45: Chapter 45 Unexpected

Li Wen calmly withdrew his gaze.

Without any hesitation, he swiped his card and headed straight for the "Top-tier Technique Exclusive Cultivation Area" on the first floor.

Compared to the bustling main hall and upper floors, the Top-tier Technique cultivation area maintained its quiet and desolate atmosphere.

Even New Year's Eve couldn't lower the high threshold for cultivating Top-tier Techniques.

A few sparse figures were scattered across different independent cultivation rooms, each immersed in a world of blades and swords.

Li Wen pushed open the door to his usual cultivation room with practiced ease.

Cold metal walls, an air thick with the mixed scent of disinfectant and sweat, and thick, resilient energy-absorbing Materials beneath his feet.

He took off his jacket, revealing a semi-worn black training suit, walked to the weapon rack, and gripped the standard fast saber he had used many times.

The hilt felt cold in his hand, the heavy metallic texture quickly transmitting to his palm and then deep into his bones. This familiar sensation was like a command, instantly igniting the dormant factors within his body.

Phew—

He took a deep breath and slowly exhaled.

In his mind, the warmth of the holiday reunion, his parents' expectant gazes, the complex glances from Xue Jun and the others... all these emotions were forcibly suppressed and expelled with that long breath.

His eyes quickly became focused and sharp, like a quenched blade edge, without a hint of slackness.

The cultivation rhythm he had polished over the past half-month began to operate automatically without thought.

Buzz! Swish! As the first strike was thrown, the air let out a low hiss.

He didn't immediately activate his trump card ability. Instead, relying on his body's instinctive memory like a craftsman, he swung his arm over and over, repeating the Minor Achievement level Moves of the Rainbow Light Saber Technique already etched into his muscle fibers.

With every slash, every step, and every turn of his movement technique, he felt the vibration feedback of the blade and the slight deviations in its trajectory, searching for the "unrefined" spots that hadn't been fully tamed.

The flow brought by the Minor Achievement of the Rainbow Light Saber Technique was significant, but the path after Minor Achievement became harder with every step, requiring finer polishing.

Time slipped away quietly amidst the dripping sweat.

About an hour later, Li Wen felt his body heating up and his muscles becoming slightly sore. He precisely captured several nodes of Minor Achievement ultimate Moves that required intense bursts of strength and control but weren't yet fluid enough. The time had come!

With a thought, no complex ritual was needed—

“Activate, Absolute Focus LV5!”

Buzz!

It was as if an invisible nuclear reactor had been ignited deep in his mind! The qualitative change brought by LV5 Soul strength manifested instantly.

His primary consciousness wasn't completely submerged as before; instead, it retained a clear membrane of perception, like a calm commander atop a command tower, looking down at his instincts that had instantly entered overclocked calculation.

His entire Mental Energy was held in the hands of his will like a precision scalpel.

The fifty percent Comprehension Ability bonus erupted.

His five senses were instantly heightened to an extremely sharp state.

The trajectory of dust in the air, the vortices of airflow split by the blade, the exertion state of every muscle fiber in his body, the rhythm of blood rushing and his heart beating... countless pieces of information poured in like a waterfall, only to be instantly organized and integrated by that "calm commander."

The slight points of stagnation he had encountered during practice just now were clearly magnified and locked onto, like dirt under a microscope.

In his mind, images of past practice, essential descriptions from the Blade Technique Secret Manual, and even insights from fierce battles with Virtual Humans were frantically disassembled, compared, and reorganized by terrifying computational power...

His body's instinct faithfully received the commander's information.

Wrists, forearms, shoulder blades, waist and hips, ankles... every joint and every muscle bundle seemed to have received a new, most efficient sequence of commands.

Swish! Clang! The blade light suddenly changed!

In the same Rainbow Startle stance, the trajectory underwent extremely subtle yet micron-precise adjustments during high-speed movement.

The whistle of cutting air instantly became shorter and more condensed, with fewer residual blade shadows, and energy converged at a single point on the tip! Its power doubled!

Turning Blade! The backhand upward slash, which originally had a slight lag during rapid rotation, became a near-perfect circular arc under overclocked calculation and extreme control.

The angle of his waist's rotation was precisely optimized, as if a layer of support had appeared out of thin air, making the transition between shedding force and leveraging force seamless. The blade followed the man, and the man followed the blade.

Sweat rolled down his forehead and into his eyes, bringing a slightly stinging pain. But Li Wen didn't even need to blink.

His instinct under overclocked calculation perfectly took over physiological reactions. The path of the sweat and the speed at which it entered his eye were instantly deduced. His eyelid flickered with millisecond precision, accurately blocking the interference of the sweat, leaving his vision completely unaffected.

Focus on the present! Focus on this strike! Focus on carving this realization into his very bones!

On the panel, the experience points for [Blade Technique - Top Tier (Minor Achievement)] jumped up bit by bit silently, but at a speed several times faster than before... Time was given meaning in the flashes of blade light; every second was precious.

...

【You cultivated Blade Technique for 3 hours, Rainbow Light Saber Technique +1】

【You focused on cultivating Blade Technique for 1 hour and 20 minutes, Rainbow Light Saber Technique +4】

【Skill: Blade Technique - Top Tier (Minor Achievement 30→35/100)】

The afternoon passed in the blink of an eye.

As the Blade Technique Realm continued to rise, the growth speed gradually decreased.

When he was at the Entry level, he could increase about 8 experience points a day.

Now, he could only increase a bit over 5 points.

Of course, this speed was still significantly faster than others.

This made Li Wen appreciate the importance of Comprehension Ability even more.

At the same time, he finally understood why those geniuses cultivated so quickly.

And he could only experience less than two hours of high Comprehension Ability bonus a day.

Those geniuses had it 24 hours a day without interruption!

Over the years, the gap between the two would be like a vast chasm.

“Fortunately, my Comprehension Ability can keep improving, while theirs is fixed.” Wiping the sweat from his forehead, Li Wen packed his things and left Kindling Hall.

As he left Kindling Hall, the city lights were just beginning to come on.

The festive atmosphere of New Year's Eve hadn't fully dissipated. There were more people on the streets than in previous days, mostly pedestrians returning home after visiting relatives or having dinner.

Li Wen boarded a familiar bus route.

The bus drove smoothly, the street scenes outside flashing past.

Li Wen leaned back in his seat and rested with his eyes closed, letting his mind review every detail of the afternoon's Blade Technique.

Until...

A violent jolt suddenly jolted Li Wen out of his semi-meditative state!

The driver slammed on the brakes, the sharp screech of tires piercing his eardrums! Exclamations and sounds of collisions erupted inside the bus!

“What the hell!”

“Was there an accident?”

“What's... what's happening up ahead?!”

The passengers, still shaken, stood up one after another to look ahead.

Li Wen also squeezed to the window. Not far ahead was the very site that had once been the focus of county-wide news—the Qingmu Project collapse pit that had buried many of his father's coworkers!