Chapter 165: Leave of Absence Form

Leave of Absence Form

Leave of Absence Form

Outside the rock wall.

Lin Qi glanced at the storage box placed in the corner, and with just a reach of his hand, a burst of force grabbed the box and carefully retrieved it from the space.

"It really is a legacy metal plate."

After Lin Qi took out the metal plate, he cut his palm and pressed it onto the silver-black metal plate; mysterious runes on the plate lit up, and segments of information were imprinted into his mind.

After a full ten seconds or so, Lin Qi finished reading all the information, his eyes filled with shock and ecstasy.

"No wonder that Isaac wanted to hire assassins from the Red Moon Chamber of Commerce to kill me; he could never give up on this legacy metal plate alone." Lin Qi looked at the silver-black metal plate in his hand, unable to help but sigh in his heart.

If he were in Isaac's position, he would likely have made the same decision as Isaac, willing to pay any price to reclaim this legacy metal plate.

Not for any other reason, but because this legacy metal plate was too important—important to a degree that even surpassed that severed arm.

The reason that severed arm was so highly valued was because a player had accidentally damaged the transparent container, causing cracks to appear; although these cracks were very, very small, they could no longer completely seal the mental shockwaves from that arm.

If the transparent container were perfectly sealed, the value of that arm would not be great, or rather, for martial artists of their level, it would have absolutely no value and could only be treated as an ornament.

Because the information in the legacy metal plate stated very clearly that the arm had existed for over a million years; even the stellar civilization that created the legacy metal plate had used various methods but could not cause even a trace of damage to it, making it extremely difficult to study, let alone with the current technological level of the City of Light-Chasing.

However, the stellar civilization that possessed this arm was not without gains after an unknown number of years of research.

That is, three legacy metal plates!

To be precise, this is a complete set of secret arts named Star Energy Construct; it is a secret art created by imitating that severed arm. By absorbing massive amounts of star energy and cultivating it to the extreme, one can theoretically allow the body to exert one-ten-thousandth of the level of that severed arm's physique in a short time.

The entire Star Energy Construct secret art is divided into Body Strengthening, Mental, and Energy secret arts. Only by mastering all three and merging them into one can one be considered to have learned the Star Energy Construct, allowing the level of life to undergo a qualitative change.

A secret art that can change the level of life—just thinking about such a secret art feels terrifying.

Because this has completely transcended the genetic level; it is no longer as simple as a person turning into a monster, but the difference between a two-dimensional creature becoming a three-dimensional creature.

If such a secret art were to spread, it would absolutely cause a sensation in all major cities, and even the Domain City would likely snatch it at any cost. After all, the difference between a human and a monster is only in physical strength, but this secret art represents a difference in the level of life; the two are no longer in the same dimension.

And of the entire Star Energy Construct secret art, the most important part is this legacy metal plate containing the Energy secret art.

This legacy metal plate is different from the other two. As the core of the entire set of secret arts, it does not require the inheritor to touch the plate itself. The holder only needs to touch the plate with the inheritor's blood and then touch the inheritor, and the inheritor can directly receive the inheritance of the Energy secret art.

Moreover, how much of the Energy secret art inheritance is received depends entirely on the person holding the legacy metal plate.

The entire Energy secret art has five levels; the Body Strengthening and Mental secret arts are merely aids for cultivating the Energy secret art. The higher the level of cultivation in the Body Strengthening and Mental secret arts, the better the auxiliary effect.

This means that even without the Body Strengthening and Mental secret arts, an ordinary person who obtains this Energy secret art legacy metal plate still has a chance to master the Energy secret art. This is why there are no restrictions placed on the Body Strengthening and Mental secret arts like there are on the Energy secret art.

Previously, players had occupied the White Feather Gang's stronghold, and a large number of martial artist players were stationed there; even the deputy commander of the city garrison was repelled. It was almost impossible for Isaac, a single martial artist, to retrieve the Energy secret art legacy metal plate from the stronghold.

And if Isaac wants to make a comeback, the Energy secret art is absolutely indispensable.

Although he only took a rough look at the Energy secret art, Lin Qi could be certain that it was heaven-defying. It is a secret art that absorbs energy and then burns it to significantly increase the body's potential.

However, the difficulty of absorbing energy from the outside world is too great, and the difficulty of storing it in one's own body is even greater; one wrong step and you would ascend to heaven on the spot. It is too difficult to learn.

But the learning difficulty of this secret art in terms of burning energy is not high, and this kind of energy burning helps martial artists break through bottlenecks. As long as it is controlled well, it is no less than cheating when it comes to a martial artist's improvement.

Of course, if this energy-burning secret art is used without having learned how to absorb and store energy, it burns one's own life force. Without replenishment, every use reduces one's lifespan, and it is irreversible—it is equivalent to overdrawing life to break through a bottleneck.

