199: Chapter 199 Skill Effect "Memory Palace"

Chapter 199: Skill Special Effect "Memory Palace"

Early morning.

The winter sunlight poured in through the open window, spreading a glowing patch across the worn old floor.

The ivy placed in the corner of the wall was half immersed in the light and half concealed in the darkness.

In the mottled living room of light and shadow, a muscular figure was doing Squat exercises with all his might.

His upper body was bare, and his shoulders carried a heavy barbell.

His broad chest was like a thick rampart, his pectoral muscles bulging with rigid lines, as if able to withstand the impact of all external forces.

As he squatted down slowly, the deltoids on his shoulders bulged high like two solid little hills.

The black athletic shorts paired on his lower body perfectly outlined his pillar-thick legs.

His quadriceps were shockingly robust, and every time he bent his knees to Squat down, his leg muscles tightened and bulged like steel.

They steadily bore the weight of the barbell and his body, providing a rock-solid Foundation for completing the entire movement.

At the moment of every tiny tremor of his muscle, it highlighted the fusion of strength and beauty.

"Hoo-ch —"

Sweat slowly flowed down his cheeks, and the hot breath he exhaled heavily turned into clusters of white smoke, permeating the air.

It was as if the violent energy hidden within his body was clashing with the cold of the outside world.

A gust of wind blew up the curtains, bringing a biting chill, but it was melted by the scorching breath the moment it broke into the room.

Then it turned into a few wisps of gentle breeze, gently stirring the corners of the calendar on the wall.

Page after page of paper fluttered like awakened butterflies, making a rustling sound.

Finally, as if tired of playing, it gradually calmed down.

The calendar also stopped turning, and the topmost page slowly fell and stopped.

In the soft light, today's date was clearly displayed —

February 2nd, the twenty-sixth day of the twelfth lunar month, Sunday.

"..."

"299."

"300."

When he counted to 300, Fang Cheng let out a long puff of hot air.

Then he gently put down the 250-kilogram barbell, straightened his back, and tilted his head up to gasp for breath for a moment.

Then he walked to the front of the balcony, and through the open window, lowered his head to overlook the street scene downstairs.

The tents set up at the epidemic prevention checkpoint had long been dismantled.

The last two young patrolmen were now packing up their belongings around the building, rolling up the black and yellow warning tape.

It seemed they were also preparing to evacuate.

"As for..."

Fang Cheng raised his eyes slightly, his gaze sweeping across the entire building opposite like lightning.

The room on the eighth floor that previously harbored the monitor was empty, and no abnormalities were detected in other rooms.

That female Special Investigation Team commissioner surnamed Cheng and her accomplices had disappeared since around eleven o'clock yesterday noon.

And today was already the third day after the physical examination.

According to the epidemic prevention personnel, as long as no abnormalities were detected from the sampling specimens within 48 hours, the residents of the entire Tubular Building would be able to resume freedom of movement.

Speaking of which, the time was actually almost up yesterday afternoon, which could be considered a substantive unsealing.

The police guarding outside had also evacuated successively long ago.

For the sake of safety, Fang Cheng did not resume his normal training plan until this morning.

At this moment, after patrolling his gaze across the streets on the left and right sides of the Tubular Building several times, he once again confirmed his inner conjecture.

This matter had come to an end.

It is estimated that after the Masked Man appeared in Xiguan District late at night, the Special Investigation Team shifted its main suspicion target away from Jiuchang Street in Jiangbei.

Fang Cheng narrowed his eyes to look at the morning light outside the window, and let out a light sigh.

Then, he fixed his gaze on the light-blue light screen emerging in his field of vision.

Prompts flashed past one by one.

[Muay Thai experience + 8]

[Tai Chi experience + 7]

[Push-up experience + 19]

[Squat experience + 22]

[Leg Raise experience + 10]

[Pull-up experience + 10]

[Back Bridge experience + 19]

[Handstand Push-up experience + 20]

[Qigong experience + 3]

These were all the experience values gained after resuming morning exercises today.

Out of caution, Fang Cheng did not continue exercising on the rooftop for the time being, but practiced at home.

Therefore, the experience gained from the two skills "Pull-up" and "Leg Raise" was relatively small.

After all, the wooden door frame at home could not withstand the ravages of his own body plus hundreds of pounds of weight-bearing objects.

Fang Cheng therefore focused his extra energy on several other fitness skills.

300 barbell Squats with a load of 500 catties, 300 six-finger Push-ups with a load of 200 catties, 150 Handstand Push-ups with a load of 200 catties, and 600 Iron Bridge rises.

Such high-intensity exercise made him feel quite hearty and incisive.

The pores of his whole body seemed to have been activated, breathing happily.

The depression and stuffiness that had accumulated for days while being locked in the building were fully released.

The body, which had been neglected from exercise, did not feel very tired because of this, but instead seemed to start its engine again, injecting a brand-new vitality.

Besides that.

Fang Cheng also made reasonable adjustments to the training plan for combat skills.

