From Igniting Talent to Becoming a Demon God - Section 26

And as it happened, all of that was information he had revealed back then.

"Never mind what kind of person Old Cui is. Just take martial training alone."

"It costs a fortune, and you need talent on top of that. If you ended up failing, wouldn't you hate me to death?"

He felt that what he had said back then had influenced Lu Chao.

"Am I that petty in your eyes?"

Lu Chao asked in return, smiling, which made Old Cheng freeze slightly.

"Don't worry, Old Cheng."

"This is my own business. Even if I don't make it, I absolutely won't blame anyone."

Lu Chao said it softly and patted him on the shoulder.

He was completely certain that he would break through to Combat Grade.

Unaware of these secrets, Old Cheng opened his mouth.

How could combat arts be that easy to train?

Among the dozens of people in the Cleaning Squad, and over all those years before, plenty had tried.

But the result?

Forget passing the Patrol Bureau's internal assessment—even among those who had truly learned something, how many had managed to make a living from it?

Almost all of them were left bitter and regretful. Not only had they wasted more than half a year, they had also burned through the hard-earned money they had painstakingly saved.

"Fine."

With an inward sigh, he saw that Lu Chao had made up his mind, and in the end, he did not try to persuade him further.

The group of seven or eight cleaners all fell silent, each lost in their own thoughts, leaving only the sounds of them putting on their gear.

In the quiet atmosphere, a patrol officer's urging came from the cordon.

Lu Chao changed into black boots and gradually strapped the body bag, iron hooks, and other items onto himself.

He understood Old Cheng's good intentions, and he could also sense what his other colleagues were thinking.

Martial training was hard to achieve success in, the expenses were huge, his talent was ordinary... In their eyes, what he was doing was like not knowing the immensity of heaven and earth, bringing suffering on himself.

But.

Faced with doubt, he did not like to explain too much.

Then, once he put on his mask, leaving only half his face exposed.

With all the tools prepared, Lu Chao strode forward. Before long, he and all his colleagues pushed aside the cordon and walked into the residential apartment.

Click!

Click!!

The camera shutters were pressed one after another, the incandescent flash somewhat dazzling.

Wearing his mask, Lu Chao walked into a room on the third floor of the apartment building.

There was a brown solid-wood floor, and in the middle of the living room sofa sat a white-and-brown patterned marble coffee table.

Four or five patrol officers of different ages were here with several forensic doctors, as if they had just finished examining the scene.

Some pressed their shutters to record images of the scene, while others wore gloves and took away certain items.

"Good heavens..."

Old Cheng sounded somewhat shocked and doubtful. Lu Chao, who entered the room a step behind him, also felt his breathing tighten slightly.

Looking over, he could see four bodies lying across the living room—some seated on the sofa, some collapsed in pools of blood on the floor.

Charred bullet marks tore through the white paint on the walls. The entire window by the balcony had vanished, and glass shards were scattered all over the floor.

This scene should not have surprised them, because they had long since grown used to cleaning up and collecting bodies, and had seen plenty of death scenes.

But the key was.

The marble coffee table in the living room had actually been smashed into pieces, as if it had been struck by some sort of heavy hammer and shattered in one blow, with fragments scattered all around the cracks.

There were also several bowl-shaped depressions in the solid-wood floor. The wood fibers at the edges had been crushed and burst apart, making one suspect they had been forcibly stomped to pieces.

As for those four bodies, they did not look like ordinary people either.

"Third-generation [Falcon] prosthetic legs. They can bring speed and leg strength up to Combat Grade. See the wound on the chest? He also had bionic lung components implanted, and his glands were modified."

"This one isn't ordinary either. His chest is so broad and thick that he most likely had a [Powerful Recovery] biological module implanted. His right arm is also a [White Rock] series prosthetic from Lianwei Heavy Industries. Although it's only first-generation and the model is a bit old, it can still bring a person's punching force up to three hundred kilograms."

