Chapter 120 – Rebirth, Walking on Walls

A full moon, a black river, and a sea of swaying Red Spider Lilies.

And…

A woman bathing in the black river.

“Waiting for me directly in the river this time?”

Lu Yuan looked at the woman in the black dress standing quietly in the Styx, her back to him, and pondered.

He was now in the midst of a lush field of Red Spider Lilies.

Because he had mentally prepared himself in advance, he wasn’t too surprised.

“Is she really the legendary Death Goddess, Lamashtu?”

With the experience from last time, Lu Yuan had no intention of wading into the Styx this time.

He simply sat down where he was, gazing at the woman in the river and letting his thoughts wander.

The woman in the black dress had her back to him, making it impossible to see her face.

But her figure was extremely alluring.

Her long hair and the black, lace-patterned dress she wore were soaked in the river water.

They spread out slightly on the river’s surface.

The huge full moon cast its silver light onto the river, breaking into fragments of light, which the woman gathered in her hands and lifted high above her head.

Then it slowly flowed down her arms.

She repeated this motion over and over, looking as though she was bathing.

Or perhaps dancing in the river…

Who knows how much time passed.

“Plop.”

Lu Yuan suddenly lifted his head, waking up with a start from his desk.

The small alarm clock on his desk ticked rapidly, showing 3:23 AM.

“Has so much time already passed?”

Lu Yuan was dazed. He only remembered watching the woman in the black dress, who looked like Lamashtu, bathing in the Styx within the crow dream.

He waited for her to turn around.

And as he waited…

He suddenly woke up.

“Forget it, this dream isn’t important.”

Lu Yuan shook his head, temporarily pushing the crow dream to the back of his mind.

He directly pulled up the professional panel.

[Profession: Death Messenger (Extraordinary) lv3 (132/400)]

“My professional experience increased by over a hundred points…”

Seeing the increase in experience points on the panel, Lu Yuan found it matched his expectations.

This “experience pill” was too small, barely a third of the previous one.

Lu Yuan was still pleasantly surprised that it increased his professional experience by over a hundred points.

He glanced at the Four Basic Attributes, which remained unchanged.

“But it seems my intelligence points have increased, just not enough to show up yet…”

Lu Yuan tried using his Mental Power, and the detection range had expanded a bit compared to his previous experiments outside.

It now reached about 12 meters.

Sitting at his desk, he could extend his Mental Power into the house of a resident on the second floor across the street.

The higher his intelligence points, the larger the detection range of his Mental Power, and the stronger the effects of skills linked to Mental Power.

For example, lv2 [Crow Language].

With increased intelligence points, Lu Yuan found it easier to control crows and could even sense the thoughts and images flowing through the minds of his crow assistants from a distance.

Very convenient.

“The power of [Crane Shadow Float] seems to have increased as well…”

Lu Yuan wasn’t particularly sure about this.

His judgment was based on the fact that with higher intelligence points, the visions that rolled through his mind every time he activated [Crane Shadow Float] became clearer and more detailed.

The only downside was the increasing interference from the crow dream into his visions of Crane Shadow Float.

For example, when he punched the Divine Servant of the Crow Deity tonight, he almost couldn’t tell whether his punch was executed with the Spirit Crane Drill or the Crow Strike.

Every time he used [death energy entanglement] in conjunction with [Crane Shadow Float], this situation occurred.

“If this continues, could these two skills actually merge into a new skill?”

Lu Yuan felt a strange sense of anticipation.

Suddenly, he remembered that his [death energy entanglement] was close to reaching lv3.

He hadn’t tried it out yet.

“[death energy entanglement]!”

Lu Yuan immediately tried to activate the skill.

Quickly, a large amount of black death energy gathered around him.

It was much denser than at lv1.

All the energy concentrated in one place, and the thick death energy completely enveloped one of Lu Yuan’s arms.

He gently moved his fingers.

Lu Yuan watched the black aura, like smoke and mist, like silk and flames, flow and entwine through his pale fingers. The scene was visually striking.

It was like a protagonist awakening their power in a manga or a character unlocking an epic equipment effect in a game.

