Chapter 367 Desiring to Practice This Skill...

The sunset's afterglow filtered through the window's iron bars, casting several dim, yellowish spots of light onto the cold concrete floor.

In the evening, the dormitory was so quiet that only the occasional chirping of insects from outside could be heard.

At the desk, Yan Poyue let out a long, deep breath.

That breath seemed to draw all the exhaustion out of his chest.

Because of the manual in his hands, he had finally reached the last page.

"Done!"

After three days of sleepless, high-intensity study, he had thoroughly digested every complex fluid dynamics parameter and every awkward ballistics term in this manual.

From the selection of thermal imaging bands to the air pressure dispersion model of the sub-munitions, and even the mixing ratios of different fire-extinguishing agents.

Now, this manual, as thick as a brick, held no more secrets in his eyes.

An indescribable sense of satisfaction, like a warm tide, instantly flooded his entire being.

The corners of his mouth curled up uncontrollably, revealing a heartfelt smile.

He loved this feeling.

The sense of conquest that came from gnawing through an obscure and difficult book, word by word, deriving formula by formula, and finally understanding it completely.

This made him happier than shooting one hundred perfect tens at the shooting range.

'How wonderful.'

This thought crossed his mind.

Carrying this satisfaction and respect for the author, he read the last line of the manual's main text.

"...Please strictly follow the above operating procedures, and we wish you a pleasant experience."

After reading this well-wish, he habitually flipped the book to the back.

It was a reading habit.

Just like finishing a novel, one would subconsciously glance at the very end of the book—the back cover, which usually contained publisher information and barcodes.

Sometimes, it contained a synopsis, author biography, recommendations, or advertisements for related books, serving as supplementary information or publicity.

His gaze swept over it casually.

The design of the back cover was very simple, mostly blank.

Only a discreet recycling symbol was printed in the bottom right corner.

Everything seemed perfectly normal.

However.

Just as his gaze was about to move away, he was completely dumbfounded!

His pupils constricted to the size of needlepoints in an instant.

Because.

Right at the very bottom of that pristine white back cover, printed in tiny text thinner than an ant's leg, was a clear and helpful tip:

[Helpful Tip: If the user does not wish to delve into complex parameter configurations, you may directly activate the toy gun's preset one-click smart matching function.]

This sentence struck Yan Poyue like a bolt of lightning, hitting him squarely on the crown of his head.

He stared blankly at that line of text, feeling his brain go "buzz" and turn into a blank slate.

"One-click... smart matching?"

He read that tip repeatedly, word for word, three times.

He recognized every single character.

But combined together, they turned into an otherworldly curse he couldn't comprehend at all.

An unbelievable sense of absurdity rose from the soles of his feet, instantly crushing all his reason.

It felt just like Yue Buqun, who, in order to become the top martial artist in the world, searched bitterly for the secret manual, finally made up his mind, gritted his teeth, castrated himself, and endured the excruciating pain to master the peerless Sunflower Manual.

And yet, just as he achieved success and was about to emerge to look down upon the martial arts world, he flipped to the last page of the manual and saw a line of delicate small print that read:

"To master this art, one must first castrate oneself; but one may also succeed without castration."

"Pfft—"

Yan Poyue felt a sweetness in his throat, as if he were about to spit out a mouthful of blood.

At this moment, he felt that the "Yue" in his name, Yan Poyue, was the same "Yue" as Yue Buqun. This experience was exactly the same.

His eyes went blank as he stared foolishly at the manual in his hand.

That "book of sages" he had just regarded as a treasure, full of wisdom, now looked like a collection of jokes filled with malice and mockery in his eyes.

He felt like a fool.

A complete, utter fool who had been played for a ride.

His lips trembled slightly as he muttered to himself like a dreamer:

"Then what have I been doing... these past three days?"

"I worked so hard to derive formulas, I racked my brains to calculate parameters..."

"And you tell me... there's a one-click start?"

"Isn't this just messing with me?!"

By the end, his voice carried an irrepressible sense of grief and indignation.

You must know, although he had been enjoying the process of gnawing through the book these past few days, he had exhausted almost all his mental energy to thoroughly digest this manual, which was more complex than a professional textbook.

This period of high-intensity study left him feeling dizzy and seeing stars—though, with his robust physique as a special operations soldier, he could fully recover with just a little rest.

But in the end, was all this effort redundant?

He fiercely flipped the book to the first page, then back to the last page, reading it back and forth several times.

'Nothing...'

'There was nothing on the first page!'

A huge sense of grievance welled up in his heart.

He gripped the manual and issued a soul-deep question to the air:

"And this helpful tip of yours, why didn't you write it on the first page of the book?!"

"What's the meaning of printing it at the very bottom of the back cover?!"

"Who looks at the back cover for no reason?!"

In the dormitory, only his grief-filled questioning echoed.

No one could answer him.

Yan Poyue felt so uncomfortable he couldn't breathe.

He loosened his grip, letting the manual slip from his fingers and drop onto the table with a "thud."

Then, he leaned back, collapsed heavily into his chair, and stared blankly at the ceiling with lifeless eyes.

At this moment, his proud heart, the heart of an academic high-achiever, had been riddled with holes.