February 23, 11:30 PM.

Morning, afternoon, and evening—she lived a daily routine that was both ordinary and extraordinary.

By late night, Zoe had systematically completed her short-term goals for the day.

She finished with a muscle tremor exercise, testing her limits for the day.

Then, she began recording today's data in her memory palace, the book dedicated to tracking her body’s performance.

 

Entry Record #34: February 23th, 2024

1. Changed exercise method: high-frequency spontaneous muscle tremors for dual mental and physical training. Current endurance: 19 seconds. Current strength: approximately 3.5 tons.

2. Heat vision range and mental power coverage are the same, unable to improve through daily exercises.

3. The work on decoding electromagnetic waves still requires practice. The short-term goal is to move beyond just receiving traffic radio broadcasts and become a human radio.

4. Experiment on sensing killing intent in plants has not yielded results yet. There is still more than a week left in the planned experiment before returning home for sea exploration.

 

The progress in muscle tremor exercise was steady but modest.

Before her sixth sleep evolution, her physical strength had plateaued at around 3.5 tons.

Heat vision, however, had clearly shown that daily training could not extend its duration. Only through sleep evolution might there be any improvement. Being limited to eight seconds was not promising.

The electromagnetic wave decoding exercises didn’t bring any new channels, but her familiarity with the Sun traffic broadcast had increased. The interruptions had almost disappeared, and she had become quite proficient as a human radio.

As for the plant experiment with killing intent, there had been no significant results. But as noted, there was still a week or more before the planned experiment would end. Given plants' slow feedback and growth rates, it was too early for conclusions.

After finishing the record, Zoe confirmed that everything she needed to do for the day was done and casually lay down on the couch.

The silly dog, Platinum, was sleeping by her feet.

Dogs were like that, occasionally lying on the floor for naps. Sleeping over ten hours a day was normal for them.

Dogs had a different sleep pattern from humans. They preferred fragmented sleep, resting multiple times in shorter intervals throughout the day, rather than having one long, deep sleep at night like humans.

Looking at Platinum’s cute form, Zoe smiled faintly and lay back on the couch, closing her eyes.

Moonlight streamed through the uncurtained window into the living room.

The night was quiet, with only the soft rustle of leaves stirred by the breeze and distant insect sounds blending into a long, peaceful melody.

The moonlight, like water, gently flowed into the room, bathing everything in its soft glow. It washed away the noise and restlessness of the day, cloaking the room in a mysterious, silver sheen.

Zoe didn’t reach for her phone. Instead, she closed her eyes and let time pass, letting the moonlight cover her.

She waited for the drowsiness that would come every Tuesday.

Not long after, the clock struck midnight.

The familiar tiredness arrived on time, not a second late.

Fortunately, this wave of drowsiness hadn’t been affected by her recent evolution’s greed, and it came at the usual time.

Zoe exhaled in relief.

She relaxed her mind and allowed the drowsiness to take over, like Platinum at her feet, slowly drifting into a calm, verdant dream.

...

In the dream.

The familiar shade of green spread everywhere.

The dream space was filled with a misty green.

It resembled both a gas and a liquid, but it felt more like the color of the very space itself, as if the attribute of space had been dyed green.

It was mysterious and deep.

Zoe, now accustomed to entering this dream after sleep, paid little attention to the endless green. Instead, she focused on sensing the seven colored light dots around her.

Soon, the light points appeared in her vision.

They stood out against the green backdrop of the dream.

Sharp golden, soothing blue, vibrant green, intense red, and deep brown formed a continuous loop in that order.

It gave an impression of endless cycles, of life and death in harmony, flowing like a tide, ever-moving.

Warm white and dark purple also appeared.

The two of them weren’t really that close to the five colored light spots.

There was a sense of opposition and fusion between them, as they drifted around the other five light spots.

Almost without hesitation, Zoe decided to reach out and touch the lingering glow of the red light spot.