He focused more on the lower-Rank "Muay Thai" and "Tai Chi" to improve the efficiency of his usual Shadow Boxing.

He hoped to speed up the upgrade speed of the two skills and further enhance his strength.

Breathing the fresh and free air outside the window, he continued to practice Qigong obscured by clouds and mist for a while, soothing the muscles, bones, and limbs of his limbs.

Fang Cheng then raised his hand, wiped his face, which was still sticky after the sweat evaporated, and turned to walk towards the bathroom.

Grandpa came out of the intensive care unit the night before yesterday and was transferred to a general ward.

He could go visit him this afternoon, and the old man should be able to talk to him more or less.

Therefore, he had to tidy up his appearance now.

Splash —

Turning on the faucet, cool tap water gushed out.

Cupping a handful of water with both hands, he first splashed it onto his scalding face.

Then he picked up a towel, soaked it, wrung it out, and carefully wiped every inch of muscle along his arms, chest, and back.

Wherever it passed, the salt and dirt remaining on the surface of the skin were wiped away, the stickiness completely disappeared, leaving only freshness and a slight coolness.

After wiping his body once, he poured some shampoo into his palms, rubbed them together, and washed his hair.

After completely cleaning up, Fang Cheng raised his eyes and looked at himself in the mirror.

His eyes were bright and energetic, and his hair still had undried moisture, dark, thick, soft, and lustrous.

With a blow dryer, it surged like wheat waves, and there would be no problem at all going to shoot a shampoo commercial.

Even though a lot of True Qi was consumed in his Dantian, his body was still as healthy as usual.

The only thing he wasn't too satisfied with was that his muscles were too bulky; even with clothes on, this muscle-man Physique was still a bit conspicuous.

"I hope Grandpa doesn't fail to recognize me..."

Thinking of this, Fang Cheng immediately summoned the panel and looked at the progress bar on the left side of the attribute bar.

After a period of exercise, the values after the decimal point of the four basic attributes had all increased slightly.

Strength 25%, Agility 89%, Physique 41%, Spirit 36%.

Especially the Agility attribute increased particularly a lot, rising from 53% to 89%.

The main reason was that when he comprehended the Profound Truth of Tai Chi "controlling motion with stillness, overcoming hardness with softness" last time, he entered a mysterious state similar to the flow and change of water.

Thus, he improved his body flexibility and balance to a certain extent.

Looking at the Agility attribute, which was not far from a Breakthrough, Fang Cheng felt a slight warmth in his heart and muttered to himself:

"Push a little harder, it shouldn't take long before I can recover the appearance of an ordinary handsome young man..."

The faucet was turned off, and the sliding door was pushed open.

Fang Cheng walked out bare-chested in slippers, letting out a soft sigh.

He walked towards the kitchen with a comfortable whole body and opened the refrigerator.

But he saw that it was empty; besides two carrots and half a piece of pork, there was no other food.

These days locked in the building, the emergency food reserves were consumed too much.

Although the police would also provide basic guarantees and buy daily necessities on behalf of residents, he had a huge appetite and simply couldn't sustain it by eating.

It seemed he would have to go out to purchase some food later.

Glancing at the wall clock.

7:58.

It was still early.

Fang Cheng immediately walked back to the bedroom and came to the desk.

The few books on the desk were still lying quietly in the position where they were closed last night.

Light passed through the cracks of the window, quietly falling on the handwriting on the cover, as if twinkling and dancing elves were calling him.

Fang Cheng reached out to open the curtains, letting the sunlight completely spill into the bedroom.

Then he pulled out the chair and sat down again.

"Let's continue practicing skills."

Looking at the progress bar displayed on the panel.

[Speed Reading lv1 (243/250)]

After several consecutive days of hard practice, this skill had finally reached the time for promotion.

And in the process, he seemed to vaguely grope for a Breakthrough opportunity different from usual.

Sitting at the desk, Fang Cheng picked up the thickest bulky book.

This was the latest edition of the national dictionary, with a total of 1,658 pages, containing about 11,000 Xia characters.

In addition to annotations and explanations of commonly used characters, it also included explanations of many idioms and words, as well as evolution history and usage examples.

It could be said that this was an extremely comprehensive reference book with extremely complex content.

At the same time, it was also an excellent tool for training memory.

Fang Cheng reached out to open the dictionary, turning first to page 1.

Then he took a deep breath, and after calming down, chanted silently:

"Speed Reading skill, activate."

In an instant, a wonderful button seemed to be pressed in his mind.

Fang Cheng's eyes became incomparably sharp, and his hands steadily picked up the heavy dictionary.

Immediately afterwards, his fingers quickly and lightly twirled the pages of the book.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh —

As the continuous sound of page-turning sounded.

The dense handwriting on the paper seemed to come alive instantly, queuing up and rushing toward the bottom of his eyes.

At the same time, countless neuronal synapses in the brain burst into sparks, transmitting massive information at the speed of light.

