It was completely unexpected.
In early March 2057, the experimental prototype of the Ultra-High Temperature Furnace underwent its first test run. In the end, the terrifying explosion of the prototype brought the test to an abrupt close.
If Hong, Thor, Shi Fen, Elder Qian, and dozens of other powerful fighters hadn't been present on the day of the test, the casualties would have been devastating. Thanks to Hong's warning, all the staff managed to escape.
Everyone was saved, but the site of the experimental Ultra-High Temperature Furnace prototype had been blasted into a massive "crater."
Humanity's first attempt to harness the ultra-high-temperature plasma produced by nuclear fusion had ended in complete failure.
Fortunately, the research data and scientific staff had been preserved. After reviewing the lessons learned, they began building a new experimental prototype of the Ultra-High Temperature Furnace. They expected to be able to test it again in a few months.
Unable to create advanced weapons, Shi Fen devoted himself wholeheartedly to studying Basic Secret Patterns. After taking the Spirit of Vegetation he had gathered on Mist Island, his strength had increased dramatically. His physical fitness had reached the limit of a War God, and the golden liquid ocean in his Sea of Consciousness had spread to every corner of it.
Although he hadn't managed to break through to the Planetary Level, the growth of the golden ocean in his Sea of Consciousness had once again sent his mental calculation ability soaring.
By late May that year, he had successfully analyzed and comprehended all 10,081 Basic Secret Patterns.
His progress had far exceeded expectations.
Having fully mastered the Basic Secret Patterns, Shi Fen didn't dare take a break. He immediately threw himself into studying the Secret Pattern Diagram.
One Secret Pattern Diagram after another was swiftly deciphered. He cleared them one after another, and, overcome with delight, set aside all his other work to focus entirely on studying the diagrams.
Shi Fen stood in his Inner World, frowning as he racked his brain, trying to decipher the final Secret Pattern Diagram. Discarded sheets of draft paper littered the area around him, covered in calculations from his attempts to analyze it.
Just as he was agonizing over what to do, the Communication Bracelet he had left outside suddenly rang.
Shi Fen hurried to his feet and left the Inner World.
As soon as he answered, Luo Feng's anxious voice came through the Communication Bracelet.
"Brother, do you know what Spirits of Vegetation are?"
Shi Fen jolted. He glanced at the time. It was August—the first time Luo Feng had entered Mist Island.
So the day had finally come, Shi Fen thought.
"Of course. The medicinal wine I used to help our three families improve their strength, and the bottle I gave your team, were both brewed with Spirits of Vegetation," Shi Fen said.
Luo Feng's spirits lifted. He had just checked the Home of Extremes forum, and with his War God access, he had only just learned how valuable Spirits of Vegetation were.
"You really went all out," Luo Feng said with a wry smile.
"Heh, we're brothers. There's no need to sweat the small stuff. Why are you asking about this all of a sudden?" Shi Fen continued.
"It's like this. I was being hunted by Li Yao all across the Australian Continent, and I accidentally ended up on a strange island. I heard from Li Yao that there are lots of Spirits of Vegetation on it, so I came straight to ask you."
"Li Yao? The Li Yao with the massive bounty on his head?"
"Yeah," Luo Feng confirmed.
"So you're a Spiritual Master too?" Shi Fen pretended to be shocked.
"Heh, I am. Ah, forget about that for now. Don't you have a fighter jet? I'll send you the coordinates. Hurry and fly over to help. The two of us can team up and make a killing. Li Yao really is my lucky star! If he finds out I can call you over, he'll be furious. If the two of us still can't take him down, you can call the Curator for help. That'll make him furious enough to die!"
"Okay, I'm on my way." Shi Fen didn't end the call. After boarding the fighter jet, he kept chatting with Luo Feng.
Luo Feng repeatedly apologized, saying he shouldn't have kept his identity secret. He promised to treat Shi Fen to a proper meal later to make up for the mental distress.
Shi Fen was glad Luo Feng had taken the initiative to ask him to help gather Spirits of Vegetation on Mist Island.
It felt great to be trusted completely!
The Qiankun-class Fighter Jet sped toward Mist Island. Shi Fen sat quietly in the cabin, thinking about what to do once he arrived. Beside him lay a package containing the armor, War Blades, throwing knives, and other equipment he had custom-made for Luo Feng.
Luo Feng had asked Shi Fen to make the SSS-grade equipment after he had made a name for himself at the Elite Training Camp.
Shi Fen had originally planned to give it to him after he returned from Mist Island.
But given the circumstances, he might as well bring it along.
Less than an hour later, Shi Fen arrived above Mist Island.
Shi Fen chose to land in the area where he had cleared out the monsters last time.
He wore a black, old-fashioned SSS-grade battle suit. Thirty-six finely crafted SSS-grade throwing knives were tucked into the knife pockets on its outer layer. Underneath, he wore the Black God Set Hong had given him. He carried a War Blade and shield on his back, and Luo Feng's equipment in his hand. As the fighter jet's hatch opened, Shi Fen jumped straight out.
The wind howled in his ears. Shi Fen used his Spiritual Force to control his battle suit, slowing his descent and keeping himself steady. His feet touched the ground lightly, and he landed beside the lake.
