Chapter 50: Fitness

Zhuoyue Middle School, during recess. Li Cheng sat at his desk, idly spinning a pen between his fingers, looking as if his mind were elsewhere.

Seven days had passed since his first mission in the Killing Ground; during this time he had been extraordinarily busy, sleeping only four to five hours a day, sustained entirely by coffee and stimulant drugs.

The busyness included, but was not limited to: refining himself with outcome-oriented methods, using big data to review past successful cases, focusing on pain points, expanding advantage zones, exchanging resources with organizations in the same field, and ultimately ensuring the project landed smoothly.

In plain terms, that meant practicing firearm shooting, weapon maintenance, vehicle driving, and hand-to-hand combat basics.

Reading through a large pile of other players' mission logs.

He sold the broken-quality 【Crimson Hunt Legion's Painful Golden Arrow】 to Changsun Yao for a sum of money, then used that money to buy essential weapons and gear, plus an advanced version of the Gene Suppression Agent, temporarily resolving his gene hunger.

Additionally, he invested his one free attribute point gained from leveling up into Perception, learning the Mist Concealment Technique. He could proudly declare he was no longer a blank-slate warrior, but a noble spellcaster.

Mist Concealment is a spell!

"What's wrong with you? You look like you've overplayed a game and burned out."

Han Letian, sitting behind him, leaned forward curiously to glance at the scribbled notes on his desk. "What's this? Are you getting into fitness lately?"

On that scrap of paper were clearly written four large characters: "Fitness Plan."

"Yeah."

Li Cheng nodded. "I've drafted several plans. The first one is the Nine Dragon Supreme Package: Kangli Long, Qunbo Long, Yangxiong Long, Jiaqiang Long, Qiangbo Long, Meitinaolong, Kangfulong, Kuisuanluolong, Benbingsuannolong, Qutuo Long."

"Pfft, you wanna become Captain America, a new human, a perfect body capable of leading Earth to victory against alien civilizations?!"

Han Letian's eyebrow twitched. These "dragons" were all steroids.

Kangli Long could increase strength and muscle explosive power without increasing height or weight, while drying out subcutaneous water. It was commonly used as a banned substance in athletics and combat sports.

Qunbo Long, another steroid, was even more extreme—it built muscle, burned fat, and enhanced nutrient absorption. In the last century, it was used to rapidly increase lean mass in livestock before slaughter. Now it was widely abused in bodybuilding, athletics, and combat sports.

The other several "dragons" each had their own strengths; together, they achieved perfect synergy, delivering a highly satisfying effect. After taking them all, one could practically declare themselves no longer human.

"So I scrapped that plan," Li Cheng said casually. "The bodily damage is too severe—not worth it."

In fact, many new players abused various drugs to rapidly enhance physical stats, slamming muscle-building, fat-burning, and strength-boosting banned substances, transforming into muscular demons over one or two months.

Such behavior—trading future health for immediate gains—was already commonplace among players.

Gen-Sys Biotech, fearing their employees weren't taking strong enough drugs, actively developed new ones capable of turning untrained civilians into muscle tanks in just one or two weeks.

Compared to them, the Special Affairs Bureau was downright gentle—they only distributed nutritional supplements to new staff, designed to improve sleep efficiency and sharpen cognition.

This actually reflected a fundamental difference in philosophy.

Gen-Sys Biotech was a multinational corporation that prioritized profit above all else; if an employee died, they simply hired another.

The Special Affairs Bureau, in some ways, was like a lifetime iron rice bowl.

"My new fitness plan is this."

Li Cheng pulled out a fresh sheet of paper from under his textbook, covered in dense handwriting: "Warm-up: Xiangtan Puzi, three sets, one piece per set; Pinwang, four sets, three pieces per set; Lao Xiangtan, four sets, three pieces per set; Wu Zi Zui, four sets, four pieces per set; finally, Cheng Tianxia Super Set, five pieces per set to failure. Focus on peak muscle contraction, thirty-second rest between sets."

"????"

Han Letian's eyebrow twitched violently. "Wait, these are all betel nut brands! Are you trying to cultivate oral cancer?!"

"Li Cheng, snap out of it—I don't want to visit you every day in the oncology ward."

"Good kids don't chew betel nut."

Mu Yulu, sitting in the front row, turned around after hearing their banter. "Besides oral cancer risk, your masseter muscles will hypertrophy into that Hollywood actor Robert Pattinson's 'tender beef square face.'"

"Then forget it."

Li Cheng quickly shook his head. "His new Batman's okay, but still not as good as Christian Bale's old Batman."

"Huh? Why?"

Han Letian hadn't seen the movie and asked instinctively: "Is his acting bad?"

"Not at all. I just admire Christian Bale's dedication."

Li Cheng said: "To perfectly portray his roles, he repeatedly flips his body weight. In 2013, he played a steel mill worker in 'Out of the Furnace' and lost forty pounds."

In the same year's film 'American Hustle,' he portrayed a bloated con artist and gained seventy-five pounds.

In this year's latest 'Dune: Part Two,' he broke the Guinness World Record by gaining five thousand tons to portray the sandworm, delivering the best performance of his career."

"????"

Han Letian was utterly baffled—he'd actually believed him until that five-thousand-ton number came out.

The trio chatted as usual, when suddenly cries of shock rang out from the front of the classroom.

"Whoa, where did this video come from? So disgusting."

"I'm gonna puke. Zhan Xinyu, you're too twisted."

"This video's AI-generated, right?"

Li Cheng and the others looked up curiously to see Zhan Xinyu playing a video on his phone, surrounded by classmates whose faces all bore expressions of disgust, shock, and faint fear.

The video was extremely blurry, roughly 480p resolution, barely discernible as a surveillance feed from a large open-plan office in a foreign building.

The white and Black employees inside were working normally when suddenly a black-and-red fissure appeared out of nowhere in the office; black mist poured from the rift, triggering violent winds.

The surveillance footage began to stutter, drop frames, and fill with static. When the image cleared again, all employees had been "packed" into the nearest container.

Either a desk drawer, a water cooler jug, or a plastic trash bin.

Their bones were compressed, their skin dissolved, their limbs fused—but they were all still breathing.

(End of Chapter)