11: Chapter 11: The Heaven-Defying Effect, and the Rebirth?

Lu Cheng stared at the panel, his eyes gradually lighting up.

"Since there's an experience bar, that means it can continue to level up."

Lu Cheng muttered to himself, his heart skipping a few beats.

He had never been the type to stop while ahead.

Especially when something so absurd and potentially heaven-defying was right in front of him; if he didn't try it out, he wouldn't be able to sleep tonight.

Breakthrough.

He had to find a way to break through.

Lu Cheng closed his eyes again and continued to circulate his Guiding Technique.

However, this time was completely different from before.

Once the Guiding Technique at the transcendent level was activated, the source energy in the surrounding air—which had originally been ethereal and extremely difficult to capture—suddenly seemed to be given a sense of direction, continuously gathering into his body through his breath, pores, and meridians.

That feeling wasn't just "cultivation."

It felt more like his body was actively devouring it.

Wisps of source energy were drawn in, circulating along specific trajectories, washing over his flesh and blood, tempering his tendons and membranes, and finally turning into tiny streams of warmth that settled into his limbs and bones.

Comfortable.

But the experience bar wasn't rising very fast.

[ Guiding Technique (Transcendent 1 / 1000) ]

[ Guiding Technique (Transcendent 2 / 1000) ]

[ Guiding Technique (Transcendent 3 / 1000) ]

On average, one cycle took one minute, so one thousand experience points would take over sixteen hours.

And that was in the ideal theoretical state.

Humans aren't machines; it's impossible to maintain peak efficiency the whole time.

If he were to practice honestly, he would probably have to practice until after dawn.

Lu Cheng frowned, his mind racing.

A moment later, he suddenly thought of something—there was actually a bug he could exploit...

As long as he failed the circulation, he could gain two points each time, and the time required was shorter.

The only problem was that failing the Guiding Technique made him feel a bit uncomfortable...

It was a bit like the feeling of getting a stitch while running, though it wasn't harmful to his body.

Lu Cheng immediately tried it once. When it was more than halfway through, he cut it off. Sure enough, the experience points had indeed increased by two.

He could exploit the bug, but it really did hurt.

And this thing couldn't just be exploited randomly; if it was too short, the system wouldn't count it as cultivation.

If it was too long, the Guiding Technique would have almost finished successfully, and forcibly interrupting it would be exceptionally painful.

Only by getting caught in that small middle section, where it just happened to fail, could he get double the experience.

Simply put, it was repeatedly jumping on the edge of courting death.

Lu Cheng took a deep breath.

"Fortune favors the bold."

"Let's do it!"

The next moment, he closed his eyes again and began to try.

The first time.

Just as the source energy in his body was halfway through its circulation, Lu Cheng intentionally disrupted the rhythm.

His chest felt suddenly stifled, as if someone had punched him from the inside.

[ Guiding Technique (Transcendent 5 / 1000) ]

Sure enough, it added two points.

Lu Cheng grimaced, sucking in a cold breath from the pain, but he couldn't help but smile.

"It works!"

The second time.

The third time.

The fourth time.

Soon, a series of suppressed groans filled the room.

"Hiss..."

"Damn, I cut it too early this time."

"Dammit, late again..."

"Again!"

Relying on this loophole, he stubbornly pitted himself against the system.

Time ticked away.

The night grew deeper.

Half the neon lights outside the window had gone out, and the entire city had quieted down, with only the occasional sound of passing cars coming from afar.

Yet, the cultivation in Lu Cheng's room never stopped.

Failure.

Failure.

Still failure.

But with every failure, the experience bar rose.

And as the number of attempts increased, his grasp of that "critical failure point" became more and more precise.

But the cost was also very obvious.

His face grew redder, his breathing heavier, and his chest and abdomen felt like a ball of fire was accumulating, burning over and over again.

Anyone else would have probably stopped long ago.

But Lu Cheng happened to be stubborn.

