Blood Sensing Realm

Jiang Ran quickly scrolled through the screen and found the section on Feng City.

The Feng City Safe Zone was a circular area with a radius of twenty kilometers, centered on the Feng City government building.

Jiang Ran quickly calculated the distance in his head.

The edge of the Safe Zone was about fifteen kilometers from home.

From where he was now, it was farther—more than thirty kilometers away.

"Relocation plan..."

Jiang Ran muttered to himself.

It was about what he'd expected. The Federation had reacted quickly and had already begun organizing and managing the situation.

Gathering survivors, establishing bases, collecting resources, and gradually exploring.

It was the most reasonable strategy.

But Jiang Ran had no intention of heading to the Safe Zone.

Not for now, at least.

The Safe Zone meant rules and restrictions. It meant his actions would be limited.

By comparison,

acting alone was riskier, but gave him more freedom.

He could explore and grow stronger at his own pace.

Jiang Ran closed the official post and turned his attention to the comments below.

This was what he really wanted to see.

Sure enough, the comments section had exploded.

"We finally have an organization! I'm heading to the Safe Zone right now!"

"Careful, person above me. I tried going from the north side of the city yesterday and ran into three waves of monsters. I nearly died... I recommend traveling in a group."

"Anyone want to team up? I'm near Zhongshan Road and have a weapon—a kitchen knife. Looking for reliable teammates!"

And amid the discussion,

Jiang Ran found the information he'd been looking for.

"Has anyone seen... someone who glows? I was hiding in a supermarket yesterday and saw a person literally glowing gold punch a monster flying more than ten meters!"

"I saw one too! Near East Lake Park. A woman with a glowing sword in her hand, moving like something out of a movie!"

"Transcendents have already appeared... Does the government know? Will they recruit them?"

"Of course they know. Didn't you see the announcement mention the efficiency of resource collection? I bet there's a way to trade monster materials for things in the Safe Zone. Maybe you can even become a Transcendent that way!"

"Please, let me cling to a powerful person! Any Transcendent willing to take me along? I'll do whatever you say and help out!"

Jiang Ran skimmed through the comments.

Sure enough, he wasn't the only one who'd obtained a Transcendent legacy.

And people had already begun making themselves known in public.

For him, this was both good and bad.

The good part was that the public emergence of Transcendents would gradually reveal information about them. That was what Jiang Ran needed most right now.

The bad part was that competition for resources would grow fiercer.

Those Spirit Crystals, Seeds of Return to Void, and items...

Everyone would fight over them.

Humanity was already adapting, organizing, and competing.

Jiang Ran's task was to grow stronger as quickly as possible amid the tide of Myth Revival.

Soon, after gathering the information,

Jiang Ran stood up and stretched.

During the battle before dawn last night, he'd left both his compound bow and Tang Dao on the rooftop. The situation had been too urgent for him to retrieve them.

He'd originally planned to look for more suitable weapons.

But after opening the Profession Panel, he abandoned the idea.

[Profession: Martial Monk Lv.1 (47/100)]

[Profession Basic Skill: Dragon-Tiger Fist Lv.1 (43/100)]

[Golden Bell Shield Lv.2 (25/200)]

[Eight-Step Cicada Chase Lv.2 (8/200)]

[Profession Core Skill: Buddha's Wrathful Vajra Lv.1 (6/100)]

Jiang Ran's gaze lingered on Dragon-Tiger Fist and Golden Bell Shield for several seconds.

Those two skills had gained the most experience.

Dragon-Tiger Fist especially had soared from its initial two points of experience to forty-three.

Golden Bell Shield had also risen from zero to twelve.

Jiang Ran understood at once.

The Martial Monk profession's skills worked just like a Mixed Martial Artist's combat techniques: they gained experience most efficiently in actual combat.

And the stronger the opponent, the faster the experience accumulated.

That Mother Spider from last night had been far stronger than an ordinary monster, so fighting it had earned him a large amount of experience.

Once he'd figured that out, Jiang Ran had a clear plan.

He needed to fight.

He needed to find powerful opponents.

He needed to... hunt.

"Then let's start here."

