Advancing on Two Fronts

Su Shijie's vision went black, his ears filled with ringing. His whole body felt light and weightless, as though he had lost control of it.

It took him a while to recover. The scenery gradually returned to his vision, but when he tried to prop himself up with his limp limbs, he failed several times. His mind was still a foggy mess.

Drops of blood dripped continuously from his nose, striking the tree roots as he tried to get up.

The collision on the spiritual level had been agonizing. It hurt so badly that he had wanted to smash his own head apart.

Against an opponent of similar strength, Su Shijie's Soul Tendrils could instantly kill them. But this target had ultimately been far stronger than him.

So much stronger that, despite his current agony, he instinctively kept his tendrils embedded in the severed head of the black giant wolf.

Then the surging Soul Power rushed in, soothing all his pain and washing away every trace of sorrow.

A floating sensation of ascension rose from the depths of his being.

Too much!

There was too much!

He was practically being filled to the brim!

"Ah..."

A somewhat inappropriate sound escaped Su Shijie's mouth.

Su Ren, who had come over limping while clutching his ribs broken in the collision, felt his forehead twitch.

I came over with cracked bones because I was worried about you, and this is what you show me?

Still, after what had happened when Su Shijie drained that contaminated wild boar earlier, Su Ren could more or less understand his current state.

After replacing the magazine in his M-7, Su Ren sat down beside Su Shijie. He pulled out an injector with a transparent test tube from a slot in his combat suit, stabbed it into his own neck, and injected all of the green liquid inside.

He let out a long breath, then looked back at Su Shijie, who still wore an intoxicated expression. Remembering how the little brat had disobeyed him and run off earlier, a faint smile appeared on Su Ren's lips.

Then Su Ren sensed the surrounding spiritual energy stirring. It suddenly began rushing madly into Su Shijie's body.

The wounds on his body from the aftershock swiftly healed, and color returned to his face.

Bloodline Transformation!

After so many hard days, plus that contaminated wild boar from before—which had only counted as half an evil spirit—this Contaminated Beast had made up the remaining share all at once!

High risk brought high rewards. In truth, even with Su Ren's personality, he preferred starting slowly with low-level Spirit Beasts and Contaminated Beasts.

You only had one life. If you got killed, you died. Who knew when some accident might happen?

That battle had truly been too dangerous. Even though Su Ren had lived a life with blood on the blade, he had found it exceptionally difficult to handle.

After undergoing his second Bloodline Transformation and draining the wolf's soul, Su Shijie felt as though the entire world had changed.

Like his previous Bloodline Transformation, his overall physical abilities had increased by another ten percent. But Su Shijie also felt as though he had gained a strange new ability.

Then, under his control, a branch slowly rose from the ground.

Su Ren, who had been sitting nearby to guard him, widened his eyes.

"You actually awakened telekinesis. Not bad."

"Uh, is it? Why does it feel like it can only lift a few pounds at most, with a range of just a few meters? Anything heavier won't budge."

Su Shijie unsteadily controlled the broken branch, swaying it from side to side. He did not feel it was useful at all.

If it had been comparable to his physical strength, he could at least fly around on a sword in a cool and stylish way.

But with only a few pounds of force within a few meters, he could not even throw a stone very far.

And this thing could not penetrate Spiritual Creatures either. He could not directly affect an enemy's insides.

It was not nearly as practical as the enhancement from Tough Skin.

Then again, he had basically spent the entire battle watching from the sidelines. It was normal that Tough Skin had not been strengthened again.

But then Su Shijie saw Su Ren make another thin branch, broken during their battle, float into the air. He controlled it even better than Su Shijie did!

"How can you do it too?"

"You little brat, what rank am I, and what rank are you?"

After being scolded by Su Ren, Su Shijie came to a realization. Right, his father was Late Awakened Rank 9, with 100% Gene Imbuement—a typical all-rounder.

He was also highly proficient with abilities such as the sound barrier. Simple object manipulation did not seem like much in comparison.

"I specifically trained in it, and even now, this is about as much as I can do. You haven't even reached the Awakened Rank yet, and your evolution level is so far below mine, but you can already control it this well.

"If the objects I can move are about one-thousandth of my own strength, then yours are one percent. Isn't a tenfold gap enough for you to feel smug about?"

Hearing Su Ren put it that way, Su Shijie felt that it did make sense.

"Hurry up. Before it's completely dead, see if you can absorb its spiritual energy and use this chance to break through to the Awakened Rank. With such a huge gap in level, the opportunity is great."

Without time to explain further, Su Ren picked Su Shijie up and brought him to the giant wolf's corpse. Even without its head, it was still twitching.