But even so, Lin Qi could be certain that there would be plenty of people willing to do so, and as long as Isaac masters the Energy secret art legacy metal plate, he won't have to worry about the faction he builds failing to grow.

"I must find a way to finish off that Isaac." Lin Qi looked at the silver-black metal plate in his hand, his urgency to kill Isaac increasing a bit. "Otherwise, the secret that I have mastered the Energy secret art will be exposed sooner or later, and it might even become my undoing."

Currently, the only ones who should know the secret of the Energy secret art are the high-level members of the White Feather Gang, and now, except for Isaac, everyone else in the White Feather Gang has been dealt with by the garrison. In other words, Isaac is the only one left who knows the secret.

If Isaac still harbors the ambition to rebuild his faction, he will definitely keep the secret, but there is no guarantee that such ambition will last; he might just use it to exchange for resources and benefits.

When that time comes, his situation will be dangerous.

After all, he is currently carrying a great treasure and is not invincible in the Fog Mountain region. If Isaac were to tell this secret to a faction like the Smiling Skull, and the Smiling Skull believed it, he would likely face a catastrophic disaster.

To solve this problem, the only way is to finish off Isaac before he leaks the secret.

However, it is not an easy task for him to finish off Isaac right now.

Isaac is staying in the Dead Mountains, and the strength of the Smiling Skull makes the major cities in the Fog Mountain region helpless; only the Domain City can suppress them. His current strength is only comparable to that of a deputy city lord, and entering the Dead Mountains alone to assassinate Isaac is...

Not to mention whether he can successfully kill Isaac in front of the Smiling Skull, he doesn't even know where the Smiling Skull is located in the Dead Mountains.

You must know that the planet he lives on now has been completely changed after the Great Catastrophe, and the entire planet is many times larger than before. Even the Martial Artist Association doesn't know how big it is, and there are only a few areas where mobile cities can operate; most places are impossible to step into.

The size of the Fog Mountain region recorded by the Martial Artist Association is several million square kilometers, with dozens of cities. According to the map data provided by the Martial Artist Association, the Dead Mountains are roughly one-third the size of the entire Fog Mountain region and are a nest for monsters.

Trying to find the Smiling Skull's stronghold in such a place is truly like looking for a needle in a haystack, which is one of the reasons why the Domain City has never been able to do anything about the Smiling Skull.

After Lin Qi pondered for a good while, he still shook his head and temporarily put aside the thought of killing Isaac.

Finishing off Isaac is a necessity, but neither he nor the Black Obsidian Martial Arts Hall currently possesses the strength and conditions to do so. In such a situation, rather than worrying about Isaac leaking the secret, it is better to first improve his own strength and that of the martial arts hall.

"It seems I must put the matter of branch halls on the agenda." Lin Qi clicked on the two martial arts hall branches rewarded by the system. These two branches can immediately transform a stadium-sized building into an existing high-level martial arts hall.

A high-level martial arts hall comes with ten primary training rooms and three primary gravity rooms.

As long as there are branch halls, even if the current Black Obsidian Martial Arts Hall is gone, it won't have much impact on him; he can still introduce players to this world.

For safety reasons, the more hidden the location of this branch hall, the better. It would be best if it could be like the Smiling Skull, where no one else knows where the stronghold is except for their own people.

Once Isaac exposes the matter of the Energy secret art, he can hide in the branch hall, develop slowly, and keep a low profile until he is invincible in the Fog Mountain region before coming out.

Afterward, Lin Qi walked into the space within the rock wall to use his mental domain to investigate what good things the White Feather Gang had left behind; as for the players' investigation results, he wasn't counting on them.

Once they knew that dying could increase mental strength, they probably wouldn't report investigation results to him anymore, preferring to die as many times as possible.

And he now knew the situation inside the space; the only dangerous thing was that severed arm. Fang Zhen and the others had already searched this place thoroughly and were fine, so naturally, he had no qualms.

"Why was the White Feather Gang researching these things?" Lin Qi looked at the research data left behind by the White Feather Gang on various instruments through his mental perception, his heart full of curiosity.

According to the paper research data and results on the table, the White Feather Gang could screen out people more suitable for cultivating the Energy secret art through experiments on the remains of a large number of lord-level monsters.

The people screened out had a greater than 50% chance of learning a part of the first level of the Energy secret art, which is the ability to burn energy to significantly increase their own potential.

For others learning the Energy secret art, the mortality rate was as high as 99%.

Because the White Feather Gang mastered this technology, the number of people who learned the Energy secret art increased greatly. They didn't need to go through the trouble of individual inheritance and waiting for survivors; they only needed to screen a wave from the massive number of wanderers first. This would neither expose the Energy secret art easily nor significantly improve efficiency.

However, this approach truly left Lin Qi feeling puzzled.

