Chapter 5: Surprise!!!

Heavenly Wolf Scenting the Moon?

Smell!

This is a function card that grants Chen Mu an extraordinarily powerful sense of smell.

A wolf's sense of smell is already keen — it can pick up scents from five li away.

"Heavenly Wolf Scenting the Moon" doubles that — ten li!

Within a ten-li radius, Chen Mu can detect every breath and scent.

What a surprise!

This is a real sur—

"Urgh—wagh!"

Suddenly, Chen Mu doubled over and threw up violently.

The instant "Heavenly Wolf Scenting the Moon" activated, a flood of smells slammed into his eyes and nose and overwhelmed his brain.

The jolt of that single instant was more than he could bear.

Chen Mu hastily shut it off, and only then did he avoid passing out.

"Hoo… hoo…"

He exhaled in long breaths, steadying his breathing.

After a moment, Chen Mu left the main road, found a secluded corner, first held his breath, then activated "Heavenly Wolf Scenting the Moon" and let it open bit by bit.

This special skill was powerful, sure, but he had to adapt to it.

Letting it all loose at once — every nearby smell, fragrant, foul, rotting… — swarming his eyes and nose in a single wave, no human could stand it.

This attempt alone took a full hour before Chen Mu could barely adapt.

Another hour later, he had fully adapted.

By then Chen Mu tried to take control.

Range, distinguishing scents, pinpointing direction…

All of it required control.

This trial took even longer.

A full four hours passed before Chen Mu had it basically in hand.

By now it was already afternoon.

Chen Mu didn't feel hungry either; he simply took down his waterskin, drank a few mouthfuls, then gathered his spirits, fully released "Heavenly Wolf Scenting the Moon," and slowly closed his eyes.

Using his super smell in place of his eyes, he "looked" at the surroundings.

The scent of grass and trees, the scent of earth, the scent of insects…

A whole new world slowly unfolded in his mind.

But before long, Chen Mu had to stop.

This time it wasn't that the smells were too chaotic for his eyes and nose to bear — his mind couldn't keep up!

"Seeing" the world through scent required not only a super sense of smell, but also a massive expenditure of mental energy.

His spirit drained at a frightening pace.

This drain was something even an Energy Card couldn't fully recover from — or rather, the replenishment couldn't keep pace with the expenditure; even if it could, the strain on the divine soul would be severe and would inevitably cause damage.

So, after resting a while, when Chen Mu activated "Heavenly Wolf Scenting the Moon" again, he discarded every other scent and smelled only the reek of blood, the stench of corpses…

Ten minutes later.

"There really is?"

Chen Mu sniffed lightly twice, a flash of delight in his eyes.

The next moment, following the scent he'd caught, he broke into a brisk walk.

Leaving the open wild behind, he entered the mountain forest and arrived at a cliff face.

Beyond it lay a mountain ravine with a drop of nearly a hundred meters.

A few tall tree crowns and dense thickets of grass and shrubs blocked the line of sight, making it impossible to see what lay in the ravine.

Yet "Heavenly Wolf Scenting the Moon" had caught the stench of corpses down in the ravine!

The rot wasn't very strong yet — the time of death was definitely no more than three days.

Crucially, the number of corpses was as many as five.

"Down to take a look!"

Chen Mu acted decisively.

He turned back into Lin Zi, found several thick long vines, tied them together into a simple rope.

Then he fastened one end to a big tree on the cliff and let the other end hang down into the ravine.

Chen Mu gripped the vines and lowered himself bit by bit to the bottom of the ravine.

Following the scent, he found the five corpses.

Three men and two women.

Their condition was ordinary; from their dress they looked like men of the jianghu.

Chen Mu moved a little closer…

【Corpse discovered. Pick up?】

"Yes!"

【Corpse discovered. Pick up?】

"Yes!"

……

He picked up five cards in a row.

Chen Mu touched each one, and a grin spread uncontrollably across his lips.

Skill card! Skill card! Skill card!

Three skill cards!

The other two were Qi cards!

This was another new type of card.

Qi cards, when used, granted Chen Mu immediate access to a certain amount of Qi.

