Chapter 660: Dying again and again, this time is different?
Feng Mu's face showed anticipation, and then he put away the [Building Module].
Finally, he carefully looked at the silver treasure chest again, confirming that there was nothing missing, and then he said to himself:
"There's nothing else. It seems that the Fate Team we ran into today was really a wild treasure chest?!!"
Feng Mu thought silently for a moment, then grinned in an intriguing smile.
"But it doesn't matter. Now that I've discovered it, it's mine. I still need to think about how to 'eat' this team afterwards."
He didn't think about this problem for too long and quickly turned his attention back to the 100,000 skill proficiency points he had just acquired.
Since he has such a huge sum of money in hand, the next step is self-evident, and it is the time to add points that everyone welcomes.
Feng Mu was already familiar with this process. Without the slightest hesitation, he calmly issued the order:
“Add some more!”
[Star Picker·Beginner (189/1000) → Star Picker·Intermediate (1/5000)]
"More!"
[Star Picker Intermediate (1/5000) → Star Picker Advanced (1/25000)]
"More!"
[Star Picking Hand·Advanced (1/25000) → Star Picking Hand·Perfection]
"More, more, more!"
Four consecutive hits in one second, adding points like the wind, general proficiency points come and go quickly.
then:
[In the first year, you began to practice the ancient martial art "Star Picking Hand."]
[This technique originated from the unique skills of an ancient martial arts sect in the old era. It is said that the Star-Picking Sect itself also accidentally discovered it from an unknown ancient tomb.]
[The secret manual states that if this skill is mastered to perfection, one can capture objects from mid-air and injure enemies from a distance. The title page even boasts the absurd phrase, "One can pluck the stars with one's hands."]
[You, now the warden of the Second Prison, are determined to practice this skill.]
[You soon discover that cultivation requires the light of the stars—yet when you look out the window, there is not a single star in the night sky, only the towering and oppressive outline of the upper city obscuring the sky.]
[Besides, even if you could actually enter the Upper City, the stars would still be out of reach.]
[If one cannot "pick the stars," then according to the method, this martial art is impossible to master.]
[How can a mortal pluck a star?]
[You gradually suspect that this might simply be the delusion of a psychopath.]
[But you are a martial arts fanatic. Even if it is a martial art created by a madman, you still want to master it.]
[You read the fragments over and over again, repeatedly deducing and simulating the practice in your mind.]
[Day after day, year after year.]
[Suddenly, one evening in the third year, you witnessed a prison guard rip out a prisoner's heart and feed it to a dog—at that moment, you had an epiphany!]
"Although the stars in the sky are beyond our reach, there are also stars in the universe of the human body!"
[That night, you summoned a prisoner and pierced his chest with your hand.]
[When the warm flesh pulsates between your fingers, you feel ecstatic, as if you have truly touched some kind of "star"]
[From that day on, you changed the name of "Star Picking Hands" to "Heart Picking Hands"]
[Use your heart to replace the stars, and cultivate your skills with blood]
[This training lasted five years.]
[Three hundred corpses with hollow chests are piled into a tower. You sit atop the tower, absorbed in your cultivation, a crimson mist entwined with your fingertips, as if grasping a galaxy.]
[The bones in his hands have mutated due to repeated piercing of the sternum, his knuckles suddenly growing three inches long, his nails black and sharp, like poisoned daggers, gleaming with a faint light.]
[In the tenth year, the entire death row wing was empty. But that didn't matter—there were other wing areas.]
[You stand outside the iron bars and crush a prisoner's heart from mid-air. Blood mist gushes out of his chest, condensing into a fleeting star pattern in mid-air.]
[“The Heart Picking Hand” is now complete!]
[In the twentieth year, all the prisoners in the prison have been "cleansed" by you, and all their sins have been transformed into your cultivation.]
[You practice grappling in the pervasive blood mist, your finger wind ripping through the air, sending out a shriek like a falling meteor.]
[Hands have been completely transformed, their skin covered in a layer of glass-like crystals, and when they wave, they scatter scarlet light like phosphorescent fire.]
[In the twenty-fifth year, the heart of the last prison guard also fell silent in your palm.]
[You are alone in the middle of an empty prison, and suddenly something strikes your heart.]
[“Hands Reaching for the Stars” has reached its perfection at this moment.]
[You sat in prison for seven days and seven nights, silent and motionless. Suddenly, like a madman, you began to tear at your chest—]
[You look in the mirror at your dark red, still-beating heart, and finally realize: You're still missing the final, most crucial step!]
[——Pick the most unique "star".]
If the human body is the universe, then the heart is a star. And how can the stars in other people's universes compare to the eternally burning star at the center of your own universe?
"All the stars are illusory, only the mind illuminates the universe!"
