Chapter 24

【Detection: Player completed first home-invasion shrimp-man, looting corpse for gold coins, coercing others into illegal acts — behaviors highly consistent with player's own identity.】

"???"

Feng Mu's face was full of black lines: "MMP, this old man's nature is pure and good, all actions were forced self-defense, system don't randomly define my character, slander, it's all slander."

【Current Reward Issued, Reward Delivered!】

"....."

Feng Mu's face turned from gloom to joy: "Alright, system you recognized your mistake, already gave compensation, and it arrived in real-time, then I'll magnanimously forgive you."

A transmigrator's moral bottom line is this flexible, this isn't Feng Mu's fault, it's all the sins committed by last life's capital corrosion.

Feng Mu opened the reward, on his three-dimensional character illustration, a silver exclamation mark exploded, transforming into — 【General Skill Proficiency 10,000 points.】

"As expected, rewards that can directly act on oneself are all real-time arrival." Feng Mu thought to himself.

This reward indirectly proved that last time's reward belonged to external objects, the delivery courier probably really crashed on the road.

A bit like last life when logistics got stuck on the road for days without moving, you'd become paranoid, wondering if the logistics truck crashed, if the courier died, if the cargo was lost, would my goods not arrive, would there be compensation?

Train of thought pulled far for 5 seconds, Feng Mu began researching 【General Skill Proficiency】's usage.

"Has points, means can add points right?"

"10,000 points, whether it's a lot or a little, I have no concept either."

Feng Mu's line of sight focused over, three-dimensional illustration pulled down, pulling out a string of chilling skill list.

General Skill List:

Basic Fist Technique (Elementary) 【66/100】

Basic Leg Technique (Elementary) 【14/100】

Body Forging Exercise (Not Mastered)

The instant Feng Mu's line of sight moved, a "+" sign each floated out behind Basic Fist Technique and Basic Leg Technique, behind Body Forging Exercise a blank.

Feng Mu: "....."

So me working so hard on Body Forging Exercise every day was throwing flirtatious glances at a blind man, Body Forging Exercise doesn't want face?

Feng Mu felt wronged and cold: "Because posture not standard, so equivalent to always rubbing at the gate without entering the cave, just won't give the certificate huh~"

But, Feng Mu turned thoughts again: "Is there a possibility, that it's because I never mastered the correct position, so every time I do Body Forging Exercise I'm exhausted in heavy sweat, digestion speed so fast?!!"

Because Bone Quality trash, so Body Forging Exercise not mastered, so one part effort ten times sweat, so consumption large, hungry fast, food consumption rising rapidly!

Logic seems closed loop, so conclusion is — turning waste into blessing!!!

"Body Forging Exercise absolutely cannot add points, must continue training this wastefully." Feng Mu with inexplicably proud expression, didn't expect right, heaven-born me waste must have use.

Body Forging Exercise doesn't want to add points, also can't add points.

Then can only pour love into Basic Fist Technique and Basic Leg Technique.

Feng Mu silently recited: "Fate, add points."

Icon blurred for an instant.

Basic Fist Technique (Middle Level) 【1/500】

Basic Leg Technique (Middle Level) 【1/500】

【Remaining General Skill Proficiency: 9880】

In Nao Hai a segment of fist and leg practice memory appeared out of thin air, movements extremely standard, continuous, every punch and kick as if using full body strength.

Four limbs Qiyi surged a heat current, surrounding fist and foot joints, massage-like continuous for half minute.

Feng Mu subconsciously assumed a fighting stance, threw a punch, instantly felt different, originally somewhat stiff slow movements became especially smooth continuous.

A feeling of being tempered a thousand times then soaked into muscle memory.

Feng Mu following the feeling simply practiced Basic Fist Technique once, Basic Fist Technique very concise, less than 5 minutes finished one round.

"Striking movements more standard, moves connecting also continuous, originally Basic Fist Technique inside also has many details to dig into."

Feng Mu compared in Nao Hai with his previous recording, simply incomparable.

