Alex, the Limits of the Human Body

Central City.

Central City was located in Missouri, intersected by the Missouri River, and neighbored Keystone City.

Many years ago, Central City had developed exceptionally well. Its economy and culture both ranked among the best, and it was a central region for American commerce, architecture, and art. It was known as the "Midwestern Jewel" and also bore the fine name of the "City of Jewels."

But with the opening up of Keystone City, large numbers of factories and commercial activities moved there, and Keystone City gradually surpassed Central City in development. Even so, Central City still possessed irreplaceable advantages. For example, Central City University was one of the best universities in the world, on par with Oxford and Cambridge. Central City Medical School added even more prestige to the city, producing several outstanding Nobel Prize for Contributions to Medicine recipients. Numerous medical research institutions, architectural firms, art organizations, businesses, and industries were situated in Central City, and an important branch of STAR Labs was also located there, holding its place.

In the early morning, dawn sunlight pierced the cold mist and icy droplets, shining upon this quiet, warm city.

It was late autumn. The red maples on both sides of Alman Street had long since been stripped bare, leaving only chilly branches in the autumn air. Flame-red maple leaves covered the asphalt road.

The cold autumn wind swept through the morning, curling up those fiery red maple leaves. They danced like flames, adding a streak of fierce heat to the chill of late autumn.

Behind the red maples stood rows of small wooden villas, each occupying a spacious plot amid tranquil surroundings.

From within one sky-blue wooden villa, the fragrance of fried eggs and bacon drifted through the house.

In the backyard was a patch of lawn.

The grass beneath his feet had already been worn bare. After long periods of training, no grass had been able to grow in that spot for a very long time.

A tall, lean figure stood rooted in place like a standard, dressed in black shorts and baring a sculpted upper body packed with knotted muscle.

The man was tall and lean, with fair skin. His eyes were shut as he breathed slowly, his pectorals and abdominal muscles rising and falling in a rhythm that outlined a dynamic, aesthetically pleasing form. Under the cold light of early morning, he shone with a distinctive radiance.

His appearance was especially striking. He was of mixed Eastern and Western heritage, yet his features leaned toward the East—a chiseled, marble-statue-like face, straight nose, high bridge, and broad forehead. His sharply defined features carried a cold handsomeness and hardness, yet a beauty mark beneath the corner of his left eye lent him a trace of allure.

Alex slowly opened his eyes and exhaled a stream of white breath.

When his eyes opened, his black, profound gaze combined with the allure of that beauty mark to give off a captivating color. It was as though his eyes were constantly conveying a seductive temperament that made people lose themselves in them.

The next moment.

His body suddenly exploded into motion. Every muscle tightened, power rising from his heels to his thighs and tailbone. His spine arched like a dragon, his momentum like a soaring giant dragon rising into the sky.

Bang...

A fierce howl suddenly erupted from where he stood. As always, he continued his martial training, his movements grand and imposing, as though he were facing a colossal wave and tsunami head-on. His fists struck out, already becoming afterimages, layer upon layer of force erupting like waves. The explosive sound of his power pierced the air. His feet suddenly vanished from sight, his figure violent, swift, and majestic, as though he stood atop a mountain peak battling nature itself.

The next moment, Alex stopped. Beads of sweat covered his entire body, and faint heat rose from his knotted muscles. His body had been trained to a blazing state, while fierce, torrential hot blood surged through his heart and veins. In his hands was a steel spear weighing fifty kilograms, more than a head taller than him. Its spearhead gleamed with cold metallic light beneath the sun.

Suddenly, he swept the spear sideways. Hot sweat flew from his arms, the droplets drifting through the air and glinting with vitality beneath the sunlight, while strands of heat seeped from between his muscles.

He seemed to be on the most intense battlefield, sweeping through armies with a single steel spear. His movements opened and closed with great force, tearing through the air with piercing shrieks. The spear's afterimages whirled like a fan, layer upon layer of wind and waves rolling wildly outward. It carried the rumbling, thunderous force of lightning, as shocking and terrifying as ten thousand galloping horses.

More than ten meters away, fallen red maple leaves were also swept into the air. As Alex controlled the spear and stirred up waves of wind, a single red maple leaf drifted alone before him.

