Chapter 45: Dharma Artifact

Even seeing that Wang Lei had already put down his Ghost Head Broadsword, seeking only a quick death, Meng Yifan still did not approach; instead, from one hundred meters away, he held the Elm Cannon and aimed at Wang Lei's head.

The fuse hissed, and it would soon ignite the gunpowder inside the cannon chamber.

"You... you motherf***er, aim properly." Wang Lei looked at the pitch-black cannon muzzle, trembling all over in fear. He desperately wanted to dodge the muzzle, but he was now severely wounded, and the toxins in his body had spread, leaving him nearly numb. Escape was certainly impossible, so he could only face the muzzle in humiliation, waiting for death to arrive.

Wang Lei was a silver-ranked assassin of the Luolong County underworld. For money and cultivation resources, he had killed countless people and had never once failed. He never expected that his first failure would lead to his death, and at the hands of a mere half-grown boy; he felt deeply unreconciled.

Wang Lei had been secretly gathering True Qi, longing to unleash one final strike to drag Meng Yifan down with him as a cushion. Unfortunately, Meng Yifan was too cautious and would not approach at all, which drove Wang Lei to distraction; he could only close his eyes and wait for death.

In the Great Wu Heavenly Dynasty, there were prisoners executed by Bird Gun, but never had anyone been executed by cannon. Wang Lei might be the first person to enjoy a cannon execution, though it was a pity no one else saw this scene.

"Boom!" The Elm Cannon let out a roar, and the solid iron ball, carrying scorching flames, shot out, crossed the distance of one hundred meters, and smashed into Wang Lei's head.

"Thud!" Even though Wang Lei was a Second Grade Quenching Skin Realm Martial Artist who had practiced a hard-body technique like the Iron Cloth Shirt, his head still collided head-on with the solid iron ball and was smashed to pieces like a watermelon.

Red blood and white brains mixed together and splattered everywhere, looking extremely bloody and terrifying.

Seeing this scene, Meng Yifan felt a bit nauseated. Although he had been a mercenary in his past life, he had never seen such a sight at close range, which left him very unaccustomed; he bent over and vomited up the meal he had eaten that evening.

Only after vomiting up all the sour water in his stomach did Meng Yifan feel a bit better.

"Ding! Killed a Second Grade Middle Stage Martial Artist, rewarded with 200 points of Experience Value." The prompt sound of the Game Panel rang out once again.

Meng Yifan's current Game Panel displayed:

Name: Meng Yifan

Race: Human

Profession: Second Grade Lower Tier Martial Artist

Technique: Savage Bull Strength Level 2 (3/900)

Skill 1: Shooting Technique Level 2 (200/1000)

Skill 2: Lingbo Microsteps (Fragment), Mysterious Grade Mid-Rank Lightness Skill, Experience Value (61/)

Strength: 61/200 (The physical strength limit for a Second Grade Martial Artist is 200)

Defense: 60/200 (The physical defense limit for a Second Grade Martial Artist is 200)

Speed: 70/200 (The physical speed limit for a Second Grade Martial Artist is 200)

Aptitude: 0.2/100

Experience Value: 200 points

"Huh! The Experience Value for the Lingbo Microsteps lightness skill was originally 1 point, and after adding 50 points of proficiency, it should have been 51 points. Why has it become 61 points now?" Meng Yifan looked at the Game Panel, pondering the changes in the panel attributes.

"Could it be that during the battle just now, I repeatedly used Lingbo Microsteps, so the proficiency of this skill increased?"

Meng Yifan felt his guess was likely correct. It seemed that whenever he had time in the future, he would need to practice the Lingbo Microsteps skill more.

"200 points of Experience Value, how should I use them?" After pondering for a moment, Meng Yifan first ruled out adding them to "Savage Bull Strength" to raise his cultivation realm.

The Experience Value gained from killing monsters on this Game Panel fluctuated without a fixed value, but generally, it followed the rule that killing monsters of a higher level yielded more Experience Value.

If he waited until his realm was high to fight low-level monsters, the Experience Value would become very little, so Meng Yifan prepared to max out the three attributes of Strength, Speed, and Defense first before considering leveling up.

Meng Yifan was becoming increasingly adept at using the Elm Cannon, which was his strongest means of attack at present, so after thinking about it, he decided he still needed to improve his speed.

There were two ways to increase speed: one was to directly add to the speed attribute points, which would reflect an improvement in his own physical fitness; the other was to add to the proficiency of the Lingbo Microsteps skill.

Both methods had their pros and cons. Directly adding to speed attribute points would improve his physical fitness, allowing him to run faster and jump further, but to fully utilize that physical fitness, he would need to use a lightness skill.

If he did not use a lightness skill, Meng Yifan's current speed was 70 points; theoretically, he could run at seven times the speed of an ordinary person.

An ordinary person takes about 13 seconds to run one hundred meters, which meant that with Meng Yifan's current physical fitness, he could theoretically run one hundred meters in just 1.8 seconds; in reality, relying solely on his physical fitness, the fastest he could run one hundred meters was 3 seconds.

If he used a lightness skill, it was possible to fully unleash his physical fitness, and with the amplification of True Qi, Meng Yifan's current strength might allow him to run one hundred meters in just one second.