"Luo Feng, where are you? I'm here," Shi Fen called to ask.
"Great, you came just in time. Li Yao's reinforcements haven't arrived yet. I'll send you my location. Let's team up and take out the nine willow trees first. I heard Li Yao say there are nine Willow Hearts that are at least a thousand years old inside."
"Okay, I brought your SSS-grade equipment. Change into it first, then we'll go fight."
While Shi Fen was talking to Luo Feng, a monster's head, as huge as a house, slowly emerged from the water. It opened two strange, vertical pupils as large as water tanks and sized Shi Fen up.
Shi Fen was just about to head over and meet Luo Feng when he caught sight of something moving in the lake out of the corner of his eye. He immediately turned to look.
Man and beast locked eyes.
As soon as Shi Fen recognized the monster's head, he knew it was a King-level Monster. His scalp went numb. Without ending the call, he grabbed the package, shot straight up into the air, and fled frantically toward the island!
The monster recognized Shi Fen's face. Its strange, vertical pupils instantly turned bloodred, and it let out a shrill, furious roar. At the sound, more monster heads surfaced from the lake one after another. On the lakeshore and on the mountains nearby, countless enormous monsters opened their eyes.
The monster raised a foreleg, tore it swiftly out of the water, and lunged at Shi Fen in a rage, claws out.
As the monster swung its claws, it surged out of the water, revealing its entire body.
It was a King-Level Crocodile Dragon, over 200 meters long, its body covered in menacing, dark-red scales. Each scale was as large as a door panel. Two curved horns sprouted from its head, its legs were immensely thick, and its claws were sharp enough to tear through an S-grade battle suit with ease.
All of this happened in the blink of an eye. The monster's first attack missed Shi Fen. Seeing that it had failed to hit him, it roared again, its enormous body turning into a streak of light as it furiously chased after him.
The other powerful monsters nearby heard the King-Level Crocodile Dragon's repeated roars. As if they had received an order, they gathered in its direction.
Monsters from the land, sea, and sky soon converged with the King-Level Crocodile Dragon. Together, they surrounded Shi Fen and hunted him down.
"Holy crap. I killed the little ones, and now the big one's come for revenge." Shi Fen fled for his life, silently cursing his bad luck.
Fortunately, Shi Fen was usually diligent. In his spare time, he often honed his movement skills and studied the Basics of Spiritual Reader. Otherwise, he would have been done for in the first wave of attacks from the flying monsters.
It wasn't that Shi Fen hadn't considered hiding inside the Eight Trigrams Reincarnation Mirror.
He hadn't had time to investigate Mist Island yet, so he didn't know whether Babata, Li Yao, and the others could see him.
To be safe, Shi Fen didn't dare act rashly.
In the midst of the frenzied monster horde, Shi Fen darted back and forth, nimbly dodging through gaps between the beasts. He was as slippery as an eel, and not a single monster managed to touch even the hem of his clothes.
The enraged King-Level Crocodile Dragon saw Shi Fen clutching his package as he leisurely dodged through the monsters, as if taking a stroll. It flew into a rage, roared, and ordered its underlings to surround the human from all sides.
The Crocodile Dragon itself turned into a meteor and charged at Shi Fen, determined to smash him into a pulp.
In Shi Fen's eyes, he had killed two young Crocodile Dragons. In the King-Level Crocodile Dragon's eyes, those had been its wife and child.
This was a blood feud for the murder of its family!
The Crocodile Dragon had been waiting for Shi Fen for a long time. Now that it had found him, how could it not go berserk?
"Not good."
Shi Fen realized things had taken a turn for the worse and cried out. The Black God Set immediately covered his entire body. Dozens of throwing knives shot out from all over him, with a total of thirty-three circling around him. Any monsters that tried to approach instantly became the knives' victims.
Shi Fen controlled the maximum of thirty-three throwing knives.
That was right. Once the golden ocean had filled his Sea of Consciousness, Shi Fen's control limit had reached an astonishing thirty-three times his Spiritual Power Amplitude.
"Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!"
Under Shi Fen's precise control, the finely crafted throwing knives stabbed into the monsters' brains at terrifying speeds and from all manner of tricky angles. Each knife spun around several times inside a monster's brain, completely destroying it, then bored its way out of the monster's skull and returned to Shi Fen's side to rejoin the fight.
Even the weakest of the monsters surrounding Shi Fen were Lord-level Monsters. But their defenses were as good as nothing in his eyes and couldn't hinder his throwing knives in the slightest.
"Boom, boom, boom..."
In just over ten seconds, six Lord-level Monsters had fallen, their life signs rapidly fading.
Seeing his underlings being slaughtered one after another, the King-Level Crocodile Dragon grew even angrier. The enraged King-Level Crocodile Dragon suddenly accelerated. It was now less than ten meters from Shi Fen, and once more extended its claws to attack him.
Realizing that things were going badly, Shi Fen didn't hesitate. He dropped the package in his hands, disregarded the throwing knives already buried in the monsters' heads, drew the remaining knives back around him, and covered his head with his arms. He took a direct hit from a Lord-level Monster.
