534: Chapter 534 Secluded Cultivation Leads to a Terrifying Existence

Early morning.

Haitian Garden, Room 1903.

The lights inside were off, and only the circle of dim blue flames on the kitchen gas stove was flickering.

The soup pot lid rose and fell slightly with the boiling steam, emitting a series of muffled gurgling sounds.

The rich aroma of meat spilled out through the cracks in the glass door, filling this dim space, but it couldn't cover up the faint smell of engine oil and sweat in the air.

In the spacious living room, there were few decent pieces of furniture to be seen.

Instead, the floor was covered with blue athletic rubber, and the surrounding walls were covered with anti-collision sound-insulating soft pads.

Beneath the ceiling, a specially made load-bearing steel beam ran across horizontally, hanging a black weighted punching bag taller than a person.

Through the faint light filtering in through the cracks in the curtains, the outlines of those cold apparatuses could be barely seen, like silent, standing guards.

This didn't look like a home, but rather a private Boxing gym full of male hormones.

In the pitch-black room, a figure wearing only sports shorts was rising and falling continuously with each breath.

"Hoo—"

Fang Cheng had a barbell on his shoulders, facing the floor-to-ceiling window, performing a Squat practice.

Both ends of that special Olympic barbell bar were densely hung with black barbell plates.

Ten full-weight 25kg iron plates on each side, the total load added up to a full 500 kilograms.

That is, 1000 jin, a weight of half a ton.

This weight pressing on an ordinary person would be enough to break the spine, but on Fang Cheng's shoulders, it was like a lightweight fire poker.

There was no difficult ups and downs like overweight Squats, and even the bulging amplitude of the thigh muscles was not obvious enough.

Every time he squatted down and stood up, it was as if high-strength titanium alloy springs were installed in his knee joints.

The glute and leg muscle groups tightened instantly, followed by an explosive bounce.

His movements were astonishingly fast.

In the darkness, one could only see the barbell plates on both sides fluttering up and down due to the rapid lifting and lowering, leaving behind streaks of afterimages.

The heavy iron plates tore through the air, stirring up bursts of low, rapid, sharp sounds.

"Hoo, hoo, hoo—"

If a professional physical coach were present at this moment, they would probably be scared out of their minds on the spot.

Where was this doing resistance training? It was clearly a humanoid hydraulic pile driver running at full power and roaring.

Even a top strongman would have to grit his teeth, turn red in the face, and cooperate with professional techniques to protect his core and avoid lumbar spine injuries when bearing this weight.

Yet what about Fang Cheng?

The whole process had not the slightest pause, and the interval between each movement was even less than half a second.

His face was not flushed and his breath was steady, his expression as calm as if he were doing morning broadcast gymnastics.

Only the white heat vaporizing from the pores on the body surface as the blood and Qi operated at high speed lingered in the darkness like smoke,

indicating what kind of terrifying energy reaction was taking place within this Physical Body.

"The 500th!"

Fang Cheng's figure suddenly stopped, standing firmly and straight.

Then his waist and abdomen slightly straightened, hanging the hundreds of kilograms of barbell back onto the rack with a clanging sound.

On the retina, a line of small characters slowly emerged:

[Completed 500 weighted Squat practices, skill experience + 2]

Fang Cheng bent down to pick up his phone from the ground and turned it on, the screen's fluorescent light illuminating his sharp-featured face.

"5:09."

Looking at the time displayed on the screen, Fang Cheng muttered to himself:

"Completing a set of 500 Squat practices took less than 4 minutes?"

"This efficiency... is barely acceptable."

According to the introduction of sports science books read in the library, his training method was definitely a proper counter-example.

When practicing standard Squats, both the eccentric phase of lowering the barbell and the concentric phase of lifting the barbell should be controlled at about 1 to 2 seconds.

Only in this way could muscle fibers be torn by extending the time of muscle tension, achieving a more effective muscle-building effect.

If the movement was too fast, the body's inertia mechanism would take over the exertion, causing the target muscle groups to receive uneven force, insufficient training, and even triggering tendon tears.

But those were all theories aimed at ordinary humans.

For Fang Cheng, his Physique had long broken through the physiological limit barrier of 80 points, and his body's durability was ridiculously high.

To use this textbook-style exercise method again was simply dawdling.

It wasn't like the Pull-up skill which unlocked a special training mode; the slower the movement, the better the exercise effect.

Therefore, Fang Cheng simply adopted the method of accelerating the movement rate in order to complete more repetitions per unit time and improve the exercise efficiency of fitness skills.

After today's morning exercise attempt, whether exercising Squat, Push-up, or Back Bridge and Leg Raise, the actual experience growth effect could only be described as barely satisfactory.

With the same load and repetitions, the time spent was indeed greatly reduced, but the experience gained was also significantly shrunk compared to yesterday's slow training.

"This is the contradiction between explosive training and muscle fiber remodeling..."

Fang Cheng wiped the inconspicuous sweat beads on his neck with a towel while reviewing his training feelings just now.

