[The Storm Is Coming]

For the next three days,

the atmosphere in Red Fire Mine was extraordinarily strange.

The overseers neither beat nor cursed anyone, nor did they enforce mining quotas. The fifty fortunate slave miners were even fed and watered well every day.

Even if you overslept in the morning or failed to meet your mining quota, no one came after you with a whip.

The daily workload truly dropped from working dawn to dusk to just a few hours in the morning.

The rest of the time,

aside from the Four Seas Gang members' residential quarter and the high walls bristling with guards, they could move about freely.

Under the increasingly lax management,

some among the fifty gradually grew bolder. Every day, they did nothing but eat and sleep, no longer going down into the mines. They looked for all the world like livestock being fattened, never considering whether there might be some deeper meaning behind it all.

Wu Dao watched coldly.

The better the Four Seas Gang treated the slave miners, the more certain he became that some unspeakable scheme lay behind it.

Especially at mealtimes.

Meng Qingshuang's greedy gaze, as though he were sizing up a herd of meat pigs, made Wu Dao deeply wary.

He knew that once the pigs had enough flesh on their bones, the butcher's blade would be raised!

For that reason,

Wu Dao did not dare relax for even a moment. Every day, he went down into the mines and trained for his life in the caverns.

Every night, he hid in the darkness and practiced without pause. His physique grew stronger by the day, and the progress of Stealing Heavenly Secrets drew ever closer to 45%.

40%...

41%...

42%...

The eighth day!

Wu Dao's Potential Liberation progress had reached 43%. Only the final 2% remained before he could shatter the limits of the human body for the first time, enter the Beast King Realm Physique, and possess inhuman power fit to stand at the apex of the food chain!

At this moment,

his body, once lean and restrained, had become overbearing and formidable.

The muscles all over his body resembled blocks of dark marble. His upper arm circumference alone exceeded fifty centimeters!

Together with his wild, unkempt hair, he resembled a male lion galloping across the grasslands. Once the power within him erupted, all beasts would scatter in terror!

Logically speaking, with such drastic changes occurring to Wu Dao's body, even the Four Seas Gang should have noticed no matter how blind they were.

Yet the truth was,

he was not the only one gradually turning wild and beastlike!

From the first day they ate that bowl of Medicinal Meal, the other forty-nine chosen slave miners had seemed to swallow some kind of expanding agent, their bodies rapidly growing larger.

In only eight days,

when Wu Dao looked around, all he saw were beasts with broad shoulders and thick waists—frighteningly strong, fat as pigs!

Even more terrifying was this!

Some of them seemed to have already lost their ability to speak like humans. They could not even finish a sentence properly.

Their eyes sat dull and vacant amid the fat, bloodshot red, like kegs of gunpowder that could explode at any moment—irritable and quick to anger.

These strange changes

made Wu Dao recall that "anomaly" he had consumed on the first day!

Whether it was the slave miners' changing bodies or their violent tempers, it should all have been caused by that anomaly.

Ten days!

Two days remained!

Within the crimson blood-glow of the caverns,

Wu Dao's eyes gleamed dimly.

He could clearly feel that the first Human Potential Shackle had already cracked. Soon, it would be torn apart completely!

By then,

if he wanted to leave, no one in Red Fire Mine aside from Meng Qingshuang could stop him!

Once he escaped Red Fire Mine,

the sky would be high for birds to fly, the sea wide for fish to leap.

With the experience from his previous life,

he would soon cultivate the Stealing Heavenly Secrets Breathing Technique to a level sufficient to shield him from wind and rain in this world!

For the suffering he had endured over the past three months, he would settle every debt with the Four Seas Gang, one stroke at a time!

A white colt flashed past a crevice; the sun rose and the moon fell.

The tenth day!

The latter half of the night!

High in the heavens, dark clouds pressed down, and thunder dragons raced through them, exploding into branching veins!

Across the vast desert, sand and wind billowed, wailing and roaring like weeping ghosts!

A torrential storm was about to descend!!

Check the Attribute Panel.

In a dark corner of the shanty, Wu Dao ignored the three humanoid fat pigs sleeping like the dead, their snores rumbling like thunder, and opened the Attribute Panel.

[Physique: Expert Realm (Limit)]

[Transcendent: Stealing Heavenly Secrets Breathing Technique 44%+]

[Evolution Points: 0.15]

The final 1%!

