155: Chapter 152: Great Progress in Martial Arts 155: Chapter 152: Great Progress in Martial Arts Please support the official release to access new content.
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“It seems I really have traveled through time—”
In the opulently decorated carriage, Zong Shou watched expressionlessly at a round mirror before him.
The image in the mirror was of a clearly underage boy.
About thirteen, his complexion was pale, but his features were unusually handsome and delicate to an extreme.
A pair of slender phoenix eyes shimmered brilliantly.
However, at this moment, they were full of bitterness and helplessness.
He remembered that not long ago, he still had an utterly ordinary, common face—one that would absolutely go unnoticed in a crowd.
But unexpectedly, after waking from this dream, his body had changed into that of such a beautiful young man.
Although he looked slightly unhealthy and frail, he was indeed extremely handsome without a doubt.
Even those top male celebrities from his previous life, who were famous for their good looks on TV, couldn’t compare.
If anything was still lacking, it was merely his aura.
But at this moment, Zong Shou didn’t feel the slightest bit of joy; instead, he felt utterly lost.
It was as if he was a fish that had freely roamed the vast ocean and suddenly found itself on land.
In this world, besides the suffocating strangeness that threatened to take his life, there was also a sense of fear and loneliness.
Unwilling to give up, Zong Shou pinched his face hard, immediately feeling a sharp pain.
Naturally, he didn’t find any traces of plastic surgery on his face.
“—I can feel pain, so this shouldn’t be a dream, right?
But what exactly is my identity now?
And this place, where is it?”
‘Zong Shou’ was the name in the memories of his current body.
In his previous life, he had another name, but caught in this time and place, that was meaningless to him.
Muttering to himself for a few moments, Zong Shou sighed and looked away.
His heart was filled with despair, having completely given up on the idea of returning or ‘waking up’ from this experience.
In fact, he had been in this world for several days already.
Almost every time he woke from sleep, he would repeat the same actions he had done just now.
And today was the seventh day.
Looking at the interior design of the carriage, it seemed to be from ancient China, yet not quite the same.
Peeking through the curtains, he saw vast stretches of wilderness, endless and lush, giving a sense of openness and refreshing the spirit.
The air was also fresh and invigorating, completely free of the modern world’s pollution.
But looking down, one could see that although the carriage had wheels, it hovered three feet above the ground.
The sixteen single-horned steeds in front were also moving through the air, able to rise and fall at will.
Thus, although the carriage was massive, with just the body measuring forty square meters, it could traverse any complex terrain with ease.
At the moment, no one was guiding the carriage in front; it rushed forward on a straight path, speeding into the distance.
On both sides of the carriage, the marks of sword cuts and blade wounds were particularly concerning.
Zong Shou felt a wave of dizziness and slumped onto the velvet-covered couch.
Then, with just a slight intent, a series of fragmented memories surfaced in his mind.
They were all shattered and incomplete.
Among them were many texts, faces of several people, and also an immense mountain piercing the clouds and a college so large, it occupied most of an island in the middle of a lake.
They felt both foreign and familiar, and vaguely, there was a sense of fear.
Such emotions were truly complicated and strange.
Last of all, in the deepest part of his mind, the only memory that remained intact was full of mysterious characters, formed together into a complete book.
These characters, unlike any language from his world, felt incredibly familiar to him, as though he had mastered them in his previous life.
“Indeterminate Spirit Emperor Technique?
Could it be that this place is the Divine Emperor World?”
Zong Shou’s lips twitched slightly, yet his face was filled with utter confusion and helplessness.
—— “Divine Emperor,” a game that began in 2012 and swept the world, is an online game.
It was uncertain which game company developed it, but all the accompanying gaming gear also appeared on the market suddenly.
It seemed as though overnight, the Earth had moved from 2D and 3D online games to an era of virtual holographic Illusion Realm.
Whether it was that academy, that mountain peak, or the demon clan script in his mind, he had seen them all within Divine Emperor in his previous life.
Indeed, he remembered that when his last consciousness faded in his previous life, it was within the “Divine Emperor” game.
In the battle of the Seven Emperors in the Cloud Realm, he was alone with his sword, fighting the heroes.
Yet at the last moment, his body went numb with a surge of electricity, and he lost all consciousness.
When he woke up again, he was in a different body.
Everything before his eyes was no longer the familiar Earth.
So at this moment, was he in a game, or was he in a real world?
Or could it be that this world and “Divine Emperor” were related?
His head spun again, and Zong Shou simply let go of everything, choosing not to think any longer.
With nothing else to do in this carriage, Zong Shou took out a Green Steel Sword about three feet long and started practicing his swordsmanship in the relatively spacious carriage.
His feet moved forward and backward, with shifts and turns, in sync with his body, making the sword light flash within the not too large nor too small space of the carriage.
Just like in his previous life, every sword form, every step he took was precise to the extreme, almost perfect.
However, after practicing Basic Swordsmanship for just half a moment, Zong Shou was already gasping for breath, his body drenched in cold sweat.
And the silhouette of the sword light inevitably began to distort.
It was solely by his inherent and stubborn belief that he did not give up and managed to keep from collapsing on the ground.
Not until all the strength left in his body was exhausted did Zong Shou stop the sword light and sit on the couch, panting heavily.
Once that intensely focused attention finally dispersed, he could immediately feel every part of his body, every limb and organ, aching as if scorched by flames.
This action was not simply out of boredom, but rather a pure sense of unease.
The world around him, as well as his own situation, made him feel a sense of crisis and urgency.
He was eager to gain some strength, at the very least some ability to protect himself.
In “Divine Emperor,” everything tended toward realism.
Whether it was Martial Arts, language, the Five Senses, combat, or even daily life essentials, there was a complete system.
Most players relied on the system’s default settings for playing and combating, without seeking deep understanding.
Yet there were others who would learn all they could about knowledge and language within Divine Emperor, delve into the principles of Martial Arts, and understand everything about this world to their fullest.
They could even break free from the game’s constraints and create their own pivotal techniques based on the original foundation.
Zong Shou was not only one of them, he was among the best of such people.
Basic Swordsmanship, Basic Boxing, Basic Lightness, Basic Evasion, Basic Step Technique, Basic Guarding, Basic Internal Skill— he had thoroughly researched nearly all the foundational aspects of a Martial Artist and reached the pinnacle of Return to Simplicity, the master level.
And among the hundreds of millions of players, those who had achieved this were only a thousand or so.
In fact, Zong Shou had already grasped all the principles, all the variations and derivations, of Basic Swordsmanship.
What he needed to do now was just to make this body remember them thoroughly and make it second nature.
Yet this body of his was simply too frail.
Just an ordinary level of practice could only last the duration of a cup of tea, with physical strength not even half that of a normal person.
And what was more disheartening was that he could not cultivate the Basic Internal Skill at all.