Not sure if others can see this thing, it might be safer to go home and study it.
Thinking this, Ji Minghuan clicked the cross in the upper right corner, the system panel minimized into a gear icon, moving to the lower right of his field of vision.
He walked out from a secluded corner behind the school building and soon crossed the threshold of Li Jing Fifth Middle School, stepping into the bustling market. It was rush hour, people swarming like ants. The sound of horns seemed to carry a whiff of sweat.
After finally finding a gap, Ji Minghuan nimbly slipped out of the crowd like a fish.
He no longer walked along the main road but turned into an urban village.
In the urban village, he found a narrow and damp alleyway and turned into it. He could see air conditioners mounted inside protective iron bars, and clothes on the rooftop swaying in the wind. It had rained a little at noon today, and there were still puddles on the ground, with one or two gray-black cigarette butts in them.
Seeing no one around and no surveillance equipment in the alley, Ji Minghuan leaned against the wall and stood still.
He raised his right hand, quietly staring at his fingers, "If my memory serves me right, this body's superpower is..."
In the next moment, Ji Minghuan's five fingers slightly curled, and the pitch black restraint belt slipped out of his school uniform sleeve like a snake, wove over his wrist, and slowly enveloped his index finger.
"Just like in the memory," he whispered to himself, watching the restraint belt that seemed to have a life of its own, "this is Gu Wenyu's superpower."
The moment he loaded the character's memory, information about this superpower naturally flowed into his mind—according to the setting, "Gu Wenyu" awakened his superpower less than a month ago, and his control over the restraint belt was just at a beginner level, not even fully understanding its rules.
Even so, this body had retained the muscle memory from numerous superpower trainings.
Ji Minghuan didn't need to consciously control it; the moment a thought passed through his mind, his body moved instinctively, and the restraint belt would respond accordingly.
Leaning against the wall of the alley, Ji Minghuan quietly recalled a series of experiments "Gu Wenyu" had initially conducted on his superpower. A moment later, he raised his eyebrows, as if he found some rules in the memory that Gu Wenyu hadn't discovered.
So he lifted his backpack with one hand, suspended it above his head, and simultaneously extended the pitch black restraint belt from his sleeve. Letting go of his hand, the heavy backpack immediately fell, striking towards the back of his head.
But unexpectedly, Ji Minghuan's head didn't feel any sudden pressure.
Instead, the restraint belt coiled around his wrist suddenly sank slightly, its surface caving downward.
Ji Minghuan scratched his head, staring at the backpack on the ground with interest, "Really interesting."
Indeed, even though the heavy backpack had just hit him, his head remained unaffected.
As he suspected: the restraint belt can share the force he endures, and while this force transfers from his body to the restraint belt, it is somewhat reduced.
If Ji Minghuan's body is likened to a "sink" and the force he receives equates to "water flow," then the restraint belt is like carving "small puddles" along the edge of the sink—at the moment the water falls towards the sink, it first diverts towards the puddles, and during this diversion, the total amount of water is absorbed by the soil and slightly decreased.
Thinking this way, he could even rely on the restraint belt's mechanism to move swiftly on high buildings without risk, because even if he accidentally falls, Ji Minghuan can entirely let the restraint belt absorb the instantaneous impact from hitting the ground instead of him.
Equivalent to having an insurance of safety for himself.
Of course, the premise is that the impact force upon landing does not exceed the restraint belt's maximum endurance; otherwise, if the restraint belt shatters, he might leave his bones nowhere to be found.
But in Gu Wenyu's memory, he himself never noticed this point: he had tried falling from a height of five meters without a scratch, mistakenly thinking that his body's toughness increased after his superpower awakening, when in fact, the restraint belt absorbed 90% of the impact the moment it touched down.
Objectively speaking, though, his physical fitness genuinely improved after awakening the superpower, and significantly so.
At this thought, Ji Minghuan suddenly blinked: "By the way, what if it's not the instantaneous impact but the continuous force being absorbed?"
