"Hey, Old Xu, what happened? I only just noticed how much weight you've lost. You even look younger."
At the Airport, his coworker Bai He asked with a leering grin.
"Have you been going for foot massages again? No, wait. Xiao Yue at the shop said you haven't been there in over two weeks. What are you up to?"
"Haha, I'm done with foot massages. All they do is drain my body and my wallet."
Xu Feng laughed and tossed Bai He a piece of gum.
"What, are you short on money?" Bai He's smile faded. He tore open the wrapper and popped the gum into his mouth. "If you really are, I've got a little money stashed away."
Xu Feng waved him off with a smile. "Thanks, but that's not it. I've been practicing martial arts lately."
"Martial arts?" Bai He didn't quite follow.
For a middle-aged man nearing forty himself, martial arts felt so far out of reach it might as well have been a dream.
"The Shanty Town is still too dangerous. I need some way to defend myself, so I'm just practicing a bit."
Xu Feng laughed, picked up the cargo on the ground, and headed toward the transport vehicle.
Bai He suddenly snapped to his senses. Frowning, he hurried after Xu Feng. "Come on, don't do anything foolish!
Is martial arts something people like us can even dream about? You're not still chasing that dream, are you?"
He took the cargo from Xu Feng and put it on the vehicle, then said worriedly, "With our wages, our expenses, and our talent, martial arts are a bottomless pit.
Don't forget you still have Xiao Dan to raise. You—"
Xu Feng patted Bai He's shoulder and explained with a smile, "Lao Bai, I'm just getting some exercise. I'm not trying to become a martial artist. I know my limits."
Only then did Bai He let out a long breath. He rolled his eyes. "Sheesh, you could've said so earlier. I thought you'd lost your mind like Madman Zhou."
Xu Feng smiled without explaining further.
The Madman Zhou Bai He mentioned was a former coworker of theirs.
His circumstances had been much like Xu Feng's. He had sold everything he could to practice martial arts and become a martial artist, but in the end, he had gotten nowhere.
To earn money for Blood Qi Potions, he had taken a dangerous transport job from a Martial University. A Mutated Creature had attacked and killed him on the trip.
Later, his wife remarried, and his child took another man's surname.
To Bai He, that was every married man's worst nightmare.
Though the two of them weren't especially close, he didn't want to watch Xu Feng throw his life away like that.
As Bai He saw it, people needed to know their own limits.
If you didn't have what it took, you had no business pursuing martial arts.
Xu Feng understood what Bai He was thinking, but he had no intention of explaining himself.
He appreciated the concern, but he wasn't like Old Zhou.
After work, Xu Feng returned home.
He first tidied the entire shack, which was less than thirty square meters, and threw out all the useless odds and ends.
Then he scrubbed the bathroom and kitchen clean.
Once the place was clean and comfortable, he stood in the center of the room that served as both living room and bedroom, and slowly took his stance.
After practicing the Nine Star Body Refining Art three times, Xu Feng was drenched in sweat.
He took off his shirt and continued practicing bare-chested.
When he happened to catch sight of himself in the mirror, he paused.
His bloated figure was long gone.
In its place were lean muscles, clean lines, and a defined jaw.
"I'm one step closer to becoming a War God."
Xu Feng felt the abs on his stomach and nodded in satisfaction.
Keep going!
He didn't spend long admiring his forty-year-old physique before returning to his training.
At first, one round of the Nine Star Body Refining Art each day had left his body feeling "full."
Now he had to practice it at least five times a day before he felt "nine-tenths full."
That was no small improvement.
The Nine Star Body Refining Art allowed the body's cells to absorb the "energy" scattered throughout the universe.
That energy was like food.
But eating more in one sitting wasn't necessarily better.
If his body took in more than it could digest and absorb, it would do him harm.
His growing appetite meant the potential of his body's cells was growing too.
After five rounds, Xu Feng felt refreshed and full of strength.
Then he began practicing with his blade.
But before he could finish one round of blade forms, Xiao Dan came home.
"Dad! I'm hungry!"
The moment she set down her schoolbag, Little Taotie started hollering.
