Skill Modifier

After comforting his younger sister, Luo Yi felt his stomach cramping again and again, rumbling like thunder.

After an Evil Spirit had possessed him and he had tumbled down a mountain, three days without food had pushed this body to its limits. If he didn't eat soon, he figured he'd end up meeting the King of Hell, just like the body's previous owner.

Hearing his brother's stomach rumble, Luo Xi remembered that he hadn't eaten anything in three days.

She hurried to the kitchen stove, dug through the ashes, and pulled out a few of the Black Dough balls she had hidden there earlier.

Helping her brother sit up, Luo Xi broke the dough into little pieces and fed them to Luo Yi.

As the food reached his stomach, the cramps from hunger finally began to ease.

He tried to lift his arms, but his whole body was still limp and weak. He guessed it was a lingering effect of the Evil Spirit. Until he recovered, he'd probably have to spend the next few days lying on the ground.

Though he couldn't move, he kept his mind busy, recalling something the previous owner's father had once said: "This world has not only Evil Spirits, but demons and monsters too. Ordinary people who encounter them are doomed to die. There's no chance of survival."

And for ordinary people who wanted to fight demons, monsters, and Evil Spirits, practicing martial arts was the only way.

Powerful martial artists could take an enemy's head from a thousand miles away, split the Mountain and sever seas, and tread through the air as if they were immortals from legend.

When the previous owner heard his father tell stories about powerful martial artists, he'd thought little of them.

He'd figured martial artists were all brawny fools who did nothing but fight and kill.

They were nothing like scholars, who recited poetry and painted, affecting an air of refinement.

So whenever the previous owner's father tried to teach him to hunt, the boy had merely gone through the motions.

Seeing that his son had no interest in hunting, his father knew the boy's heart wasn't in it and stopped trying to force him.

But Luo Yi, who had crossed over into this body, was different. From what the previous owner's father had described, powerful martial artists were almost on par with the cultivators in the cultivation novels he'd read.

His former life had been unbearably stifling. After graduating, he'd become a wage slave, and one night he'd died suddenly in the office, consumed by bitterness and frustration.

In this life, having crossed over into a world where martial arts flourished and the strong ruled, he wanted to pursue the highest reaches of the martial path.

After several days of Luo Xi's attentive care, Luo Yi gradually recovered and could move around normally again.

Seeing Luo Xi, who had spent the past few days looking after him and was now a whole lot thinner, asleep on the ground from sheer exhaustion,

he let his little sister sleep in peace for once. He didn't wake her.

He quietly stepped into the kitchen. The place was completely bare, and the rice jar was nearly empty. An anger he could hardly suppress welled up inside him.

Thanks to the previous owner's father, who had hunted and gathered medicinal herbs, the family hadn't been rich, but they'd still managed to store away quite a bit of food.

For the past few days, he'd eaten nothing but the Black Dough Luo Xi had hidden under the stove. He hadn't touched the rice in the jar at all.

Seeing how little rice remained, Luo Yi didn't need to wonder who had done it.

Aside from the valuables his Second Uncle had sold off, he'd taken all the food too.

"You bastard. Looks like you thought I was dead and decided to 'eat the family out of house and home.'"

Luo Yi, a civilized man of the twenty-first century, couldn't help cursing.

With the rice jar almost empty, there was no hope of cooking a meal.

He went to the stove and copied Luo Xi's movements, digging through the ashes.

He was about to take out a few Black Dough balls and make do with a meal

when he spotted the Hunting Bow buried beneath the ashes—the one the previous owner had searched for before carrying his father up the Mountain.

Taking out the Hunting Bow, Luo Yi thought: his Second Uncle, Luo Wei, was petty and vindictive. He'd already set his heart on "eating the family out of house and home." The fact that Luo Yi was alive wouldn't change that.

Luo Wei had taken all the original owner's family assets. Since Luo Yi had inherited the original owner's body, he wanted to get back what belonged to him.

From what he remembered, Luo Wei was a strapping man, and he was always surrounded by a gaggle of young thugs.

If they became enemies, there was no hope of facing them head-on when Luo Yi couldn't even lift a hand in self-defense.

He took the bow and arrows into the courtyard and looked at the spare Hunting Bow the previous owner's father had left at home.