Although the rate was accelerated, it also led to insufficient stimulation of the muscle groups used in a single movement, and the experience value obtained naturally decreased accordingly.

This was somewhat similar to "Infinite Rapid Strike".

The punching speed seemed to get faster and faster, but in fact, every punch stacked in the later stage, due to the action of inertia, actually exerted less force than the first punch.

"It seems that I still have to continue down the path of increasing the load."

Fang Cheng's gaze swept over the stacked barbell plates on the side and shook his head.

Last weekend after the audition competition ended, he, Zhou Xiumei, and Wen Xin had a dinner party in the city center to celebrate.

After that, he went to a nearby sports equipment store and specially ordered 10 additional 25KG-level barbell plates.

Thinking of using a 500KG load to increase training difficulty and improve exercise efficiency.

As a result, for this monster-like body now, it was still far from enough.

The 80-point Physique attribute brought Fang Cheng super-strong recovery ability and Physical Body defense.

At the same time, it also made the muscle fibers as tough as steel wire, making it harder and harder to tear them.

The enhancement of muscle strength and toughness is essentially the process of muscle fibers being torn and then reorganized, thereby becoming denser and thicker.

Nowadays, ordinary people's exercise methods had almost no effect on him.

If the training difficulty was not raised another notch, the exercise efficiency would only drop linearly.

It could be said that high Physique makes it and high Physique breaks it.

Fang Cheng reached out and patted the barbell plate, pondering in his heart.

A load of 500 kilograms was at best a warm-up level; to maximize efficiency, the load had to reach at least one ton or more.

Only the floorboards at home... were afraid they couldn't endure it.

"Perhaps, I can wait until the secret base of Jiangbei Industrial Park is built before purchasing some ultra-heavyweight training equipment."

Fang Cheng calculated in his heart.

At that time, the main training place would be transferred there.

With the concealment and ground solidity of that air-raid shelter, let alone one ton, even playing yo-yo with several tons of hot-rolled steel coils probably wouldn't be a problem.

This room now was ultimately too fragile.

Fang Cheng tapped the floor gently with the sole of his foot, feeling the slight tremor coming from under the rubber layer, and shook his head helplessly.

Then he turned and walked to the freezer in the corner, took out a bottle of mineral water, unscrewed the cap, and poured it down his head.

"Gurgle, gurgle."

The ice-cold liquid slid down his esophagus into his stomach, quickly calming the restless blood and Qi in his body.

Drinking the whole bottle of water in one breath, Fang Cheng walked to the floor-to-ceiling window and reached out to pull open the heavy curtains completely.

Outside, the entire city was still deep in sleep.

The distant coastline was blurry, and the skyline shimmered with a bit of muddy bluish-grey.

On the coastal highway, a taxi occasionally drove past in a hurry like a beetle.

The headlights cut through the darkness of dawn, and then returned to silence.

He got up very early today, waking up at 3:30 in the morning.

First, he went to the seaside to punch a set, and then sprinted a few laps along the coastline, returning home only after 4 o'clock.

Then he made breakfast, and then started the specialized training of the Prisoners Six Arts, and only an hour and a half had passed by now.

Thanks to the accelerated movement rate, the training indicators of the six fitness skills had already been mostly completed.

"There is only the last one left."

Fang Cheng squeezed the empty mineral water bottle flat and casually tossed it into the trash can in the corner.

"Clang."

With this soft sound, his mind moved slightly, and a light blue translucent light screen unfolded in the darkness.

Fang Cheng's gaze swept over the dense skill data and directly locked onto the column with the highest progress bar.

[Pull-up lv3 (948/1000)]

Only 52 experience points left to level up.

A trace of burning heat flashed in the depths of Fang Cheng's eyes.

If it were in the past, grinding these dozens of experience points within a week would be considered fast.

But ever since unlocking the new skill special effects last time, as long as training mode was turned on and practicing Pull-up in the power-storing state, the skill progress bar shot upward like a rocket.

Persisting in high-intensity exercise for a day could at least grind over 120 experience points.

Of course, behind the high returns, the price was also huge,

That process of forcibly stretching muscle fibers in order to maintain judgment was simply a torture unimaginable to ordinary people.

The muscle tearing feeling like death by a thousand cuts would always accompany every exercise process, lingering and unable to be shaken off.

"Hoo..."

Fang Cheng let out a long breath, adjusting his breathing rhythm.

These past two days he had been staying in Haitian Garden, like an ascetic monk, almost turning a blind eye to external affairs, single-mindedly Cultivating in seclusion.

The purpose was to improve his strength again in a short period of time, striving to break through one skill to lv4 first before the next wave of danger arrived.

At that time, whether obtaining new skill special effects or free attribute points, it would inevitably be another substantial improvement in strength for himself.

Facing that behemoth-like Utopia, he could also have more confidence.

Fang Cheng was not particularly worried about his own safety.

What truly made him wary was being implicated through his relations with family and friends around him.

After all, he had his Clone stretched thin, and the Illuminati had not yet grown and developed, making it difficult to protect every single one of them comprehensively.