Based on previous experience, touching this red light spot activated her heat vision ability.

Last time, touching an extra light spot resulted in an additional new ability, but both had flaws.

So, Zoe thought she’d try touching the red light spot again, hoping to resolve the limitation of her heat vision, which lasted only eight seconds.

After all, if she could extend the duration, who wouldn’t want a longer-lasting ability? Who wouldn’t want more time?

Zoe’s usual game nickname was "It’s fine, two minutes is enough," but now her ability could only last eight seconds.

Eight seconds.

Even a toddler can count to such number.

This was hard to accept.

Not two minutes, but at least one minute!

Of course, Zoe understood that reaching out to the red light spot might not extend the duration of her heat vision.

Based on past experience, touching these light spots mostly resulted in new abilities in different directions.

But it was worth trying.

With that thought, Zoe tried to touch the red light spot’s lingering heat.

However, the seven-colored light spots seemed to be playing a joke on her.

The red light spot became unexpectedly distant.

Or rather, compared to the others, the dark purple light spot was especially easy to perceive, almost as if it were coming right up to her.

This made the other more reserved light spots feel distant and unreachable.

"..."

After half a day of trying, unable to reach the red light spot, Zoe helplessly glanced at the dark purple light spot, which was still glowing.

The dark purple light spot seemed to be offering itself, almost as if it had stripped itself and was right in front of her.

Before she could touch it, the glow from the dark purple light spot rushed toward her.

It was completely unreserved!

After a long time, Zoe, unable to touch the red light spot, finally gave in and reached for the dark purple light spot.

Though enthusiastic, the dark purple light spot still didn’t let her touch it directly, only allowing her to brush against the glow it emitted.

The next moment, the dark purple glow merged with her body.

A refreshing sensation instantly filled her.

Zoe didn’t know what state she was in, whether it was a dream or something else, but she could clearly feel a sense of refreshment, like eating a mint ice cream, a cool sensation rushing to the top of her head.

It wasn’t real cold.

It was a feeling of extreme clarity, as if her mind and spirit were cleansed, making her feel entirely different.

The next moment, the sounds of insects and birds from outside the dream world filled her ears, and an unmistakable sense of being pulled away from the dream emerged.

Zoe felt her perception was unusually clear.

She realized she was about to wake up, something she hadn’t been able to sense before.

Dream and reality were merging.

It felt like she could sense both sides at once.

Before she could think further, the pull away from the dream grew stronger, and everything in the cyan dream world started to fade.

The sounds of insects and birds from reality became louder.

Suddenly, everything in the dream blurred at incomprehensible speed and vanished.

Zoe opened her eyes.

Feeling the sunlight streaming in through the window, she saw her silly dog, Platinum, running toward her with its tongue out, after just having a drink.

Looking at the time on her phone, it was 7:45 AM, and she had slept for seven hours and forty-five minutes.

It wasn’t an early wake-up.

As expected, as long as she didn’t greedily choose too many “directions,” she wouldn’t wake up after just two or three hours like last time.

Therefore, this time, the evolution probably wouldn’t have any flaws.

Her physical body should evolve normally, without stagnation or defects like last time.

Zoe squinted, thinking to herself.

However, to know for sure, she would need to conduct proper experiments; guesses alone wouldn’t be enough.

With this in mind, Zoe slowly got up.

As she was about to check her physical state, she suddenly became acutely aware of a problem.

Wait… where’s my breathing?

Zoe suddenly realized her breathing seemed to have stopped.

It wasn’t that she had consciously held her breath or forgotten how automatic breathing worked.

Rather, after experimenting for ten minutes, she found that she had no breathing, and yet she felt fine. It was as if she had bid farewell to food and sleep, and now, breathing was gone too.

Her instincts told her this wasn’t a new ability from the direction she had chosen.

It was a change that occurred after her physical evolution, a transformation that wasn’t the main result of her sleep evolution.

A vague intuition told her this.