Jiang Ran took a deep breath and walked to the rooftop's edge, looking down at the street.

The morning light fell over the empty city. In the distance, he could faintly hear monsters shrieking.

He leaped down. Just before hitting the ground, he used Eight-Step Cicada Chase to absorb the impact and landed steadily on the street.

Then he set off toward the source of the shrieks.

His pace was neither hurried nor slow.

His calm eyes held a barely contained eagerness.

The hunt started here.

At the same time,

in the first-floor lobby of the municipal bureau,

Xia Xuan and Zou Yue had finally returned with Zhou Ming and three other team members.

The municipal bureau stood at the edge of the officially designated Safe Zone.

The streets nearby had been cleared in advance, and there were far fewer monsters.

Even so, they'd been through several skirmishes on their way back from the High-Tech District.

Everyone was wounded and utterly exhausted.

"We finally made it..."

Zou Yue let out a long breath. The hand gripping her gun trembled slightly.

It wasn't fear. She was simply physically drained.

Zhou Ming was pale. He'd witnessed several battles along the way and had helped carry ammunition. Now his legs felt weak.

"Register first, then find the medical team and get those wounds treated."

Xia Xuan said gravely, leading the way toward the lobby entrance.

But the moment they walked inside, the group froze.

At least thirty or forty people had gathered in the lobby.

Some wore police or military uniforms; others were ordinary civilians.

Every eye was fixed on a young man in the middle of the room.

The man looked to be around twenty-seven or twenty-eight. His stained field jacket and tousled hair were a mess, but his eyes were bright.

What drew the most attention were his hands.

At that moment, they were glowing faintly gold.

"...That's what happened."

The young man was speaking excitedly. "Yesterday, near East Lake Park, a monster chased me, and in my panic, I jumped into the lake. Then I felt around at the bottom and found a glowing stone..."

He raised his right hand, palm up.

A fist-sized golden flame appeared out of nowhere, hovering an inch above his palm.

It flickered gently, giving off a warm glow.

"The moment I touched the stone, this divine ability appeared in my mind... It's called Gilded Flowing Light. I practiced all night, and now I can just barely activate it."

As he spoke, he suddenly swung his left hand forward.

Whoosh!

The golden flame turned into a streak of light and shot five or six meters, striking a punching bag in the corner of the lobby.

Thud!

The bag swayed slightly, a small patch of its surface charred black.

"Holy crap..."

Gasps of amazement immediately rang out around them.

After all, this was a living example of a Transcendent, right before their eyes.

Xia Xuan and the others stood at the edge of the crowd, silently watching.

Their expressions were a little strange...

Especially when Xia Xuan looked at the charred patch on the punching bag,

then at the weak flame hovering above the young man's palm.

Without meaning to, the scene from last night came back to him...

A young man in black dropped from the sky and punched the Mother Spider in the head.

A crimson pillar of blood and qi shot up as the Vajra Phantom glared furiously.

The monster's head burst like a watermelon.

The power of that punch...

Xia Xuan silently gauged it.

If the young man here had hit the Mother Spider with his divine ability, he probably wouldn't even have burned through its shell.

Let alone blown its head apart with a single punch.

The team members beside him exchanged glances, their faces showing the same peculiar look.

They, too, remembered what had happened last night.

By comparison...

The power the young man had just demonstrated was decent enough.

In the eyes of ordinary people, it was already an unbelievable supernatural ability.

But to Xia Xuan's team, who had witnessed true, terrifying combat power...

The gap was enormous.

Like a firefly compared to the moon.

Kaiming Street, High-Tech District.

The sun was setting, dyeing the street a dark red.

A blood-soaked figure walked slowly down the middle of the road.

Unhurried.

His black hoodie was already drenched in blood.

A mask covered his face, revealing only his eyes.

His gaze was calm, even carrying a hint of... lingering satisfaction?

Under ordinary circumstances, if someone walked so openly down the middle of the street, the monsters lurking in the surrounding buildings would have swarmed out long ago and torn them to pieces.

But now,

behind shattered windows and in the shadows along the street,

gray-green monsters peered out, their dark yellow, slit-pupil eyes fixed on the figure in the road.

