One Hundred Twenty Million, Provoked, Focused

The storage cabinet was over two meters tall and divided into five levels.

Inside, it was neatly packed with transparent boxes. Just on the outermost layer, there were as many as 100 boxes visible!

Seeing this, Shi Fen did not hesitate and immediately opened the other 11 cabinets near the "trash can." The cabinets were filled to the brim with transparent boxes, packed tightly and neatly.

In the upper left corner of one of the cabinets, there was an empty spot where a box should have been. This missing box was the one currently in Shi Fen's hand.

Shi Fen was stunned by the sight before him. He plopped down onto the floor, looking as if he had lost his soul, and muttered blankly, "Have I struck it rich?"

In his eyes, these were no mere "Storage Cards."

These were neat, orderly bars of gold!

Shi Fen stood up with a wobble, manipulating his Spiritual Force to take out all the transparent boxes from the cabinet with the gap and laid them on the ground.

"My god, a full thousand. That means ten million Storage Cards."

Shi Fen was shocked by the sheer scale of his teacher's handiwork.

He then took out all the boxes from the other 11 cabinets, checking the markings on each one as he went.

1,000 boxes were marked: "Length, width, and height of one trillion kilometers."

1,000 boxes were marked: "Length, width, and height of one hundred million kilometers."

10,000 boxes were marked: "Length, width, and height of ten thousand kilometers."

In total, there were 120 million Storage Cards. Among them, 10 million were the ones with dimensions of one trillion kilometers! Storage Cards were far, far superior to World Rings of the same level.

Their value was incalculable.

It was a pity that he couldn't even open the boxes; at least he could touch and use a World Ring.

After putting all the boxes back, Shi Fen's consciousness left the Image World and headed to his Inner World.

This was for safety. By entering the Treasure Refining World from the Inner World, the Eight Trigrams Reincarnation Mirror would not be left floating outside, and his secret would remain undiscovered.

Once Shi Fen entered the Treasure Refining World, he headed straight for the cabinets near the "trash can." With a heart full of trepidation, he opened the cabinet and saw the transparent boxes packed full once again.

"It really is real."

Seeing this, he finally set his mind at ease. He had been terrified that his teacher was just "toying" with him, but seeing it with his own eyes brought him relief. He reached out to take one to fiddle with, but the transparent box didn't budge, no matter how hard he tried.

He used his World Ring, wanting to store the small box inside, but the World Ring failed to work.

"It seems Teacher doesn't want me to take them away."

He changed his strategy, using the world power of his ring to assist in moving it, but the small box remained unmoved.

"What the hell." Seeing that he couldn't shift it even a fraction, he changed targets and used his world power to move a transparent box marked with "length, width, and height of ten thousand kilometers."

He poured all his Spiritual Force into the World Ring, condensing it into a single, extremely powerful strand of world power. Shi Fen controlled this world power, applying it to the small transparent box, trying to use this force to pull it off the shelf.

Under Shi Fen's full effort, the small transparent box finally "trembled" and left its original position. Soon, Shi Fen's Spiritual Force was completely exhausted, and he could no longer control the box, which slammed into the ground with a loud "bang."

Shi Fen was startled by the loud crash.

"The real small boxes are actually this heavy." Only then did he realize that his teacher had tampered with the boxes in the Image Space, altering their weight so that Shi Fen could move them easily.

He didn't want the small box to stay on the floor, "getting in the way" and ruining the neat atmosphere of the place. Shi Fen squatted beside the small box and used all his strength, but the box didn't move an inch.

His Spiritual Force was already completely drained. Besides, pulling it out was hard enough; trying to put it back was even harder.

"Sigh," Shi Fen sighed softly.

His excitement had landed him in a "big mess."

"Obsessive-compulsive disorder is really not a good thing."

His heart was filled with conflict, but with no way to fix it, he had no choice but to leave.

"Out of sight, out of mind."

He went through every cabinet in the Treasure Refining World that he could open, checking them one by one with high expectations.

In the end, he found no other transparent boxes.

"120 million is plenty. Finding more would be useless if I can't use them anyway. I'd better just honestly study the secret patterns." Shi Fen mocked himself.