[Your right hand pierces your chest like lightning, and your five fingers close together, gripping the burning, beating heart—your own heart.]
[The sound of flesh tearing and maniacal laughter echoes throughout the empty prison ruins:]
[“I will give you my heart in place of the stars! I will use my blood to break through the gate!!”]
[The moment you ripped your heart out of your body—the blood mist that burst before you didn't fall. Instead, it condensed in mid-air, transforming into a dazzling, flowing, magnificent, and eerie "Milky Way."]
You've never seen anything like it before. It's a starry sky painted with your life. You stand there, stunned, staring at this blood-red galaxy, tears streaming down your face.
[“Plucking Hands” successfully broke the limit!]
[You have mastered the limit-breaking skill - Heartstrings (Passive).]
[You have consumed a total of 30,811 points of general skill proficiency.]
[Breaking the limit consumes 1 general skill point.]
[Heartstrings playing together:]
[Each of your attacks is like the manifestation of stellar gravity. When it hits an enemy, it will forcibly pull their heartbeat to resonate with your attack.]
The faster you attack, the faster the enemy's heartbeat will become, until their body can no longer withstand this manipulated rhythm—the heart will explode within them, and blood will gush out from countless pores, blooming into a momentary, mournful, blood-red "galaxy."
"Limit-Breaking Technique: Heartstrings in Harmony... This name sounds so beautiful."
Feng Mu slowly opened his eyes and looked down at his slender, white, and seemingly spotless hands.
It is hard to imagine that it was this pair of hands that, in that long "dream training" just now, in order to hone this limit-breaking skill, actually picked up tens of thousands of still-beating hearts with bare hands.
He knew that he had been walking in darkness for a long time and could be considered a villain.
But compared to the crazy, paranoid self in his dream who was willing to kill people in pursuit of the truth, he actually felt that his current self... was still as pure as a little white rabbit.
"Could it be that everything presented in the dream is what the system truly expects me to become?"
Feng Mu stared at himself in the mirror expressionlessly. Finally, he sighed barely audibly, then suppressed all his emotions and silently recited in his heart again:
“Keep adding more!”
[Thunder Kick·Elementary (133/1000) → Thunder Kick·Intermediate (1/5000)]
[Thunder Kick·Intermediate (1/5000) → Thunder Kick·Advanced (1/25000)]
[Thunder Kick·Advanced (1/25000) → Thunder Kick·Perfect]
[In the first year, you began to practice the ancient martial art "Thunder Kick."]
[This technique originated from an ancient martial arts sect in the old era, and emphasizes "stepping on the collapse of the nine heavens and inducing a thousand-pound strike with one foot."]
[When first practicing, one must stand on a lightning-struck tree on a rainstorm night to draw the lightning from the sky and temper their feet. Only then can one achieve true thunderous speed.]
[The secret manual states that when this skill is perfected, one's kicks will be like thunderbolts and one's steps will be like thunder.]
[You are a martial arts fanatic, determined to master this power.]
[You soon discover that cultivation requires lightning to penetrate your body, but when you look up at the sky, there is only steel and iron above the dome, no sunlight, and no thunder.]
[And if one is unable to "draw the thunder to temper the feet," then according to the technique, this martial art will only have the form, not the spirit.]
[You are not content with this, so since there is no heavenly thunder, you can use human lightning instead.]
You fetch a high-voltage electric baton and repeatedly strike your legs. The moment the current passes through, the excruciating pain feels like a thousand needles piercing your bones, your muscles cramping and trembling, yet you grit your teeth and frantically lift your legs in between each shock, practicing your moves.
[Day after day, the skin and flesh outside the leg bones were torn and charred.]
[In the third year, the electric baton's power is no longer enough to scratch an itch. You are no longer satisfied with the baton's weak current.]
[You walk into the prison's electrical room and tie the exposed cables directly around your legs.]
[The moment the high-voltage current penetrates your body, you almost pass out, but you still force yourself to kick out a "Thunder Breaking the Air" move.]
[The air is filled with smoke and arcs of electricity crackle and explode. You scream and practice in the pain and numbness, like a madman.]
[In the tenth year, you can now withstand the continuous electric shocks from the cables. The skin on your legs is completely carbonized, but dark blue arc lines appear after each shock.]
[You can shatter concrete walls with a single kick, and everything you pass by is charged with electricity.]
[Thunder Kick, now complete!]
[But you know in your heart: no matter how strong the current in the cable is, it is still ordinary electricity, lacking the "charm" of heavenly thunder, which combines destruction and vitality.]
[You need real thunder—but in this sunless downtown, where even the sky is a luxury, how can there be lightning?]
[You ponder for a long time and think of a scientific genius—Zuo Bai.]
He might be able to help you.
[You find him and ask him to make lightning for you.]
