Book 3, Chapter 26: Basement

Book 3, Chapter 26: Basement

After waking up the next day, Chen Chuan continued with his daily training. When noon arrived, he contacted Wu Bei to tell him that he was going to check Liuyu Street.

He had already asked Wu Bei to check the place. It was located in Glowing Dew District, southwest of Central City. Many foreigners were gathered there, especially those from island countries.

Wu Ruo’s registered address was a high-end apartment, but he never hid the fact that he also owned the house on the hill. Yet this place was never linked to him. It might have served as his safe house and secret base.

In the end, Wu Ruo had deleted the message he wanted to send, so whatever he told Chen Chuan had to be real.

Also, Wu Ruo had just passed away, and he hadn’t had any monitoring implants, so those in contact with him shouldn’t know about his death yet. This was the best time for Chen Chuan to investigate the place.

Once he was ready, he left the university and took the tram there.

On the way, he checked the communication platform. He had picked one of the profile pictures the platform provided at random and ended up with a dark, shadowy figure that had no additions nor cool effects. After giving it some thought, Chen Chuan chose to not make any changes. It was good enough.

When he arrived at the tram station, he stepped out onto Liuyu Street. The place was a lively downtown area. As he stood there, he saw the flyover that he had seen outside Central City. Since he was quite a distance away, it was like a rainbow that stretched across the horizon.

The flyover extended over the ocean and connected to an island beyond the mainland. At the end, even though it was in the distance, Chen Chuan could see the faint outline of a towering council hall built by multiple companies and the government.

After observing them for a while, Chen Chuan blended into the moving crowd. The houses were relatively small, though the shops were spacious. Most of them had decorative door curtains hanging over their entrances. Most of the people passing by were foreigners from the island countries. In comparison, there were few Great Shun Republic citizens.

Of course, there were also tall buildings. One of them could be considered a landmark of the place—a large Ferris wheel that was spinning slowly.

It belonged to Ferris Wheel, the company one of the groups that tried to intercept Black Orchid Co.’s goods worked for.

As Chen Chuan walked down the street, he noticed that the company’s emblem was everywhere. Lao Feng had mentioned that it was a recently formed company supported by multiple island countries.

After a while, Wu Bei reported, “No one’s following you or monitoring you. Everything’s normal.”

“Got it,” Chen Chuan answered.

Excited, Wu Bei said, “I’ve located the place on the map for you. Just follow it, and you’ll reach it.”

Chen Chuan saw the marker on his Realm Pass and thanked Wu Bei. After that, he no longer strolled down the street but headed straight to No. 47.

Two long alleys branched off the street toward No. 47, and a few drunkards lay there. There were even suspicious puddles and vomit around them.

Chen Chuan cast them a glance. Based on their breathing, they were just normal people. He headed down one of the alleys filled with two-story houses positioned quite far from each other. He went straight until he reached the last house with the sign showing the number “47.”

Moving quickly, he stepped on the wall and jumped over the fence, then casually landed in the courtyard. After observing it a little, he found no abnormalities and went to the door. With just a light push, the latch bolt shattered neatly into two.

Once he opened the door, he looked inside. The place barely had any furniture. It was empty, as if no one had been there for a long time.

Chen Chuan went in and soon finished checking the place. There was nothing special about the two floors, but he did find a locked basement. So, he yanked off the lock and the thick chain around it, opened the door, and went down the stairs.

There was barely anything inside the basement as well. Aside from some training equipment, there was only a built-in safe.

Then, Chen Chuan saw a flashlight on the table. He turned it on and found that it was still functioning. With the flashlight in hand, he went back and shone it on the safe with the combination lock. He spun the dial according to the password Wu Ruo had given him.

Soon, he heard a click. With the handle in hand, he pulled the safe open and checked it from top to bottom a few times using the flashlight. There were boxes of medicine stacked inside.

Chen Chuan took one out and found that it was packed full of medicine meant for Third Limit martial artists to train, but they didn’t seem to be meant for Wu Ruo’s daily use. They had simply been stored here, because there were no signs of the safe being opened often.

There was also a small number of medicines for First Limit and Second Limit martial artists. Wu Ruo didn’t have any use for them, so it was highly likely that he had been saving them for the students he wanted to teach.

Aside from these, there was a stack of papers and a notebook in a hidden compartment, so Chen Chuan took them out and flipped through them.