Wu Dao narrowed his eyes, suppressing his violently pounding heart. He adjusted his breathing, assumed his stance, and began the final sprint.

Huff—

Inhale—

Amid the howling wind and crashing thunder, in the dark corner of that tiny shanty, it seemed as if some primordial beast were swallowing heaven and earth, devouring the soul.

Ten minutes later,

the vibrations inside and outside Wu Dao's body accelerated. His strength was utterly drained, and he entered his limit state!

Fire!

A raging fire!

Crossing Flaming Mountain in the dog days of summer!

A searing heat far beyond anything before rose from within him. His flesh felt like iron cast into magma, rapidly heating and reddening!

Muscles, tendons, internal organs, bones...

Every part of him screamed with intense burning and tearing pain, pain far worse than childbirth. His entire body felt as though it were about to explode at any moment.

Yet it was useless!

It could not affect Wu Dao in the slightest!

From the moment the Stealing Heavenly Secrets Breathing Technique removed the brain's protective mechanism, a Heaven Stealer ignored all fear, pain, and pressure caused by the body or mind!

In that state, even if someone slashed a knife at a Heaven Stealer's neck, he would not so much as blink.

Unity of Heaven and Man, subdue the heart!

Amid ten thousand changes, remain ever still; let the spirit delight and the breath rest calm!

That was the most terrifying aspect of Stealing Heaven's Secret—it treated humans entirely as lifeless materials to be tempered.

Flesh, blood, and spirit were all iron!

Only through a thousand hammerings and a hundred refinements could true steel emerge!

Huff, inhale...

Time slowly passed.

An hour later,

Wu Dao's entire body resembled a blazing red furnace. His organs were nearly boiled through, his bodily fluids were evaporating, white steam rising from all over him. Each bulging muscle was like a glowing charcoal block inside a furnace.

At this moment,

his body temperature had long surpassed medicine's threshold of death, yet his eyes remained clear and he stood unwavering.

So long as one spark of spiritual light remained within the skull!

I would endure boundless suffering and calamity!

Another ten-odd minutes passed.

Finally,

when the furnace's temperature reached a critical point, when the "craftsman's" hammer no longer fell,

crack—

the sound of shackles breaking and snapping echoed from the depths of his soul.

Life Evolution, the transformation of the ordinary!

The sound was not loud, yet it rang through his soul.

A feeling of great freedom, great joy, and great release welled up from within.

His whole body seemed to float up into the clouds, immortal hosts in every direction singing his praises, gods blowing conches, heaven and earth celebrating together.

But Wu Dao, with his complete experience, did not lose himself in that pleasure. He knew that this was the most dangerous moment.

Because,

strictly speaking,

after training that had completely surpassed the limits of life,

although a Heaven Stealer had broken the shackles, every part of the body aside from consciousness was already in a state of "death," all life burned away by the raging flames.

If he became immersed in that feeling of release, relaxed his consciousness, and stopped the Stealing Heavenly Secrets Breathing Technique, there would be only one outcome—

his consciousness would disperse, and his brain would die!

Only by steadying his mind and calming his breath, concentrating his spirit,

and waiting for the Myriad Healing Fluid to rebuild his torn body could he truly break the shackles, evolve, and ascend.

Wu Dao did not have to wait long.

A few breaths later,

the Myriad Healing Fluid surged forth like spring water, rushing through his body where all vitality had perished.

Sweet dew fell from heaven, and all things returned to spring!

Beneath layer upon layer of ash and filth, that little grass killed by the fire of life began to transform—sprouting, branching, spreading leaves, and rapidly becoming a towering tree that held up the heavens!

The human body's evolution began!

From within to without, cells reorganized, organs were remade, and his meridians, bones, muscles, even skin and hair all cried out—

"Evolve! Evolve! Evolve!"

Immunity, blood production, blood pumping, detoxification, neural response, breathing, digestion, resilience, density...

Every aspect evolved and advanced!

There were also many visible changes.

Wu Dao's old skin peeled away bit by bit like a cocoon shell. The newly born bronze skin surpassed layers of the finest cowhide, thick, tough, and durable, unafraid of strikes from sharp or blunt weapons.

