After leaving the gas station, Lin Fan didn't venture far into County 0201. Instead, he slipped into a leaning office building.
The elevator inside had long since broken down, so he had no choice but to climb the stairs to the sixteenth floor.
Lin Fan walked to the window and used his scabbard to lift the corner of a dusty curtain.
The sixteenth floor was just the right height.
He could see half the county from there, and the building was upwind, so the smell of blood on him wouldn't carry.
"Let's stay here."
Only after confirming that no flying monsters were circling nearby did Lin Fan drop onto a dust-covered desk.
"Phew..."
He let out a long breath, and his tense muscles slowly relaxed.
Tired.
Damn, he was tired.
He'd won the fight just now, and utterly crushed his opponent.
But the feeling of weakness, as if his mind had been drained dry, was actually even harder to bear than the physical exhaustion.
"I need to recover as quickly as possible. Otherwise, I won't be able to fight again."
Lin Fan rubbed his brow and focused his thoughts.
Clang.
Three War Blades appeared out of thin air on the desk in front of him. He'd seized them from the three unlucky members of Vulture Squad.
Lin Fan picked up one of the blades and ran his fingers over its cold, broken edge.
"A-grade alloy..."
"It's not Kro Alloy, the kind only War God Level powerhouses can afford, but this stuff is worth a lot more than that beat-up tanker from earlier."
"Time to eat."
Lin Fan turned his hand over, and Calamity lay across his knees.
He picked up the three broken blades and pressed them against Calamity's broad, icy surface.
Sizzle!
Calamity reacted completely differently this time.
The sound of it absorbing the metal was much finer than before, almost like the sizzle of a steak frying.
When Calamity devoured the tanker, it had felt like a whale swallowing anything in its path—crude and violent.
But faced with these A-grade alloy blades, forged from refined metal, it seemed almost "elegant," as if savoring a delicate French meal.
The hard alloy melted like snow the moment it touched the blade, then turned into a deep, silvery-gray Flowing Light that seeped into Calamity.
[Devoured A3 Alloy Steel.]
[Very few impurities. Absorption rate: 98%.]
[Calamity growth progress: +0.1%, current progress: 0.37%.]
[Current load compatibility: +0.1%.]
[Weapon density increased. Current weight: 3,300 kilograms.]
"Hmm..."
Lin Fan stared at the progress bar, which had just jumped forward by a notch, and his eyelid twitched.
The scrap metal earlier had weighed dozens of tons, and he'd nearly gotten sick from all that eating, yet it had only increased his progress by a little.
Now, less than ten kilograms of alloy had given him almost half the benefit of that huge hunk of junk.
"So it's true: you can't become immortal no matter how much dirt you eat."
Lin Fan gave a helpless smile.
After tasting the benefits of high-purity alloy, who'd still want to chew through rusty junk?
"But there's nothing I can do. Until I'm strong enough to hunt War General Level warriors, and have enough money to buy expensive Kro Alloy..."
"Scrap metal that's 'plentiful and filling' is still the most cost-effective choice for me."
After all, scrap metal was everywhere and didn't cost a thing.
He could eat as much as he wanted.
But every Alloy Battle Blade was a warrior's most prized possession. They weren't easy to steal.
He couldn't just kill everyone he came across, could he?
That would make him a madman, not a warrior.
Lin Fan gripped Calamity's long handle, and his wrist sank slightly.
Physically, Calamity had grown heavier, but Lin Fan didn't find it any harder to control. Instead, the sense of a bond between their blood had deepened.
It felt like an extension of his arm, more comfortable to swing and easier to direct.
"So this is what load compatibility does? The higher it gets, the more powerful the effect becomes."
Lin Fan glanced at his watch.
His heart rate had returned to around sixty, and the dizziness from before had mostly faded.
"True Self."
Lin Fan murmured the words in his mind.
He closed his eyes, and his consciousness sank into his sea of awareness.
Inside the ancient, imposing Bronze Hall, the little figure of light was reenacting the battle again and again.
With every swing, it shed a little more of the clumsy, wasteful movement, leaving behind only clean, efficient ways of applying force.
"Fuse."
Boom!
Lin Fan felt his mind go numb, as if a needle had lightly pricked him.
The sensation was strange. His body was sitting perfectly still, yet his muscles felt as if they'd just swung a blade thousands upon thousands of times. A deep soreness came with an oddly clear, refreshed feeling.
The next moment, he snapped his eyes open and smoothly brought his blade up in a slash.
He didn't need to think. His body sent the blade exactly where it needed to go.
Whoosh!
The blade cut through the air with a brief, shrill crack.
There was no unnecessary windup, no mistake in shifting his center of gravity.
The strike was fast, precise, and vicious.
And True Self had not only reviewed the entire battle for him; it had also given his comprehension a slight boost.
His newfound understanding of the Force Application Technique left him feeling completely at ease.
"So this is what having a cheat feels like."
Lin Fan commented with a look of wonder.
He stood and rolled his stiff neck, producing a series of crisp cracks.
"Now that I've more or less digested the spoils, it's time to find some new experience points."
Lin Fan slung on the empty backpack he used as a disguise and walked to the enormous floor-to-ceiling window.
From this height, he could look down on the street and see the monsters wandering there, as well as the collapsed buildings in the distance.
Suddenly, his gaze sharpened.
He locked onto a large construction site two kilometers away.
More than a dozen rusted "corpses" lay scattered there—excavators, tower cranes, and heavy bulldozers.
Compared with civilian scrap metal, the heavy machinery used high-strength specialty steel.
It couldn't compare to a warrior's alloy, but its density and purity were surely far greater than that of the huge metal tank at the gas station.
Lin Fan gazed at the heavy equipment, his eyes burning with anticipation.
For Calamity, those massive machines were perfect nourishment—and completely free.
He adjusted his backpack, then blurred forward like a black leopard, heading silently toward the construction site.
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