“A precognition-type esper is quite prone to problems, you know. And the higher the rank, the more likely issues are to arise.”
After speaking, Jiang Qianxun tilted her head slightly as she saw the flash of confusion in Bai Yu’s eyes.
‘Strange, she’s a precognition-type esper herself. Doesn’t she know this?’
“Bai Yu, when you use your ability, don’t you feel a headache coming on?”
Hearing this, Bai Yu shook her head.
To be honest, she really hadn’t experienced many headaches.
A headache after using an ability was usually a sign of excessive mental power consumption.
However, given Bai Yu’s practically useless precognition ability, the amount of mental power consumed after using it probably wasn’t enough to give her a headache.
“That is strange. From my understanding, precognition-type ability users often expend a large amount of mental power when using their precognition ability. The most basic manifestation for the user is a headache.”
“Maybe… it’s related to the strength of my ability?”
As a small fry, Bai Yu couldn’t foresee anything important anyway.
In the past, what she could predict were trivial little things.
Predicting such things probably didn’t consume much mental power.
Perhaps precisely because she was such a small fry, she didn’t experience headaches.
Hearing Bai Yu’s answer, Jiang Qianxun couldn’t help but study her a few more times.
‘Maybe, before participating in the Pale Witch subjugation war, although Bai Yu’s rank was C, her actual ability strength was below C-rank, which is why she didn’t have headaches?’
‘But now that her ability has improved, when she can truly exert its effect later, she’ll probably start experiencing headaches.’
Having convinced herself, Jiang Qianxun didn’t press further and returned to the original topic.
“If it’s because of ability strength, then that makes sense. Since your ability has improved, you might start experiencing such symptoms later. Also, Bai Yu, you should be well aware that to foresee a clearer, more accurate future often requires consuming a large amount of mental power. You might even overdraw your mental power in the process. Although high-level precognition-type espers can see clearer images, their mental power also suffers a heavy burden during the process. Once mental power is overdrawn, causing mental trauma, then what happens next… Bai Yu, you should understand, right?”
Of course, Bai Yu understood clearly.
Once the mind suffers trauma, it could cause the originally balanced Star Mark power within the esper to become imbalanced.
After that, all it takes is a little inducement to cause the imbalanced Star Mark power to corrupt.
Even without any inducement or corruption, if the imbalance cannot be resolved and returned to normal within a certain period, the Star Mark power within the esper will also begin to corrupt.
Ultimately, the Star Mark power, which is the source of an esper’s strength, corrupts and mutates into Star Eclipse Energy.
Once eroded by Star Eclipse Energy, the esper will subsequently degenerate into an Abnormal Entity.
Abnormal Entities formed from the degeneration of espers often retain a portion of their pre-degeneration rationality.
This also means they are more dangerous than Abnormal Entities of the same rank.
‘Perhaps this is why precognition-type espers find it difficult to break through to S-rank.’
With precognition abilities being rare to begin with, using the ability also carries the risk of potential degeneration.
The higher the rank, the higher the chance of degeneration.
By the time one reaches the A-rank level, there’s a risk that using the ability could cause severe mental trauma at any time, ultimately leading to degeneration into an Abnormal Entity.
‘Perhaps this is the heavy price that comes with foreseeing the future.’
However, Bai Yu probably didn’t need to worry about degenerating herself.
After all, given the strength of her ability, the mental power consumed wasn’t even enough to give her a headache, let alone overdraw her mental power and cause severe mental trauma.
Besides, Bai Yu still had Loweia as a backup plan.
As long as she clung tightly to Loweia’s thigh in the future, would she even need to use her own ability?
If she just didn’t use it, there would be no situation of suffering mental trauma.
‘In a way, does having a weaker precognition ability actually make it easier to survive?’
“I understand. But I’m curious, Minister, why are you telling me all this?”
“It’s simple. As I said at the beginning, I’m very interested in your ability, Bai Yu.”
As she spoke, Jiang Qianxun blinked.
“After all, I’ve always been very interested in precognition-type abilities. It’s a pity they are far too rare, very difficult to encounter. I also want to know what kind of future a high-level precognition-type esper can foresee.”
‘Because she can’t contact high-level ones, and can only contact me, Bai Yu, so she’s using me as a substitute?’
The problem was, Bai Yu’s precognition ability was a bit too useless.
Just as Bai Yu was about to say something, she suddenly saw Jiang Qianxun raise the paper tube rolled from white paper in her hand and gently tap Bai Yu on the head with it.
It didn’t hurt, but it made Bai Yu freeze for a moment.
‘What is she doing out of the blue?’
“Minister?”
“I’m testing. Bai Yu, couldn’t you foresee my action just now?”
As soon as the words fell, imaginary black lines instantly appeared on Bai Yu’s forehead.
Her ability wasn’t passive.
Without activating it, how would she know what Jiang Qianxun would suddenly do?
But…
Bai Yu thought carefully.
During this period after her ability improved, the few times her precognition ability had worked seemed to have happened passively.
‘Could it be that her ability is actually more passive in nature?’
‘Well then, let’s use this opportunity to run a test.’
“Um… Minister, my ability is actively released. Something so sudden, of course I couldn’t foresee it.”
“Alright, let’s do it again. This time, Bai Yu, you try to judge the direction of my attack.”
To ensure the accuracy of the verification, Jiang Qianxun even made Bai Yu wear an eye patch to prevent her from seeing the direction Jiang Qianxun struck from, which could cause errors.
The result?
After a round of testing, Jiang Qianxun swung ten times, and Bai Yu… well, was hit ten times.
‘Ahaha… It’s completely ineffective.’
Bai Yu took off the eye patch somewhat dejectedly.
‘So, my ability is passive after all? And besides dodging fatal attacks, it can’t passively foresee other attacks?’
Useful, but not very.
This situation was like an ability card changing from a universal-use card to a countermeasure card.
‘And I thought that after my ability improved, I could at least accurately predict the correct direction once or twice. But in the end, not even once.’
Jiang Qianxun’s gaze also shifted slightly.
She was somewhat puzzled too.
If Bai Yu really was only at this level, then how on earth did she survive under the Pale Witch’s hands?
“So, is Bai Yu good at anything else?”
If she wasn’t good at sensing danger, perhaps her precognition ability was better suited for other areas.
“That… maybe my ability can only foresee fatal attacks. Currently, that’s the only stable aspect.”
“Hiss…”
Fatal attacks.
That was a bit difficult to test.
It’s not like she could actually stab Bai Yu just for the sake of testing.
Afterwards, Jiang Qianxun dragged Bai Yu through some other tests.
The results were… not quite up to par.
This made Jiang Qianxun raise an eyebrow involuntarily.
‘As expected, is it still because her esper rank is too low? It should get much better once she reaches B-rank.’
Remembering that Bai Yu’s ability had improved somewhat during the Pale Witch subjugation war, did that mean that as long as she continued to encounter danger, she might experience further improvement?
‘In that case, I should just have Bai Yu join us in our operations. More stimulation might just lead to a successful evolution.’