Then, he glanced at skill panel, stunned.

Basic Fist Technique (Middle Level) 【1/500】, value didn't increase?

"Clearly I seriously practiced Basic Fist Technique once, but proficiency didn't increase, system counting has a problem?"

Feng Mu pondered a moment, he searched Nao Hai's newly added cultivation memory, compared, mouth gradually opening until it couldn't close.

In the extra memory, I didn't just practice 34 rounds of Basic Fist Technique and 86 rounds of Basic Leg Technique, but fully practiced... 471 rounds of fist technique and 1477 rounds of leg technique.

Feng Mu roughly calculated in his heart, fist technique multiplied by 13 times, leg technique multiplied by 17 times.

He derived two possible explanations:

"First type, proficiency and actual practice quantity have a coefficient bonus, Basic Fist Technique coefficient is 13, meaning must actually practice 13 rounds of fist to convert to 1 proficiency point, leg technique coefficient even larger, need 17 rounds."

"Second type, not that practicing 13 rounds of fist can increase 1 proficiency point, but rather, in memory, I happened to average every 13 rounds of fist, only once perfectly meeting standard, meaning average 13 fist techniques 12 failures, only succeeded 1 time, leg technique even worse, 17 times succeed 1 time."

Feng Mu leans toward first possibility, because second explanation too terrifying.

In system-instilled memory, failure rate already so terrifying, swapped to real me operating, failure rate probably earth-shaking.

"Should be first type, then how is this coefficient calculated?"

Feng Mu muttered: "Basic Fist Technique almost no difficulty, then can only be Bone Quality factor, my 49 points Bone Quality, means must punch 13 rounds to increase 1 proficiency point."

"Higher Bone Quality, lower coefficient, fewer practice times needed for 1 proficiency point."

"No wonder those excellent Bone Quality top students, practicing martial arts advance by leaps and bounds, level up like drinking water, while inferior Bone Quality poor students, no matter how diligent hardworking, practicing martial arts also stuck in place all day, progress like constipation."

"Between them there may be ten-plus times, even dozens of times coefficient gap, don't need day-by-day accumulation, just a year or two, each other's gap becomes a chasm, and further back even larger, until becoming reproductive isolation Tian Qian."

Feng Mu understood the key joint, then looked at that 【Remaining General Skill Proficiency: 9880】, eyes instantly emitting green light, like Great Might Heavenly Dragon's Fahai hugging a stark-naked White Snake spirit, again like Emei Mountain's wild monkey sneaking into Heaven's Peach Garden.

That drooling desire, saliva pasting mouth full.

"General Skill Proficiency coefficient is 1, and should ignore martial arts difficulty, constant coefficient 1."

"In other words, without using General Skill Proficiency, I'm a Bone Quality 49 piece of trash, but if I want to, I can transform into a terrifying freak in minutes."

"After all, a coefficient of 1 should theoretically be the minimum, right? Even a peerless genius with 100 Bone Quality might not be able to achieve a coefficient of 1~"

"9880 left, what a loss, shouldn't have used them on Basic Fist Technique and Basic Leg Technique."

Feng Mu had already realized the value of 【General Skill Proficiency】; this kind of voucher that treats all goods equally should be spent on the most expensive goods.

And,

the most expensive goods on Feng Mu right now is——【Crane Claw Technique】!

Spending General Proficiency vouchers on 【Crane Claw Technique】 is actually still very wasteful, after all, flipping open the blood-stained book cover, the flyleaf clearly marks a line of printed text.

Martial Arts Rating: Second Grade

Cultivation Part: Claw Technique

Minimum Cultivation Requirements: Fist Force 2.0 Level, Technique Speed 1.5 Frequency, Technique 1.0

Recommended Bone Quality: 65

Warning: Minimum requirements not met, forced cultivation will increase injury probability, and cause side effects including but not limited to muscle damage, tendon rupture, finger bone fracture.

At the very bottom was stamped the Martial Arts Administration's red official seal.