Old Cheng had a sharp eye. He walked to the balcony area of the living room, studied the two bodies lying in the pools of blood on the floor, and spoke in a low voice.

When they heard him, a patrol officer cast a look his way, and even the two forensic doctors examining the injuries glanced at him a couple more times.

"Old man, you're pretty professional. You recognize all this stuff?"

The female patrol officer surveying the scene had shoulder-length short hair and wore a blue uniform. She looked to be in her early twenties, and she turned toward him with a suspicious expression.

Old Cheng chuckled and took off his mask, revealing a wrinkled face. "You're joking, officer. This old man has just been in this line of work for a long time and seen plenty of prosthetic parts, so I had some impression of it."

"If we're talking real expertise, it has to be these two medical examiners!"

He gave the two medical examiners crouched beside the bodies a thumbs-up, his face wreathed in smiles.

At that, the medical examiners' expressions eased. They nodded lightly and picked up the thread, so the female patrol officer did not ask any more questions.

Lu Chao paid little attention to that. Instead, he focused on the fatal wounds on the corpses.

Some had collapsed chests, with a fist mark left behind.

Others had had their necks twisted and snapped, likewise killed in a single blow.

"Even colonized-gear users comparable to Combat Grade were no match?"

Secretly startled, he sensed that the killer's strength was extraordinary. Their vitality was probably at least forty points.

He then looked toward the middle-aged corpse sitting on the sofa.

There were clear signs of martial training. He had a sturdy build, knotted muscles, and palms covered in thick calluses. He was obviously a fighter who had tempered his body over a long period.

As for the corpse near the bedroom entrance, that was the only ordinary person, with no special traces on him at all.

"Captain, the bureau just received a call. A pharmacist from Biotech has gone missing."

"His last call happened to be connected to this place. It seems he took a private job to test these people's prosthetics and mix a special nerve-stabilizing drug for them."

"We haven't found his body yet. Do you think it could be..."

Lu Chao suddenly heard some conversation coming from the two patrol officers by the bedroom entrance.

As if sensing something, the one addressed as captain gave a light wave of his hand, cutting off his subordinate, then cast his gaze toward every member of the Cleaning Squad.

Lu Chao pretended not to know and lowered his head in silence, cleaning up the bodies alongside Old Cheng.

The room grew somewhat quiet, with only the sounds of body bag zippers opening and closing and prosthetics being dismantled.

In the end, the patrol officers left one after another, as if they had obtained some kind of clue and were continuing to investigate the matter.

Lu Chao suppressed his curiosity and silently noted one thing.

Pharmacist...

It was not because of that patrol officer's conversation, nor because he wanted to dig into the reason behind this murder case.

Rather, he had suddenly thought of some records in [Vitality Development Theory].

It seemed this profession could help his Potential Progress grow faster?

That night, twelve midnight.

Lu Chao finished a day of work and sat in the cleaning truck returning along the way.

The yellow-striped work uniform on him was somewhat dirty and disheveled. Old Cheng had gone home a step ahead of him, already getting off at the previous intersection.

Outside the window, streetlights kept flashing backward, like blurred bands of light. The city's clamor had settled, leaving only the soft hum of passing vehicles.

[Vitality Development Theory: Aside from various supernatural paths, the increase of vitality can also rely on assistance from external objects.]

[Such as drugs, implants, high-vitality-energy foods... Experts who master this field also master auxiliary methods for increasing vitality, such as mechanical maintenance engineers, biological modification specialists...]

Sitting alone by the window, Lu Chao did not look at the night scenery outside as he usually did. Instead, he lowered his head slightly, his fingertip sliding as he looked at the smart wristwatch on his left hand.

One piece of information after another swept past his eyes. When he had previously looked through [Vitality Development Theory], he had some impression of a certain entry.

And very soon.

"Found it."

His eyes brightened slightly, and his sliding finger stopped there.

Lu Chao looked at the wristwatch and finally found that occupational introduction.

[Pharmacist: An expert who masters the methods of mixing and producing drugs.]