He was extremely surprised by your uninvited visit, but he didn't dare refuse your request. However, after hearing your request, his pupils trembled and a strange look of joy appeared on his face.
[In his underground laboratory, he created a huge and sophisticated "artificial lightning device."]
Zuo Bai is truly worthy of the title of genius. He even wants to create God, let alone lightning.
[The lightning he created was almost identical to natural lightning.]
[Electric arcs leap and hiss between the metal balls, condensing into a blinding pale lightning!]
[“Come on,” you say solemnly, stepping into the minefield. “Shock me.”]
[Zuo Bai pushes the gate without hesitation, and artificial lightning strikes you like a silver snake!]
[You dance and perform martial arts amidst the lightning, each kick yanking thousands of electric wires, each breath puffing out charred smoke.]
[You were electrocuted for a whole day and night, your skin had already carbonized and peeled off, your muscles were burnt black like charcoal, but you still didn't stop.]
[At dawn the next day, your final move, "Thunderstrike the Sky," had just begun! !]
[The whole person suddenly froze, then fell straight to the ground, no longer breathing.]
[You are dead, your whole body like charcoal, only your stumped legs still stubbornly point towards the sky, as if still attracting thunder.]
[Zuo Bai stood frozen in place, his entire body shaking uncontrollably.]
[He witnessed you practicing until you died, and his heart was deeply shaken.]
[You died, but his fear of you... became even deeper.]
[For a long time afterwards, he had trouble sleeping every night.]
I always feel like I'll hear familiar footsteps outside the door in the middle of the night. I always feel like the next time there's a knock on the door, you'll be standing there, black as a ghost, with eyes flashing, saying in a hoarse voice:
[“Zuo Bai, shock me again.”]
[Every year on the anniversary of your death, he is destined to suffer sleepless nights, plagued by nightmares—in his dreams, you are forever standing in the midst of lightning, and he is always pushing the gate for you.]
[…….]
["Thunder Kick" successfully broke the limit!]
[Though you died, you gained a limit-breaking skill—Thunderbolt Aftermath (Passive)]
[You have consumed a total of 30,867 points of general skill proficiency.]
[Breaking the limit consumes 1 general skill point.]
[The aftermath of thunder:]
[Each of your kicks will be accompanied by a strong electric shock, paralyzing the enemy's limbs and slowing their movements.]
[The paralysis effect can accumulate continuously. When it reaches the critical value, the enemy will become completely paralyzed and unable to make any movements for 1.5 seconds.
P.S.: Thunder Kick contains lightning and thunder, which can ward off evil spirits.]
Feng Mu suddenly opened his eyes, with a strange look in his eyes.
"This 'cultivation'... is a bit different from the previous ones."
He whispered to himself, with a hint of confusion in his tone.
"I didn't kill anyone, nor did I do anything evil. I just... found someone to help electrocute me?"
"Could it be because the Thunder Leg itself is of the element of thunder, capable of warding off evil and suppressing demons, that even the process of practicing it seems... a bit more righteous?"
Feng Mu had simply practiced evil skills too much and done too many evil things, so when he suddenly had a relatively "normal" dream, he became suspicious and uncomfortable all over.
Feng Mu pondered for a moment, but still had no clue, so he stopped investigating and opened the technique panel.
His gaze fell directly on [Blood and Flesh Release True Skill].
A line of system prompts appeared in front of me at the right time:
To achieve the "Third Resolve" level in Blood and Flesh First Resolve, the following prerequisites must be met (choose two from three):
1. Complete the cultivation of four fourth-grade martial arts (achieved)
2. Physical attribute breakthrough 10 points (not achieved)
3. Complete "Yi Jin" (achieved)]
"Finally... it's done!"
Feng Mu's eyes suddenly flashed with a burning light, and he muttered to himself:
"'Thousand Entwined Silk', 'Heart-Plucking Hand', 'Thunder Kick', plus 'Withered and Flourishing Zen' - exactly four fourth-grade martial arts, all complete.
And the “Desolate and Flourishing Zen Twist” itself is also a Yi Jin martial art, which helped me complete the Yi Jin…”
He stared at the flashing words on the panel, and the corners of his mouth couldn't help but rise.
"Choose two out of three... Two conditions have been met!"
Although the price was high, upgrading the four fourth-grade martial arts to their maximum limit cost him more than 120,000 skill proficiency points.
Now, it is finally time for the final harvest.
He remembered that the upgrade of [Blood and Flesh Beginning True Art] would feed back all the attribute points accumulated during the related previous martial arts practiced during the upgrade to his own body at once!!!
In other words, the total number of attribute points that can be increased by four fourth-grade martial arts, plus the [Blood and Flesh Beginning True Art] to break through the fourth stage, depends on this one shiver...
(End of this chapter)
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
