Wang Cheng picked up his backpack excitedly and said, "Thanks, Mom and Dad. I can't wait to improve my strength, so I won't keep you company anymore!" Saying that, he headed straight for his room.
Wang Hao and Leng Yan watched his actions and couldn't help but smile. But still, Wang Hao scolded jokingly, "You brat, once you get good stuff, you don't even care about your parents anymore."
Leng Yan threw herself into Wang Hao's arms, her eyes seductive. "Hubby, this time we must take a few days to rest properly…"
Wang Hao: "(ω)┆┊"
…
Once Wang Cheng entered his room, he placed his backpack on the desk, and his expression returned to normal.
"Now that their strength is enough to protect themselves, and time waits for no one, I have to continue with my own plans. Although it feels a bit cruel, some things must still be done."
Next, Wang Cheng actually spent a few peaceful days with them. Watching Wang Hao and Leng Yan glued to each other while watching shows, Wang Cheng smiled wryly and said:
"Dad, Mom, are you planning to give me a little brother or sister? By the way, I'm heading into the wilderness for some training, to get used to my current strength at apprentice level 3."
Wang Hao and Leng Yan just waved their hands. "Go ahead, go ahead. Just be careful."
Seeing this, Wang Cheng could only shake his head speechlessly. He took his gear and left home, taking one last deep look at the house where he had lived for almost ten years before turning around and heading toward the fortress stronghold.
Returning once more to the lakeside of the secluded water lake in the wilderness, he found that low-level apprentice beasts had once again gathered around.
As the largest freshwater lake in the area, it naturally attracted surrounding mid- to low-level beasts.
Wang Cheng also began to clear out the beasts in the lakeside forest, though the number was far less than before.
After clearing the entire forest, he found fewer than a hundred beasts, the strongest of which was only an apprentice level 5.
However, Wang Cheng didn't plan to kill this beast. Instead, he used his spiritual power to control it and had it pounce on his arm.
He then took off his wristwatch, controlled the core to retrieve a slave chip from his internal world, and quickly fed it into the beast's mouth.
Fortunately, it was a low-level slave chip. If it had been high-level, it might've self-destructed. From now on, the sky was the limit!
Looking at the now unconscious apprentice level 5 beast, Wang Cheng furrowed his brows.
"Though this setup is a bit crude, it should be enough to fake my death. Other than my parents, no one will care about the death of a regular warrior at apprentice level 3. My parents will be sad for a while, though."
Wasting no time, Wang Cheng dashed toward the inner zone. With his strength at apprentice level 7, it took just over half an hour to arrive.
There were still many beast hunters exploring the area. Looking at the human footprints and bloodstains in the forest, Wang Cheng sighed:
"People die for wealth, birds die for food. Looks like quite a few have died here recently… but that has nothing to do with me. I'll set up my safe house here."
He scanned the surrounding few kilometers with his spiritual power and, finding no one nearby, deployed his safe house from the internal space and entered it.
Activating the camouflage system outside, his physical body lying on the folding bed instantly entered his internal space.
Within his internal world, there were still over a thousand beast corpses, most of them mid-level apprentice class. Together with the mountain of flesh and blood lake, once fully consumed, they would definitely raise his physical abilities to the peak of the apprentice level.
"This trip is not just for faking my death, but to improve my strength as much as possible. Only if I'm 'dead' will my parents avoid future trouble. Let's begin."
Masses of blood mud rained down on the gray energy. As an entire mountain of flesh dissolved into the gray energy, a massive surge of power was released and absorbed into Wang Cheng's body.
He felt his physical strength increasing rapidly, to the point he almost let out a moan from the pleasure.
Just as he was about to slip into an epiphany-like state, he forcefully restrained the impulse.
Then he began to practice the latter techniques of the Basic Martial Artist 256 Forms, as well as Wei Wuji's Mountain-Cleaving Slash.
In this state, his efficiency in practicing the 256 Forms increased thousands of times. And with his physical stats already at apprentice level 8, the Forms no longer limited him physically.
It took him less than half a day to master the complete set of Forms with great proficiency.
Not only that, but his power output had increased more than fourfold. "What's left now is refining my power output method. Once I reach 10 times amplification, using Mountain-Cleaving Slash as a base, planetary-level will no longer be out of reach…"
In just two days, Wang Cheng's body had already reached the peak of the apprentice stage.
Inside his world,
Wang Cheng punched the testing machine.
Bang!
Beep Beep!
"512,000!"
Looking at the number on the display, Wang Cheng nodded slightly. "My physical stats have indeed reached the limit of the apprentice stage. My spiritual power too. From now on, to improve further, I need to break through my genetic limits and reach planetary level."
Wang Cheng exited his internal world in an instant. Checking the time, he saw that it had been less than two days. Although he no longer had a watch, he had plenty of timekeeping tools.
Even though his stats had skyrocketed, his understanding and control over his power had only become more refined thanks to the enlightened state of his training.
After two days of training in that state, although his movement techniques hadn't yet entered the artistic realm, they had reached perfection by Earth standards.
Inside his internal world, only the organs and blood from the planetary-level pangolin beast and a few high-level apprentice beast corpses remained. The rest had already been fed to the gray energy.
After packing up the safe house, Wang Cheng glanced at his surroundings and shook his head. "Not hidden enough. I need a new spot."
Traveling dozens of kilometers deeper into the zone, he stopped under a towering tree over a hundred meters tall. "Perfect. Right here under this tree."
Using his flying blade, he quickly dug several diagonal tunnels, two meters high and one meter wide, sloping downward toward the roots.
He released the stored earth from his internal space to cover the entrance. Using his spiritual power, he continued digging while storing the earth.
When he reached the tree's root, he began digging straight down. In less than 10 minutes, he was over a thousand meters underground.
All excavated dirt was stored in his internal space.
Once he reached a sufficient depth, he began expanding the space until he had a chamber three meters high and ten meters in both length and width.
Looking at the items in his internal space, he muttered, "Looks like I need a separate storage room. Can't keep supplies in here during my breakthrough!"
Digging out a storage room of a few dozen square meters didn't take long. He placed it about twenty meters from the main chamber.
Inside the storage room, he unloaded all his supplies from the internal space—food rations, the safe house, testing equipment, etc.
Back in the training chamber, all that remained in his internal world were a few high-level apprentice beast corpses and the materials from the planetary-level pangolin beast.
After sorting everything out, Wang Cheng began refining his Mountain-Cleaving Slash again. "It's not perfect yet. Once it is, that will be the moment I break through to planetary level!"
(End of Chapter)