They crouched low, their claws restlessly scraping the ground.

Soft hissing sounds escaped their mouths.

Yet not one dared to charge out.

Because...

Too many of their kind on this street had been killed by that person today.

From morning until dusk,

the human in the black hoodie had roamed the streets of the High-Tech District as if he never tired.

When he found a lone monster, he killed it with one punch.

When he found three or five together, he still killed them with one punch each.

Without exception, every head had burst apart.

This killing had continued all day.

He'd nearly cleared half the monsters from the entire area.

Those that remained had seen him from a distance and hidden away.

Their instincts told them...

This human was different from the others.

Dangerous.

Extremely dangerous.

Walking down the middle of the street, Jiang Ran could clearly feel the gazes coming from the buildings on either side.

But he didn't care.

Nor could he be bothered to go out of his way to hunt down those creatures hiding inside.

Because he really was a little too tired now.

After waking up that morning, Jiang Ran had left his hiding place and started actively seeking out monsters to hunt.

He hadn't specifically looked for the Seed of Return to Void or any other treasures.

He had simply fought.

Using Dragon-Tiger Fist, Eight-Step Cicada Chase, and Golden Bell Shield.

He had repeatedly honed every skill of the Martial Monk profession in actual combat.

When he got tired, he found somewhere relatively safe, absorbed Spirit Crystals, and circulated his blood and qi with the Blood-Qi Circulation Method to recover.

Once his blood and qi had mostly recovered, he went back out to hunt.

The cycle continued.

He sustained himself through battle.

By the end of the day, he had killed more than a hundred monsters.

But the price was...

A constant drain on his stamina, mental energy, and blood and qi.

Even with his iron will and a physique far beyond ordinary people's thanks to the nourishment of his blood and qi, Jiang Ran was close to his limit now.

"I need to rest..."

Jiang Ran murmured to himself, glancing at a café by the street.

He pushed open the glass door and went inside.

The café was empty.

Jiang Ran walked to the farthest corner and sat with his back against the wall.

From this spot, he could see both the entrance and the windows. It was a standard defensive position.

He took off his mask, now stained with blood, and let out a long breath.

Then he took the Heavenly Net Pouch from his tactical waist pack.

A slight shift of his will.

Clatter...

Twenty or thirty gray-white Spirit Crystals spilled onto the table.

They were all from his last haul of the day.

Jiang Ran had become quite practiced at using Spirit Crystals to cultivate.

One Spirit Crystal after another crumbled into gray-white powder.

The pores all over Jiang Ran's body relaxed slightly, and faint white vapor rose from the top of his head.

His blood and qi continued to grow, while his bones and muscles continued to strengthen.

But when the final Spirit Crystal crumbled into powder...

His blood and qi didn't slowly settle down.

Instead, they began to boil.

"Hm?"

Jiang Ran's eyes flew open, a flicker of astonishment crossing them.

He immediately tried with all his might to guide the rampaging blood and qi within him.

But this time, they wouldn't obey at all.

They coursed through his body faster and faster.

BOOM!!!

Jiang Ran felt a deafening crash in his mind.

It was as if something had been broken through.

In the next instant, his boiling blood and qi surged along an entirely new path like a river bursting its banks.

The total volume of his blood and qi skyrocketed at a visible rate.

Onefold, twofold...

In the end, it stabilized at around three times its original amount!

His surging blood and qi gradually calmed and returned to his dantian.

Jiang Ran slowly opened his eyes.

A faint red light flashed deep in his pupils and vanished.

He lowered his head and looked at his hands.

A faint, jade-like sheen covered his skin. The veins beneath it showed through, as if magma were flowing inside.

He clenched his fist.

Crack, crack...

His knuckles popped, the sound crisp and powerful.

His raw physical strength alone was at least double what it had been!

More importantly...

He could clearly feel that his control over the blood and qi within him had reached an entirely new level.

With a slight shift of his will, his blood and qi obeyed like an extension of his limbs, instantly surging to the part of his body he directed.

Could this be...

The true Blood Sensing Realm!?