No cultivation required!

The two Qi cards provided two months' worth and a little over one month's worth, respectively.

What did that mean?

It meant that after using these two cards, Chen Mu would instantly gain a little over three months' worth of Qi!

But this externally acquired Qi vanished once consumed!

Because it wasn't his own Qi—it couldn't be restored after use, couldn't linger in the body, and couldn't enable Breakthrough Realm.

Realm was the key!

Fortunately, the three skill cards held a surprise.

One of the skill cards recorded a cultivation technique!

A technique capable of generating one's own Qi and enabling Breakthrough Realm!

The Evergreen Art

Compared to Wu Gong, cultivation techniques were far harder to obtain.

Among the thousands in the Great Knife Gang, many possessed Wu Gong, but not even ten cultivated internal arts.

If this Evergreen Art were taken outside, countless people would fight over it.

But there was one drawback: the Evergreen Art was easy to enter, yet extremely difficult to master.

It was a slow, painstaking internal art, emphasizing balance and harmony, prolonging life.

It offered no boost to combat, but enhanced healing.

It often took years to advance a single level.

The Evergreen Art recorded on the skill card had only six levels; Chen Mu instantly grasped the insights, experiences, and realizations of the first three.

That meant, for the first three levels, Chen Mu merely needed to follow the steps, copying them exactly.

With Qi cards, he didn't even need to copy—he could just replicate!

Internal art skill cards and Qi cards were a perfect match.

But using Qi cards to Break Through Realm required a massive amount of Qi cards.

Because the Qi was external, not his own!

This reverse cultivation via external Qi differed fundamentally from normal cultivation.

In a sense, the Qi within Qi cards was equivalent to Pills!

But this special "Pill" had no side effects—it could be absorbed directly, limited only by how much Chen Mu could absorb.

That's precisely why reverse cultivation via Qi cards consumed so much.

The higher the realm, the greater the quantity needed to Break Through!

The other two skill cards were also excellent.

One recorded "Meteor Needles," a hidden weapon Wu Gong, at Inner Disciple Realm.

The other recorded "Gecko Art," a lightness technique, at Breakthrough Realm.

Lightness techniques came in many varieties.

Combat-oriented evasive maneuvers, auxiliary-oriented high-leaping and climbing, short-distance sprints, or long-distance travel-focused endurance running.

The Gecko Art was for high-leaping and climbing—scaling walls and mountains as if walking on flat ground.

Chen Mu used the two cards in sequence.

His limbs trembled; tendons, muscles, and bones were all strengthened.

Two Wu Gong, mastered rapidly!

The next moment…

Swish~

Chen Mu tapped his toe, leapt into the air, and bounced off shrubs, tree trunks, and rock faces, leaping several times until he returned to the top of the cliff.

He didn't even need the vines!

This was the advantage of knowing lightness techniques.

He could leave whenever he wished.

Suppressing his grin, Chen Mu untied the vine from the tree, tossed it into the ravine, then clapped his hands and turned to leave.

…

Back in the city.

Huang Feiyang wasn't home; Chen Mu entered his room and sat cross-legged on the bed.

He took out a Qi card and silently activated it.

In the next instant, a cool stream of Qi appeared out of nowhere in his body, flowing through his meridians.

Chen Mu immediately activated the Evergreen Art, guiding the stream to refine his body while converting it into his own Qi.

Again and again, circle after circle.

Three minutes later, the external Qi was exhausted.

Chen Mu decisively used the second Internal Force Card, and another stream of qi suddenly appeared within his body.

Internal force is cultivated by circulating internal gong to temper qi and blood, condensing it over and over again.

Chen Mu first had external internal force, then used that external internal force to drive his internal gong in reverse, condensing his own internal force — truly the first person since the dawn of time to do so.

Therefore, a slow-grinding Wu Gong like the "Evergreen Art" was no problem either.

In less than five minutes, Chen Mu completed his breakthrough.

Swoosh~

The moment the art circulated and internal force mobilized, the skin all over his body immediately took on the luster of antique bronze.

This was precisely the mark of the first level of the martial Dao's Post-Heaven realm!