The more he could exploit it, the more energized he became.

[ Guiding Technique (Transcendent 117 / 1000) ]

[ Guiding Technique (Transcendent 236 / 1000) ]

[ Guiding Technique (Transcendent 401 / 1000) ]

...

He didn't know how much time had passed.

Lu Cheng could no longer tell the time.

He only knew that he was like a madman, circulating it again and again, intentionally failing again and again, and enduring that stitch-like discomfort again and again to push through.

Halfway through, he even went to the bathroom to vomit some bile, came back, wiped his face, and continued practicing.

Because he knew very clearly.

Opportunities to get ahead of others like this didn't come around all the time.

While others were still laying the foundation step by step, he had already touched upon things outside the textbook.

If he didn't go all out now, he would be doing the system a disservice.

Finally, the horizon gradually began to turn a fish-belly white.

Lu Cheng sat cross-legged on the bed, his hair soaked with sweat... If you'd never seen what a drowned rat looked like, you'd know just by looking at Lu Cheng.

Yet his eyes were startlingly bright.

[ Guiding Technique (Transcendent 998 / 1000) ]

Just two more points to go.

Lu Cheng looked at that line of numbers, his throat bobbing slightly.

One night.

A whole night.

He had actually managed to stack the experience to 998.

"Exploiting bugs like this..."

"I really do have some talent."

Lu Cheng tugged at the corner of his mouth, smiling a bit weakly.

However, his current state was indeed not very good.

His face was abnormally red, not because he had slept well, but because the blood and qi in his body were churning violently.

His chest, lower abdomen, back, and even the ends of his limbs were faintly swelling, as if countless tiny hot currents were darting around inside.

Uncomfortable.

Extremely uncomfortable.

But there was only one last time left.

Lu Cheng slowly exhaled a breath of turbid air and readjusted his breathing.

"One last time."

He closed his eyes and sank his consciousness into his body.

The source energy was drawn in once again.

Familiar trajectory, familiar rhythm, familiar critical point.

At that most subtle moment, Lu Cheng suddenly disrupted it.

Boom!

It felt like a muffled thunderclap exploded in his chest, his blood and qi surged violently, and his vision went black for a moment.

But at the same time, the notification in his mind finally popped up.

[ Guiding Technique proficiency increased! ]

The next second, a brand-new message slowly appeared.

[ Guiding Technique · Origin: Can automatically temper the body and increase blood and qi value, increasing it by 0.1 points per hour ]

Lu Cheng opened his eyes wide.

He was completely stunned.

Automatically temper the body?

Increase blood and qi value by 0.1 points per hour?

He stared at that line of text for several seconds before finally confirming he hadn't misread it.

Then, his breathing became a little hurried.

This effect was just too heaven-defying, right?!

The previous transcendent level was already exaggerated enough.

It could actively draw in source energy to temper flesh and blood and increase blood and qi density.

But now?

Fully automatic cultivation!

He didn't need to deliberately circulate it, didn't need to sit cross-legged and meditate; as long as he was alive, his body would practice by itself!

This was the legendary cultivation that could increase even while sleeping!

Lu Cheng felt his scalp tingle slightly.

Twenty-four hours a day, theoretically, that was 2.4 points of blood and qi.

Even considering the fluctuations in reality and counting it as two points, it was still shockingly exaggerated.

For a high school student, this speed of improvement was simply terrifying.

The vast majority of high school exam candidates only had a blood and qi value of around fifty points before the martial arts exam.

And with this thing, his blood and qi breaking one hundred before the college entrance exam was almost a certainty.

It was even possible to break through to the Source Gathering Realm before the college entrance exam...

One had to know that the Source Gathering Realm was already a martial artist in the true sense.

In the high school stage, whoever could step into the Source Gathering Realm early was basically locking in a ticket to a key martial arts university in advance.

Last year in Rong City, only two candidates broke through to the Source Gathering Realm before the college entrance exam, and all four major academies extended olive branches to them.

