Blood Moon

The Source Points required to redeem Fist of the Azure Heaven were 82,734.

The most expensive golden module in the Trait Module library required 99,999.

Sword Master (Gold): Swordsmanship's basic level cap is adjusted to 10, and its level cap increases by 10. Sword Dao My Master.

The description of this module was simple, nothing like the complicated one for Fist of the Azure Heaven.

As for what Sword Dao My Master did...

Sword Dao My Master (Gold): All sword techniques below gold quality are directly upgraded to gold quality. No proficiency is required; watching is enough to learn them instantly, and learning them raises the level cap.

The price of Sword Dao My Master was 75,332 Source Points.

Sword Master was an advanced version of Sword Dao My Master. It was already close to red, but hadn't undergone a qualitative transformation. It was the strongest below red.

The facts had long proved that the shorter the description, the more powerful the effect. Sword Seed was the exception, of course.

That was because every word in the description of the Sword Seed Trait Module, taken on its own, was a golden talent.

Ten words meant the effects of ten golden talents!

And that was just listing them individually. Their effects could also interact with one another, producing a result greater than the sum of their parts.

There was a reason it was so expensive!

After all, if Zhao Cheng chose to simply lie low and idle with a Trait Module like this, he'd have to idle for a full thirty years before he had a chance to get it.

And if he really did that, the story would undoubtedly become one about a big shot rising to power in middle age.

Still, if Zhao Cheng really played it that way, he suspected the odds of his mind collapsing were even higher than the odds of becoming a big shot.

Like that joke from his past life: a computer's hardware got upgraded, and its operating system crashed because the system "wasn't worthy."

Even if he got lucky and his mind didn't collapse, his temperament would probably change drastically.

Cultivation should be a process in which the self and one's level of life developed together, not a one-sided, reckless sprint. It was bad for either one to grow too strong.

That was what it meant to cultivate both life and nature, much like the yin and yang of the Taiji.

"I wonder what kind of person in this world has the Fist of the Azure Heaven Trait."

Thinking this, Zhao Cheng opened the search function on the Trait Module interface.

The Trait Module library in the Panel was vast as the ocean. If he really looked through them one by one, by the time he finished, he'd be old himself.

Of course, Zhao Cheng had a plan. He could leave the white and blue modules aside, but he would have to find time to go through the purple ones and anything above them, to broaden his horizons.

Zhao Cheng searched directly for "dark vision." A huge amount of text appeared, and the total number of results was 134,727.

Then Zhao Cheng entered the keyword "sword," and the number immediately dropped to 3,471.

Seeing this, Zhao Cheng entered another keyword: "clarity." The results instantly fell to thirty-two.

He excluded the golden and purple modules, leaving only thirteen.

There were many kinds of life in the world with the ability to sense in darkness, and all sorts of Traits had arisen from that.

Quite a few were related to swords, too, but few had the effect of "clarity."

After all, seeing a mosaic was still seeing, and so was seeing in 4K HD, but the two were worlds apart.

Zhao Cheng wasn't sure whether this world even had such a thing as daylight, so it was essential to prepare for a rainy day.

Of course, he might have guessed wrong, and the sky might brighten soon. Still, better safe than sorry. He would check out the options first and have a clear idea of what to expect.

Zhao Cheng scanned all thirteen Trait Modules at a glance.

All thirteen Trait Modules were blue. In the end, Zhao Cheng settled on one of them: Sword Eye.

Sword Eye (Blue): Losing four of your senses—sight, smell, hearing, and taste—didn't defeat you. Instead, your spirit underwent a qualitative transformation. Your desperate desire to "see" this world magnified your sense of touch infinitely. Combined with your transformed spirit, your sense of touch took "sword" as its vessel and became the Sword Eye. From then on, the fluctuations of all things were gathered within your "eyes," allowing you to recreate the "world."

This Trait let its user see the fluctuations at the source of all things and reconstruct the world from them. In terms of sheer power, it could be called the strongest of all Traits.

In fact, in Zhao Cheng's eyes, though it was a blue Trait, its power surpassed that of many purple Traits.

The reason this Trait was only blue was its rare negative effect: four of the five senses were discarded, making the fifth and sixth senses immensely stronger. Then, with the sword as their vessel, the fifth and sixth senses underwent a strange fusion, giving rise to the so-called Sword Eye.

Gain came with loss. Such an enormous sacrifice had bought it this excessive level of power.

As for the price, this Trait cost only 300 Source Points. It was a real bargain.

Best of all, Zhao Cheng's Trait Modules could be removed. He could equip one when he needed it and take it off when he didn't.

Given this feature, once he had enough Source Points, Zhao Cheng could develop several sets of modules tailored to different situations.

A set for cultivation, focused on training; a set for combat, focused on fighting; a set for exploration, focused on exploring...

The problem now was that Zhao Cheng didn't have even thirty Source Points, let alone three hundred.

Aside from being prepared, the main reason he was looking at this was to test how true it was that the Shop refresh on the Panel would favor him.

How precisely did this "favor" work?!

And if the Trait showed up, then with the Panel's random discount of one to nine tenths, there was theoretically a fifty percent chance he'd need less than half the Source Points.

At his current rate of accumulating Source Points, it would take only ten days or so.

The Panel was useful, but it still wasn't intelligent enough, and it didn't come with an instruction manual. A lot of things were explained very vaguely.

After looking through the Traits, Zhao Cheng glanced at the Simulation Point section in the Shop. As expected, it was still empty.

Having dealt with the Panel, Zhao Cheng had no intention of sitting around. But there was no way he was going to explore this area blindly. He might be brave, but he wasn't looking to scare himself. If he accidentally felt his way into something strange, then things would get exciting.

Zhao Cheng planned to practice his swordsmanship. He was ready for the worst: if this world never brightened, he would practice himself to death.

At that point, he would make at least one simulation each day, first improving his swordsmanship. Once he had saved enough Source Points and redeemed Sword Eye, he would turn back to exploring this world and search for a way to clear it.

With his talent as it was now, he had a chance of raising his swordsmanship to lv10 after ten-odd days of frenzied practice. By then, he would enter an entirely new world.

Whoosh!

In the darkness, the blade cleaved through the wind with a sharp sound.

In a dark environment, people's sense of time became blurred, and fear could easily take root.

Even Zhao Cheng, with his current mental fortitude, had built up a faint fear over time after suddenly finding himself in an unfamiliar environment, despite knowing it was only a simulation.

It was like playing a horror game alone. Even if you knew the monsters in the game couldn't enter the real world, you were still scared.

But once Zhao Cheng began swinging his sword, each swing made the fear in his heart fade a little more, until it vanished completely, leaving only a state of calm as still water.

The darkness hadn't become an obstacle. Instead, it had made Zhao Cheng even more focused!

To some extent, the "fear" brought on by the darkness had become fuel, driving Zhao Cheng's growth.

In ancient times, many monks and Taoists practiced swordsmanship on the edge of cliffs. One wrong step meant eternal damnation. They used fear to draw out their potential.

Zhao Cheng's present circumstances bore some resemblance to theirs.

This kind of cultivation had an ancient name: Stealing Heavenly Secrets!

To steal from Heaven and become human, staking one's life to achieve what no human could.

Time passed, yet the space here seemed to have stopped, unmoving for eternity. Only the Panel's log, where proficiency slowly refreshed with a +1, proved that time was truly flowing.

Then, at a certain moment, a streak of blood-red light suddenly appeared on the horizon. In the briefest instant, a Blood Moon appeared in the sky, reflected in Zhao Cheng's eyes.

At last, something had changed!