City Center Hospital.
Nurses’ station.
“Oh, it’s Xiao Yuan. Your mother is undergoing treatment and won’t be done until very late. She said you should go home and rest first.”
The middle-aged nurse had a kind face and an amiable manner.
“It’s fine. I’ll wait for her outside,” Xu Yuan said.
There were quite a few chairs in the corridor outside the ward area.
Xu Yuan sat down on one of them.
He actually still had quite a lot of homework.
Should he do it or not?
He might as well do a little.
No.
He had to take it seriously.
He needed to familiarize himself with this world’s knowledge system as quickly as possible.
He took out a copy of Senior Year Artifact Refining Exercise Collection (Volume One), flipped to page 19, and began working on the problems.
According to the original body’s memories—
Nothing especially major had happened over these three days.
It could even be called completely uneventful.
Until the night of the third day.
The original body had been walking along the road when he was suddenly kidnapped and knocked unconscious. Then he was stabbed by a sword, carried into the air, and nailed to the Jianghe Bridge.
—Who was he supposed to reason with about that!
Xu Yuan shook his head and casually ticked off a few true-or-false questions before starting on the fill-in-the-blanks.
“Artifact refining can be used to construct civilian facilities such as houses, bridges, and tunnels. It can also be used to construct ( ) facilities, as well as ( ) and ( ) type items.”
Xu Yuan filled in the blanks in order: “military,” “weapons,” and “armor.”
Next question.
He was reading the question when, out of the corner of his eye, he suddenly glimpsed a figure.
That person was standing in the corridor, walking unsteadily, and was heading right toward his position.
Who—
Why was this person sizing him up while walking over?
An acquaintance of his parents?
Should he greet them or something?
Xu Yuan raised his head and looked.
The corridor was empty.
No one was there.
His eyes had played tricks on him just now!
Xu Yuan narrowed his eyes and stared straight down the corridor, looking a few more times.
There really was no one.
Fine.
Maybe he had strained his eyes too much. Later, he’d buy some eyedrops and use them.
He lowered his head and continued filling in the blanks.
One question finished.
The second question.
Xu Yuan was seriously reading the problem when that figure appeared once more at the edge of his vision.
It was just a few meters to his left.
A black shadow.
It stood in the corridor, clearly closer than it had been the first time.
—He wasn’t seeing things!
Xu Yuan abruptly raised his head.
The incandescent lights on the ceiling shone down, filling everything with glaring brightness.
There was nowhere for anything to hide.
And yet—
There was no one in the corridor.
Silence.
Several breaths passed.
From the nurses’ station in the distance came the sound of a nurse answering the phone, making everything seem all the more real.
No.
This definitely wasn’t a dream. It was a real night to begin with.
Xu Yuan fell silent, gradually tightening his grip on his pen.
“Shop.”
He called out silently in his mind.
The “Qi Refiner’s Combat Preparation Room” immediately appeared before his eyes.
The shelves still had no items refreshed on them.
But a small pile of gold coins had appeared beside the shelves, with a number marked next to it:
“21 coins.”
—These were the gold coins Xu Yuan had obtained from killing the traffickers and assassins during the “Easy Difficulty” match.
Gold coins could buy things!
But there were still no goods right now.
What should he do?
Xu Yuan slowly lowered his head and began writing on the test paper again.
“The hand seals used to control a great artifact-refining cauldron are divided into ( ) categories in total. At the high school level, one may study the first ( ) categories.”
He had memorized this.
He could write the answer directly.
Xu Yuan began to write, but his pen suddenly stopped.
Out of the corner of his eye, that black figure appeared again.
This time.
The black figure was sitting right beside him, quietly watching him do his homework.
Xu Yuan acted as if he saw nothing and kept his head lowered, answering the question seriously.
Was there any way—
to obtain a weapon he could use for battle?
Hurry.
Any weapon would do.
Even a pair of knuckledusters would work!
Along with his intense will, a line of faintly glowing small words suddenly appeared in the void:
“Spend one gold coin to refresh the shelves once.”
Why didn’t you say so earlier!
Xu Yuan immediately paid one gold coin.
In the next instant.
Two items suddenly appeared on the shelves.
A short saber.
On the tag in front of the saber was written detailed information:
“Nightwalker.”
“Qi Refining Stage short saber, Excellent grade.”
“Qi Blade +1.”
“Price: 2 gold coins.”
The saber belonged to the weapons category.
Some people were born unable to use swords, so they chose the more common saber as a substitute.
There was also a Water-Fire Daoist robe.
The tag read:
“Alchemy Daoist Robe.”
“Qi Refining Stage Daoist garment, Common grade.”
“Dust Removal +1, Fire Avoidance +1.”
“Price: 3 gold coins.”
—Only two pieces of equipment!
Xu Yuan finished writing the answer on the test paper, then suddenly heard a burst of footsteps.
In the corridor.
A man pushed a wheelchair past.
Sitting in the wheelchair was an old man with a cast on his leg.
