Over ten minutes later.

  After Xia Li recovered his telekinetic power and retrieved the other party's Heaven Chip, he took advantage of the restored network connection to start researching telekinesis usage techniques.

  Telekinesis originated from the soul, but wasn't soul-force.

  Telekinesis had one particularly special characteristic—it depleted quickly, but also recovered quickly.

  As long as one was careful not to overload, one could maintain combat capability even after telekinetic power was exhausted.

  This power that recovered more easily compared to spirit energy was naturally considered an important field, currently being heavily researched and developed in the West.

  The East still primarily cultivated spirit energy with telekinesis as a supplement, mostly using it to enhance control over spirit artifacts and magical treasures.

  "My current telekinetic strength is at the Perfected level..."

  "And the phenomenon of self-levitation when channeling telekinesis is considered a characteristic of the Perfected realm..."

  Xia Li's current telekinetic strength was genuinely "Perfected."

  Western spiritual cultivation realms weren't particularly detailed—currently only three major realms: Superhuman, Perfected, and Divine.

  Though each realm had three long stages beneath it.

  Xia Li's current telekinetic strength should be Perfected—Awakened Stage.

  "The three stages of Superhuman correspond to Qi Refining, Foundation Establishment, and Golden Core realms... then becoming Perfected..."

  "The first stage of Perfected corresponding to Nascent Soul makes sense."

  Xia Li hadn't cultivated telekinesis before. The bit of telekinetic power from converting Divine Sense to telekinesis was considered a bonus from soul cultivation—that small amount corresponded to Superhuman—Extraordinary Stage.

  After reviewing online materials, he had to admit that in these few hundred years, the West had developed telekinesis quite impressively, treating it as orthodox.

  Unfortunately, Western civilians weren't stupid either. They wouldn't abandon the more complete Eastern Dao traditions to cultivate telekinesis, which was harder to practice and had weaker early-stage combat power.

  This meant that out of ten Westerners, at least six followed the cultivation path like Easterners, two more went the full mechanical augmentation route, and only the last two primarily cultivated telekinesis.

  Doing this just to create distinction and avoid assimilation was somewhat pointless.

  But thanks to those stubborn diehards, the path of telekinesis truly wouldn't have developed otherwise.

  One could only say every choice had its pros and cons.

  "But there are way too few telekinesis arts online!"

  Xia Li logged onto the public network wanting to download one or two telekinesis arts to amplify his power, only to find the total number on the public network didn't even reach three hundred.

  Even more outrageous, over two hundred of those were for Superhuman realm use.

  In other words, Xia Li could only choose from fewer than a hundred.

  Compared to the millions of Dao techniques in cultivation, this could only be described as a withering tradition.

  "Telekinesis Art: Surge..."

  "Telekinesis Art: Self-Control..."

  "These two telekinesis arts aren't bad."

  After spending a thousand spirit stones each to unlock download rights, Xia Li directly downloaded them locally and installed them in technique slots.

  Then Xia Li aimed at an open area and activated Surge. From nothingness, an electrical discharge suddenly occurred in an instant—the entire process involved almost no spirit energy.

  "Decent power."

  The key was that Surge could be cast continuously. Before telekinetic power ran out, one could keep discharging, with power increasing over time.

  This was similar to the magic in Xia Li's memories. So the technique of using telekinesis to alter material forms was Western magic—it had its merits.

  And the substance omnipresent in space that telekinesis attached to was perhaps "aether."

  But just as Xia Li finished testing...

  He received an unfamiliar voice communication request. The sender's information showed "Telekinesis Society" with the call origin attached—across the ocean.

  This obviously wasn't a local.

  "What is it?"

  Still, Xia Li accepted the call. He wanted to see what this Telekinesis Society was about.

  "Hello, hello! I just noticed you downloaded some telekinesis arts. May I ask what level your telekinesis cultivation has reached? Are you interested in telekinesis training?"

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  "What the—this shameless? Who leaked my information!"

  "Didn't you see? There was a notification when downloading the arts—your contact information would be collected."

  "This..."

  Xia Li's approach to those lengthy user agreements was always to skip directly and select "I Agree."

  "You don't need to be afraid. We're not scammers. It's just that the path of telekinesis has only just started in the past century, and we desperately need capable people to develop it together."

  "If you encounter any problems using telekinesis, you can contact us. If you need specialized Heaven Chips to amplify telekinesis, we can customize those too."

  Their meaning was simple—because so few people used telekinesis, whenever one appeared, they had to pamper them so they wouldn't give up cultivating it.

  "Like mutual aid?"

  "Yes! It's wonderful you understand. May I take some of your time to register your information?"

  "Your ideology?"

  Xia Li directly asked what faction they belonged to. If it was the Corporate Alliance, forget it.

  "Wasn't it labeled on the caller ID? We're from the Telekinesis Society with no ideological stance—completely neutral. We only focus on telekinesis research and development. After registration, we'll send you a gift."

  "Setting me up?"

  Give gifts first, then come the various demands, right?

  "We're really not an illegal organization—you can check the public network! We're purely a research society promoting telekinesis development."

  "Then what can you give me?"

  "That depends on your telekinesis cultivation level."

  After the other party finished, Xia Li immediately searched for the Telekinesis Society and found it really was a completely neutral organization, focused solely on their path of telekinesis.

  After all, cultivation traditions could be explored from Spirit Era ruins, letting the Heavenly Dao Computer continuously fill in gaps from existing knowledge.

  But the path of telekinesis, aside from some magic stories recorded in ancient books, had no useful information left behind—a completely severed inheritance.

  Humanity was essentially exploring this path from scratch.

  "How's your information protection?"

  "If your personal information leaks from the Society, we'll compensate you one hundred million spirit stones. We can sign a contract right now."

  "Send the contract."

  Xia Li was very cautious. Though the other party seemed willing to give freely, as the saying goes, free things are the most expensive. Better make sure they wouldn't act recklessly.

  Before long...

  A Heavenly Dao Contract was sent over.

  A Heavenly Dao Contract was one certified and supervised by the Heavenly Dao Computer. Violating it would result in termination of all services related to the Heavenly Dao Network, along with loss of information protection rights.

  Meaning anyone could query that person's location through the Heavenly Dao Computer.

  After reviewing the contract, Xia Li found the terms quite fair with no unreasonable clauses, so he signed.

  "I'm Xia Li, from the Democratic Government. My telekinetic strength is... currently Perfected—Awakened Stage."

  Xia Li had originally planned to hide his true telekinetic strength, but thought better of it and decided to tell the truth.

  He needed help now. He needed status!

  "Perfected?!"

  An exclamation came from the other end.

  "Esteemed Mr. Xia Li, please do join our Society! Your membership subsidy of one hundred thousand spirit stones will be wired immediately."

  "We'd appreciate it if you could record usage data when using telekinesis arts daily. We'll also periodically send over telekinesis arts still in development for you to test."

  "Additionally, if you're willing to publicly disclose your Society membership, the Society pledges to protect you."

  "Your safety is paramount... You're one of the few Perfected individuals in the world."

  There were many Nascent Soul cultivators in the world, but very few had cultivated telekinesis to the Perfected level. Thus the Society valued Perfected individuals extremely highly.

  "If I may ask—what if I've provoked a major corporation..."

  "The Society will handle mediation. Even if they're one of the Big Five Corporations, you need not fear."

  The Big Five—the five largest corporations in the Corporate Alliance, together comprising over sixty percent of the Alliance's GDP, the core leadership of the Corporate Alliance.

  The Society dared to confront such existences?