After a month together, Xu Feng had finally managed to break the child of some of her "bad habits."
Cooking, doing laundry, cleaning, and acting older than her years, for example.
A child should get to be a child.
She could help with a few chores now and then as a break from studying.
As for the heavier burdens of life, her dad was there to carry them.
Xu Feng hurriedly put his shirt back on and went straight into the kitchen without even showering.
He cooked, ate with her, and urged his daughter to do her homework.
Xu Feng had never imagined he would experience the joys of family life before he even had a partner.
He had skipped the preliminaries and gone straight to the main event.
Everyday life could be strange and unpredictable that way.
After dinner, Xu Feng went outside to practice with his blade again so he wouldn't disturb Xiao Dan.
Over the past half month, he had leveled this patch of wasteland and turned it into a new training area.
He practiced from dusk until late at night.
Apart from going inside once for a glass of water, Xu Feng didn't rest at all.
Then, at a certain moment, his scattered blade flashes suddenly converged into a streak of cold light that burst forth with a piercing shriek.
Xu Feng froze. He brought his movements to a shaky stop, and a thought stirred in his mind.
[White Wolf Blade · Proficient (1/200)]
"That was tough."
Xu Feng drove the blade into the ground and slowly sat down in a nearby chair.
He picked up his cup and took a sip of water. A faint smile spread across his face.
Satisfaction.
Nothing could have satisfied him more.
"Bzzzz—"
Just then.
A buzzing sound like insect wings rose through the night sky.
It was loud, as though some huge hornet were flying toward the house.
Xu Feng had been afraid of bugs since childhood. Without thinking, he raised his hand and sent a flying blade hurtling toward it.
"Bzz—"
The buzzing stopped at once.
"Heh. I'd say I'm getting pretty good with these flying blades."
Xu Feng touched the flying blades at his waist, thoroughly pleased with himself. Since he was in the mood, he decided to train a little longer.
He planted the Battle Blade in the ground, turned, and started practicing the Secret Blade Art.
He couldn't neglect either ranged attacks or close combat.
The Security Department at the Sky Moon Martial University vanguard's base.
The Monitoring Room.
"Captain, the life signs of that F-rank Beast Soldier, the Copper-Winged Bird, have vanished in the outer area," a martial artist in a Combat Suit reported in surprise from his seat before a screen.
At a table in another corner of the room, four martial artists were playing cards. One of them, a middle-aged man, raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean, vanished?"
"I mean... vanished. The surveillance drone can't detect her life signs anymore," the operator said helplessly.
Creak—
A chair scraped harshly across the floor.
The middle-aged man walked over and looked at the screen. "Could the signal have dropped by accident?"
The operator frowned. "That might have happened before, but it shouldn't this time.
The entire surveillance system was redeveloped by the An City Academy of Sciences specifically for the Wumeng Mountain Region.
It was meant to prevent attacks like the ones we had before.
The strange thing is, when the Copper-Winged Bird entered the electronic interference zone, a special-frequency signal drove her away.
But her biological signal suddenly vanished while she was leaving. It's almost as if... she was attacked."
The middle-aged man turned to the other three martial artists at the table. "Luo Feng, take someone out there. Find the Copper-Winged Bird's body and determine how she died."
"Uh, boss, hardly anyone lives in that Shanty Town anymore. Is that really necessary?" Luo Feng couldn't help asking.
The middle-aged man said evenly, "It's not about whether anyone lives there. I don't want anyone questioning the Warhammer squad's competence."
"Yes, understood."
Ten minutes later.
In a stretch of wilderness several hundred meters from the Shanty Town.
Luo Feng of the Warhammer squad crouched down and frowned at the "body" on the ground.
"Captain, I found her. Someone blew the Copper-Winged Bird's head off. Only half her body is left.
I can't tell what weapon did it, though. It looks like a bullet wound."
"Ask the nearby residents immediately whether they heard a gunshot. Firearms getting out into civilian hands is a serious matter." The captain's voice over the phone turned stern.
Luo Feng understood the gravity of the situation. He straightened at once. "Yes, sir!"
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