One second was the time it took to blink an eye, and he would have already run out one hundred meters; this was a truly astonishing speed.

The Lingbo Microsteps lightness skill, specifically its initial eighty-one steps, was the foundation for fully unleashing physical fitness; it not only increased the speed of running in a straight line but also increased agility, allowing for rapid changes in direction while running at high speeds.

Meng Yifan was able to dodge Wang Lei's Gale Blade Technique by relying on Lingbo Microsteps.

However, performing the Lingbo Microsteps lightness skill consumed True Qi, and once the True Qi was exhausted, it could no longer be used.

"Lingbo Microsteps can save my life at critical moments, but it is not as sustainable as physical fitness. How should I allocate the points?"

Meng Yifan hesitated for a while, but ultimately, considering that Shopkeeper Zhang of Wanxiang Tower could strike again at any time and danger could arrive at any moment, he decided to add all 200 points of Experience Value to the Lingbo Microsteps skill.

Just like that, the proficiency of the Lingbo Microsteps skill became (261/).

A great deal of knowledge regarding Lingbo Microsteps appeared in his mind, as if he had painstakingly practiced Lingbo Microsteps for another year or more.

This newly acquired knowledge was mainly about the coordination between True Qi and footwork, which was also the key to Lingbo Microsteps.

Many people, even if they mastered the eighty-one steps, could not achieve good coordination between True Qi and footwork, and thus could not truly unleash the power of Lingbo Microsteps.

Meng Yifan's current proficiency was 261 points, and in his mind, he had gained the method for the True Qi and footwork coordination of the first two steps.

The first two steps were very ordinary; the first step was like taking a leisurely stroll forward, while the second step was to touch the ground with the toe and step back.

One advance and one retreat—although he had only learned the True Qi usage method for these two steps, Meng Yifan still felt he had benefited immensely.

Lingbo Microsteps was worthy of being a fragment of a Mysterious Grade Middle Stage secret manual; it was indeed profound and vast, and the more one understood it, the more one felt its infinite mysteries.

The battle was over, and Meng Yifan began to clean up the battlefield. He used a wooden stick to pick up the Silver Notes, and only after confirming that no tricks had been played on them did he tuck them into his bosom.

Meng Yifan walked to Wang Lei's corpse and searched it carefully, finding another ten taels of broken silver. Adding this together, Meng Yifan had obtained a total of eight hundred and ten taels of silver from Wang Lei; he could be considered to have struck it rich.

Meng Yifan picked up the Ghost Head Broadsword and found that the blade was heavy, weighing over one hundred and twenty catties; an ordinary person truly could not wield such a large blade.

The blade of the Ghost Head Blade was pitch black and did not reflect light even under the moonlight; it was unknown what material it was made of. There were several irregular holes on the blade, and the sound of ghost crying and wolf howling came from these holes.

Carved onto the hilt of the Ghost Head Blade was a green-faced, fanged ghost head. The ghost head was carved vividly, its sharp fangs seemingly ready to choose someone to devour at any moment, and a pair of green gemstones were embedded in its eye sockets, inside which ghost fire seemed to flicker faintly, making one's hair stand on end just looking at it.

Meng Yifan tried to transmit the True Qi in his body into the Ghost Head Broadsword. After absorbing nearly half of Meng Yifan's True Qi, the ghost fire in the ghost head's eyes began to emit a ghostly blue light, as if it had awakened.

A very peculiar current of air traveled from the ghost head into the holes in the blade, and the wailing sound of ghost crying and wolf howling spread out from the Ghost Head Blade. As long as Meng Yifan was willing, he could use this sound of ghost crying and wolf howling to disturb the enemy's mind.

"Is this a Dharma Artifact?" Meng Yifan could faintly feel that there truly seemed to be a mysterious existence inside the Ghost Head Blade, and it seemed very dissatisfied with his True Qi.

It was like a foodie who clearly wanted to eat delicacies, but Meng Yifan could only provide it with coarse grain buns, which naturally made it very unhappy.

"How amazing." This was the first transcendent item Meng Yifan had obtained, and it was a Dharma Artifact he could use right now. With such a treasure, as long as it was used well, fighting above his level was not impossible.

However, using this move consumes too much True Qi; with Meng Yifan's Second Grade Lower Stage True Qi, it is only enough to perform it twice, so it seems it can only be used as a trump card at critical moments.

Meng Yifan looked closely at the Ghost Head Broadsword, finally staring at the green-faced and fanged ghost head; before long, he felt dizzy and his vision blurred, as if his very soul were about to be sucked into the ghost head's eyes, scaring him into hurriedly closing his eyes, not daring to stare at the ghost head any longer.

"Eh!" Not knowing if it was Meng Yifan's illusion, he seemed to see a trace of mockery in the ghost head's eyes, as if the ghost head were mocking Meng Yifan for overestimating his own capabilities, that a mere mortal would dare to pry into the mysteries of a Dharma Artifact.

"Is this the Dharma Artifact used by Immortal Cultivators? To think that within a weapon, some kind of mysterious existence is stored; could it be a living Artifact Spirit?" Meng Yifan was lost in thought; from this Ghost Head Blade alone, one could see that the methods of Immortal Cultivators are indeed profound and unfathomable.