They held Wu Ruo’s training records and teaching notes. None of them talked about Void Training but instead were proper teaching insights and reflections. They spoke mainly about how to help students improve, motivate them, build up their confidence, and other things.

Chen Chuan checked the date. The notes were from around ten years ago.

Back then, Wu Ruo had put his heart and soul into teaching, but at some point for an unknown reason, he had turned into the man Chen Chuan met.

The notes were really useful as a reference. After all, they were left behind by a Third Limit martial artist.

Chen Chuan skimmed through everything and decided to take the notes. After that, he checked the notebook that had seen plenty of use before. It had a lot of empty pages. The written pages had words that were practically scribbles with lots of corrections, but they caught Chen Chuan’s attention.

The Third Limit should be as far as I can go. It’s unlikely I’ll ever be able to reach the Fourth Limit. I’ve reached the slump my master mentioned. This might be as far as my gift can take me. Normal medicine can no longer help with my training. Unless...

Honestly, compared to the students, I’m still lucky. I have a path available for me, while they have no roads to take.

I think this is doable... This path can help many students as well... If I succeed, I might be able to bypass my limit. I’m not sure, but I have to try... Still, I lack funds and equipment.

Hang on. I’ve thought of someone. Perhaps I can approach him.

He said yes! I’m so happy. If Void Training can be promoted to the masses, it will not only help me, but also all the normal students.

At this point, many of the pages were ripped off.

𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

I don’t have the resolve to do it, but he said that for the greater good, these are all necessary sacrifices. Yet if I do this, would I have created Void Training to kill or save people?

He said that the day is getting closer, and the changes are growing more intense. We have to seize every second and can’t waste time thinking about other things. I believe he’s right, in some sense.

The experiments are moving forward, and everything seems to be going smoothly until that step. They always get stuck at that step. Just what on earth is going wrong?

I failed again. I might need to find a new approach. I can’t sacrifice any more students. Perhaps I should try it on myself. I’m a Third Limit martial artist. I should be fine.

I think I’ve made progress!

I don’t understand it. Why do I keep getting stuck there?! I won’t accept this. I have to succeed!

Recently, I’ve been finding it harder to think straight. He gave me some medicine, which helped a bit. I’ve been able to calm down and think again.

There were no longer any legible entries after this, only scattered, messy words that couldn’t be strung together to form a single proper sentence. Chen Chuan couldn’t make any sense of them, which made it obvious that Wu Ruo’s state of mind had deteriorated quite a lot.

Chen Chuan took some time thinking and got a general idea of what had happened. Wu Ruo had run into a wall during his training but couldn’t find any way to get past it, so he took another path to try and bypass it.

Chen Chuan could understand running into a wall during training, because Cheng Zitong had told him that there was a limit to how much a martial artist’s mutated tissue could grow. Those who were naturally gifted could grow their mutated tissue for a long time and even extend it through medicine and proper training methods.

Meanwhile, the mutated tissue of those without talent stopped growing at a certain point.

The slump mentioned in the notes was one of the theoretical stops.

To put it simply, if a martial artist’s mutated tissue stayed in a state where it could potentially rob the body of its normal functions at any moment, it was growing at a high speed. By training during this state, martial artists could learn quickly. This state usually started when they started practicing their breathing technique.

If mutated tissue gradually fell out of this state, it would enter a hibernation phase. It might awaken later and grow rapidly again, but if that did not happen, the mutated tissue would have entered a slump.

If the martial artist remained in this state and couldn’t find a way to awaken their mutated tissue again, it would eventually fall into eternal sleep. Then, it would start to deteriorate.

Chen Chuan couldn’t help but think of himself. He wasn’t someone born with mutated tissue and had only managed to get to his current state by relying on higher than usual quantities of medicine and stimulation from supernatural beings.

Up to this point, his mutated tissue had shown no sign of waking up a second time to go through the period of rapid growth again.

He had only been practicing martial arts for two years, so it had only been a short time since he started.

Even so, he had to start thinking. According to the information Wu Ruo provided, there might be a way to make his mutated tissue wake up again.

Whether that was true or not, he had to first reach the Third Limit.

Chen Chuan took another look at the medicine and notes that he wanted to take with him, but he couldn’t put them in his room. He had to find a safer place.