Before studying the secret patterns, he first tried out the "piloting" function of the Eight Trigrams Reincarnation Mirror in his Inner World. The flight speed of the Eight Trigrams Reincarnation Mirror was very fast. Using his control over the Inner World, he roughly calculated that the speed was between 1,316 times the speed of sound.

"Although there's no sense of gravitational acceleration, it's quite fun. I'll pilot it occasionally in the future as a form of entertainment and relaxation."

After summarizing his thoughts, Shi Fen sat cross-legged in his Inner World, adjusted the gravity to a level he could easily bear, and began to digest and categorize the information on the Basic Secret Patterns while breathing in the dense cosmic energy.

The Basic Secret Patterns contained 10,081 types of basic secret patterns and 360 basic secret pattern diagrams.

In layman's terms.

A basic secret pattern was a "line" with different textures; some were "line segments" on a plane, while others were three-dimensional "yarn."

These 10,081 "lines" contained a vast amount of information, explaining the basic rules of the universe from shallow to deep. Different textures of the secret patterns represented different functions and uses.

When used for refining treasures, they could grant various abilities.

For example: increasing sharpness, increasing durability, increasing toughness, enhancing energy-gathering effects, and so on.

The 360 basic secret pattern diagrams were combinations of these basic secret patterns.

A Secret Pattern diagram is generally composed of several basic secret patterns with different functions. These diagrams usually possess multiple capabilities; when used for treasure refining, they can impart various attribute bonuses all at once.

There are 360 types of Secret Pattern diagrams, ranging from shallow to deep, starting from simple two-dimensional "line segment" combinations to three-dimensional "yarn" planar combinations. The final diagram is the most complex three-dimensional combination of all.

Except for the final diagram, which is the most unique, the other 359 types can be thoroughly understood once one has fully mastered the 10,081 basic secret patterns and spent some time contemplating their simple combinations.

The final Secret Pattern diagram not only tests one's consciousness and computational ability, but its requirements for comprehension are also incredibly exaggerated.

What Shi Fen is doing now is reading through all the information first to get a general impression of it. He spent seven days "swallowing the dates whole," reading through all the information.

On the fifth day of his study of the secret pattern information, his physical body finished its complete transformation.

Shi Fen gained the ability to split his consciousness.

From this day on, Shi Fen began an incredibly disciplined life.

Most of his consciousness remained in the Image Space, fully digesting the information on basic secret patterns. His smaller portion of consciousness controlled his body; during the day, everything went on as usual, and he would contemplate the secret patterns whenever he could.

When no one was home, he would hide the Black Mirror in a corner, enter the Treasure Refining World first, and then enter his Inner World from there. By following this routine, when he returned from the Inner World, he would arrive directly back in the Treasure Refining World, observe the outside through the Black Mirror to confirm no one was around, and then emerge.

Caution and prudence had now gradually become ingrained in Shi Fen's subconscious.

He built a crude shack inside his Inner World.

When no one was at home, he would contemplate the secret patterns inside the shack, which allowed him to use gravity and cosmic energy to subtly strengthen his body. Because he lacked a cultivation method and still wanted to keep a low profile, this was the only way he could enhance his physical fitness.

As someone who had lived for over 80 years, he was a "cunning old fox."

Shi Fen knew very well that the most important thing right now was to contemplate the secret patterns. He had a three-year special reward period, and for the sake of that reward, Shi Fen temporarily gave up on becoming a martial artist.

Shi Fen was very satisfied with the rate at which his strength was increasing in the Inner World.

For the first two weeks, Shi Fen had no clue how to contemplate the basic secret patterns; after two weeks, he hadn't even figured out the first secret pattern.

But he soon found a solution: he compared each secret pattern to a profound theoretical physics problem and contemplated them by solving them.

After all, theoretical physics also explains the rules of the universe; it just uses different methods and forms.

One has to say that this conversion method was extremely ingenious.

Using this method, he solved the first 10 "problems" in just the first week, and his calculation speed grew faster and faster. At this rate, the number of problems he could solve each week would only continue to increase.

To this end, Shi Fen bought a large amount of physics materials and plenty of paper and pens. He stayed indoors, not stepping out of the house, relying on takeout for meals or having his mother, Li Ziyi, come over to cook for him.

