Face of Death

For the entire next day, Zhang Ping and Liu Sishan tested their abilities.

Compared with the Fire Eater, which Zhang Ping was already very familiar with, he could use the Nethermist Body and Pure Water Body, but he did not know their upper or lower limits.

That was why they needed testing.

After a day of tests, he had gained a preliminary understanding of these two new abilities.

First was the Nethermist Body. This ability absorbed fear and converted it into Nether Mist. Its absorption range was limited to targets within ten meters of him, meaning he could not absorb someone's fear once they were beyond that distance.

Furthermore, Nether Mist had powerful offensive capabilities, but every attack consumed some of it. In other words, Nether Mist was a consumable, and attacking stronger targets consumed more.

Generally speaking, however, attacking flesh-and-blood targets did not consume much Nether Mist. Energy bodies and hard materials consumed far more.

Lastly, by absorbing a target's fear, Zhang Ping could sense the degree of their fear.

The more frightened the target was,

The more fear he could absorb and convert into Nether Mist.

As an aside, while testing the distance, he learned a little secret: Liu Sishan was afraid of bugs.

Next came the tests for the Pure Water Body.

The advantage of the Pure Water Body was that it could turn his body into pure water, directly granting immunity to most physical attacks. Its drawback was that Zhang Ping needed time to transform.

It took roughly one second for him to transform from flesh and blood into the Pure Water Body.

Partial transformations were slightly faster.

Although the Pure Water Body could absorb water molecules from the air to restore stamina and heal injuries, the recovery speed depended on the environment. The greater the humidity, the faster he recovered; the drier it was, the slower he recovered.

In some high-temperature environments, transforming into the Pure Water Body would instead continuously consume his stamina at twice the rate of his flesh-and-blood body.

The Pure Water Body also had a drawback: if there was insufficient water making up his body, it would affect his height and build.

When most of the water in his body had evaporated, transforming back into flesh and blood would make him shorter and thinner. He might even end up with a child's body.

However, this test revealed that if he changed his shape in the Pure Water Body and then transformed back into flesh and blood, some strange changes would occur. For example, when he controlled his back to grow wings and then transformed back, he did indeed have a pair of wings on his back—but they were entirely made of flesh and could not fly. Instead, they looked somewhat like female mammary organs.

But through this experiment, Zhang Ping realized that he could get cosmetic surgery.

Lastly, drawing inspiration from Liu Sishan's Water Whip, he created his own move: Chainsaw Form.

Put simply, the outer sides of both arms turned into chainsaws and vibrated at extremely high speed. However, this operation consumed too much mental energy. He could use it at most once, and its power was far inferior to Liu Sishan's Water Whip, so it could only serve as a supplementary measure besides Nether Mist.

After he finished his tests, Liu Sishan gave her assessment.

His current strength was roughly equivalent to half a High-Level Awakened. Mainly because Nether Mist dealt damage beyond its rank; otherwise, he was at most comparable to an Intermediate Awakened.

Moreover, his weaknesses were too obvious.

His Level was too low, and neither his stamina nor Mental Strength was enough to sustain an intense battle.

He also lacked combat experience. If a High-Level Awakened underestimated him and let their guard down, he might be able to kill them through trickery.

But as long as a High-Level Awakened got serious, fleeing in panic was his only option. This was especially true against Awakened with abilities such as fire and lightning, which would greatly reduce his combat power.

By the time the tests were over, it was already evening.

The two returned to the camp together.

Liu Sishan stopped at the camp entrance and said, "All right, go back to your tent and rest first. I need to return to the city tonight to get something."

"Mm. Be careful on the road," Zhang Ping said with a nod.

After they parted ways, Zhang Ping entered the camp and found many salt carriers gathered around the bonfire, talking.

"I never thought Big-Head Liu would die. I was wondering why I didn't see him last night."

"Last night was when the Salt Frost Tree fruits ripened. Big-Head Liu went too far out searching for ore at noon, and he ran into a Mutated White Ape on the way back. That was fate."

"By the way, the atmosphere in the city has been strange lately. I heard that a steamed bun shop owner woke up one morning to find that his wife had turned into a sheet of human skin. The blood on it had already dried black, so who knew how long ago it had been peeled off. The owner was scared insane on the spot."

"I heard about that too. The owner's wife had still been eating buns in the shop the day before. Plenty of people could testify to it."

As Zhang Ping passed the bonfire, he actually sensed faint traces of fear drifting from the salt carriers. He casually absorbed and converted them into Nether Mist, then thought it over and simply joined them to listen.

"Kid, you new here?"

A salt carrier beside Zhang Ping noticed this unfamiliar face and asked with a smile.

"Yeah, I came to try my luck," Zhang Ping replied amiably.

Then he leaned closer and whispered, "Actually, I know some inside information about what they were just talking about. I was so scared that I fled the city to lie low."

"What inside information?" the man immediately whispered back.