Shi Fen grunted as blood and energy surged in his chest. Forcing himself to stay alert, he used the force of the monster's attack to escape the King-Level Crocodile Dragon's reach, then abruptly accelerated his Spiritual Force and shot away.
Seeing that its underling's attack had helped Shi Fen escape, the King-Level Crocodile Dragon changed its claw swipe to a sideways slap. Furious, it sent the Lord-level Monster flying.
"Rumble."
The Lord-level Monster was enormous. Many other Lord-level Monsters were caught in the impact and tumbled over one another.
They didn't dare complain. They immediately got back up and continued surrounding Shi Fen.
The blow sent Shi Fen flying hundreds of meters. Under the extreme pressure, he didn't even have time to worry about his injury. His mind raced as he calculated the monsters' interception paths and searched for a way out.
Most of the consciousness in his Image World returned to his body during the battle. Shi Fen was giving it everything he had!
Under the intense pressure, his kidneys pumped out adrenaline at a frantic rate. All the hormones in his body began pouring out, helping him push past his limits. His heart pounded violently, its rate exceeding a thousand beats per minute and surpassing the limits of even a War God. Huge amounts of blood flooded his brain. Shi Fen's mind was more focused than ever, and his brain's processing speed broke through its limits again and again.
As Shi Fen searched desperately for a way to escape, the twenty-seven remaining throwing knives around him joined up with the three spares and counterattacked the monsters surrounding him. Ten knives spun around him to protect him, while the other twenty split into several groups and attacked the Lord-level Monsters.
"Pfft, pfft, pfft..."
One Lord-level Monster after another fell. Shi Fen finally broke out of the encirclement. To protect Luo Feng and keep the monsters from accidentally injuring him, Shi Fen didn't dare venture too deep into the island. Using the momentum from the Lord-level Monster's earlier attack, he led the monsters in circles around the island's outskirts.
Under the intense pressure and strain, Shi Fen entered a wondrous state of "enlightenment."
In this state, fighting became instinctive. All the information his brain calculated became data for him to use in battle. As soon as his body received it, he would instinctively apply it.
Shi Fen slaughtered the Lord-level Monsters with ease.
In this state, Shi Fen successfully broke through the monster horde's encirclement. Once he broke free, he noticed there were fewer monsters around him. He turned around and charged back into the horde, taking on all the monsters by himself with thirty throwing knives.
Seeing Shi Fen turn back, the King-Level Crocodile Dragon immediately let out a delighted roar and joined its underlings in ganging up on the foolish human.
Before long, the King-Level Crocodile Dragon realized that something was wrong.
It was a King-level Monster leading a horde of Lord-level Monster underlings. With so many monsters attacking together, they couldn't even touch the hem of Shi Fen's clothes. Instead, its underlings were falling one after another.
Extreme fury and an irreconcilable blood feud clouded the Crocodile Dragon's judgment. Even though it sensed something was wrong, it didn't give up on its revenge.
Half an hour later.
More than a hundred Lord-level Monster underlings had all been killed. It was the only one left.
Alone at last, the Crocodile Dragon regained its senses and immediately considered retreating. It planned to join forces with its King-level Monster brothers later to deal with this uncanny human.
But the Crocodile Dragon realized it too late.
With Shi Fen completely immersed in that wondrous state, how could he give it a chance to escape? His thirty knives became a streak of light and attacked the Crocodile Dragon's eyes.
The Crocodile Dragon hurriedly shut its eyelids. The throwing knives struck the tiny scales on them, sending sparks flying and producing a series of metallic clinks. The Crocodile Dragon kept swinging its thick forelegs, trying to swat away the annoying flies and flee.
"Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!"
Under Shi Fen's control, the throwing knives became nearly perfect. Even when swatted away, they traced graceful arcs and attacked the Crocodile Dragon's eyelids again.
Shi Fen realized the Crocodile Dragon's eyelids were incredibly well-armored and immediately changed tactics.
A swarm of throwing knives circled around the King-Level Crocodile Dragon's head, blocking its retreat. One by one, they launched erratic attacks at the same spot on its eyelid.
"It's over."
The Crocodile Dragon knew it had lost. But it didn't give up. Its intense desire for revenge drove it to attack Shi Fen frantically. No longer trying to escape, the King-Level Crocodile Dragon summoned every last ounce of its strength to dodge the ambushing knives and attack the hateful human.
How could the King-Level Crocodile Dragon possibly match Shi Fen in this state?
At that moment, it was as if Shi Fen had heaven's help.
After more than ten minutes, Shi Fen finally pierced through the Crocodile Dragon's eyelid. A flood of throwing knives poured through the opening, rushing into its brain and tearing it apart.
The King-Level Crocodile Dragon let out a resentful howl. Filled with hatred, it fell to the ground and continued thrashing wildly until its life signs gradually faded.
The King-Level Crocodile Dragon was dead.
After nearly an hour of fierce fighting, Shi Fen had faced more than a hundred terrifying monsters all by himself.
Shi Fen had won decisively.
He had suffered only a minor injury during the entire battle. Even that had been a wound he deliberately took to avoid a fatal attack.
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