The silver-black legacy metal plate had already stated very clearly that the Mental secret art and the Body Strengthening secret art were excellent auxiliary cultivation methods. Anyone who learned the Mental secret art and the Body Strengthening secret art had a high probability of learning the complete Energy secret art; as for learning simple energy burning, it could be said there was no difficulty at all.

Moreover, after learning the Mental secret art and the Body Strengthening secret art, control over energy burning would be more precise. It is hard to imagine what significance the White Feather Gang's research had.

If they really wanted people to learn the method of energy burning, they only needed to have people learn the Mental secret art and the Body Strengthening secret art. Although the learning difficulty of these two secret arts was a bit high, they were much safer to learn than the Energy secret art. Below the level of a martial artist, they could be saved with Type I healing potions. It could be said that as long as there were enough Type I healing potions, everyone below the level of a martial artist could probably learn the Mental secret art and the Body Strengthening secret art.

As for martial artists, they would need Type II healing potions; there was no need to do such troublesome screening and waste the flesh and blood of lord-level monsters.

"Wait, could it be that Isaac didn't obtain the Mental secret art metal plate back then?" Lin Qi looked at the results that the White Feather Gang had spent years researching and couldn't help but be stunned.

The Mental secret art metal plate he obtained back then was acquired from the deputy leader of the White Feather Gang. He had originally thought that the White Feather Gang had long known of the existence of the Mental secret art metal plate and had even used it countless times, and it was only by chance that the deputy leader had brought it out, which was his gain.

But now it seems that the deputy leader had embezzled the Mental secret art, and Isaac knew nothing about it. Otherwise, relying on the incomplete Body Strengthening secret art left in the metal space under Red Moon Mountain and the Mental secret art metal plate, as long as there were enough healing potions, Isaac could have completely created a large group of experts without wasting a large amount of lord-level monster remains for experiments.

Wasting so much flesh and blood of lord-level monsters—who knows how many bottles of Type I and Type II energy potions could have been bought.

Thinking of this, Lin Qi suddenly laughed.

Isaac had calculated everything, but ended up being ruined by his subordinate deputy leader. He had wasted so many years on this research; if Isaac knew the truth, he would probably be angered to death.

"However, this research result and development model are not bad. You can directly select a group of talented people to learn the Energy secret art for rapid improvement, without worrying about it spreading too widely and being easily leaked." Lin Qi looked at these reports carefully and couldn't help but have his eyes light up.

The entire Star Energy Construct secret art involves too much and is not suitable for people who are not trusted to learn completely, but if it is only to learn a part of the energy burning, it is a good way to quickly give birth to strong people.

Especially becoming an expert at the Bone Forging realm—it couldn't be simpler.

The current Black Obsidian Martial Arts Hall is severely lacking in Bone Forging realm experts. If he could cultivate a group of Bone Forging realm experts in a short time, he could let the players go and get resources without worrying about not being able to hold onto them.

Moreover, compared to Isaac, he has four huge advantages: the Mental secret art, the primary meditation room, that severed arm, and the Qi-Blood Watermelon rewarded by the martial arts hall's lucky wheel.

Cultivation of the Mental secret art can reduce the difficulty of learning the Energy secret art, and the primary meditation room can increase mental activity, further reducing the learning difficulty.

And the mental shock from that severed arm, although its lethality is astonishing, as long as one is at a safe distance, being under that mental shock for a long time can subtly increase mental strength. There is no need to play as hard as the players do, crushing one's own spirit to temper it. Doing so might have significant improvement, but if done too many times, one will become an idiot.

After all, this kind of being crushed by external objects and the self-explosion tempering of the Star Observation Method are completely different things. Self-mental explosion is a process of tempering while also improving one's own will; being crushed by external objects does not improve one's own will.

The spirit is the soldier, and the will is the general. If the general's ability is insufficient to command too many soldiers, it will only have the opposite effect.

The truly correct approach should be to cultivate the Mental secret art and the Observation Method within a safe range. This way, not only does mental strength increase quickly, but the will also steadily improves without any hidden dangers.

And among his four major advantages, the Qi-Blood Watermelon is an artifact-like existence. The Qi-Blood Watermelon itself is a huge amount of energy integrated into the body, thereby enhancing life force in a short time and allowing Qi-Blood to be significantly improved. If one burns energy to increase potential after eating the Qi-Blood Watermelon, the speed of improvement will definitely be rapid.

Moreover, this time he has the Energy secret art, and the players can learn the entire Star Energy Construct. Once the players learn the entire Star Energy Construct, their combat power will definitely be able to rise to another level; even the Dead Mountains, which the Domain City dares not step into, the players should be able to go and have a go at.

"However, leaving this severed arm here is not a solution. I wonder if I can take it back and use it as a mental cultivation room first." Lin Qi's mental detection reached the range within ten meters of the severed arm, and he couldn't help but want to try and see if he could take away this artifact for mental cultivation.

(End of chapter)