Wu Dao hadn't left the Red Fire Mine.
Instead, he found a mine shaft to use as the site of his transition. If he didn't vent the foul resentment that had been building in his chest for three months,
he wouldn't be at ease even if he went to the Ends of the Earth!
"Come on, let me see just how miraculous you are!"
In the darkness of the mine shaft.
Wu Dao sat cross-legged on the ground, his eyes glowing with a divine light. Focusing his Spiritual Will on the attribute panel, he tapped the "+" symbol after the Essence Devouring Art.
HUM!
Instantly!
Wu Dao felt a tremor both inside and out, reaching all the way to his soul and spirit. An invisible power seemed to form a cocoon, enveloping him completely.
A surging liquid, even more refined than Healing Fluid, gushed from deep within his body. He felt as if he had returned to the womb, or was standing on the warm spring earth.
Every cell, organ, and even every strand of hair on his body seemed to cheer, tingling as they transformed into billions of tiny mouths, greedily devouring the warm current.
He felt ethereal, as if he were drifting aimlessly.
It was absolute bliss!
This feeling of a Life Transition was a hundred times more euphoric than sex!
Wu Dao's face was a mask of intoxicated pleasure. If the Essence Devouring Art hadn't been constantly maintaining his clarity of mind, he would have gladly drowned in this blissful state forever.
An unknown amount of time passed.
Perhaps it was a few minutes, or perhaps two to four hours.
CRACK—
The invisible cocoon shattered. Wu Dao snapped open his deep eyes, and a sharp glint of light—wise and majestic—pierced the darkness, as if a Divine Being from the Nine Heavens had opened its eyes.
CRACKLE POP~
He stretched his magnificent physique, his bones and tendons crackling in unison like a great bear awakening from hibernation. His body naturally radiated a ferocious aura that would make all beasts grovel.
His tiger-and-bear strength had transformed into the might of a wild elephant, and his leopard-and-antelope agility had reached a new level. His short bursts of speed could now rival a raptor's dive. Compared to before, his power had multiplied several times over!
This was no exaggeration!
Wu Dao had complete experience with Potential Release, so he knew exactly what level of power a Heaven Stealer possessed at each stage!
As his strength surged,
Wu Dao's body underwent new changes as well.
First, his height shot up again, reaching two and a half meters!
His back was as thick as a tiger's, his waist as stout as a bear's!
When he flexed, the muscles of his torso bulged and his lats flared out. From a distance, his granite-like muscle groups resembled an ancient giant crab, large enough to blot out the sun and utterly terrifying to behold.
The toughness of his skin had changed again!
The previous rubbery texture had become keratinous, as if his entire body were clad in a layer of topaz-colored tortoiseshell.
Scraping it with a sharp rock only left a white mark. Ordinary blades and blows could now barely pose a threat; his defensive capabilities had been massively enhanced.
Then there were his muscles.
Every single fiber of every muscle in his body was now like tens of thousands of brass wires twisted together, granting him a tremendous leap in explosive power!
His tendons were as resilient as bowstrings. When he tensed his body, he resembled a greatbow drawn to its limit!
His internal organs were now like the engine of a colossal war beast, brimming with power. Get close enough, and you could hear the thunderous, drum-like beating of his heart.
CLANG! CLANG!
Wu Dao gnashed his two rows of serrated, shark-like teeth, which now gleamed with a black metallic luster. As his powerful jaw muscles clenched, a shower of sparks erupted from his mouth.
SCREECH!
His five hooked, black-jade-like nails scraped against the cave wall, sending sparks flying as they carved five deep grooves into the stone.
Beyond all this,
there were other, more subtle enhancements to his tissues, too numerous to list.
And finally.
HWOOSH—
Wu Dao exhaled slowly. The intricate muscles of his right arm, like coiling dragons and crouching tigers, tensed and bulged as explosive power began to gather.
His bones, the body of the bow!
His tendons, the string!
His fist, the mighty arrow!
BOOM!
