"Not bad..." Lu Zhen mused to himself as he quickly focused on the skill section.


    [Skills]


    [BATTLE INSTINCT: LEVEL 2]


    [DEVOUR: LEVEL 2]


    [Appraisal eye: level 6]


    [Saber mastery: level 7]


    [Adaptability: level 5]


    [Aura control: level 6]


    [Meditation: level 2]


    [Dual cultivation: level 3]


    [Alchemy: level 2]


    [Sword mastery: level 3]


    [Qian mastery: level 2]


    [Staff master: level 3]


    [Chain mastery: level 3]


    His mind was consumed in calction, thoughts racing as he contemted the most efficient use of his skills.


    Whoosh!


    Lu Zhen''s ears twitched as he heard the air being torn.


    "He has already arrived." Although Lu Zhen''s internal monologue might have seemed lengthy, it happened almost instantly. Ever since his intelligence had levelled up by just one level, his cognitive ability and thought processing speed increased by at least ten times.


    While he could even separate his consciousness to work on two things simultaneously, unfortunately, although Lu Zhen could achieve this, it was an extremely painful process that ced a heavy burden on his brain. His thought process became significantly slower to the point where he could barely think with both of his consciousnesses individually when he attempted to separate them previously.


    So, it was both ineffective and useless at the moment. It was better to have a super brain than two brains that were inefficient.


    Boom!


    Xia Cai came at Lu Zhen again, but this time, Lu Zhen was prepared.


    With a narrowly evasive movement that seemed almost elegant, Lu Zhen dodged the iing attack, causing Xia Cai to miss his target and crash into the ground.


    Turning around on all fours, Xia Cai stared at Lu Zhen with a point of madness in his eyes. His teeth were gritted, and he was ready for the next move. Xia Cai''s hands were also on the ground.


    Grr...


    Xia Cai gritted his teeth, and this made Lu Zhen''s expression change.


    "He looks like a dog," Lu Zhen mused to himself as he vanished from his position.


    In an instant, Lu Zhen appeared next to Xia Cai, sending a barrage of punches with split-second precision. Faced with this assault, Xia Cai whimpered like a dog, attempting to dodge. However, Lu Zhen didn''t give him a chance to recover.


    But something strange urred; as Lu Zhen''s punchesnded on Xia Cai, his power seemed to decrease. The more he hit him, the weaker his attacks became.


    "No, my power is still the same. He is bing stronger and stronger," Lu Zhen observed with disbelief in his eyes.


    Rawr!


    With each powerful blow from Lu Zhen, Xia Cai seemed to undergo a bizarre transformation, growing taller with each impact, while his fangs extended, bing bigger and sharper.


    In a moment of distraction, Xia Cai''s sharp nails raked across Lu Zhen''s skin, leaving a small gash that oozed droplets of blood. Reacting swiftly, Lu Zhen backflipped, narrowly avoiding the trajectory of Xia Cai''s menacing fangs.


    Observing Xia Cai in his transformed state, Lu Zhen''s eyes widened. Xia Cai had not only increased in height but had also taken on a more animalistic appearance.


    "He looks like a big dog now."


    "Let me teach the dog some tricks," Lu Zhen sneered as hended a forceful punch on Xia Cai''s face, sending him crashing through the wall.


    As anticipated, Xia Cai continued to grow in size, but Lu Zhen maintained his confident sneer as he pressed on with his attacks. However, this time, Xia Cai disyed a surprising level of agility, deftly evading Lu Zhen''s punch with a swift and calcted movement.


    The moment Lu Zhen''s punch was about to be redirected, an abrupt halt urred, defying thews of physics themselves.


    "Verdant Whirlwind," Lu Zhen muttered in his head. The Wood Qi in his body converged into his hand, generating a small rotating force that rapidly expanded. In an instant, it enveloped Xia Cai at point-nk range.


    Ahh!


    Xia Cai''s agonizing scream resonated in the surroundings as the wind, carrying the force of wood Qi, cut into his skin.


    The intense pain seemed to bring rity to Xia Cai''s red eyes, rendering him more rational with each passing moment.


    Lu Zhen frowned as he observed this unexpected development.


