CHAPTER 72: CHAPTER 72 MUSCLE CONTROL_1

"Ah, the riddler again..." Lu Yuan muttered under his breath toward his phone. Ge Wenjun’s call relieved a considerable amount of the oppressive feeling in his chest.

From the television news, the information Ge Wenjun revealed, and the two Fly Shuttles he had seen a few days ago, it seemed the ’higher-ups’ had likely officially started to act against the forces or organization behind the missing persons case. And they appeared to have achieved some results.

Once they were free, they would deal with the Rat Man issue next. Having been "imprisoned" for so long, experiencing that pervasive and ever-intensifying anxiety every day, that kind of life was finally coming to an end.

Just hold on for a few more days, Lu Yuan prayed silently. Hopefully, the next phone call I get from Ge Wenjun will be to identify the Rat Man’s body at the police station...

"Yuan."

"Huh?"

At this moment, his mom, Zheng Qiuling, walked in with a beaming smile and softly suggested, "Mom’s giving you some money. How about you go on a trip with your classmates? You’ve been studying and practicing martial arts so hard these past few months, and you’ve gotten thinner. You should take a break and have some fun..."

Zheng Qiuling said, tugging at his clothes with a pained expression.

The corner of Lu Yuan’s mouth twitched slightly.

He was now strong enough to kill a bull; even a concrete block couldn’t withstand two blows from him. How on earth did Mom see me as having lost weight? Is it because my Agility increased by 1 point a few days ago, and my physique returned to being well-proportioned?

"No need, Mom. I don’t feel like going out these days," Lu Yuan decisively declined Zheng Qiuling’s kind offer, greeted her, and quickly went upstairs.

Zheng Qiuling watched his retreating figure, somewhat annoyed. "This child, why does he seem to have become even more sullen since he started practicing martial arts?"

"Yuan has grown up; he has his own ideas. Just let him be," Lu Yueping said casually from the side, removing his reading glasses. He carefully placed the report card on the table before him as if it were a treasure.

Zheng Qiuling sighed lightly, then, as if suddenly remembering something, eagerly took out her phone.

I forgot to call Xinghua to tell him that Yuan ranked first in his grade. He’ll be so happy to hear it.

「 」

Lu Yuan spent most of his mornings and afternoons practicing the Crane-shaped Pile.

His current training focus was singular: to raise Crane-shaped Pile to Lv4 as quickly as possible and improve his Constitution. If his Constitution didn’t keep up, he couldn’t freely use the Fighter’s second Core Skill.

The thought of being unable to freely use such a powerful skill made Lu Yuan toss and turn at night, unable to sleep. But what frustrated Lu Yuan was that despite his diligent practice of the Crane-shaped Pile, the progress was unbearably slow.

After reaching Lv3, completing the entire set of eighteen movements of the Crane-shaped Pile only yielded two or three Experience Points. Practicing from morning till night only netted a few dozen Experience Points. At this rate, he feared it would take him more than ten days to level up Crane-shaped Pile to Lv4.

It’s probably related to the increase in my Constitution as well, Lu Yuan mused. The two level-ups in Crane-shaped Pile added 2 points to my Constitution, so the training effect of the same movements on my body would naturally weaken. I even suspect whether leveling up Crane-shaped Pile further would still grant 1 point to the Constitution attribute...

Preparing for the worst, Lu Yuan decided that as soon as the Rat Man issue was resolved, he would immediately talk to Lin Zhiquin about auxiliary elixirs.

He trained until six in the afternoon when his grandfather, Lu Yueping, knocked on the door to call him for dinner.

Lu Yuan received an unusually grand treatment that day.

A full twelve dishes were served on the dinner table. His mom had also temporarily closed the shop and come up specifically to celebrate his achieving the top rank in his grade on his final exam.

Lu Xinghua, who had come home just around dinnertime, rarely smiled, but today he not only praised Lu Yuan several times but also gave him 2,000 yuan as a reward.

Lu Yuan looked at his beaming mom and grandpa, and then at his father, Lu Xinghua, who was dark and thin, wearing a shirt slightly yellowed by sweat and reeking of tobacco smoke.

After a moment’s thought, he took 200 yuan from the 2,000 on the table and didn’t take the rest.

When I get the school scholarship, I’ll give away the money I’ve saved up... Where did Grandpa hide the money last time? Lu Yuan wondered while shoveling rice into his mouth at the dinner table.

「 」

"ROAR!"

The black-furred Rat Man, with bloodshot eyes and a robust physique, roared loudly. Its tail, as thick as two fingers, whipped behind it, leaving afterimages as it slammed against the ground, shattering large chunks of concrete. A ferocious and violent aura, like water about to reach a rolling boil, permeated the entire alley.

Yet this terrifying, boiling-water-like pressure was forcefully suppressed by two grotesque, inhuman hands.

Two arms, thick as an adult’s thigh, with bulging veins and flesh swollen to a dark reddish-black, clamped onto the Rat Man’s shoulders from either side, pinning it firmly.

Suddenly, the veined, bulky fingers, resembling bizarre gloves, fiercely dug into the flesh beneath their grip.

"CRACKLE! CRACKLE!"

The Rat Man’s shoulder blades on both sides were crushed as if they were dough.

The Rat Man opened its blood-filled maw and lunged forward to bite.

However, the monstrous hands gripping its shoulders casually tore it apart to the sides.

"SCREECH! SCREECH! RIP!"

Accompanied by a teeth-grating sound of breaking and tearing.

"SPLASH!"

The nearly two-meter-tall, sturdy Rat Man was completely torn in half. A large amount of foul-smelling, filthy organs and fresh blood gushed out, splattering everywhere.

Lu Yuan let go, and the two halves of the corpse fell to the ground with a PLOP!

He then looked at his own arms. From his fingertips to his shoulders, his flesh was mangled, and large blood vessels had burst, clearly revealing the ruptured fascia and bones beneath. His chest, abdomen, and thighs had also suffered injuries to varying degrees. Lu Yuan looked as if he had been thoroughly plowed by a steel plow—utterly wretched.

But...

"This feels great!"

Lu Yuan glanced at the Rat Man’s mutilated corpse still twitching at his feet, then, with a satisfied expression, fell backward...

In reality, Lu Yuan opened his eyes, a look of still craving more on his face. He couldn’t use [Special Burst] in the real world, but he had certainly had his fill of it in the Consciousness Space these past few days. Tearing apart a transformed Rat Man by hand was child’s play. He had even used this technique to clash head-on with Qin Feng on the second floor of the martial arts dojo for one move. Of course, it was only one move, and the outcome had been even more wretched than what had just happened to his imaginary body.

The ’more than double’ part in the description of [Special Burst] should refer to a certain lower limit... Lu Yuan stared at the text description of [Special Burst] on the Class Panel, his fingertips tapping lightly on the tabletop, producing a rhythmic sound. The lower limit is double, but the upper limit is related to my Constitution and my degree of muscle control.

Lu Yuan stretched out his right hand, watching the muscles under the skin of his right arm ripple gently like waves. He hadn’t activated [Special Burst]; this was an additional benefit it brought. Lu Yuan hadn’t spent these past few days idly; he had been constantly pondering and researching this little trick of muscle control.

If I can master muscle control, then body shape, facial features... these could all be slightly altered. Perhaps if I gain too much Strength and become overly muscular in the future, I could use this to return to a leaner build without needing to add points to Agility...

Lu Yuan was casually thinking and was about to re-enter the Consciousness Space to spar with Lin Zhiquin and Qin Feng when he suddenly heard a clamor of voices in the living room outside his room.