Alex drew back his steel spear, and heaven and earth fell silent in an instant. The airwaves flew outward, sending red maple leaves rolling more than ten meters across the ground like waves of fire.

He held the refined steel spear at his waist and stood still in an instant, like a statue. Heat rose from his body, and sweat drenched his solid muscles. Droplets of sweat glittered beneath the sunlight with a magnificent, spectacular beauty, displaying the sculptural beauty of his physique.

A falling maple leaf swayed as it drifted down before him.

His deep black eyes narrowed, sharp as an eagle focusing at the instant it seized prey. The falling red maple leaf seemed to slow, as though time itself had slowed in his eyes. He could clearly see the leaf's veins: the uneven lines across the entire red maple leaf, the interwoven veins forming a net-like pattern. That tiny network of veins appeared before his eyes.

Alex twisted his arm around the refined steel spear with immense force and thrust from his waist. The point tore sharply through the air.

A glint of cold light arrived first.

The world seemed to lose all color, leaving only that glint of cold light as it struck the red maple leaf.

Though the cold glint appeared fierce and violent, when it touched the red maple leaf, it was like a wife in red delicately threading a needle through cloth. The control and application of force were extraordinarily refined.

With a "gentle" touch from the sharp cold glint, a strand of leaf flesh was pushed cleanly out from the leaf's veins.

This red maple leaf had nearly lost all its moisture and was exceedingly fragile. An ordinary person could crush it with an accidental squeeze, destroying its veins, let alone use a spear to strike its brittle surface without harming them.

This was even more remarkable than Li Shuwen's feat of spearing a fly without damaging the mirror behind it. After all, Alex had already been capable of spearing flies without harming a mirror several years ago. Now, he had advanced several steps further.

The next instant, cold glints flashed forth like a violent storm. The arm holding Alex's spear had already become an afterimage, while the long spear poured out countless points of starlight in his hand, each one dazzlingly bright.

As for the red maple leaf, amid the endless points of cold starlight, it was like a small boat at sea facing the ravages of a violent storm. It drifted and swayed within those countless cold glints, yet no matter how it fluttered, it could not escape the encirclement and shroud of starlight.

With every point of starlight that appeared, a piece of the red maple leaf was pushed out by the spearhead.

Starting from the base of the leaf, Alex deliberately used the spear tip to dot and carve. In an instant, the red maple leaf seemed to turn page by page as bits of leaf flesh were pushed out by the spearhead.

In but a moment, the entire leaf had been picked out amid the cold glints of starlight and scattered through the air.

Whoosh...

With a whoosh, the spear tip withdrew, shifting from extreme motion to extreme stillness in an instant. Alex's eyes were cold and sharp like an eagle's. He stood with spear in hand, tall and straight, sweat streaming down his muscles as heat slowly rose from his body. Beneath the sunlight, he gleamed with an ultimate sense of beautiful artistry.

A transparent red maple leaf, with only its undamaged veins remaining, slowly drifted down before Alex.

The maple leaf's veins were exceptionally beautiful, possessing a transparent outline and a unique artistic quality. Nature's miraculous craftsmanship had created those beautiful veins and displayed them before him.

Alex extended two fingers from his left hand and gently caught the falling leaf veins.

"Ah..."

He lightly crushed the beautiful transparent maple leaf between his fingers. Its shattered veins crumbled into dust and slipped through his fingers. Alex's thick, sword-like brows furrowed, and he could not help letting out a sigh.

Two years ago, he had already possessed the strength and physique at the Human Limit.

Now, after two years of painstakingly understanding his own body, triggering its danger warnings, excavating his own power, and controlling it with meticulous precision, he was still just short of truly breaking through the limits of the human body.

That final gap was as difficult as climbing to heaven.

He could feel that his body—its entire magnetic field, strength, bones, blood, and the force field within his vague inner perception—was only a little short of merging together. It was only a little short of breaking through the Human Limit and surpassing the Human Limit.

Something was still missing, preventing him from taking another step forward.

Alex could not understand it no matter how hard he thought. As he pondered carefully, an electronic voice suddenly sounded in his head.

"Super System binding..."

"Binding mission issued: Become friends with The Flash. Time limit: 24 hours."

"Mission completion reward: Super System."

"Failure: Erasure."

Alex frowned. He felt that things were not so simple!