Lu Xuan sat beneath the moonlight and swallowed the Dew Star Grass in one gulp.
Dew Star Grass.
It was generally used to develop mental medicines. Rumor had it that it could cure any mental illness with a hundred percent success.
According to Lu Xuan's speculation, this thing was most likely used to enhance Mental Power. It was just that Martial Artists did not cultivate Mental Power and could not produce Psychic Power like he could, so they could not appreciate the Dew Star Grass's preciousness.
He circulated his Martial Art Manual.
A strange, flowing-water-like force surged from his abdomen toward his mind.
In an instant,
Lu Xuan felt as though he had entered a void. His entire body drifted like a jellyfish, while the world was like seawater, carrying a sense of movement and emptiness as it brushed against him...
"What a profound feeling."
He tried merging his consciousness into this void-like world. That trickle of water-like power swept through his entire body, sketching the world's outline into his consciousness, as if he were drawing a picture. Only then did he completely manifest the world within a radius around him.
"So that's how it is." A trace of enlightenment surfaced in Lu Xuan's eyes.
"Mental Power isn't about sensing the world. It's about making the world sense your existence, thereby granting you the truest version of the world. It lets you see through every detail of the world in an instant and find the underlying flaws in anything between breaths—the openings in a Martial Artist's combat technique, the flaws in Martial Skills... So this is the true use of Psychic Power!"
He analyzed the essence of the world.
The enlightenment in his heart grew clearer, and Lu Xuan's Psychic Power became increasingly solid and expansive.
In the span of a few short seconds, his Psychic Power extended to thirty meters, thirty-five meters, forty meters...
Until it stopped at fifty meters.
He had broken through!
With a thought from Lu Xuan, objects weighing a hundred kilograms all around him floated into the air.
The lifting power of his Psychic Power had risen from barely managing to lift a hundred-kilogram object to being able to lift several such objects simultaneously.
His perception ultimately expanded to a radius of fifty meters.
Lu Xuan reined in his Mental Power, a smile curling at the corners of his lips. "By concentrating my Psychic Power at a single point, I can completely lift a one-ton object. Now I have an even better chance of intercepting and killing Xu Long and seizing the Earth Dragon Egg."
If Mental Power had levels, he should currently count as having just entered the field.
Previously, he had been in the Awakened stage.
At that thought, Lu Xuan gripped his long saber. "The cultivation of Psychic Power is no inferior to that of Martial Artists. I absolutely can't let it fall behind. From now on, aside from searching for spirit objects that can heal my parents and the flesh and blood my younger sister needs for her breakthrough, spirit objects related to the mind will be my first priority."
He only had a cultivation method for Psychic Power.
He had no cultivation method for Martial Artists.
He could only use the limited time he had to improve one ability.
"But it won't be long now."
Lu Xuan gazed at Ruins City beneath the moonlit sky. He released the long saber from his hand, and his Psychic Power lifted it, suspending it in midair. He stepped onto it.
Then he urged his Psychic Power.
Whoosh—!
Lu Xuan's figure carved a streak of silver light through the void before plunging into the depths of Ruins City.
Starlight suddenly appeared.
The instant that streak of light swept across the night sky, countless Martial Artists sensed it and looked up one after another, only to lower their heads in terror at once.
"A Martial Dao Grandmaster?!"
"How could there be a Martial Dao Grandmaster in Ruins City? Could a Beast Lord level monster have appeared?"
"It might be a Martial Dao Grandmaster from the Xu Family. Didn't they say someone from the Xu Family stole the Earth Dragon Egg and was trapped inside Ruins City?"
Martial Artists.
Only upon reaching the realm of a Martial Dao Grandmaster could one fly through the air.
That streak of light had clearly been flying through the air. How could the Martial Artists exploring Ruins City not be terrified?
A Martial Dao Grandmaster had taken action.
Either a Beast Lord level monster had appeared, or there was a treasure enticing enough to make such an existence covet it.
Regardless of which it was, for the Martial Artist teams exploring the area, it was a dangerous signal.
It meant a battle was about to begin.
When immortals fought, ordinary people suffered.
For a time, quite a few people began posting messages on the Martial Artist Forum to ask about it.
Should they retreat or continue their adventure?
These things...
Lu Xuan did not care in the slightest. He had only two purposes for moving so ostentatiously.
The first was to make Xu Long mistake him for a powerful member of the Xu Family. When the time came, Xu Long would naturally expose himself.