However, judging from the current situation, Utopia did not seem to be in a rush to counterattack.

Fang Cheng pondered in his heart, pressing both hands on the cold window frame.

That day in the TV station lounge, Cheng Jiashu revealed a key piece of information.

The Xiao Family replaced the identity of the Noah Organization and was cooperating with the military to do some kind of "Human Gene Decryption Project".

Behind this matter, Utopia had promoted it in secret.

Perhaps they were focusing on this important task, and due to a shortage of manpower, they could only temporarily hold their ground.

Coupled with the "truth" he deliberately fabricated and spread earlier, it dragged the Special Investigation Team into it.

And that project they cooperated with the military on had more or less a conflict of interest with the Special Investigation Team.

Perhaps to avoid additional complications, they chose to let the matter rest?

Fang Cheng raised his head, his gaze passing through the glass, looking at the faint buildings in the distance.

No matter which situation it was, for himself, it could buy a period of buffer time.

At least, Dachui and Monkey guarded Jiuchang Street for three whole days and nights, and no suspicious personnel had been found so far.

Moreover, the intelligence squeezed out from Ghost Sickle that night was also of considerable value.

Combined with the inside story about Utopia revealed by the "Professor", the mysterious veil of this organization was being peeled back bit by bit, gradually becoming clear.

The route they took should be an "elite society" route, and there was no strict superior-subordinate relationship internally.

Except for the mysterious leader and a few supporting deputies, the entire organization basically had no regular personnel specifically responsible for external actions.

Every action was a gathering to formulate a plan, and then members executed it separately to complete their respective tasks.

Those so-called core members were mostly leaders or high-level figures of other forces.

It was precisely because these people occupied their own territories that they constituted the intricate and massive power of Utopia.

And as regional bosses, they all had their own careers and territories on weekdays, and would not easily risk themselves.

Just like Ghost Sickle, being the leadership of an international top killer organization, he was a well-known king of killers.

If it weren't for the task issued by Utopia, he should be sitting in the president's office of some skyscraper right now, dispatching subordinates to execute tasks.

How would he have time to personally step forward and fight someone to the death?

Against ordinary ability users, this loose structure could easily solve problems in a crushing posture by casually mobilizing a peripheral force.

But if it was to deal with a ruthless character like Fang Cheng who could single-handedly slay S-class ability users, it wouldn't be so easy.

Unless the mysterious leader personally took action, or mobilized multiple S-class core members at once to encircle and suppress.

But under the current situation where the Special Investigation Team was eyeing them covetously and the situation was unclear, as a shrewd superior, would they really be willing to take the risk of exposing the overall plan and make this choice?

Fang Cheng's eyes narrowed slightly, as sharp as a knife.

No matter how the situation changed, as long as he kept a low profile, hibernated, exercised silently, and accumulated strength.

With the blessing of the panel, his growth speed was definitely unimaginable to those enemies.

When they finally made up their minds to make a move, they might horrifiedly discover that that young man who once needed to resort to tricks to narrowly win had long grown into a terrifying existence they could not shake.

What's more, even now, Fang Cheng was not afraid of the so-called S-class ability users at all, let alone super S-class ability users.

On the contrary, when thinking of those high-and-mighty powerhouses, an indescribable desire surged deep within his heart.

That was the instinctive excitement for battle.

After all, a life-and-death struggle for the improvement of skill experience was worth ten and a half days of boring bitter cultivation!

To quickly level up and break through the Bottleneck, actual combat was the only shortcut.

Fang Cheng's gaze flickered slightly, pulling his sight back from the scenery outside the window and transferring it back to the front.

A detailed settlement log after the battle slowly emerged in the air.

[Sanda experience + 10]

[Sanda lv3 (157/1000)]

[Muay Thai experience + 30]

[Muay Thai lv2 (380/500)]

[Jiu-Jitsu experience + 30]

[Jiu-Jitsu lv2 (419/500)]

[Boxing experience + 60]

[Boxing lv3 (452/1000)]

[Qigong experience + 60]

[Qigong lv2 (467/500)]

That earth-shattering battle with Ghost Sickle that night demolished the entire unfinished building into ruins.

The commotion was so huge and the risk so high that the experience return in exchange was also extremely generous.

Especially the two skills "Jiu-Jitsu" and "Qigong", after this battle, they were already very close to upgrading.

Coupled with "Pull-up" which was being heavily tackled and was about to break through to lv4.

"Three skills approaching the critical point at the same time..."

Fang Cheng looked at the data on the panel, his eyes shining brightly in the darkness like two burning flames.

"It won't take long, I will become your nightmare..."

He muttered softly to himself, his tone calm yet revealing a bone-chilling coldness.

Just at this moment.

"Zizhi—"

A commotion suddenly came from the direction of the kitchen.

That was the sound of the water in the soup pot completely overflowing and pouring onto the scalding gas stove head.

Following closely, a strong aroma of meat drilled into his nasal cavity like a hook.

"Gurgledoo."

Fang Cheng's originally cold expression instantly broke, and his stomach ungratefully let out a thunderous protest.