"I want... I want... your love..."
After washing up, Lin Chen was just about to head out when a voice singing like a slaughtered pig suddenly rang out. Right after it, a greasy, chubby young man strode through the door with an air that said he didn't care who he offended.
"Fatty, what's with the flashy look today?" Lin Chen asked, staring at him speechlessly.
"Little Chen, you wouldn't understand. Your buddy's in love." Fatty wore a smug grin, looking just like a boar in the season when all things came back to life.
"You sure it's love and not some kind of perversion?"
"You're jealous. Green-eyed with jealousy!" Fatty glared fiercely at Lin Chen.
"Don't tell me you tricked some naive junior into it?"
Lin Chen was curious. They were about to graduate, after all. Who would start dating Fatty at a time like this? They'd been roommates for four years, so Lin Chen knew him well. Apart from his spare tire, Fatty didn't have much going for him.
"Not telling you. I'm going to shower first. Then I've got a date with my Lingling."
Watching Fatty head for the bathroom with a lovestruck expression, Lin Chen had to swallow the words on the tip of his tongue. Anyway, apart from his spare tire, Fatty didn't have much worth deceiving. People had to grow up sometime.
After leaving the dorm, Lin Chen bought some breakfast at the cafeteria. He ate as he headed toward the spot where he'd killed the Mutated Rat last night.
"Just as I thought..."
As he casually passed the spot from the previous day, Lin Chen's expression turned grave. The Mutated Rat's corpse was gone, and there wasn't a single trace on the ground. It was as if everything that had happened here last night had been nothing but a dream.
Yet this made Lin Chen realize that someone was secretly dealing with Mutated Creatures. They were probably government personnel. A Mutated Rat that big had died; there was no way it would leave no traces or news behind.
"The government..."
Lin Chen raised an eyebrow slightly. If they could secretly deal with Mutated Creatures, then the government must know about all this. Perhaps they had the martial arts he needed.
"The government is just a fallback option. I won't decide yet."
Lin Chen considered it to himself. It wasn't that he had anything against the government; it was just that government restrictions tended to be extensive. If he had the chance to remain free, he naturally didn't want to be tied down.
"I'll try on my own first. If I can't get my hands on any martial arts, then I'll have no choice but to try contacting the government." Lin Chen quickly made up his mind.
"Hey, student, want to buy a few books? I've got all kinds."
Just then, a sudden voice rang in Lin Chen's ear. He turned to look and saw that it came from a middle-aged man in a green robe. A neat bookstall had been set up beside him.
Bookstalls like this were common on campus. The books had been printed by some little workshop and were being sold at a fraction of the price. Plenty of students fresh out of high school bought a few because they were cheap, only to leave them mostly unread by the time they graduated.
Lin Chen had been taken in by this sort of thing twice in his previous and current lives, so he wasn't interested. But just as he was about to leave, his gaze fell on a messy pile of old books beside the stall.
"Old books..."
Lin Chen's eyes lit up. Newly printed books couldn't possibly contain any real martial arts, but old books might offer a glimmer of hope.
Lin Chen went over to the pile and began picking through it. And sure enough, he spotted several manuals: Eighteen Dragon-Subduing Palms, Nine Yang Divine Art...
"Student, these are all Daoist divine arts. I'm a Daoist believer myself. Just look at my robe..." Seeing which books Lin Chen was choosing, the stall owner immediately began pitching them.
Lin Chen's mouth twitched. The system hadn't reacted at all. He flipped through the manual, pointed to a line of tiny print on the back, then looked up at the stall owner with a faintly mocking smile. "Divine art?"
Qingzhou Publishing House.
A divine art mass-printed by a publishing house?
Seeing this, the stall owner gave an awkward laugh. He secretly thought that once Lin Chen left, he'd tear off the last bit of the book's cover.
"Martial art eligible for enhancement: Indestructible Golden Body (incomplete)."
Just then, a voice sounded in Lin Chen's mind. The manual he was about to put down paused in his hand, and he was suddenly overjoyed. He'd actually found a usable martial art at a street stall?
Suppressing his excitement, Lin Chen quickly checked the other manuals in the pile, but the only one that could be enhanced was the Indestructible Golden Body.
"Thread-bound, handwritten!"
After looking through the manual, Lin Chen noticed what set it apart. It was a handwritten, thread-bound book, clearly different from the other mass-produced books put out by publishers.
"How much?"
Just as the stall owner thought Lin Chen was about to leave, he heard Lin Chen's voice.
"Five hundred. This is a handwritten copy, at least several hundred years old..."
Lin Chen looked at the stall owner speechlessly. He was treating him like some foreign sucker. "Fifty. Take it or..."
"Scan here!"
Before Lin Chen could finish, a QR code appeared in front of him. Lin Chen's mouth twitched. "Too much!"
But paying fifty for a martial art the system approved of didn't feel like a loss. If anything, he'd made a killing. He scanned the code, paid, and left.
"Made fifty bucks for free. Time to reward myself!"
The old books had been collected as scrap, so the stall owner hadn't paid a cent for them. He leisurely opened his phone and started checking out the young women in black stockings.
Having obtained a martial art, Lin Chen could hardly wait. He immediately found a secluded spot under the trees nearby and chose to enhance it without hesitation.
Whoosh~
The manual in his hand suddenly burst into flames, transforming in an instant into a soaring phoenix that flew straight into Lin Chen's brow.
"Martial art recorded: Phoenix Undying Body!"
"Phoenix Undying Body: use your own body as the foundation, cultivate blood qi, and condense Blood Qi True Flames!"
"Once cultivated to the limit, you can condense nine Blood Qi True Flames and transform them into a Phoenix True Flame. It can burn all things in the world and allow you to be reborn from the ashes. Its power is peerless!"
Hiss~
Lin Chen couldn't help sucking in a breath. An incomplete manual could actually be completed outright, and even upgraded on top of that?
No wonder it was a must-have for transmigrators. It might not be too smart, but it was still ridiculously awesome!
"Doesn't this mean I only need to get my hands on incomplete manuals from now on?"
Lin Chen's face brightened. This was definitely good news for him. Complete manuals were hard to come by, but incomplete ones would be much easier to find.
"Condense Blood Qi True Flames!"
Lin Chen closed his eyes and began to cultivate using the method he'd long since memorized. In an instant, the blood qi in his body seemed to boil.
Lin Chen felt like he was about to catch fire—in the literal sense. The surging blood qi rushed through his body, and his physical abilities soared. In just a few breaths, he was at least ten times stronger than before.
At last, the blood qi gathered and condensed, forming a crimson-gold flame in Lin Chen's dantian.
Blood Qi True Flame, formed!
"Strong!"
Lin Chen clenched his fists slightly, feeling that overwhelming power. He had a powerful sense that if he faced the Mutated Rat again, one punch would turn it into scraps—actual scraps!
Before you continue