Chapter 613 - 610: Forest of Thought
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"Hoo! Ha!"
Bi Fang’s whole body clung to the seat, feeling the strong sensation of shivering steadily intensifying. Each muscle was slowly writhing, as though it had come to life.
This sensation was not pain, it was very strange.
Cold, numb, sour, swollen.
It was like digging away the pain from the common sensation of a toothache and spreading it to every cell in the body.
Even without the pain, it was still unbearably uncomfortable, as if undergoing severe torture.
Big beads of cold sweat slid from the brow, drawn by gravity into the corners of the eyes. The salty, burning sensation spread, and Bi Fang wanted to wipe it away, but his whole body was stiff, completely unable to move an inch.
Fortunately, the whole process was very brief, lasting only ten minutes. Cold, numb, sour, swollen sensations vanished, but before Bi Fang could take a breather, he felt his body start to heat up.
It’s over.
Bi Fang howled inwardly.
At first, it was just the warmth of a complete run, but soon it turned into burning pain. The next ten minutes were another kind of utterly different torture.
By the time it was completely over, a half hour had passed.
Like he’d just been fished out of water, Bi Fang’s quick-dry T-shirt was visibly sweat-stained.
Adjusting his breathing, Bi Fang took out a bottle of mineral water and drank it in one go to replenish some fluids. He then glanced at the others still in their dream states and went to the washroom to wash his face, wiping off the salt particles that had precipitated from sweating profusely with a towel.
Afterward, he took off the T-shirt, soaked it in the sink, washed away the salt stains, wrung it dry, and put it back on.
The T-shirt was from Polartec’s Power Dry, the best quick-drying fabric on the market, even if it was a bit on the expensive side.
In less than five minutes, it had evaporated to the point where no water stains were visible. In ten minutes, it was almost completely dry. From the outside, Bi Fang looked no different from before he boarded the plane.
But the feeling...
Bi Fang stretched out his hand and squeezed his fist.
After the torture, his body didn’t seem to feel noticeably different.
Bi Fang had always been very concerned about the state of his body. Wilderness Survivalist is foremost about knowledge and the body. Therefore, he had become sensitive to the point where every training session was accompanied by a very complete scientific plan and statistics.
The improvements brought by the earlier Skill coupons were incredibly strong, but this time the sensation was a little off.
Back in his seat, Bi Fang continued to use the Mind Palace Coupon.
The Palace of Mind, also known as a memory palace or the Method of Loci, Mental walking, is an ancient mnemonic device.
The essence is to establish a virtual spatial scene in the mind and link various pieces of information to the space.
Compared to the earlier visual enhancements, trapezoid muscle, bullet muscle, joints, and nerves, this Skill coupon was not essentially an enhancement of the body but rather a form of mental training and change.
This method is most famously used by Sherlock Holmes and he was quite skilled at it.
In "A Study in Scarlet," Sherlock Holmes said something.
"You see," he explained, "I consider that a man’s brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose.
A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at most, is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it."
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Apart from Sherlock Holmes, another famous figure is probably Dr. Hannibal Lecter. @@novelbin@@
In his palace, he stores the vivid medical records of patients over the years, and perhaps his unique meat recipes as well.
As for its documented appearances, they go even further back, according to the ancient Roman philosopher Cicero, the creator of the memory palace was the poet Simonides of Ceos.
Legend has it that in 447 BC, Simonides was attending a court banquet when suddenly two young men came looking for him outside the banquet hall.
When he stepped out of the hall, the young men were nowhere to be seen, but the roof of the banquet hall suddenly collapsed, killing all the guests inside. Since the bodies were mangled beyond recognition, he could only revisit the banquet scene in his memory, recalling the names of guests in different positions.
After this event, Simonides realized that he could memorize all events by associating conscious images with spatial information.
It was also the origin of the birth of the word "palace".
But for Bi Fang right now, this coupon seems to be of little use.
The two main functions of the Palace of Mind are, one, an extraordinary memory – a blessing to the student party, and two, a unique way of association that allows thinking to operate more rapidly.
However, the Skills given by the System are inherently panel-based; unless Bi Fang deletes a Skill, it’s basically impossible to forget it.
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Moreover, due to the existence of the Skill tree, each Skill can interact perfectly with each other, not just operating independently. Each Skill can coordinate and evolve with the others.
But, since it has been received, it’s a freebie nonetheless.
The rewards from this trip to Japan are beginning to stack up, close to the quantity normally obtained from two regular missions; it can definitely be called a windfall.
Additionally, building the palace itself is far less simple than it appears; it requires a very powerful spatial imagination and concentration.
With the coupon, it can help Bi Fang skip this step entirely.
And though the Palace of Mind may be constructed, the quality between individuals can vary greatly.
Produced by the System, it must at least reach the upper levels of the Pyramids if not up to the level of Sherlock Holmes and Hannibal, right?
It’s just unknown what his own palace will look like, a room, a palace, or something else?
Soon, Bi Fang understood; his "palace" was neither a room nor a palace...
The moment the golden coupon turned to powder, the lush Skill tree in his mind abruptly grew taller, then numerous branches drooped down, similar to the aerial roots Bi Fang saw in the Banna Rainforest. The branches touched down and rapidly took root in the vast expanse of his mind.
Then, one after another, towering trees sprung from the ground, encircling the central mother tree.
The endless forest rose and fell, growing dense and interwoven like a sea of green.
Bi Fang teleported into the midst of the forest, arriving beneath a giant tree, to find each tree had a wooden drawer. Pulling one open, inside were scrolls of parchment.
Unrolling a scroll, without needing to read, a flood of information naturally poured into his brain.
Looking up towards the center of the forest, without needing to think, a thought sparked, and countless leaves danced.
Fire.
Dozens of fire-making methods naturally emerged in his brain, and on this basis, even more methods evolved.
Bi Fang opened his eyes, rubbed the bridge of his nose, and a smile crept across his lips.
Not bad at all.
What do you think?
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