It was a standard Five Dou Bow.

It took fifteen pounds of force to draw the bowstring.

He sighed. "At least it's not a heavy bow rated at several shi. With this weak body, drawing the string would otherwise be a struggle."

After checking the Hunting Bow, he saw that fifteen arrows remained in the quiver. Worried that practicing by shooting at the wall would damage them,

and with neither he nor his sister having a penny to spare, he knew they'd have no way to replace any that broke.

He began searching the courtyard for something else to use as a target. When he spotted a pile of straw in the corner, he got an idea.

He pulled several bundles of straw from the pile and tied them into a few scarecrows roughly the size of an average adult. Then he lined them up in the corner by the wall.

Once everything was ready, he recalled the archery techniques the previous owner's father had taught him:

"Stand straight, keep your body upright, apply your strength evenly, grip the bow correctly, nock the arrow with composure, push forward and draw back; when the bow is full, the stance is complete."

He planted his feet firmly, set the arrow between his index and middle fingers, and used his arms to draw the bowstring. He aimed at the scarecrow in the middle of the row.

Whoosh!

The arrow flew from the string, heading straight for the scarecrow at the far end.

The arrow struck its target, but the one it hit was about a meter away from the one he'd aimed at.

Luo Yi didn't lose heart. He pulled another arrow from the quiver and was about to keep practicing when a line of light suddenly appeared in the air before his eyes:

Host: Luo Yi

Age: 16

Realm: Mortal

Skill: Basic Archery (Uninitiated 1/100)

Traits: None

Looking at the Panel before him, Luo Yi felt an even stronger sense of familiarity.

Wasn't this the software modifier he'd thrown together a while ago when he'd been playing some single-player game and didn't have time to grind skill proficiency?

Even the font displayed above was exactly the same.

Looking at the Attribute Panel, Luo Yi began to feel hopeful. Back then, to save time, he'd added a lot of powerful functions to the software. He just didn't know whether it had kept them after he crossed over to this world and the software turned into a system.

After studying it for a while, he found that the Panel could only display his status. None of its other functions were available.

Not wanting to waste any more time, he took up his archery stance again, nocked an arrow, drew the bow, and aimed at the scarecrow in the middle.

As he kept drawing and releasing, the courtyard rang now and then with the whoosh, whoosh, whoosh of arrows in flight.

He shot all fourteen arrows remaining in the quiver.

Looking at the scarecrows on either side, bristling with arrows like hedgehogs, while the one in the middle hadn't been hit even once,

Luo Yi rubbed his forehead. He had to admit his aim was pretty bad.

But ancient bows and arrows were genuinely hard to use. There were no optical aids and no compound-bow pulleys to make drawing easier. After shooting only fifteen arrows, he could already feel a slight ache in his arm muscles.

He pulled the fifteen arrows from the scarecrows, put them back in the quiver, and shook out his slightly numb arm.

He felt it could still hold up for now.

He kept drawing the bow and shooting, rapidly emptying the quiver again.

Suddenly, Luo Yi noticed that an arrow had struck the middle scarecrow's arm. His spirits immediately lifted.

He silently called up the Panel. The display showed that Basic Archery (Uninitiated 1/100) had become Basic Archery (Uninitiated 34/100).

One of the notices showed that the arrow that hit the scarecrow's arm had directly added five proficiency points.

Now that he knew hitting a target earned more proficiency, Luo Yi wanted to see if he could exploit a bug. He walked up to the scarecrow and lightly drew the bow. The arrow struck it in the head, but his proficiency didn't change at all. His hopes of rapidly boosting his proficiency were dashed.

He returned to his original spot and started shooting again.

Since there was no shortcut to quickly raising his proficiency, Luo Yi began paying close attention to each arrow's flight path and landing point, adjusting his aim before the next shot. He kept learning and refining his form.

This time, it took nearly half an hour to shoot all fifteen arrows.

Seeing five arrows sticking out of the middle scarecrow, he couldn't help laughing out loud.

He silently called up the system Panel. It showed Basic Archery (Uninitiated 69/100). Feeling that his arm had reached its limit and that continuing might injure it, he put all the arrows back in the quiver.