26: Chapter 26 The Data Trap and Ancient Martial Arts Observational Skills (Part 2)

Li Shaobai stared at the tactical dial on his wrist, his brow furrowed so tightly he could crush a fly.

It was completely clean; apart from the green dots representing his teammates, there wasn't even a mosquito in sight.

"Lin Qi, did you suffer from hypoxia while crossing the trap earlier?" Li Shaobai lowered his hand, his tone unkind. "This is a military-grade biological radar. As long as there is a fluctuation of source energy within a 500-meter radius, it's impossible for it not to react."

Wang Gang, standing beside him, chimed in, shaking the detector in his hand.

"Exactly. Don't think you can pretend to be an expert just because you guessed one trap correctly. This is the edge of the safe zone; where would any monsters come from?"

Lin Qi ignored them, not even taking his hands out of his pockets.

His center of gravity sank slightly, his gaze locked onto the cluster of waist-high ferns to his front right.

"Three." Lin Qi counted softly.

"Three what?" Zhang Wei leaned over, looking bewildered.

"Two."

The wind in that direction stopped.

It wasn't a natural cessation of the wind; the airflow had been blocked by something.

"One."

Whoosh!

The ferns exploded violently, as if someone had detonated a grenade inside them.

Three cyan shadows surged forward, bringing with them a foul stench.

They were too fast; only afterimages remained on his retinas.

They weren't small beasts at all, but three giant wolves with shoulder heights of one meter.

Their fur was eerily translucent, and only the moment they lunged out of the grass did this camouflage fade away, revealing their cyan-gray bodies.

"Wind Blade Wolf! They have Advanced camouflage!"

Someone screamed.

The distance was too close—less than five meters.

At this distance, for an agility-based source beast, it was only a matter of half a breath.

The two mage-class girls standing at the front were pale with fear, raising their staves and mumbling incantations with trembling lips.

The casting time for Fireball required 1.5 seconds.

But at a time like this, those 1.5 seconds felt as long as a century.

The wolf claws were already reaching them, the sharp nails glinting with a cold light.

Bang!

A dull thud echoed.

There were no flashing blades or magical effects.

Like a cannonball leaving the barrel, Lin Qi threw himself out.

Instead of retreating, he Advanced. Just as the wolf was about to touch the girl, he turned his body sideways and slammed his shoulder hard into the wolf's ribs.

Baji Quan, Mountain-Leaning Strike.

This move had no bells and whistles; it was pure, hard kinetic energy.

Crack.

The crisp sound of bone breaking made one's teeth ache.

The two-hundred-pound Wind Blade Wolf didn't even have time to yelp before its body bent at an eerie angle in mid-air, flying off sideways.

It smashed through a small tree as thick as a bowl, twitched twice after landing, and went still.

Spinal fracture, paralyzed.

The remaining two wolves reacted extremely quickly.

The miserable state of their companion didn't scare them off; instead, it incited their ferocity.

They forcibly twisted their waists in mid-air and opened their mouths to unleash two pale cyan wind blades.

The wind blades sliced through the air, emitting a sharp whistle.

"Dodge!" Instructor Su Qing shouted from behind.

Lin Qi didn't dodge.

Or rather, he moved his feet within a square inch.

His left foot traced a circle, his right foot hooked into the ground.

Bagua Step.

His upper body swayed left and right as if he had no bones, and the two wind blades cut past, almost grazing his body.

Rip.

His school uniform was slashed with two large gashes, revealing the black gravity-restraint suit underneath.

The restraint suit was also cut, and the wind blades struck Lin Qi's flesh squarely.

There was no blood.

Two pale white marks remained on his skin, as if drawn forcefully with a fingernail; it didn't even break the skin.

Skin Refining.

This level of elemental attack couldn't break his defenses.

Lin Qi lunged forward.

He didn't use his dagger; that thing required drawing, which was too slow.

His hands, like iron pincers, accurately clamped onto the upper and lower jaws of one of the wolves.

The wolf tried to bite down, its fangs only millimeters from Lin Qi's fingers.

The muscles in Lin Qi's arms bulged violently, and with a burst of strength, he tore.