Zhang Ping noticed that all the nearby salt carriers had perked up their ears. He smiled mysteriously. "I'll tell you, but don't spread it around. There have actually been several similar cases, and the higher-ups suppressed them all. If you don't believe me, ask around. Haven't people disappeared from Jiu'an Furniture and Dragon Spear Polearm Workshop?"

"I know about that. Three people disappeared from Dragon Spear Polearm Workshop."

"I know about Jiu'an Furniture too. I bought a chair from them not long ago."

"Hiss, doesn't that mean five people died?"

"Maybe even more than that. The question is, how could someone die and leave behind a sheet of human skin? The blood on that skin had dried black. How long had that person been dead?"

"Even scarier, were the people we saw before really human, or were they ghosts?"

The salt carriers all began discussing it. The more they talked, the thicker the horrifying atmosphere became. Some timid salt carriers wanted to leave, but they were afraid to stay alone in their tents. They could neither leave nor stay, and their faces had turned pale.

Standing amid the crowd, Zhang Ping absorbed their fear and slowly converted it into Nether Mist.

He discovered that fear varied in quality.

During the morning's tests, Liu Sishan's fear had not been of particularly high quality. Clearly, while she was afraid of bugs, she was not terribly frightened by them. Her feelings were closer to disgust, and her level of fear was not high.

The salt carriers' fear tonight was of a higher quality than Liu Sishan's. If he had to compare it to something, it was probably like an audience watching a horror movie in a theater.

As night gradually deepened, the salt carriers returned to their tents one after another.

"I wonder how high the quality of fear would be between life and death?"

Sitting beside the bonfire, Zhang Ping could not help thinking to himself.

In just two hours, the Nether Mist had changed from a bracelet into a belt. If used in battle, it could already turn into swords and blades.

Unfortunately, opportunities like this did not come every day.

The salt carriers could not possibly feel fear over this matter every single day.

Zhang Ping looked at the belt formed from the Nether Mist, and an idea struck him. "Starting tomorrow, if I tell ghost stories here, could I absorb fear?"

"Or should I try playing ghost?"

One crooked idea after another popped into Zhang Ping's head.

Mainly because Nether Mist was his only means of dealing with High-Tier Mutated Beasts. He wished the Nether Mist could cover his entire body, then form thousands or tens of thousands of weapons.

If it really reached that point, the moment an enemy appeared, countless swords and blades would greet them, chopping them all into minced meat.

In order to achieve this small goal as soon as possible, Zhang Ping tried hard to recall all the horror movies he had watched in his previous life. Gradually, an idea emerged—playing ghost might actually work!

By adjusting the thickness of the Nether Mist, his face gradually took on the appearance of a black skull.

"Ah!"

Suddenly, a terrified scream came from nearby, only to stop abruptly.

Zhang Ping jumped in fright and immediately looked over. A salt carrier was staring at him in terror, then rolled his eyes back and fainted.

Had he been scared unconscious?

Zhang Ping wiped his face, and the skull mask formed from Nether Mist immediately dispersed.

He hurried over to check on the salt carrier. Once he confirmed that the man was unharmed, he sighed in relief.

Although he had planned to play ghost, he had not expected the effect to be so good. He could not help muttering to himself, Was it really that scary?

He used the method of pressing the philtrum to wake the salt carrier. Unexpectedly, the moment the man saw his face, his eyes rolled back and he fainted again. Before losing consciousness, Zhang Ping had even absorbed an enormous surge of fear.

"Forget it."

Zhang Ping moved the salt carrier beside the bonfire and simply turned around to return to his tent.

It was a pity he had not brought a mirror. Otherwise, he could have seen just how terrifying his black skull looked.

"Wait, water seems like it can reflect my appearance too."

An idea suddenly came to him. He simply transformed his lower body into a puddle of water, while his face was covered in Nether Mist and swiftly changed into the black skull's appearance.

Although Nightwalker granted him night vision, water needed light to reflect an image. The tent was too dark, and with insufficient light, the reflection on the water's surface was poor.

He simply lifted a corner of the tent to let the bonfire's light shine in. Then he saw his own face, and his heart nearly stopped from fright.

It was an extremely terrifying face.

Because of the Nether Mist's dynamic effects, the skull face constantly changed. The most frightening part was not any single face, but the horror brought by the countless deathly expressions of living beings.

Zhang Ping swallowed, feeling somewhat unnerved.

This makeup was far too otherworldly. He seemed to have created something incredible.

"Ah!"

By the bonfire, the salt carrier slowly woke up.

He sat up with a frown and looked up, only to see that a corner of a nearby tent had been pulled open. When he looked inside, his eyes widened further and further. After screaming, he rolled his eyes back and fainted again.

Well...

Zhang Ping looked up at the unfortunate salt carrier, speechless for a moment.

This was not his fault, right?

It probably was not, right?

He silently lowered the corner of the tent and dispersed the Nether Mist from his face.

Honestly, even he did not dare keep staring at that skull face when he was alone. Otherwise, it gave him a hair-raising sensation.

However, if he used it in battle, it should place tremendous psychological pressure on his enemies.

It was equivalent to a special piece of equipment that could drastically weaken an enemy's condition.