However, excitement aside, a realistic problem was soon placed before him.

He was hungry.

And not just ordinarily hungry.

The automatic tempering of the body in his system was essentially consuming bodily resources. He had already practiced all night yesterday, and now it felt like a hand was frantically scratching at his stomach.

He got up, left the room, opened the refrigerator, and took a look.

It was empty.

Forget about meat; he couldn't even find an egg.

Lu Cheng was silent for two seconds, then closed the refrigerator door again.

"Alright, I still need to make money."

He had taken two thousand from the Black Dog, plus the advanced blood and qi potion he had won from Zhou Lize, so he wouldn't be too strapped for cash for the time being.

But cultivation was something that got more expensive the further you went.

Food, supplements, equipment—which of these didn't cost money?

Especially now that his body was automatically tempering itself, his demand for nutrition would only get bigger and bigger.

Lu Cheng washed his face simply, changed his clothes, and went downstairs to the nearby wet market.

The morning market was already bustling.

The vendors' shouts rose and fell. Lu Cheng bought some vegetables, eggs, and a large piece of meat, and casually picked up some soy milk and fried dough sticks.

Such a small amount of things cost over a hundred, and he felt a bit of heartache when spending the money.

But there was no help for it; he couldn't skimp on food while cultivating.

When he returned home carrying the things, Chu Mu was already awake.

The woman was sitting in the living room, seemingly just about to get up to make breakfast. Seeing Lu Cheng enter the door carrying groceries and breakfast, she was visibly stunned.

It was as if she couldn't quite believe her son would go grocery shopping early in the morning.

Lu Cheng understood at a glance; he knew what the original owner's character had been like before.

She was probably afraid that his money hadn't come from a proper source, even though that was indeed the case...

He put the things on the table, his tone as natural as possible.

"I'm able to cultivate now, aren't I?"

"My grades were actually okay before, and I haven't forgotten everything. I've been tutoring others these past two days and earned some money."

"From now on, I can shoulder a bit of the household affairs too."

Chu Mu looked at him, her lips moving, and only after a long while did she softly say, "Don't overwork yourself."

She didn't ask any more questions.

But her eyes were slightly red.

Lu Cheng sighed softly in his heart and smiled, saying, "Don't worry, I know what I'm doing."

The mother and son ate a simple breakfast.

Chu Mu was the same as before, not saying much, but her gaze toward Lu Cheng was clearly much softer.

Lu Cheng didn't say too much about the system and cultivation either.

Some things, if said, would only make people worry.

After eating, he shouldered his schoolbag and hurried to school.

Along the way, he could clearly feel the changes inside his body.

Even without actively circulating the Guiding Technique, there was still a wisp of warm airflow slowly circulating in his body, like a machine that never stopped, silently tempering his flesh and blood.

This feeling was simply addictive.

"Origin-level Guiding Technique..."

Lu Cheng sighed inwardly.

Soon, he arrived at school.

When he walked into the classroom, the teacher was already lecturing, the sound of chalk on the blackboard was constant, and the students in the class were all sitting obediently.

Lu Cheng sneaked in through the back door. Just as he sat down, Ma Dachun next to him secretly turned his head and lowered his voice.

"Buddy, why is your face so red?"

Lu Cheng kept a straight face: "Good complexion."

Ma Dachun looked suspicious: "Really? You don't look like you have a good complexion; you didn't just... do that, did you?"

"...?"

"Ma Dachun!"

"Alright, alright, I was wrong, don't call me that name!"

Lu Cheng couldn't be bothered with him.

Just then, the front door of the classroom was suddenly pushed open.

Liu Haifeng walked in.

He spoke a few words to the teacher in a low voice, then turned to look at the whole class and tapped on the door frame.

"Quiet down."

The classroom quickly quieted down.

Many people looked up, not knowing what had happened again.

Liu Haifeng's gaze swept over everyone, and he spoke in a calm tone:

"Today, our class will have a new student."