At this moment, Fang Cheng was like being in an absolutely rational mechanical state.

His pupils were shining brightly, like a laser printer, almost instinctively continuously scanning and inputting the content recorded on each page of paper.

Wherever it went, no text information was omitted; those complex vocabulary combinations and awkward academic languages were actually rapidly disassembled and absorbed by him during the overspeed reading process.

Fang Cheng vaguely entered an incomparably wonderful state, as if touching a key to open the door of the palace of wisdom.

The stopwatch of the alarm clock beside him was ticking one by one.

The flow rate of the surrounding time seemed to slow down.

The pages of the dictionary were continuously turning at an increasingly fast speed.

An hour passed.

The thick dictionary was already approaching the last page.

Fang Cheng, however, still seemed to be immersed in the vast ocean of knowledge, exploring a certain key mystery among the rapidly flowing pages.

Suddenly.

A prompt message floated past his eyes.

[Warning! You are beginning to overdraw your Spirit, affecting your physical state. Please pay attention to rest.]

Fang Cheng's brows knitted tightly, and a look of pain appeared on his face.

He immediately threw away the dictionary and rubbed his temples hard with both hands to relieve the swelling pain in his head.

Until a few minutes later, his tightly knitted brows relaxed again, and he let out a long breath.

At this moment, right before his eyes, a new prompt message was scrolling and emerging.

[Congratulations, through unremitting efforts, your skill has risen to a higher level and has reached the Great Master Rank.]

[Speed Reading lv2 (0/500)]

[Obtained enhancement reward, skill special effect "Memory Palace"]

["Memory Palace": When activating the skill, you can briefly enter a hyper-brain state, greatly improving your memory, and you can construct and reproduce all things and scenes seen before your eyes in your mind.]

[Note: This skill special effect will consume a large amount of spiritual energy, so its activation duration and cooldown time are both related to the Spirit attribute.]

Fang Cheng closed his eyes, recalling the dictionary contents in his previous memory.

The printed handwriting instantly leaped out like living tadpoles, as if they had long been imprinted in his mind.

Not to mention showing off skills like reciting backwards.

Even if he just casually thought about what word is on which page, which line, and which character, an incomparably clear picture would immediately emerge in his mind, just like opening the dictionary with his own hands to find that page.

Even every punctuation mark was remembered clearly without any errors or omissions.

His memory was so formidable that he was simply like a monster.

No!

This was not yet the true effect of the "Speed Reading" skill upgraded to the Great Master Rank.

Because the special effect of "Memory Palace" should not be just like this.

The so-called "Memory Palace" sounded like some kind of hidden peerless divine skill.

In fact, it was indeed an ancient and magical memory training method, also known as the "Mind Palace" or "Palace of Memory".

When Fang Cheng was in school before, he had also gained a preliminary understanding in order to improve his memory.

More than two thousand years ago, the ancient Greek poet Simonides attended a banquet where the banquet hall collapsed, resulting in heavy casualties and disfigured guests.

Simonides successfully identified the bodies of all the guests based on their positions in the banquet hall in his mind.

This was the initial flash of inspiration for the Memory Palace, using the wonderful connection between spatial location and memory to "place" things that need to be remembered in every corner of a familiar space.

By the Middle Ages, the Memory Palace became even more popular among scholars and Cultivators.

They had to recite massive religious canons and academic works, and by building a Memory Palace, they disassembled awkward scriptures and complex theories, placing them in various parts of imagination-built churches, corridors, and rooms, ready to be picked up and consulted whenever needed.

Modern memory masters played new tricks with the Memory Palace.

Like some top card-gambling experts, they could move the massive combinations of suits and numbers of playing cards on the poker table into their own "palace" within a few seconds, storing information in grid-by-grid "storage rooms".

Afterwards, they only needed to "revisit" according to the route to accurately locate the completely shuffled deck and completely see through the opponent's cards.

Simply put, the Foundation of the Memory Palace was built on human's unique advantages in understanding spatial memory.

First, find a suitable realistic coordinate as a construction site to build the "palace".

Then, you can gradually place the information you want to remember into the illusory "palace".

During the construction process, the more detailed and vivid the details, the more unforgettable the memory will be.

This palace could be as small as an office or a dormitory, or as huge as a library, or even make the entire city your private palace.

However, that would require extremely powerful spiritual energy, otherwise one would be swallowed by the torrent of information and lost in it.

Beginners can start with the most familiar places around them, such as their home or school classroom.

After mastering proficient "decoration" skills, they can slowly expand their territory and continuously extend the space.

At this thought, Fang Cheng's eyes shone brightly, and he quickly scanned his bedroom.

The specific effect of this skill special effect was temporarily unclear, but presumably it shouldn't differ too much.

Fang Cheng glanced at the warning prompt message issued by the panel, then stood up from the desk, sat cross-legged on the bed, and prepared to sit in Meditation.

First restore his Spirit to the Peak state, then try it out.