With a sonic boom, the black rock wall before him buckled, imprinted with a clear Fist Seal. A spiderweb of cracks spread outward, and stone fragments shot out like bullets.
He retracted his fist and looked.
The keratinous skin over his knuckles was shredded, but he was still a layer away from drawing blood, a testament to his terrifying defense.
However, that wasn't Wu Dao's main concern. He was focused on the pain feedback from the bones in his hand after unleashing a full-power strike.
The amount of force a person can exert is inextricably linked to the hardness of their bones!
If one's bones weren't hard enough, blindly attacking with full force was no different from using the Seven Injuries Fist—injuring oneself before the enemy. After all, external wounds heal easily, but bone injuries are another matter.
'A faint pain, negligible.'
Wu Dao assessed the feeling and was reassured. The attribute panel's upgrade, just like the Essence Devouring Art itself, was a comprehensive enhancement; no aspect of it was watered down.
His bones were now like translucent white jade, several times harder than before. He could perfectly control his transformed body's full might without fear of injuring himself.
He sat cross-legged and checked his attribute panel.
[Physique: Beast King (Great Success)]
[Extraordinary: Essence Devouring Art (55%) +]
[Teleportation Points: 9.84]
Ten units of Teleportation Points had advanced his Human Potential Release progress by an entire stage, taking him directly to Great Success and saving him countless hours of bitter training!
'So this is what it feels like to use a cheat?'
The feeling was surreal and incredible, filling Wu Dao with an inexplicable sense of satisfaction.
At the same time, he noticed the "+" symbol after Essence Devouring Art had turned gray again.
The feedback from it had also changed: the number of Teleportation Points required for the next upgrade had skyrocketed to 150.
'It increased by that much?'
Wu Dao was surprised, but a moment of thought led to an epiphany.
Each stage of Human Potential Release was divided into Minor Achievement, Great Success, and Limit.
For example, the progression from Expert to Beast King.
25% Potential Release was Expert Minor Achievement, 35% was Great Success, and the final phase, from 35% to 44%, was the Limit stage.
If he were to achieve this through his own Cultivation, he would have to advance step-by-step, unlocking every bit of potential along the way. The attribute panel, however, let him leap across an entire stage at once.
In other words,
if he continued to use the panel to upgrade the Essence Devouring Art,
it would vault him directly past the 55% to 64% Limit stage, bringing him to 65% Potential Release and elevating his Physique to the next domain.
The 65% Human Potential Release stage.
This was the Heroic Domain.
On the surface, it was only a 1% difference from the Beast King Domain, but the gap in power was qualitative.
Every Heaven Stealer who reached the Heroic Domain possessed power comparable to the peerless heroes from wuxia novels who could dominate entire regions.
Heroic Minor Achievement!
Near-supersonic movement, superhuman strength, a Steel Body, and Blood and Flesh Spirit. The physical body could ignore light firearms, allowing one to move freely through an army of thousands. Compared to a Beast King, the power difference was far more than tenfold; it was a complete qualitative leap.
On the surface, those one hundred fifty Teleportation Points seemed to only cover a 10% jump, but the most crucial part was the final 1% of true transformation from 64% to 65%!
'If the cost for each transition keeps increasing tenfold, or even a hundredfold, then just how many of those bizarre things will I have to eat?'
Wu Dao's thoughts came back to the present. He could still feel a hot, full sensation in his stomach, and when he opened his mouth, the taste of Snake Eggs filled the air.
To be honest, he really didn't want to become a gourmand, especially one who feasted on such inhuman things.
Unfortunately, both the attribute panel and the Essence Devouring Art were inseparable from the act of "eating."
'Heh. The food chain is all about eating and being eaten. If I don't eat, how will I grow? How will I get stronger?' Wu Dao shook his head, finding his earlier disgust laughable.
A predator that's picky about its food doesn't get the chance to rule the forest.
WHOOSH—
A cold wind gusted into the mine shaft.
The once-pitch-black tunnel was now filled with a faint glimmer of light.
Wu Dao looked up. The world outside the mine entrance was hazy, caught in the transition between dark and light.