It was… incredibly cool.

“Full of style!”

Lu Yuan admired himself in the mirror, letting the death energy flow around his body for a while before stopping the skill.

“At lv2, [death energy entanglement] has a much stronger defense-breaking effect…”

The gains on the [Death Messenger (Extraordinary)] panel were about this much.

The rest were experience points on the [martial artist] panel.

His advanced boxing techniques and advanced leg techniques had increased a bit, but the professional experience had grown the most, nearly four hundred points.

Even more than when Lu Yuan had previously defeated Force King.

“If these two fought, Force King might not necessarily be a match for the Divine Servant of the Crow Deity.

A ton of boxing power might not break through the death energy’s defense. If the Divine Servant was flying, it would be even harder…”

Lu Yuan glanced at his [martial artist] panel, seeing that his lv6 experience points were now (2066/3200).

Unknowingly, he was much closer to the next level-up.

“Beep “

He turned off the air conditioner and reopened the tightly shut windows and curtains.

The cool night breeze and moonlight streamed in together.

Lu Yuan walked to the windowsill, looking at the quiet, street-lit road below, and pondered: Should I also go kill the one in the west district?…

…

“Bang!”

“Bang bang!”

“Bang bang bang!”

The muffled sound of sticks striking rubber tires echoed through the room.

Inside, Lu Yuan held a specially made iron rod, continuously hitting various parts of his body with varying force.

He wore only a pair of black boxer shorts, his muscles slightly bulging. In the stuffy little room, it seemed as though steam was rising from his body.

His skin was covered in purplish-red stick marks.

But he seemed unfazed, continuing his practice.

When he was done with the beating.

Lu Yuan put down the iron rod and began practicing the movements of the Spirit Crane Body.

Under the movements of the Spirit Crane Body, the well-defined muscles on Lu Yuan’s body seemed to flow like mercury.

It was hard to tell which move he was on.

Suddenly.

“Twang—”

It was like the sound of a bowstring suddenly being tightened.

Lu Yuan’s body trembled while practicing the Spirit Crane Body, and then all his muscles started to wriggle.

They became tighter and more compact.

Through the surface of his skin, you could faintly see the muscle fibers beneath, winding like steel wires.

“Crack, crack, crack—”

A series of crisp bone-cracking sounds followed.

Sweat poured out of Lu Yuan’s body in torrents, almost like rain, forming large puddles on the floor.

When the transformation was complete, Lu Yuan felt like a new person.

“Crick-crack—”

Lu Yuan slightly twisted his neck, immediately hearing the muscle fibers in his neck stretch with a sound that set one’s teeth on edge.

It was as if countless steel wire springs were being slowly stretched out.

The same was true for other parts of his body.

He lightly flicked his fingers.

“Snap!”

He easily produced a crisp cracking sound in the air.

“So powerful…”

Lu Yuan looked at his hands, unable to restrain his amazement.

This power wasn’t about strength but pure physical prowess!

Just now, he had finally broken through to lv3 of the [Spirit Crane Body], marking the preliminary completion of the Muscle Training Level.

As a result.

His constitution points increased by 1, and his agility points…

Jumped by a full 2 points!

Now, Lu Yuan’s attribute panel showed—

[Strength Points: 15]

[Agility Points: 16]

[Constitution Points: 17]

[Intelligence Points: 15]

[Spirit Crane Body] is a breakthrough skill, and the difference between lv2 (199/200) and lv3 (0/400) seems like just 1 experience point.

But the gap was significant.

Lu Yuan didn’t expect the difference to be this vast.

Aside from the direct increase in attribute points, he could clearly feel a substantial increase in muscle density and muscle strength.

Moreover, his entire musculature felt like a single, solid piece of iron.

“The gap between me and Lin Zhiqin or Qin Feng is closing. If I continue with Bone Training and Organ Training, I’ll surpass them sooner or later…”

This was because Lu Yuan’s constitution points could be infinitely increased through attribute points, with no upper limit, giving him endless potential.

