthen himself. Moreover, after his verification, he found his theory to be correct.
At this moment, a loud rustling came from the trees around them.
Li Shentan's hair immediately stood on end. "Snakes! Why's there so many snakes?!"
He hugged the box Little Liren was carrying so the snakes would not approach him.
A second later, a figure with a silvery face flew out of the forest and threw a heavy punch straight at Li Shentan's face!
"Is that a silver corpse?"
Li Shentan was forced to let go of the box and turned to face the enemy that had appeared out of nowhere. He knew that Lian Yi's tribespeople must have arrived.
Facing the silver corpse, Li Shentan took out a silver coin from his pocket and flicked it into the air with his thumb.
A sharp ringing reverberated through the forest. But to Li Shentan's surprise, the silver corpse seemed to be a natural "nemesis" of hypnotists. It was not afraid of being hypnotized at all.
Li Shentan exclaimed and was sent flying a dozen meters away after taking a punch to the face. Then dozens of silver and copper corpses emerged from the forest and pinned Li Shentan down firmly on the ground.
The corpses' appearances were not that terrifying, and they did not have the sharp and vicious fangs he had imagined. Other than a strange skin tone, they basically maintained their appearances from when they were still alive. One of them was a short and fat copper corpse that looked rather cute.
When Little Liren saw that Li Shentan had been punched in the face, she almost exploded with anger. But to her surprise, she actually saw Li Shentan winking at her even though he was being pressed on the ground.
A voice came from the forest. "Little girl, don't act rashly. We don't wish to hurt you."
Si Liren said sweetly, "OK! I won't move!"
The person in the forest did not get too close and said from afar, "You! White-haired young man! What have you done to our chief?"
"Uh, I only… hypnotized her." Li Shentan said with a smile, "We were just having a friendly discussion regarding the Prosperous Northwest. We might've had some disagreements during the conversation, so I helped her calm down a little."
Honestly, Li Shentan had not expected Lian Yi to actually be the chief of the Lian tribe. Wasn't she a little too young for that? Could the position of chief be hereditary?
Or did Lian Yi become the chief because she was the strongest among them?
He remembered that Lian Yi had said she was a gold corpse user. But after looking carefully, he did not see any gold corpses among the corpses.
Since Lian Yi possessed a gold corpse, she should be the strongest of these people.
"Hmph!" A woman in the forest sneered, "You had better dispel your hypnotism. If anything happens to our chief, we'll feed you to the snakes here."
"I'll dispel it immediately, but you'll have to get them to free one of my hands," Li Shentan said helplessly.
"Don't try any tricks," someone in the forest sneered.
The silver and copper corpses released one of Li Shentan's hands. When he snapped his fingers lightly, Lian Yi came back to her senses as though she had suddenly woken up.
Someone asked eagerly, "Chief, are you alright?"
Lian Yi nodded her head. "I'm fine."
She looked around her surroundings. When she saw that Li Shentan was being restrained, she suddenly got angry. "How dare you scare me instead! That was over the line! Keep him under watch and take him back to the village stronghold to be my consort!"
Li Shentan was shocked. "Eh?!"
Si Liren's eyes widened and her jaw dropped as she fell into a complete shock!