Chapter 62: Workout

Zhuoyue Middle School, during recess. Li Cheng sat at his desk, idly spinning a pen between his fingers, looking utterly detached.

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

His busyness included, but was not limited to: refining himself with a results-driven approach, analyzing past successful cases through big data, focusing on pain points, expanding his advantage zones, exchanging resources with organizations in the same field, and ultimately ensuring the stable implementation of the project.

In plain terms, this meant practicing basic skills such as firearm shooting, weapon maintenance, vehicle driving, and hand-to-hand combat.

Reading through a large number of other players’ mission logs.

He sold the damaged 【Crimson Hunt Legion’s Painful Golden Arrow】 to Changsun Yao for a sum of money, then used that money to buy essential weapons and equipment, as well as an advanced version of the Gene Suppression Agent, temporarily resolving his gene hunger.

Additionally, he invested his one free attribute point 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 also a spell!

“What’s wrong with you? You look like you’ve overplayed a game and burned out.”

Han Letian, sitting in the back row, leaned forward curiously to glance at the scribbled notes on his desk. “What’s this? Are you planning to work out lately?”

On the paper, in bold letters, it clearly read: “Workout Plan.”

“Yeah.”

Li Cheng nodded. “I’ve designed several plans. The first one is the Nine Dragon Supreme Package: Kangli Long, Qunbo Long, Yangxiong Long, Jiaqiang Long, Qiangbo Long, Meitino Long, Kangfu Long, Kuisuan Luo Long, Benbingsu Nuolong, 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 eye twitched. All these “Longs” were actually steroids.

Kangli Long could increase strength and muscle explosive power without increasing height or weight, while also 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 could build muscle, burn fat, and enhance 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 “Longs” each had their own strengths; combined, they achieved perfect synergy, delivering a devastatingly effective result. Taking them all together would effectively remove you from the category of normal human beings.

“So I scrapped that plan,” Li Cheng said casually. “The damage to the body is too great. Not worth it.”

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

This kind of behavior—trading future health for immediate gains—was now commonplace among players.

Gen-Sys Biotech, afraid their employees weren’t using 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 employees, 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 just hired another.

The Special Affairs Bureau, in some ways, was like a lifetime job.

“The new workout plan is this.”

Li Cheng pulled out a fresh sheet of paper from under his textbook, covered in dense handwriting: “Warm-up: Xiangtan Pu Zi, three sets, one piece per set; Pin Wang, four sets, three pieces per set; Lao Xiangtan, four sets, three pieces per set; Wu Zi Zui, four sets, four pieces per set; finally, the Supreme Set of He Cheng Tian Xia, five pieces per set to failure. Focus on peak muscle contraction, rest 30 seconds between sets.”

“???”

Han Letian’s eye twitched violently. “Wait a minute—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 the risk of oral cancer, your masseter muscles will enlarge, giving you a face like Hollywood actor Robert Pattinson’s ‘tender beef five ways’ look.”

“Then forget it.”

Li Cheng quickly shook his head. “Even though his new Batman isn’t bad, it’s still not as good as Christian Bale’s old Batman.”

“Huh? Why?”

Han Letian, who hadn’t seen the movie, 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 can repeatedly flip his weight. In 2013, for the film ‘Out of the Furnace,’ he lost forty pounds to play a steel mill worker.”

In the same year’s film ‘American Hustle,’ he gained seventy-five pounds to portray a corpulent con artist.”

This year, in the 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 continued their usual idle chatter when sudden exclamations erupted from the front of the classroom.

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

“I’m gonna throw up. Zhan Xinyu, you’re a monster.”

“This must be AI-generated.”

Li Cheng and the others looked up curiously. Zhan Xinyu was playing a video on his phone, surrounded by a circle of classmates, all of whom wore expressions of disgust, shock, and faint fear.

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

The white and Black employees inside were working normally when suddenly, a black-and-red fissure appeared out of nowhere. Black mist oozed from the crack, triggering violent gusts of wind.

The surveillance footage began to stutter, drop frames, and fill with static. When the image stabilized again, every employee had been “packed” into the nearest container.

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

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

(End of Chapter)