Several lively men and women chatting among themselves followed beside them.
The black shadow immediately vanished.
After these people walked past and left the corridor on this floor—
The black shadow appeared again.
This time.
It was pressed closely against Xu Yuan.
Xu Yuan kept his head down doing questions, while it leaned over and said softly beside his ear:
“You—”
Hiss!
A short saber suddenly pierced through the black shadow.
Xu Yuan had made his move!
The black shadow merely trembled lightly, yet it did not care at all that it had been struck. There was even an inexplicable delight in its tone:
“You have entered the Dao.”
Xu Yuan withdrew his saber and retreated, following up with several more slashes.
Qi blades like white lines flew out along the edge of the blade, but the black shadow dodged them with a flicker of its body.
However, the moment it moved, Xu Yuan’s saber moved with it—
With millisecond-level reaction speed, Xu Yuan lunged forward together with his saber and executed a move from the Yan Song Sword Art—
Arc Dance!
The short saber and his body turned into an arc, winding down from the wall and slashing straight toward the black shadow!
“Not bad.”
The black shadow praised him, then flickered again, immediately retreating to evade.
But the moment it moved, it met a strand of white qi blade—
The qi blade sank into the black shadow’s body, yet it was like a stone dropped into the sea, causing no damage at all.
“Defensive gear?”
Xu Yuan’s expression grew faintly grave.
In this kind of close combat, he had already brought out all his reaction speed, prediction, and killing moves.
But the other party seemed to still have room to spare.
Then the black shadow took a step forward and suddenly disappeared.
Yet a voice once again sounded by Xu Yuan’s ear:
“Follow me.”
Xu Yuan looked around.
—He couldn’t see it!
Damn it.
Where was it hiding?
Xu Yuan suddenly stopped searching.
Because the black shadow was standing in the empty corridor, hands clasped behind its back, silent, observing Xu Yuan.
Xu Yuan slowly turned around and faced the black shadow.
Silence.
“Who are you?” Xu Yuan asked.
No response.
Deathly stillness.
Ring, ring, ring—
A burst of phone ringing abruptly sounded.
The black shadow raised its hand slightly, signaling for him to answer the phone.
Xu Yuan stared at the black shadow as he took out his phone and pressed the answer button.
“Hello…”
“Mom, I’m not waiting outside.”
“I’ve already gone home. Yes, I’ll come see you tomorrow.”
“Okay, I’ll sleep early. You should too.”
The call ended.
The black shadow silently waited for him to finish the call. Only then did it raise its hand and lift one finger.
A faint voice immediately sounded beside Xu Yuan’s ear:
“I have come to kill you. You need to last at least ten seconds.”
Before the voice had even faded.
The black shadow suddenly vanished.
It crossed several dozen meters in an instant and appeared at Xu Yuan’s side.
Almost at the same moment—
Xu Yuan pressed his thumb against the saber hilt, while his other four fingers rapidly shifted the short saber’s direction, trembling as he slashed five times in succession.
Flying Swallow Chain!
If the boys in his class were here, they would definitely look at him in surprise.
The Yan Song Sword Art had four moves in total, and it was one of the top sword arts that could be learned in high school.
Flying Swallow Chain was the final move in this sword art.
Commonly known as the “ultimate move.”
—That was what all the senior-year students called this move.
The original body could only barely execute it, and often made mistakes, failing to meet the scoring requirements for exams.
To be truly proficient in this sword art, one had to slash out at least three sword shadows in succession!
But Xu Yuan’s reactions, hand speed, and even combat awareness, under the pressure of a life-or-death crisis, instead perfected this move and pushed it to the limit that this body could currently execute.
—He mobilized his memories, coordinated his body to operate the sword art, and instantly slashed out five streams of sword qi!
Not sword shadows, but sword qi!
After all, he had already entered the Dao and was now a true cultivator.
When this sword technique was unleashed, it naturally drew upon the spiritual power within his body, condensing the sword shadows into incomparably sharp sword qi, also raising the power of this “Flying Swallow Chain” to an even higher level.
Five sharp white lines abruptly appeared, slicing through the air with a “woo woo” sound as they slashed toward the black shadow in an instant.
“Heh…”
The black shadow dodged repeatedly, drifting backward as it said softly:
“I underestimated you.”
Its voice stopped abruptly.
Xu Yuan was holding the saber in one hand, while his other hand formed a spell seal.
—At the high school level, they had already learned various hand seals for controlling alchemical fire. It was just that without spiritual power, they could not use them.
But now, as Xu Yuan circulated his spiritual power, he immediately drew forth the fire of the five elements.
Alchemical Fire: Furnace Incineration!
Boom—
A mass of raging flame shot toward the black shadow.
This spell had calculated the opponent’s movement and landing point precisely, as if the opponent had taken the initiative to run into his flames!
At the most dangerous moment, with the most timely reaction, he chose the most correct strategy and unleashed a fatal attack that would determine the entire course of the battle!
—This was the true value of a global esports champion!