He summoned the restraint belt around his entire body, allowing the pitch black bandages to swirl around him. From a distance, he looked like an anomaly encircled by a black vortex.
Ji Minghuan raised an eyebrow, attempting to continuously spread the gravity he bore onto the bandages, then lightly tapped the ground with the tip of his shoe.
With just a gentle tap, his body sprang up high in an instant, effortlessly leaping over the middle section of the wall to reach a height of four meters.
Then, like a falling leaf, he descended to the ground, his body feeling as light as if he were in space during the process.
"It actually works on gravity too."
Shoes touched the ground, and Ji Minghuan retracted the bandages into his sleeve, a hint of surprise flashing through his eyes.
Only then did he confirm that the move just performed not only applied to instantaneous impact but also to "continuous force," meaning—Ji Minghuan could even use the mechanism of the restraint belt to lessen the impact of gravity on himself, lightening his body to gain superior mobility.
As long as he allowed the restraint belt to continuously absorb the gravity acting on him, and... during the flow of gravity to the restraint belt, there would be a slight reduction, thus the "overall gravity" acting on him and the restraint belt together decreases, making the entire body more than twice as light.
But there's a price to pay for doing so.
It's very easy to exceed what the restraint belt can bear, Ji Minghuan could feel that just letting the restraint belt share the gravity for a brief moment made the belt wrapped around his wrist slightly heat up.
"If I let the restraint belt bear my weight for a long time, wouldn't it catch fire directly?" Ji Minghuan mused whimsically, "If it really did catch fire, could I use it as a flaming whip to lash out?"
He paused: "But if I did that, the first person to get burned would be me."
After testing the basic rules of the restraint belt, Ji Minghuan picked up the backpack he had just thrown on the ground.
Standing at the entrance of the alley, he redistributed the gravitational force to the restraint belt around his body.
With a leap, his figure bounced upward in an instant, rising to a height of four or five meters, and then extended the restraint belt wrapped around his five fingers to grab the iron bars outside an air conditioner, lifting his right hand with force, he swung forward shakily.
Like a trapeze artist in a circus.
He traced a clear arc in midair, flying over patches of rusty protective iron bars. The buzzing of air conditioners was drowned out by the ripping sound of the air.
As the restraint belt retracted to his side, Ji Minghuan fell to the ground once more, but before landing, he extended another restraint belt to tightly wrap around the construction hoist in the alley, pulling himself upward, quickly leaping over an advertisement board in front of him, like a seagull soaring over the waves.
No longer confined by gravity, his body moved like a bird through the twilight of dusk.
With only two attempts, Ji Minghuan fully mastered this technique.
The dusk was like blood, the pitch black restraint belt danced in the air like splashed ink, wrapping around one protective iron bar after another, as the school uniform-clad boy swung through the narrow alley on the restraint belt, reaching the end of the alley where his slender body dropped from over ten meters above. The school jacket lifted high, fluttering like the tail feathers of a bird.
During the fall, the restraint belts gathered towards his body, as if pulling a chaotic stream of black light, tipping down like a rainstorm.
The puddles in the alley expanded in his pupils, the reflections on the water's surface also growing larger and larger.
The moment his soles touched the ground, Ji Minghuan diverted the force from below to the top of every restraint belt with precision, without a hitch.
His whole body landed safely, without even his knees bending even slightly.
Instead, the restraint belts around him drooped limply like dying snakes, hanging at his feet.
In the deathly silent deep alley, he straightened up, took a gentle breath of the murky air.
Then, lowering his eyes, he retracted the burning, feeble restraint belts into his sleeve, pulled the backpack strap that slipped to his elbow back onto his shoulder, and slipped both hands into his school uniform pockets, walking out leisurely from the narrow alley as if nothing happened.
Bathing in the afterglow of the setting sun, his silhouette gradually faded into the city's clamor.