"Dawn is finally breaking..."
Wu Dao gave a grim smile and cracked his slightly stiff neck, a savage, murderous light brewing in his eyes.
RIP!
He ripped away the tattered, crusted rags on his upper body, caked with blood and grime. Like the Hulk, he was left wearing only a pair of shorts, revealing a magnificent physique that looked to be cast from iron. His thick black hair billowed about him, making him look like a Demon God.
WHOOSH—
With a push of his feet, his Violent Dragon Physique kicked up a gale that swirled and howled. In the blink of an eye, he vanished from the mouth of the mine, streaking toward the shanty town.
...
The rain.
It had stopped at some point during the night.
The distant horizon was tinged with the fish-belly white of dawn, and the air carried the distinct, earthy scent of post-rain coolness.
Red Fire Mine, the shanty town.
On the filthy, muddy ground, puddles from the night's rain had mixed with blood, forming a small, gurgling stream.
This stream of red and black water flowed past rows of deathly silent wooden shacks, lapping at the desiccated corpses that lay scattered about, each one bearing a bizarre, twisted smile.
SPLAT!
A longboot, patterned with snakes and inlaid with silver thread, stomped heavily into the bloody water, splattering mud onto the hem of a long, cyan brocade robe.
CLICK! CLACK!
In a pale palm, two black Iron Pills were being furiously rolled together, producing faint sparks and betraying their owner's simmering rage.
"Where is my medicine?!"
Meng Qingshuang's once effeminately handsome face was now dark and twisted with fury. His snake-like pupils were bloodshot as he roared at the trembling Four Seas Gang Stewards. He was like an Evil Ghost crawled out of Hell, all traces of the dashing, elegant young master gone.
Before him,
a stooped, black-robed old man held a brocade box. Within it, resting on green silk, were twenty-four jade-green snake eggs.
But!
This wasn't the right number!
There were supposed to be fifty!
Only twenty-four remained.
More than half had vanished into thin air—or rather, someone had beaten him to them!
This meant that the Four Seas Gang's years of planning had become a joke. All the immense manpower and resources they had invested had been for naught, merely setting the stage for someone else.
In the southern part of Guangqing Prefecture, the Four Seas Gang was law. They had never suffered such a huge loss, nor had they ever been so humiliated!
As one of the Young Masters, Meng Qingshuang could already picture his adoptive father's grim, disappointed expression, and the mocking stares of those other bastards.
How could he not be enraged?
He wished he could flay and devour the person who had stolen his prize right this instant!
Yet, he hadn't lost his mind completely.
The Red Fire Mine was located in a vast desert, with no signs of life for hundreds of miles. Only the upper echelon of the Four Seas Gang knew about the "cultivation" project; the lower-ranking grunts only knew bits and pieces.
Therefore,
this had to be an inside job—someone at the Red Fire Mine colluding with an outsider!
"Master Si, I truly don't know! You saw it yourself, we were all under your watch last night..."
The black-robed old man held up the brocade box, cold sweat pouring from his brow. Old and wily, he naturally knew what Meng Qingshuang was thinking.
But this truly had nothing to do with the Stewards. Even if they'd eaten a bear's heart and a Leopard's Gall, they wouldn't dare cross the Four Seas Gang, the vicious tiger of Guangqing Prefecture.
SLAP!
But before he could finish, Meng Qingshuang snatched the brocade box and slapped him viciously across the face.
The old man's face met the muddy ground in a brutal kiss. Several of his teeth went flying, but though furious, he dared not speak a word.
"I don't want excuses, I want facts! And the fact is that over twenty units of Great Medicine are gone!"
A suspicious, tyrannical light filled Meng Qingshuang's eyes. He scanned the surrounding Stewards, Supervisors, and guards, all of whom had their heads bowed, silent as stones. Just as he was about to speak again—
a man with short hair and a rifle slung over his back leaped out from the shanty town. He had a dark, ruddy complexion and a prominent, hooked nose. After a brief, cupped-fist salute, he reported, "Master Si, we've found something."