Rapidly Advancing Strength (Part 1)

The Bearded Commander once again left the base with a group of civilian officers. He was going to the military headquarters to sue them. This time, the Hell Angels Mercenary Group had suffered heavy casualties, and the Bearded Commander felt he had to wring some compensation out of the military. Gu Xiechen naturally became the highest commander of the Hell Angels Mercenary Group's ice-cap base, and no one interfered with his actions anymore.

There was a specially designed testing room inside the ice-cap base, used to measure the strength level of Innate fighters. Gu Xiechen was currently inside it.

The testing room, over two hundred meters long and wide, was surrounded by walls made of two-meter-thick special alloy. At the center stood the testing machine, which had cost more than a billion to build. Its massive body resembled a cannon: a sturdy alloy-cast base over twenty meters across, a barrel ten meters long and roughly three meters thick, and a strike pad made of special materials positioned in front of the barrel.

By attacking the strike pad, which was about a meter across, with full force, the machine could perfectly absorb the full power of a fighter's attack and convert it into standardized data.

The limit of the Hell Angels Mercenary Group's testing machine was an all-out strike from a high-level Mars-class Fighter.

Standing ten meters in front of the strike pad, Gu Xiechen drew deep breaths and regulated his breathing. He did not use a trace of the energy within his Dao Embryo, nor did he use the qi vortices in his one hundred and eight acupoints. He merely mobilized the abundant Innate Qi within his dantian. Dense, pure Innate Qi slowly gathered in his right claw. His claw was already covered in a layer of white ice roughly three millimeters thick, becoming translucent like crystal. Threads of biting cold air continuously sprayed from his fingertips, and wisps of white vapor stretched more than a meter away.

The gathered force had reached the limit his right claw could bear. Gu Xiechen took a deep breath, then shot forward like lightning. His right claw tore through the air with a muffled boom and smashed fiercely into the strike pad. Bang! The entire testing room seemed to tremble slightly, and the strike pad sank a few millimeters beneath the force of his full-powered blow.

The point where his claw landed felt empty, as though he had struck a black hole. Not the slightest rebound force came back. The special material used to make the strike pad was said to have been smuggled from the Roman people, and the Earth Federation was still unable to replicate it. The material truly was extraordinary; it had perfectly absorbed Gu Xiechen's full-force claw strike.

After roughly ten seconds, a light screen projected above the testing machine, displaying the standardized value of Gu Xiechen's attack: 39.7 Zakra!

"I've already broken through to Pluto-class Fighter. I'm now at the lower-middle level of Neptune-class Fighter," Gu Xiechen muttered to himself.

The so-called Zakra standard value was the explosive power produced by extracting all the energy from one gram of a standard Zakra Crystal and turning it into a high-explosive bomb. Perhaps by coincidence, the energy contained in one gram of standard Zakra Crystal was equivalent to the explosive force of one kilogram of standard TNT!

The power of 39.7 Zakra meant that the Innate Qi contained in Gu Xiechen's claw, upon erupting, was equivalent to 39.7 kilograms of TNT!

Using the Zakra standard, the Earth Federation had established a complete fighter strength system based on the names of the nine planets in the solar system.

Strength from one Zakra to nine Zakra was Pluto-class Fighter.

Strength from ten Zakra to ninety-nine Zakra was Neptune-class Fighter.

Strength from one hundred Zakra to nine hundred and ninety-nine Zakra was Uranus-class Fighter.

And so on. The stronger a fighter became, the closer their title moved toward the core of the solar system.

Gu Xiechen's explosive claw strike had now reached 39.7 Zakra, proving that he had successfully entered the ranks of Neptune-class Fighter.

Gu Xiechen coldly glanced at the number on the light screen and shook his head in dissatisfaction. "There are countless powerful people on Earth. It'll be hard to get by with this little strength. Looks like I can only take advantage of Uncle Beard's absence to improve myself properly. Hmm, can humans really absorb energy from Zakra Crystals? Wouldn't that turn them into mechanical engines?"

Gu Xiechen turned and left the testing room, never noticing that the beautiful physician Maria had sneaked inside after him.

"Tsk, 39.7? A Neptune-class Fighter?" Maria quickly recorded the relevant data on her personal computer. "This guy's progress is at least twice as fast as that of an ordinary true Innate fighter! What a pity. If Uncle Beard were willing, I'd really like to dissect him alive. Oh ho ho ho ho!"

After sealing the automatic door to his quarters and activating all defenses, Gu Xiechen sat cross-legged on the meditation cushion he used for cultivation, quietly studying a small pile of multicolored crystals before him.

Three days earlier, the raiding team led by Borport had been driven away by Gu Xiechen, who had extorted a large amount of equipment and Zakra Crystals from him. Borport was clearly the sort of true playboy who valued his own life above all else. The reserve energy stored aboard his ship was staggering. The Zakra Crystals Gu Xiechen had extorted totaled a full one hundred and fifty cubic meters, enough for a first-class Earth Federation warship to travel at warp speed around the solar system along Pluto's orbit seventeen or eighteen times at maximum power.

