"Early Body Tempering Realm. In Sea City, that already makes you someone to reckon with."
Zhang Yining clicked his tongue and continued.
"My dad says if I ever reach the Body Tempering Realm, our family's ancestral graves will explode."
Gu Yuan had long since grown immune to Zhang Yining's way of talking. He looked away.
The Body Tempering Realm was indeed no joke.
His cousin was at that level too, and had recently become a team captain at the Destiny Bureau's branch.
Gu Yuan looked at Zhang Yining, who was still standing there in a daze, and stepped forward to pat him on the back.
"Come on, stop staring. Looking all you want won't make you strong enough to lift that ironstone weight."
"Are you done warming up? Hurry up. After I beat you, I still have to go to the Destiny Bureau."
"Oh, so you're the one in a hurry now!" Zhang Yining let out a strange cry, then flipped nimbly onto the fighting platform.
"Come on, come on! Today, your big brother Ning is going to find out whether you've been slacking off these past ten days!"
Seeing this, Gu Yuan climbed onto the platform too.
"Watch yourself, Gu!"
Zhang Yining barked, shifting his footing. He shot forward like an arrow loosed from a bow, throwing a swift straight punch at Gu Yuan's face.
Gu Yuan didn't even look. He sidestepped and easily dodged the punch, then drove his elbow forward, aiming for Zhang Yining's vulnerable ribs beneath his arm.
"Damn!"
Zhang Yining was taken aback. He hadn't expected Gu Yuan to react so quickly. He forcibly checked his forward momentum, twisting his body to narrowly avoid Gu Yuan's elbow strike.
The two of them immediately put some distance between themselves.
Zhang Yining rubbed his waist, which he'd nearly wrenched, his face full of astonishment.
"What kind of miracle medicine have you been taking these past ten days? Your reflexes and strength both feel better than mine!"
The effect of [Saint Hand Pulse Clearing] had been immediate. It had improved not only his qi and blood, but also his physical abilities across the board.
"Seriously, have you been flying too much? How'd you wrench your back the second you got up here?"
Gu Yuan rubbed his chin and casually remarked as he watched Zhang Yining clutch his waist.
"Bullshit!"
Zhang Yining's fighting spirit flared at once.
"I was careless just now. I'm going to get serious this time!"
As soon as he finished speaking, Zhang Yining launched another attack. Qi and blood surged through his body as he unleashed Tiger Leopard Fist, raining down punches and kicks. Each strike carried the faint roar of a tiger.
Gu Yuan watched Zhang Yining charge at him. He didn't even circulate his qi and blood, relying only on his body's instincts and footwork. He wanted to test how much the past ten days had improved him.
For a while, fists whistled through the air as the two went back and forth, thoroughly enjoying the spar.
Ten minutes later, Zhang Yining was panting heavily as he looked at Gu Yuan, who still seemed completely at ease. He gave up on continuing the match right then and there.
"I'm done! I'm done!"
Zhang Yining plopped down on the ground and waved his hands, gasping for breath.
"What's the point of fighting? I haven't landed a single hit on you! What's the damn point?"
"Before the break, we were about evenly matched. But now? You're fighting me without even using your martial arts or circulating your qi and blood. I can't do a thing!"
Gu Yuan watched him and nodded with satisfaction. Even at the same cultivation level, he could maintain the upper hand without circulating his qi and blood.
He walked to the edge of the platform, picked up the water Zhang Yining had brought, unscrewed a bottle, and tossed it over.
"Your stamina's just terrible. Stop flying around so much."
"Get lost!" Zhang Yining gulped down a mouthful of water, caught his breath, then sidled over with a mysterious look.
"Gu, have you heard? Something happened at our school."
"Hm?" Gu Yuan paused mid-sip. "What happened?"
"Two days ago, a girl from our school went missing!"
Zhang Yining lowered his voice.
"She's in the class next to ours. I heard she was pretty, too."
Missing? Gu Yuan's brow furrowed slightly.
"What exactly happened?"
"I heard she came to school two days ago and said she wanted to use the training hall. Then she never came out." Zhang Yining told the story with great drama.
"The school searched through all the surveillance footage. They saw her enter the school and go into the training hall, but there wasn't any footage of her leaving. She vanished without a trace."
The training hall? Gu Yuan knew the place. The school had built it specifically to help students in the martial arts track train, and it had some basic training equipment.
"Do you think... some ferocious beast got into Sea City?"
Zhang Yining clearly had an active imagination. Even he shuddered as he spoke.
Gu Yuan nearly spat out the water in his mouth.
"Give me a break. Have you been reading too many novels?" He looked at Zhang Yining, the king of wild theories, with exasperation.
"I'd believe it if you said there was a serial killer in Sea City, but a ferocious beast? How could that be? Do you think the city's warning systems and the Destiny Bureau are just for show?"
As a major city on the eastern coast, Sea City had a robust defense system. Warlocks from the Destiny Bureau were regularly involved in its maintenance and inspections.
Forget a ferocious beast—even a mutated rat would have a hard time sneaking in.
"Why are you overthinking it?" Gu Yuan patted him on the shoulder.
"Maybe she had a fight with her family and ran away from home."
"Our school's cameras aren't covering every angle, are they? Didn't you do something like that once? You hid in an internet café for a week, and your parents even called the police. The cameras didn't catch you either, did they?"
"Cough, cough!" Zhang Yining blushed and hurriedly protested.
"What are you talking about? What do you mean, I did something like that? It wasn't the same! I didn't get the Destiny Bureau involved!"
Hm?
Gu Yuan fell into thought when he heard that.
"They got the Destiny Bureau involved?"
"You bet!" Zhang Yining immediately perked up.
"This is a major case that got the Destiny Bureau involved! Think about it. Wouldn't an ordinary missing-person case be handled by the regular law enforcement team in our city? Since when does the Destiny Bureau step in personally?"
That reminded Gu Yuan.
It was true. The Destiny Bureau was a special department responsible for handling ferocious beasts and crimes involving martial artists. Ordinary civil cases wouldn't even catch its attention.
A schoolgirl's disappearance had been reported straight to the Destiny Bureau. There was definitely something strange about this case.
But...
His cousin Shen Tingxue flashed through Gu Yuan's mind.
If something major had really happened in Sea City, like a ferocious beast sneaking in or a high-ranking martial artist causing trouble, his cousin wouldn't have stayed silent. She would have warned him to be careful.
Since she hadn't said anything, the situation was either still under control or the case was unusual in some way.
Thinking this, Gu Yuan patted Zhang Yining and said:
"Relax. It can't be anything too serious."
"That's not serious? Bro, are you still asleep?" Zhang Yining's eyes widened.
Before you continue