    Swish!


    Suddenly, Lu Zhen''s instincts screamed danger, prompting him to duck and evade a familiar sword that swiftly approached, aimed directly at him.


    "Huh," Lu Zhen looked behind to find the withered old man still standing there, his eyespletely lifeless.


    "This guy really threw a sword at me at the end of his life?" Lu Zhen mused to himself. He quickly turned around to witness Xia Cai''s suffering in the Verdant Whirlwind. Though the cuts were small individually, the sheer quantity inflicted upon him made the pain undoubtedly excruciating. Thousands of these tiny cuts could drive an ordinary person to the brink of insanity.


    Even with Xia Cai''s increased power, he remained a third-stage martial artist. In his transformed state, he was still a weak opponentpared to Lu Zhen, whosebat power could exhaust a second-stage martial artist to death.


    Despite Xia Cai''s growth in size and strength, he couldn''t achieve the critical breakthrough required to be a second-stage martial artist, neither with his body nor his Qi.


    Just like Lu Zhen before his own breakthrough, Lu Zheni''s body needed the support of the Void and the adaptability skill for the muscle to start condensing properly for him to truly have the strength of the sound-stage martial artist.


    And the other way to be the strength of the second-stage martial artist was to be strengthened with fully condensed Qi. Only then one can have the true strength of the sound-stage martial artist.


    "Let''s end this now," Lu Zhen dered with a shake of his head as he walked towards Xia Cai. His hand, resembling a saber, emitted a domineering, sharp aura that sent shivers down one''s spine.


    Boom!


    Suddenly, an explosion urred, sending dust flying everywhere and blocking Lu Zhen''s vision. He stood stunned, trying to look around, but the dust made it impossible. Focusing on his five senses, he strained to sense anyone, but to no avail.


    "Hmm, should I use it?" Lu Zhen mused to himself helplessly. He slowly closed his eyes, focusing on his brain as he tapped into the spirit energy that he previously couldn''t ess.


    To his surprise, he could barely sense a strand of mental energy. Without hesitation, he tapped into the one strand he had sensed, and the mental energy slowly moved towards his eyes, gradually merging with them.


    A strange transformation urred as Lu Zhen''s vision changed to ck and white lines.


    He looked around, unable to see the dust with only faint outlines of objects in ck.


    Suddenly, he spotted two bright red lights to his left. Quickly tapping out of his mental energy, Lu Zhen''s world became colourful again, as if he had been seeing an illusion before.


    "So basically, an x-ray," he thought with a sneer as he took out the hidden weapon that he had given to the ancestor Lu to refine: a needle emitting a sharp aura at the end of its circr tail, it was attached with a long, almost invisible string connected to another identical needles, all glinting with a terrifying sharpness.


    It was pitch ck to the point that Lu Zhen found it difficult to see.


    This was a weapon he had conceived a long time ago. Wanting to test the effectiveness of the hidden weapon, he caught the thin string with one hand and one of the needles with another hand.


    In a swift motion, he threw the needle directly at the two previous red lights he had seen.


    Lu Zhen''s face morphed into excitement when he heard a grunt from the ce. His inner monologue took only a blink of an eye for his brain to calcte so Lu Zhen had attacked in a blink of an eye.


    With fast speed, he reached the ce only to see some patches of blood left on the ground, with Xia Cai nowhere to be found. The strangest thing was that the blood was only in one ce.


    He quickly tapped into his mental power, and the world instantly became ck and white for him.


    Lu Zhen saw the two red lights leaving the building, which caused him to sneer.


    "Do you think you can escape?" he roared as his speed increased, instantly disappearing from his position almost like a sh step.


    Lu Zhen quickly homed in on the red light as he punched with power, his posture resembling a powerful tree.


    "Verdant Grove Fist."


    Instantly, all the wood Qi in his body travelled to his fist in a strange pattern that resembled the cirction of a tree.


    Boom!


    As Lu Zhen punched at the two red lights, he felt like he was hitting a brick, as the object he hit didn''t even move.


    All he heard was a contemptuous grunt as his instinct screamed with danger. His body muscles cramped, and his thought process slowed down.