The Martial Arts Administration has many functions; the most important besides overall responsibility for the annual Martial Arts Exam is rating martial arts, and giving cultivation recommendations and requirements.

According to the Martial Arts Administration's latest revised rules, most martial arts can be covered within the Nine-Rank Martial Arts Rating System, First Grade lowest, Ninth Grade highest.

Factors affecting rating mainly include cultivation difficulty, number of body parts covered by cultivation, advantages after mastery, side effects, and killing power after mastery for comprehensive consideration.

Basic Fist Technique, Basic Leg Technique, and Body Forging Exercise are not within this scope, belonging to basic teaching materials, also jokingly called No-Rank Martial Arts.

Feng Mu's three years of high school, he didn't manage to get a single ranked martial art; besides poverty, the most important reason is that even the lowest First Grade martial art has a starting price of 60 Bone Quality points for cultivation.

With his golden finger not yet arrived, he had no money to cultivate, and no guts to cultivate.

Now though, those scary-looking side effects, don't even think about easily scaring Feng Mu off.

"Muscle damage, tendon rupture, finger bone fracture, just this?" Feng Mu curled his lip in a cold laugh, not a trace of fear in his heart.

Feng Mu flipped through 【Crane Claw Technique】 once, self-feeling the entry requirements weren't difficult, just needed to prepare a basin of iron beads and lubricant.

Feng Mu froze for a moment, grabbed a handful of iron beads from his pocket, stuffed them into his mouth and swallowed, expression rather intriguing.

"On the way to work later, can take a detour to the bookstore, see if there are better manual choices, then make a decision."

Feng Mu heard faint movement from the living room, he stood up and pulled open the curtains, Upper City lights illuminate the world, a new day begins again.

Bookstore.

Second floor Martial Dao section, all low-grade martial arts manuals, mostly First and Second Grade, Third Grade relatively rare.

Didn't spot any higher grade martial arts manuals, Feng Mu slightly disappointed in his heart, but also not finding it strange; actually, a bookstore being able to sell some low-grade martial arts manuals is already pretty good.

The stricter the hierarchy, the more monopolized knowledge.

Ordinary knowledge might still be allowed to circulate and exchange, profound knowledge is inevitably strictly controlled by high-level hierarchies, a true seller's market in the real sense.

Need to use something more expensive than money to buy to have a chance.

Three Third Grade manuals total in the bookstore, respectively 【Bull Demon Force】, 【Splitting Stele Palm】, 【Long-Armed Snake Fist】, priced respectively at 210,000, 140,000, 150,000.

Feng Mu secretly clicked his tongue: "Expensive."

He casually picked one up, casually flipped through it, only to discover these books all only have covers and table of contents flyleaves, the inside filled with blank pages.

Like display models in a phone store, only displaying the cultivation requirements and grade introduction, the rest all blank paper for padding.

"Makes sense, this prevents those with good memories from directly memorizing the manual." Feng Mu thought with quite some regret.

【Bull Demon Force】, Third Grade, cultivation part Qi and Blood Pile Technique, matching fist method sixteen forms.

Minimum Cultivation Requirements: Fist Force 3.6 Level, Technique Speed 1.5 Frequency, Technique 1.2

Recommended Bone Quality: 70

Additional Requirement: Abundant Qi and Blood

Note: Those not meeting minimum requirements, or with insufficient Qi and Blood, forced cultivation may cause full body fascia rupture, heart failure and death.

Feng Mu couldn't afford it, just curious to look, then his eyelid twitched, silently put the book back on the shelf.

The remaining two Third Grade manuals, a bit better than 【Bull Demon Force】, side effects won't affect whole body and die violently, just hand disability.

"【Iron Eater】 should be able to resist bone damage, 【Grand Feast】 can heal injuries, but cultivation methods that risk sudden death at every turn, even I have to be solemn." Feng Mu can't afford them, doesn't stop him from freely enjoying future planning.

