Nowadays.
Half a month had passed since he downloaded Unarmed Combat.
Hu Long hadn't simply waited around.
To master the skill as quickly as possible, he'd paid for practical combat training.
He'd also done strength exercises, including bodyweight squats and push-ups, as well as running and interval sprints.
As he trained, perhaps because he'd downloaded the master-level Unarmed Combat skill,
and thanks to the physical talent High-Efficiency Absorption and Metabolism, which accelerated his absorption of nutrients,
he could clearly feel his physical fitness improving at a visible, astonishing pace.
He'd also gained quite a bit of weight. He was no longer as skinny as before, though his appearance hadn't changed much.
In reality, however, his physical fitness had already returned to a normal adult's level and even seemed to surpass it slightly.
His progress was astonishingly fast. Take running, for example.
At first, he was exhausted after running just three kilometers on his first day.
But after only a week, he could easily run twenty kilometers.
Now, after half a month, he could run forty kilometers and was only slightly out of breath. Hu Long even felt he hadn't reached his limit.
That kind of progress was impossible for an ordinary person.
The human body needed time to adapt; progress couldn't happen overnight. Excessive training would only harm the body and have the opposite effect.
But Hu Long was different.
He could clearly feel that even without training, his physique improved every day at an astonishing rate.
Training simply helped his body adapt to its improved fitness more quickly.
All of this was the result of downloading a single master-level Unarmed Combat skill.
Of course,
aside from training,
Hu Long had also been quietly monitoring Xue Wu's movements.
The advantage of the technological age was that even an ordinary person could easily do incredible things with enough computer expertise.
With his master-level Network Offense and Defense skills, this wasn't difficult.
For instance, he could now open his phone and easily pinpoint Xue Wu's location, check his call logs and chat history, and more.
He could even access Xue Wu's camera and take pictures.
It was as if the other man's phone had become Hu Long's own eyes, allowing him to keep him under constant surveillance.
Hu Long had been waiting for a good opportunity these past few days.
Unfortunately, he hadn't found one.
He was gradually losing patience. After all, he'd never been a patient person.
Especially when his life was in danger.
At the thought, a cold glint appeared in his eyes.
"I've completely mastered master-level Unarmed Combat. It's time to deal with this problem. Since I can't find an opening, I'll have to find another way."
The autumn sun hung high overhead at noon, baking the winding mountain road until it was a glaring gray-white.
A yellow bus with chipped paint slowly climbed the mountain road.
A thick layer of dust covered its body.
The cabin was filled with the stuffy air typical of long-distance buses.
A few young passengers stared down at their phones, the screen glow falling across their tired faces.
Most of the others leaned against their seats, swaying slightly with every bump in the road as they rested with their eyes closed.
"Ugh—"
A sudden retch broke the quiet in the bus.
Near the back, a young man doubled over, clutching a plastic bag as he gagged.
A foul odor quickly spread, and the passengers nearby couldn't help wrinkling their noses.
The retching continued for a while before finally subsiding.
The young man straightened up, his face pale and beads of sweat dotting his forehead.
He wiped the corner of his mouth with a tissue and smiled awkwardly at the others.
Then he turned to the man in the seat beside him.
"Sorry about that, sir. Could you please open the window?"
The young man spoke in a low voice. Perhaps from vomiting, it sounded a little hoarse.
As he spoke, he tied up the plastic bag to keep the smell from escaping.
The man beside him was middle-aged and wore an old leather jacket.
He had on sunglasses, and his thick beard covered nearly the whole lower half of his face.
He'd been quietly looking out the window.
At the young man's words, the middle-aged man turned his head. His gaze calmly swept over the young man's pale face before settling on the plastic bag in his hand.
"It's fine!"
As he spoke, he reached over and pushed the window beside him open a little.
A moment later, mountain air streamed in, carrying the crisp scent of plants and trees and dispelling the stuffy air in the cabin.
The breeze brushed the young man's face, and he let out a small sigh of relief.
"Thanks!"
The middle-aged man said nothing more. He turned back to the window, his gaze settling on the distant green hills.
The bus continued winding along the mountain road, its engine echoing through the quiet mountains.
The bearded man was none other than Hu Long, who had left Huanyang City.
As for why he looked like this,
it was because of the two skills he'd downloaded.
[Makeup (Master)] (Description: With your consummate makeup skills, you can change your appearance however you like. Whether you're touching up your everyday look, creating an artistic style, or completely disguising yourself as someone else, you can do it in a short time, and the results will be convincing enough to fool anyone.) [Voice Mimicry (Proficient)] (Description: You're proficient in disguising your voice and can easily imitate the speaking styles of different ages, genders, and personalities. You can even reproduce a specific person's vocal characteristics and speaking habits with lifelike accuracy, making it difficult to tell the difference.)
Those two skills were precisely why he'd changed so much.
Downloading them had cost him nine trillion units of data, leaving only a sliver of Source Value on his panel.
But it was worth it.
By combining the two skills, he could completely transform himself and become someone else.
As for his current appearance, it was modeled on a wanted criminal he'd found online who had a build similar to his own.
He'd used his network skills to steal that man's information.
With master-level Makeup backing him up, even someone who knew him well would be unable to tell the difference unless they were extremely familiar with him.
But to avoid being arrested as a criminal before he could accomplish his goal,
he'd also obscured the information associated with this identity and altered his appearance a little further.
That was the advantage of combining multiple skills.
As for why he'd gone to the trouble of dressing like this, he certainly wasn't taking a sightseeing trip to clear his head.
He was there to deal with the problem he faced.
Though he hadn't found an opportunity, he hadn't foolishly decided to go after Xue Wu directly.
Though this was a different world,
some things were still the same.
Take the present day, for example.
Yu State had begun building a public video surveillance system on a large scale, and it was already taking shape, though coverage and automation were still far from widespread.
Cameras were found only in banks, shopping malls, hotels, office buildings, and major intersections.
But they were still there.
Huanyang City was a major city, after all, with a dense population.
Accidents could happen easily.
Rather than attack Xue Wu there and draw attention,
he might as well go straight to the source: Xue Wu's hometown, and his parents.
That was the convenience of the information age. As long as your skills were good enough, there was nothing to hide from you when it came to someone else's information.
Hu Long had easily pinpointed Xue Wu's hometown using nothing more than his phone.
He'd also looked up all of Xue Wu's connections along the way.
Xue Wu's social circle wasn't complicated. It was much like anyone else's.
He had no close friends or relatives to speak of, only a pair of parents back in his hometown.
So Hu Long planned to go straight after the two of them.
It was a little despicable, but Hu Long didn't care. If someone tried to get him, he'd pay them back.
Besides, based on some of the information he'd gathered while monitoring Xue Wu, those two old bastards weren't exactly good people. They'd also had a hand in the trouble Hu Long was facing.