Shi Fen's relatives had long since noticed his abnormal changes. After the forging on April 16th, Shi Fen had spent three or four days alone in the training room, and after returning home, he almost never went out again, nor did he go to their place for dinner.

Shi Fen acted as if he had lost his soul all day long, neither eating nor sleeping, lost in thought. This terrified them. Li Ziyi simply started delivering meals to Shi Fen on time every day to check on his condition.

This state lasted for three weeks.

When Shi Fen began to calculate frantically on paper, they finally felt relieved.

Although they couldn't understand what Shi Fen was writing at all, they recognized the names of the advanced physics books, and after a quick search, they understood.

Shi Fen was researching something new.

This was Shi Fen's most common "obsessive" state; he had been like this ever since he was a child when he started reading. Thus, Li Ziyi delivered three meals a day on time, letting Shi Fen be "obsessed."

Soon, the day of the college entrance examination arrived.

A few days prior, Shi Tie came to find Shi Fen, feeling uneasy, and asked if he was going to take the exam.

Shi Fen only needed a few words and a video to put Shi Tie's mind at ease, leaving him to stop worrying and let Shi Fen "stay busy."

"Dad, my physical fitness will reach that of a quasi-martial artist very soon. Last time I went to the martial arts hall, my strength was 869kg."

The video showed Shi Fen punching the Punch Strength Tester; at the end of the video, the screen of the tester displayed the data, which was exactly 869kg.

The video was recorded by Luo Feng, whom Shi Fen had asked for help using his phone.

As for the previous video recorder, for the sake of safety, Shi Fen had thrown it directly into the Treasure Refining World and never took it out again, intending to destroy it later to prevent any possibility of information leakage.

When Luo Feng recorded the video for Shi Fen, he was truly shocked. Although Shi Fen was his good brother, in his eyes, Shi Fen was a genius who loved "seclusion," liked researching forging, and wasn't particularly fond of exercise.

He didn't expect that as soon as Shi Fen came out of seclusion, he would surpass him, and Shi Fen's punch strength was a full 50 or 60 kilograms higher than his own. This was hard for Luo Feng to accept.

Luo Feng pressed Shi Fen on why his strength had increased so quickly.

Shi Fen smiled and told Luo Feng that swinging a several-hundred-kilogram hammer for forging every day would definitely increase one's strength quickly.

Hearing this, Luo Feng couldn't help but think to himself that Shi Fen was a freak; he could never manage to practice strength like that. Luo Feng let the matter drop, stopped asking, and continued to stick to his own training methods.

869kg.

This was, of course, not Shi Fen's full strength; it was the strength he intentionally displayed to save himself trouble and fool his family.

This "full-power strike" of 869 kilograms was the result of his careful experimentation. For him right now, this strength was neither too high nor too low; it was just right to help him avoid countless annoying matters.

He did not know his own limit.

Inside the martial arts hall, there were too many eyes, and Shi Fen dared not test his limits. If he were exposed, he would be unable to maintain his low-profile life.

He only wanted to study the secret patterns with all his heart.

Besides, he could subtly improve his physical fitness inside the Inner World, and the speed of progress through this method was not slow. Without the "Five Hearts Towards Heaven," his strength could still increase steadily. Therefore, he was in no rush to take the assessment, become a martial artist, and obtain the gene energy cultivation method, "Five Hearts Towards Heaven."

If he went to take the Extreme Martial Arts Hall assessment, with Shi Fen's strength, he could easily become a martial artist.

Time was of the essence; the special reward arranged by Yi had a deadline of only three years. Shi Fen could not afford to waste a single moment.

Becoming a martial artist was a cumbersome process in itself, and it would inevitably lead to entering the Wilderness Area later on, which would be an even greater waste of time.

Given his current situation, it was better to avoid unnecessary complications; he could easily put off becoming a martial artist until later.

Even if he were to become a "martial artist," what would be the point?

Was the inheritance from Yi not far more enticing than anything else?

With the inheritance from Yi, Shi Fen's perspective was now incredibly high; he looked down upon the wealth and status of Earth entirely. Moreover, as long as he was willing, he could find a "suitable opportunity" at any time to make his move and burst onto the scene.

The initiative was entirely in his hands.

Shi Fen completely ignored the college entrance examination and the prospective martial artist assessment, continuing his life of "solving problems."