Can't afford Third Grade, Second Grade price range fluctuates quite a lot, from 10,000 to 90,000 all exist.

【Crane Claw Technique】 prominently among them, priced at 47,000.

The other manuals, instantly no comparison necessary, Feng Mu turned and left the bookstore, his shopping philosophy two lifetimes plain and simple, that more expensive is definitely better.

He only had 12,400 in his wallet, what he can afford couldn't possibly compare to 【Crane Claw Technique】.

When leaving the bookstore, a female clerk reeking of perfume glanced at him indifferently, took a dry cloth and wiped off the fingerprints on the manual's hard cover.

Books are expensive, shouldn't be dirtied by poor people, even if this book is just a sample!

The female clerk upholding noble ideals, wiping while complaining to the boss: "District 9 Government should enact laws prohibiting poor people's shoe soles from stepping into bookstores."

The beer-bellied boss, very much agreeing with the female clerk's thinking, then earnestly instructed: "Wipe clean, and also careful not to leave your fingerprints on it."

The female clerk genuinely felt the boss was a bit stupid, she said smugly: "Rest assured, boss, I'm wearing gloves."

Exited the bookstore, Feng Mu didn't know he was despised by the bookstore, he got on his bike, rushed to the Incineration Plant.

On the way, gang members' figures obviously increased; besides stopping passing students to question, they also questioned drunks by the road, breakfast stalls by the street.

Expressions cold and solemn, tone fierce, looking for a masked lame man.

Feng Mu was also stopped, he stepped on the bicycle pedal, single leg propping ground, said faintly: "Haven't seen any lame man, I just left the house, going to work."

Gang hooligan with a stiff face, stared at Feng Mu for two seconds, suddenly took out a roster and scanned it, then asked: "You're called Feng Mu, a No. 47 Middle School student right?"

Feng Mu laughed bitterly: "Used to be, now, I've dropped out, just an Incinerator Worker."

"March 15th, after school in the afternoon, where did you go?" Gang hooligan following the taught script began questioning, while eyes blazing like torches, carefully observing Feng Mu's expression.

Feng Mu's face showed a blank expression; thanks to the interrogation scenes in the police procedural dramas of his past life, he managed not to blurt out the answer.

He thought back, then shook his head and said, "I can't remember; I should have gone home."

The gang hooligan's fixed stare visibly relaxed a little; according to Bin Ge's teaching, answering that one couldn't remember was normal, whereas someone who blurted out a clear trajectory of movements was instead more like a liar.

A normal person might not even recall what they ate for dinner last night, let alone what they did ten days ago in the afternoon.

"On 3.15, many classmates in your class dropped out; you didn't drop out — you dropped out on 3.18. Think carefully: what did you do after school that day? Why didn't you drop out along with them, but delayed until 3.18?" The hooligan looked at the information recorded on his watch and reminded him.

Only then did Feng Mu suddenly realize: "Oh, that day, because of the dropout matter, my mood was very depressed, so I left school early and wandered around outside aimlessly; then, once night fell, I went home and slept."

Gang hooligan: "Any witnesses?"

Feng Mu shook his head: "Don't know; maybe someone saw me on the road, I didn't pay much attention. At night, where else would I go if not home to sleep?"

Feng Mu answered ambiguously, and at the end threw the question back with a counter-question, looking somewhat muddled yet completely open — however you looked at it, he didn't seem like a cunning real culprit.

The gang hooligan had basically already believed him, but still pursued: "Why didn't you drop out together at the time?"

Feng Mu sighed: "Harboring wishful thinking, I suppose; moreover, my old man is a captain in the Patrol Bureau, a rather authoritarian man — a major matter like dropping out required going home and getting his nod of approval."

Hearing the three words "Patrol Bureau," the gang hooligan's face clearly showed disgust; he waved his hand irritably, signaling Feng Mu to scram.

Feng Mu withdrew his bracing foot, pedaling the two wheels with uneven strokes, making them spin rapidly…..

End of Chapter