Accident

Li Wen calmly withdrew his gaze.

Without any hesitation, he swiped his card and walked straight toward the "Top Technique Exclusive Training Area" on the first floor.

Compared to the bustling main hall and upper floors, the Top Technique Training Area retained its usual quiet, desolate atmosphere.

Even New Year's Eve couldn't lower the high threshold of top-tier technique training.

A few scattered figures were spread across different private training cubicles, each immersed in their own world of flashing blades and dancing shadows.

Li Wen pushed open the door to his usual training room with practiced ease.

Cold metal walls, a mixed smell of disinfectant and sweat, thick, resilient energy-absorbing material underfoot.

He took off his jacket, revealing a worn black training uniform, walked to the weapon rack, and grasped the Standard Quick Blade he had used many times before.

The hilt was cool in his hand, the heavy metallic feel quickly transmitting to his palm, then sinking into his bones. This familiar sensation was like a command, instantly igniting the dormant factors within him.

Hoo—

He took a deep breath, then slowly exhaled.

In his mind, the warmth of the family reunion, his parents' expectant gazes, Xue Jun and the others' complicated glances... all these emotions were forcibly suppressed and expelled from his body along with that long, drawn-out breath.

His eyes quickly became focused and sharp, like a quenched blade's edge, with no trace of slack remaining.

The training rhythm honed over the past half month began to operate automatically, without needing thought.

Weng! Shua! The first slash cut through the air, producing a low, hissing roar.

He didn't immediately activate his trump card ability. Instead, relying on his body's muscle memory, like a craftsman, he swung his arm again and again, repeating the small-success-level moves of the Rainbow Light Blade Art that were already etched into his muscle fibers.

With every swing, every step, every turn of his body, he carefully felt the vibration feedback from the blade, the subtle deviations in its trajectory, searching for the "rough spots" that hadn't yet been fully tamed.

The smoothness brought by the small success of the Rainbow Light Blade Art was significant, but the path after small success—every step forward became more difficult, requiring finer polishing.

Time slipped away silently with the falling sweat.

About an hour later, Li Wen felt his body heating up, his muscles slightly sore. He precisely caught a few nodes of his small-success ultimate moves—those requiring explosive strength and control—that still weren't smooth enough. The time had come!

With a thought, no complicated ritual was needed—

"Activate, Absolute Focus LV5!"

Weng!

It was as if an invisible nuclear reactor had ignited deep within his mind! The qualitative change brought by LV5 soul strength manifested instantly.

His main consciousness wasn't completely submerged like before. Instead, it retained a clear perceptual membrane, like a calm commander atop a command tower, overlooking the instincts that had instantly entered overclocked calculation.

His entire mental power became like a precision scalpel held firmly in his will.

The fifty-percent boost in comprehension exploded into effect.

His five senses were instantly elevated to an extremely acute state.

The trajectory of dust in the air, the vortices of air currents parted by the blade's edge, the force state of every muscle fiber in his body, the rhythm of blood flow and heartbeat... countless pieces of information poured in like a waterfall, instantly sorted and integrated by that "calm commander."

The subtle stagnation points he had encountered during practice just moments ago were now clearly magnified and locked onto, like dirt under a microscope.

In his mind, images of past practice, the essential descriptions in the blade art manual, and even insights from battles with Virtual Humans were frantically deconstructed, compared, and reassembled by terrifying computational power...

His body's instincts faithfully received the commander's instructions.

Wrist, forearm, scapula, waist and hip, ankle... every joint, every bundle of muscles seemed to receive new, highly efficient command sequences.

Shua! Ca! The blade light suddenly changed!

The same Startling Rainbow Strike—its trajectory, during high-speed execution, underwent an extremely subtle yet micrometer-precise adjustment.

The piercing howl of the wind became instantly shorter, more condensed, with fewer residual blade shadows. Energy converged at the very tip of the blade! Power doubled!

Turning Back Blade! The originally slightly sluggish backhand upward slash during a fast spin, under overclocked calculation and extreme control, transformed into a nearly perfect circular arc of light.

The angle of the waist twist was precisely optimized, as if an extra source of support had appeared, making the transition between spin-dissipation and borrowing power seamless. The blade followed the body, the body moved with the blade.

Sweat rolled down his forehead, dripping into his eyes, bringing a stinging, spicy sensation. But Li Wen didn't even need to blink.

His overclocked instincts perfectly took over his physiological responses. The path of the sweat, the speed at which it entered his eyes, was instantly calculated. His eyelids blinked with millisecond precision, precisely blocking the sweat's interference, his vision completely unaffected.

Focus on the present! Focus on this slash! Focus on carving this understanding into his bones!

On the panel, the experience points for [Blade Art (Small Success)] silently, but at several times the speed of before, ticked upward bit by bit... Time gained meaning in the flash of the blade, every second precious.

[You practiced blade art for 3 hours, Rainbow Light Blade Art +1]

[You focused on practicing blade art for 1 hour and 20 minutes, Rainbow Light Blade Art +4]

[Skill: Blade Art (Small Success 30→35/100)]

An entire afternoon passed in the blink of an eye.

As his blade art realm continuously improved, the rate of growth gradually declined.

When he first started, he could gain about 8 experience points per day.

Now, he could only manage a little over 5.

Of course, compared to others, his speed was still far faster.

This made Li Wen appreciate the importance of comprehension even more.

At the same time, he finally understood why those geniuses cultivated so quickly.

He could only experience the high-comprehension boost for less than two hours a day.

Those geniuses had it around the clock, nonstop!

Accumulated over the years, the gap between the two was like a chasm.

"At least my comprehension can keep improving—theirs is fixed." Wiping the sweat from his forehead, Li Wen packed up and left Xinhuo Hall.

Leaving Xinhuo Hall, the streetlights outside were just flickering on.

The festive atmosphere of New Year's Eve hadn't fully dissipated; there were more people on the streets than in the past few days, mostly pedestrians heading home after visiting relatives or finishing dinners.

Li Wen boarded his familiar bus route.

The vehicle drove steadily, the street scenes outside sweeping past the window.

Li Wen leaned back in his seat, closing his eyes to rest, letting his mind replay every detail of the afternoon's blade practice.

Until...

A violent jolt abruptly snapped Li Wen out of his half-meditative state!

The driver slammed on the brakes, the sharp screech of tires piercing eardrums! Cries of alarm and the thud of collisions erupted inside the carriage!

"What the hell?!"

"Did we crash?"

"What's... what's going on up ahead?!"

The shaken passengers scrambled to their feet, craning their necks toward the front.

Li Wen also squeezed over to the window. Not far ahead was the collapsed pit of the Greenwood Project—the one that had once become a county-wide news sensation, the site that had buried so many of his father's fellow workers.