Snap.

He didn't tear the wolf's mouth open, but rather used a clever technique to directly dislocate its jaw joint.

The wolf let out a wheezing whimper, its mouth hanging wide open, unable to close.

Lin Qi followed up with a kick, his toes pointed straight like an iron rod, stabbing into the wolf's already soft abdomen.

Bang.

This wolf also flew away, rolling seven or eight times on the ground and vomiting a pool of stomach acid.

The battle ended too quickly.

From the moment the wolf pack lunged to the two wolves losing their combat effectiveness, it was less than three seconds.

The last wolf clearly possessed intelligence.

Seeing its two companions dead and disabled, it tucked its tail and turned to run, its limbs clawing up a spray of dirt.

"Want to run?"

Li Shaobai finally snapped out of his shock.

He felt like a fool watching Lin Qi perform just now, which made him very annoyed.

He had to regain his standing.

He raised his hand, and the ring on his index finger flared with red light.

Instant skill: Explosive Fireball.

A fist-sized Fireball roared out, hitting the fleeing wolf squarely on its backside.

Boom!

The flames exploded, and the wolf howled as it turned into a rolling ball, a burnt smell filling the air.

The forest returned to silence.

The two girls who had been saved had weak legs and sat directly on the ground, gasping for air, looking at Lin Qi as if he were some kind of monster.

"Just now... was that a skill?"

"I didn't see a skill casting time; he just bumped into it..."

No one could understand Lin Qi's operation.

In their understanding, a warrior should be tanking damage with a shield or hacking with a greatsword.

This fighting style of using his bare hands to treat source beasts like punching bags was too primitive and too violent.

Instructor Su Qing walked out from behind, her tablet glowing.

She glanced at the wolf carcass on the ground, then at Lin Qi's unblemished skin beneath his damaged clothes.

"Reaction speed 0.3 seconds, strength rating exceeds B-class warrior, defense..." Instructor Su Qing paused, "Unknown."

She closed the tablet and scanned the group of students who hadn't yet recovered.

"Did you all see that?"

"Data is dead, but people are alive. Radar will be interfered with, and skills can be interrupted, but your physical instincts will not."

Instructor Su Qing pointed at Lin Qi.

"From now on, the originally planned single-file formation is canceled."

"Lin Qi, you take the lead as the point man."

No one objected.

Even Wang Gang, who usually loved to argue, kept his mouth shut.

In a place like this, following a tough guy who could resist wind blades with his Physical Body and dismantle wolf bones with his bare hands was indeed much more reassuring than following those flashy data readings.

Li Shaobai opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but in the end, he just snorted coldly and accepted the arrangement.

"Rest for five minutes and tend to your wounds," Instructor Su Qing ordered.

Lin Qi didn't care about the others' gazes.

He walked to the side of the Wind Blade Wolf with the broken spine, crouched down, and pressed his palm onto the wolf's head.

It looked like he was checking the corpse.

In reality, a faint stream of heat seeped into his body through his palm.

[Absorbed trace amount of essence, Skin Refining progress +0.1%]

This bit of essence was just a snack for his current body.

But even a mosquito's leg is meat.

Lin Qi stood up, shook the blood off his hands, and looked past the messy shrubs into the deeper parts of the forest.

The darkness there was as thick as ink.

"Brother Qi, what's wrong?" Zhang Wei came over and handed him a bottle of water. "That was so cool just now! What was that move called? Savage Charge?"

"Mountain-Leaning Strike." Lin Qi took the water and took a gulp. "Ancient martial arts."

He didn't relax; on the contrary, the needle-like stinging sensation became even stronger.

These three Wind Blade Wolves just now were merely scouts guarding the perimeter.

The real big guy had been woken up by the sound of the Fireball explosion earlier.

Lin Qi crumpled the empty bottle and stuffed it back into his bag.

"Fatty, put on your 'Soft Armor'."

"Huh?" Zhang Wei was stunned. "Didn't you say that was trash used for life-style professions?"

"Trash is still better than running naked."

Lin Qi touched the alloy dagger at his waist.

"The one ahead—relying solely on fists might be a bit rough on the hands."