“The [Spirit Crane Body] unexpectedly provided me with two points in agility…

Starting from the Muscle Training Level, the crane style’s focus on agility in body training is finally showing itself, huh?”

Lu Yuan stepped through the sweat-splattered floor and walked to the dressing mirror.

In the mirror, after the two-point increase in agility, he returned to a balanced and slender physique.

He looked even better than before.

There seemed to be an additional touch of graceful and agile aura.

Like a crane?

“Whoosh—”

Lu Yuan yanked open the curtains and windows to ventilate the stuffy room.

“Beep—”

The sound of car horns echoed from the road below as pedestrians came and went.

Lu Yuan’s expression turned a bit peculiar as he watched the scene.

He realized that whenever he looked at something moving, it seemed like a slow-motion scene from a movie, as if the video was playing at 0.5x speed.

The movements were incredibly sluggish.

“Has my neural reaction speed increased so much that I haven’t adapted yet?”

Lu Yuan quickly figured it out.

It was even more fascinating.

In the past, he read Xuanhuan1 Novels that described protagonists obtaining a Golden Finger2 and transforming, then going out and fighting hooligans, seeing others wielding knives in slow motion like in a movie.

He always scoffed at such plots.

Who knew it would happen to him one day? A real-life slow-motion film!

“I wonder if I can dodge a bullet?”

Looking at the “slow-motion scene” gradually returning to normal due to his brain’s neural adjustment and adaptation, this thought popped into Lu Yuan’s mind.

He analyzed the feasibility of this idea.

The conclusion?

Given preparation, he could definitely give it a try.

His current burst speed and neural reaction speed had reached a level where dodging bullets was possible. What he lacked… was courage and experience.

…

Lu Yuan waited by the window until the “scene” before his eyes returned completely to normal.

Only then did he get dressed and leave the bedroom.

He first went to the kitchen and took a kitchen knife, aiming it at his own arm.

“Twang—”

With just thirty percent of his strength, the sharp blade struck his tensed muscles and bounced off, leaving only a shallow white mark where it hit.

His ability to dissipate force had significantly improved since his Skin Training days.

Lu Yuan was quite satisfied.

Next, he quickly left the house.

He climbed the stairs to the rooftop.

Standing on the edge of the rooftop, he looked down at the thin street below and the ant-like pedestrians.

He considered whether to jump.

Lu Yuan wanted to test his current level of agility.

Could he, like characters in Wuxia3 Novels, perform feats of lightness skill—leaping from roof to roof, soaring high and low?

Footnote:

1. Xuanhuan(玄幻): “Xuanhuan” is a genre of Chinese fiction that blends elements of fantasy with Chinese mythology, folklore, and traditional culture. The term “xuanhuan” can be translated as “mysterious fantasy” and typically features protagonists who cultivate their inner energy, practice magical arts, and embark on epic journeys in otherworldly realms. Unlike pure fantasy, xuanhuan novels often incorporate concepts from Chinese philosophy and Daoist or Buddhist traditions, creating rich and intricate worlds where characters pursue enlightenment, power, or immortality. This genre is known for its imaginative storytelling and complex systems of magic and martial arts.
2. Golden Finger(金手指)：Golden Finger” is a term commonly used in Chinese web novels to describe a special ability or advantage that the protagonist possesses. This “golden finger” helps the main character grow quickly, overcome challenges, or achieve success in the story. It can take various forms, such as an extraordinary talent, a magical artifact, or a system that grants them unique powers. This concept is similar to the idea of a “cheat” or “power-up” in video games.
3. Wuxia(武侠): “Xuanhuan” is a genre of Chinese fiction that blends elements of fantasy with Chinese mythology, folklore, and traditional culture. The term “xuanhuan” can be translated as “mysterious fantasy” and typically features protagonists who cultivate their inner energy, practice magical arts, and embark on epic journeys in otherworldly realms. Unlike pure fantasy, xuanhuan novels often incorporate concepts from Chinese philosophy and Daoist or Buddhist traditions, creating rich and intricate worlds where characters pursue enlightenment, power, or immortality. This genre is known for its imaginative storytelling and complex systems of magic and martial arts.