With such a rich haul, the Bearded Commander generously gave Gu Xiechen ten cubic meters of Zakra Crystals and even specially opened a small warehouse beside Gu Xiechen's quarters.

Gu Xiechen brushed his fingers across the surface of a Zakra Crystal. Smooth, clean, utterly free of dust. These crystals had all been polished into standard cubes ten centimeters long, wide, and high. Their semi-transparent interiors were mixed with many impurities and appeared quite cloudy. Every crystal carried a faint, unique glow—blue, red, white, or pale green.

These semi-transparent crystals containing impurities were standard Zakra Crystals, and a fighter's Zakra index was measured using this type of crystal. There were also crystals with greater luster, containing more energy per unit of weight. It was said that mining teams had once found several tiny pieces of crystal that were completely transparent and dazzling like the finest sapphires. Such top-grade crystals, however, were nearly impossible to come by, and the energy contained within them was unimaginably great. They were often used as the cores of various high-level energy weapons.

Gu Xiechen picked up a red crystal and held it in his palm, letting his Innate Qi make contact with it through his hand.

Crack! The crystal, twice as dense as ordinary steel, was shaken open by a hairline fracture from Gu Xiechen's Innate Qi. Gu Xiechen stared speechlessly at the cracked crystal and frowned. "How am I supposed to absorb this? Ordinary fighters can't possibly cultivate using Zakra Crystals. Only Realm Masters can absorb the energy inside Zakra Crystals. Why is that?"

Only Realm Masters could absorb the energy within crystals. Could it all be because of the Realm?

Taking a deep breath, Gu Xiechen tightly gripped the crystal and slowly entered meditation. All his focus gathered in the sea of consciousness within his Purple Palace as he patiently tried to make contact with that unfathomable "Realm."

Gu Xiechen easily sensed that unfathomable Realm and vaguely detected its presence. He also discovered that his consciousness and the Realm had actually become one, allowing him to easily mobilize the things within it. Yet the Realm seemed utterly empty, containing nothing at all. He nearly exhausted all his mental strength before barely drawing out a thin thread of purple mist.

Mysterious. The moment his mental strength touched that tiny strand of purple mist, Gu Xiechen felt an indescribable mystery. This was a power entirely different from Innate Qi—purer, denser, and stronger. Gu Xiechen even felt that the power contained within that thin wisp of mist was comparable to thirty percent of the Innate Qi in his dantian. It was a force a hundred times more powerful than Innate Qi.

"No wonder Realm Masters hold such special status in the Earth Federation. Legal immunity? They can even be granted such absurd privileges!" Gu Xiechen sighed. "If the power possessed by Realm Masters is the same as this unknown force, even the weakest Realm Master could beat a high-level fighter into fleeing in panic. Such privileges would be only natural."

The humiliation of playing dead and fleeing after being beaten by Siren was instantly swept away. The suffocating gloom in Gu Xiechen's heart vanished without a trace. Realm Masters and fighters were existences on entirely different levels. Playing dead and fleeing before a Realm Master was nothing shameful. For a Pluto-class Fighter, escaping from a Realm Master's hands was something to be proud of.

Gu Xiechen carefully mobilized the purple mist. This faint, tiny wisp obediently followed his will and traveled through his meridians. Wherever the purple mist passed, the Innate Qi within Gu Xiechen's body, which had already been condensed to its limit, seemed to shrink slightly in volume. His dantian, previously packed so full that no more Innate Qi could be added, became noticeably more open.

Gu Xiechen was ecstatic. That meant he could use this wisp of purple mist to greatly compress the Innate Qi within his body. Every martial artist knew that the greater the compression ratio of qi, the stronger its destructive force. Compressing Innate Qi was an enormous challenge faced by all martial artists. Many fighters might never be able to compress their Innate Qi in their entire lives, severely limiting their progress in martial arts. Reaching the level of a Neptune-class Fighter would be their ultimate limit.

"If every Realm Master is like me, and they can all use this method to compress their Innate Qi, wouldn't Realm Masters easily possess tremendous combat strength? Not to mention the supernatural abilities they have!" Gu Xiechen secretly rejoiced, but at the same time felt alarmed. "No wonder the Federation calls Realm Masters the guardian gods of the Federation and the ultimate force against the Roman people! Tsk, luckily the Roman people have an even harder time merging with Cristo Crystals than Earthlings do!"

The threadlike purple qi circled through Gu Xiechen's body along the Greater Heavenly Cycle meridians, finally arriving at the center of his tightly clenched right palm.

Like a pack of greedy wolves catching the scent of a lamb, the strand of purple qi burst from his palm beyond Gu Xiechen's control.

The red crystal floated up from Gu Xiechen's palm. A faint cloud of purple mist wrapped around it as powerful energy continuously surged from the crystal, rushing through Gu Xiechen's meridians toward the sea of consciousness within his Purple Palace.

Dozens of wisps of purple mist howled out from the sea of consciousness within his Purple Palace and crazily pounced on the red crystal. Gu Xiechen's sea of consciousness withered in an instant, and he nearly fainted.

Comrades, recommendation votes, clicks, book reviews... I won't say much more... Votes, votes, votes! (To be continued)