Spirit Beasts were already extremely tenacious. After being contaminated by the Evil God's projection, they were even harder to kill than cockroaches.

It had been decapitated for so long, yet it still had not breathed its last.

But after Su Ren cut several times along its spine, heart, and other areas, the wolf corpse finally stopped twitching.

Then, with his foundation strengthened further after completing his second Bloodline Transformation, Su Shijie entered a state of spiritual energy guidance.

The dense spiritual energy that had already been absorbed and refined once filled the surroundings. In his guided state, Su Shijie even felt a faint sense of suffocation.

It was too dense!

Having just completed another Bloodline Transformation, his entire body was in an active state, as if every part of him were starving.

He continuously devoured the rich, refined spiritual energy. Unlike the unruly and savage spiritual energy he normally guided, this energy was exceptionally obedient, readily following Su Shijie's will.

Having just absorbed a massive amount of Soul Power and completed his Bloodline Transformation, Su Shijie's thoughts were unusually clear, and his control was extremely precise.

With such an enormous disparity between the internal and external concentrations, coupled with Su Shijie's enhanced talent, everything fell into place naturally.

The 9% imbuement barrier broke through.

Boom~

Familiar pain spread throughout his body. Even the lingering bliss from his Bloodline Transformation could not suppress it, and Su Shijie nearly screamed again.

But before he could make a sound, Su Ren stuffed a smelly rag into his mouth, preventing him from crying out.

"Keep it down. No need to invite trouble."

Su Ren remained seated nearby, watching their surroundings as Su Shijie repeatedly flopped around on the ground like a fish.

At last, the imbuement spreading through his entire body gradually came to an end. Su Shijie climbed to his feet, drenched in sweat.

Awakened Rank achieved!

In theory, the Awakened Rank marked one's true first step into spiritual energy cultivation. And as expected of a rank increase, it raised his overall physical abilities by nearly forty percent compared with Mortal Tier Level 9!

More importantly, Su Shijie felt an indescribable sensation. This was the sixth sense unique to the Awakened Rank—or rather, danger intuition.

Su Ren had likely relied on this ability when he fled with him after the first strike, avoiding the deadliest blow.

This was also the main ability Awakened Rank fighters relied on to evade Firearms.

They could not match the speed of bullets, but as long as their processing ability let them predict the muzzle, that was enough.

But as waves of stench flooded into his nose and mouth, Su Shijie came to his senses. He immediately tore out the rag and threw it away, then began retching.

"Whew... whew... I almost got smoked to death. What the hell is this?"

Looking at the chewed-up thing, Su Ren injected Su Shijie with a nutrient solution to replenish the consumption from Gene Evolution. His gaze suddenly deepened as he said flatly,

"You'd better not know."

"I..."

"By the way, tell me about your telekinesis. Don't underestimate it just because it can only exert about one percent of your own strength. It's actually an excellent ability, the trait most suited to a Mechanist. Mechanists are known as the profession with the strongest combat power."

Although Su Shijie knew his father was changing the subject, his attention was still drawn away.

A Mechanist was, as the name implied, someone who could control all sorts of machinery in combat.

The simplest application was controlling guns. Aside from holding one yourself, you could use telekinesis to control several more. One person could form an entire firepower team.

Telekinesis did not have enough killing power when directly manipulating objects, but it could still pull triggers.

Electromagnetic guns had much less recoil, but with only a few pounds of force, Su Shijie could not seem to handle them yet. After firing one shot, the gun would fly beyond his control range.

Laser weapons should work, but maintaining sufficient lethality would be far too expensive.

All he could say was that the future looked promising...

The upper limit of a Mechanist was tightly linked to the upper limit of technological weaponry.

So it was understandable why they were called the profession with the strongest combat power.

"And although your telekinesis is currently one percent of your own strength, once you reach the Transformation Tier and begin modifying yourself with new genes, some gene fragments can specifically amplify telekinesis. Those genes would be ten times more effective for you than for ordinary people.

"Of course, people without the telekinesis Bloodline Trait would not record such specialized gene fragments in the first place. And you have to maintain genetic balance, so you cannot blindly record just one type. The actual gap is not quite that large."

After hearing that, Su Shijie felt enlightened. Perhaps it was not just telekinesis. If he found gene fragments that enhanced defense and stacked them with his Tough Skin, that would likewise be an additional boost.

Put that way, it really did seem powerful. Even without a suitable weapon nearby, perhaps he could eventually achieve the effect of controlling swords for attacks.

And once his bloodline level was high enough, he could further enhance his Bloodline Traits using Soul Power alone. The thought of it was simply wonderful...