The second was to make most of the Martial Artists stay away from the Core Zone. That way, even if he killed Xu Long, no one would connect it to some minor nobody.
In the future where he had died last time, the families of those who had worked alongside him as logistics personnel had been destroyed.
He could not escape responsibility for that.
This time, he could not implicate these people.
Lu Xuan was not a good person, but he was not a bad person either.
Landing on the roof of a ruined high-rise, Lu Xuan restrained his aura and raised his head to scan the surroundings.
This was the Second Ring of Ruins City, the truly dangerous area.
The weakest monsters here were all Intermediate Monsters.
Within the First Ring lay the Core Zone, where Awakened Level monsters existed.
Ruins City was not centered around the original city's First, Second, and Third Rings. Instead, its rings had been reorganized according to the strength of the monsters.
The closer one got to the Core Zone, the more numerous and active the monsters became.
Roar!
Sure enough,
The moment Lu Xuan steadied his feet, a roar came from the distance.
With one glance, he could see two giant beasts dozens of meters tall, their bodies as large as small buildings, fighting one another.
"Two High-level Monsters..."
Lu Xuan chose to avoid their sharp edge.
Regardless of why the two monsters were fighting, it absolutely was not something a mere Third-order Martial Artist like him could exploit. If he interfered, they might turn around and join forces against him.
He would not even know how he died.
If they were Intermediate Monsters, he could still take a gamble.
"Better not complicate matters. I'll search for Xu Long's trail first."
Lu Xuan concealed his figure and moved through the various buildings.
The Future Mail had not specified exactly where Xu Long would be found, but he definitely would not have left the Second Ring.
The Second Ring covered ten li, which was five thousand meters.
With Lu Xuan's fifty-meter Psychic detection range, he would be able to find traces of Xu Long and the others before long.
Ruins City.
Somewhere.
Xu Long bit off a piece of meat, and his vital energy recovered slightly.
This trip to obtain the Earth Dragon Egg had cost the lives of three High-level Martial Artists, several classmates he had lured to their deaths, and numerous logistics personnel.
The losses had been devastating.
Fortunately, he had obtained the Earth Dragon Egg.
By the firelight, he cast his gaze onto a Tech Capsule.
Two basketball-sized Earth Dragon Eggs were nourished in Nutrient Fluid. While maintaining their vitality at all times, it also isolated their auras to prevent the Earth Dragon from detecting them.
Only four Intermediate Martial Artists remained in the team, including him.
If the Earth Dragon discovered their whereabouts, they would certainly die.
That was a Ninth-order High-level Monster, a giant beast on the verge of breaking through to the Awakened Level. Killing them would be as easy as slaughtering chickens.
An Awakened Level monster was equivalent to a human Blood-Energy Martial Master.
It was one of the top experts in Jinling City.
A mainstay of a company.
Xu Long's father was only at this realm as well.
As for why they had not sent a Blood-Energy Martial Master to retrieve the Earth Dragon Egg and had instead sent a weakling like him,
Xu Long had asked his father that very question.
The reason was simple. If a powerhouse above the Blood-Energy Martial Master realm took action, it would inevitably expose the fact that the Xu Family's Martial Dao Grandmaster had been injured. When that happened, the other families and corporate forces would swarm them like a pack of wolves.
"Young Master, good news!"
At that moment,
An underling came over carrying an electronic display, excitement evident in his voice. "A Martial Dao Grandmaster has appeared in Ruins City. There's a very good chance he's a powerhouse from our Xu Family!"
"Impossible!"
Xu Long glanced at it and shook his head.
Others might not know, but how could he not understand the Xu Family's situation?
The Xu Family had only one Martial Dao Grandmaster, and he was injured as well.
How could he possibly come looking for Xu Long?
"Young Master, we can't rule out the possibility that the family put out a bounty and a Martial Dao Grandmaster accepted the mission!"
The underling spoke urgently.
He desperately hoped that such a thing had happened.
They were now teetering on the edge of death every day. One person died each day—who knew whether he would be the one to die tomorrow?
The reminder made Xu Long hesitate. "...That is possible."
"Then should we—"
"Don't expose ourselves!"
Xu Long rejected it decisively. Facing the underlings' confusion, he was just about to explain when a mocking voice came from above, accompanied by a burst of applause.
Clap, clap, clap—!
"Just as expected of Young Master Xu..."
Lu Xuan crouched atop a reinforced-concrete beam, clapping his hands. He tilted his Ghost-faced Monkey-like face and grinned.
"You're truly cautious!"
Before you continue