His bones also grew robustly, and his height increased once more, finally settling at around two meters thirty or forty.

He was not a lanky bamboo pole.

Nor was he bloated and obese.

Quite the contrary.

The granite-like muscles all over his evolved body were large but not ugly, arranged with perfect symmetry like cannonballs laid in ranks. They were flawless and pleasing to the eye. His whole body stood in the darkness like a statue of a war god, enough to eclipse any bodybuilding champion.

Rustle~

Finally, Wu Dao's mouthful of filthy, yellow, stinking teeth, along with his fingernails and toenails, all fell away and transformed when the Myriad Healing Fluid surged forth.

His thirty-two new teeth were no longer flat and even like door panels. Instead, they were sharp triangular serrations like a shark's!

They interlocked perfectly, glinting with a chilling light. One bite could absolutely gnaw a hole through a person, flesh and bone alike.

His fingernails and toenails were the same.

No longer pinkish-white, they were instead faintly black like stone. At the tips of his thick fingers and toes, they formed hooked claws, no different from a fierce beast's talons and even better suited for slaughter.

If Wu Dao bared his teeth and claws now, he would absolutely make people think of those terrifying savage beasts standing atop the food chain, rather than a mere human!

And that was precisely why

the Potential Liberation stage from 45% to 64% was called the Beast King Realm.

A body stronger than a tiger's or bear's, claws and fangs sharper than a shark's, speed faster than a cheetah's, reactions swifter than a civet's, skin that weapons could scarcely harm...

Roaming the food chain, what beast could stand in his way?

To be called Beast King was entirely deserved!

"Long-lost power..."

Once all transformation had ended,

Wu Dao took a deep breath, feeling the vast vitality hidden within him. His face was full of exhilaration and joy.

A full three months!

He had been like a stinkbug trapped in an iron can—repressed, stifled, powerless over his own fate, bound layer upon layer as he rolled through this filthy, turbid world.

At this moment,

he had finally broken free of the shackles, shattered his cocoon and been reborn. The clouds parted and the blue sky appeared. That familiar feeling of power made him want to throw back his head and howl, to race wild and free.

"However, there is still one final shackle."

Letting out a long breath, Wu Dao's face returned to indifference. His eyes, filled with the wildness of a mad beast, turned toward the two high walls beyond the Shanty District that cut it off from the outside world.

BOOM!

Crash, crash!

Thunder shook the world, and dense clouds churned and rolled!

Dazzling lightning briefly illuminated the vast Sea of Sand, and rain that had long been brewing came pouring down.

Heaven and earth became utterly clamorous.

Thunder, wind, rain, the creak of wooden boards...

"Hungry... so hungry!"

A furious roar of hunger!!

Rumble!

Another world-illuminating bolt of lightning flashed through the darkness.

In that fleeting light—

Within the sprawling Shanty District, forty-nine bloated figures like ravenous beasts swayed as they rose from the darkness.

Their blood-red eyes had all turned into vertical slits, staring at the sleeping mine slaves around them like giant pythons emerging from hibernation to hunt!

Whoosh!!

Another gale rose.

Its howling seemed mingled with the wails of ten thousand ghosts.

Locust-like, eerie black shadows poured out of the Earth Abyss in Mine No. 1, then surged toward the Shanty District under some unknown guidance.

Creak...

Beneath the high walls of the Shanty District, the sole gate in and out slammed shut.

The walls, seven or eight meters high, divided two worlds.

Rain poured down, thunder roared, and lightning flashed.

The guards, overseers, managers, and Meng Qingshuang of the Four Seas Gang stood in the rain beneath black umbrellas, fully armed and waiting in silence.

"The timing is just right."

Meng Qingshuang's snake eyes peered through the rainy night at the humanoid black shadows sweeping across the sky like a locust plague, and a satisfied curve lifted his lips:

"Medicinal Meals fatten the flesh, Demon Seeds parasitize it, then Condensing Yang Grass lures the strange into the body. The mutated monsters born from this can not only devour the essence of flesh and blood, but absorb souls as well.

Once they mature, swallow them in a single bite!

Tsk. A divine supplement, a flesh supplement—what a fine Great Medicine!"

Crack!!

Another violet lightning serpent tore across the heavens, illuminating Meng Qingshuang's sickly, bloodthirsty smile.