Proficiency (4,000-Word Mega Chapter, Please Bookmark)

4:00 a.m.

Liu Sishan returned.

Her eyes beneath the mask looked slightly weary and sorrowful.

Walking around the campfire, she entered the tent and saw Zhang Ping doing push-ups.

"Sis Sishan, you're back."

Drenched in sweat, Zhang Ping looked up and greeted her with a smile.

After reaching Level 9, although attributes like strength had not increased much, his main attributes, stamina and Mental Strength, had both risen considerably. The most obvious change was that he now only needed an average of three hours of deep sleep each day to fully recover his energy. He even felt like an overenergetic husky.

With nothing else to do,

he simply commanded his body to do 5,000 push-ups as a warm-up.

Liu Sishan knew Zhang Ping woke up early. She walked to the side and sat down, nodding. "Mm, good morning."

"Sis Sishan, how's Mingzhu City doing now?" Zhang Ping asked after catching his breath.

Liu Sishan took out a brocade pouch and poured a pile of miscellaneous items onto the Wooden Bed. As she sorted through them, she said sadly, "With the Illusory Light Curtain in place, the Heavenly Fox has been trapped in the City Lord's Manor. Over the past two days, Prince Yue has led his subordinates out to hunt for food, and more than two hundred people have fallen victim to them.

"My teammate Jin Bo couldn't stand it and insisted on leading people to test its strength. But Prince Yue was far stronger than expected. Jin Bo was seriously injured, and two teammates responsible for providing support were killed.

"Your training can only end here. At daybreak, we'll return to the city."

"What abilities did Prince Yue use?" Zhang Ping's expression gradually turned serious.

Liu Sishan stopped what she was doing and answered, "It only used its tail. Its tail can split apart and extend or retract freely. Not only is its piercing power extremely strong, but it is also highly flexible and incredibly fast."

"..."

After hearing that, Zhang Ping could not help recalling the vision he had seen in his premonition atop the watchtower.

If he had used Appraisal Technique on Prince Yue back then, his head would probably have been instantly blown apart by Prince Yue's tail.

Half an hour later, he finished the 5,000 push-ups.

Zhang Ping got up and sat on the Wooden Bed opposite Liu Sishan, wiping away his sweat with a towel.

Then he noticed the various metals and materials on Liu Sishan's bed and asked, "Sis Sishan, did you go back to Mingzhu City just to get these?"

"Yes. Don't you have an ability that lets you gain corresponding constitutions by eating things? These are materials for testing that ability of yours," Liu Sishan replied with a nod.

If Zhang Ping could transform his body into steel or even superalloy, his defense would increase dramatically.

And compared with transforming into soft water,

harder, heavier metal would undoubtedly possess greater destructive power.

Water

required extremely powerful Mental Strength and control to be effective.

Only after her Mental Strength improved had she developed techniques with real killing power. In the early stages, controlling pure water in battle had actually been rather powerless.

Zhang Ping's main attributes were stamina and Mental Strength, while hers was purely Mental Strength.

Therefore, every time Zhang Ping leveled up, the attributes gained from leveling were divided between two attributes, while hers all went into a single attribute.

For Zhang Ping to train the Pure Water Body's offensive power to her level would be far more difficult than it was for her.

For example,

When Zhang Ping was Level 1, his Mental Strength was 2 and his stamina was also 2, while her Mental Strength was 4.

When both reached Level 2, Zhang Ping's Mental Strength was 3 and his stamina was 3, while her Mental Strength was 6.

At Level 3, Zhang Ping's Mental Strength was 4 and his stamina was 4, while hers had already reached 8.

At Level 4, Zhang Ping's Mental Strength was 5 and his stamina was 5, while hers had reached 10!

Looking only at the changes in Mental Strength, the gap between them was obvious at a glance.

Therefore, after learning Zhang Ping's main attributes, Liu Sishan had been constantly thinking about how to train him and how to make the most of his strengths while avoiding his weaknesses.

Unfortunately, because Jin Bo had been seriously injured and several other Cleanup Team combatants had also suffered injuries, she now had to return to the Cleanup Team to take Jin Bo's place. Her plan to personally train Zhang Ping had fallen through.

After thinking it over carefully last night, she had applied to the organization for these materials, hoping Zhang Ping might gain a more suitable constitution. Once they returned to Mingzhu City, Zhang Ping could study them properly himself.

Zhang Ping stood up and picked up a black iron block. "What if I get Metal Poisoning?"

"I brought the appropriate Antidote. Go ahead and eat it," Liu Sishan encouraged.

After thinking for a moment, Zhang Ping gradually turned his mouth and throat into pure water. Then his mouth split open like a snake's, and he directly swallowed the iron-colored block in his hand.

His stomach did not turn into pure water, and he could feel the iron block drop into it.

After a while, he began to feel unwell and asked, "Sis Sishan, what metal was that iron block I just ate?"

"Didn't you say it yourself? An iron block," Liu Sishan said with a smile.

Frowning, Zhang Ping simply turned his abdomen into pure water and reached in to take the iron block out of his stomach. He said, "This definitely isn't ordinary iron. Even if I ate normal iron, I wouldn't feel this bad. What metal is it?"

"Then why didn't you ask before eating it?" Liu Sishan smiled.

Zhang Ping rolled his eyes. He had merely been too lazy to think after exercising, and he had trusted her. After all, Liu Sishan had no reason to harm him. Yet it was precisely that lack of vigilance that had caused him to suffer a silent loss.

He was not an especially clever person.

Like every ordinary person, he could be lazy and had plenty of little thoughts. When he had first crossed over, he had even been ready to simply lie flat.

If the Contract Gem's ability had not been so special, he would either have been eaten by the Heavenly Fox by now, or he would be farming in the fields, sweeping streets, or collecting night soil.

Seeing Liu Sishan keeping him in suspense, he simply used Appraisal on the iron block. The result was an iron block coated in poison.

It really was an iron block, just a poisonous one!

He looked at Liu Sishan and frowned. "Sis Sishan, why did you coat the iron block with poison?"

"To test your resistance to different toxins and harmful substances. Since the Other-Eater can even absorb my pure water, why can't it absorb toxins and turn them into a Venomous Body?" Liu Sishan answered.

Though her pure water appeared harmless, it was actually more poisonous than poison.

If someone else drank the pure water, not only would their life and death be under her control, but once the pure water entered their brain, she could even influence their thoughts.

She had originally wanted to teach Zhang Ping a lesson: never casually eat any food or drink someone else gave him. Who knew that before she could even begin, Zhang Ping had digested her pure water.

However, after learning that Zhang Ping possessed the Other-Eater ability, there was no longer any need for that lesson.

Zhang Ping felt a little dizzy, but he could not resist complaining, "The results are already in. I'm about to be poisoned to death."

"Then why not try turning into the Pure Water Body?" Liu Sishan prompted.

Zhang Ping froze. The next moment, his body transformed into Pure Water Form, and sure enough, the feeling of poisoning disappeared.

He said in surprise, "It really worked. So Pure Water Form can detoxify and remove Negative Status too."

Then he tried turning back into flesh and blood, and sure enough, the symptoms of poisoning were gone.

Liu Sishan was not surprised, because pure water had a certain characteristic: it rejected and purified all impure things. The dust on Zhang Ping's body had been expelled this way before. Even filth hidden inside the body could be purified, such as impurities, urine, and feces.

It was far more efficient than cleansing the marrow and washing the body, or spraying filth from every pore.

"Zhang Ping, I asked the captain how ability users like you should train.

"The captain's advice was to focus on one or two abilities and use the rest only as supplementary methods.

"Because you will inevitably gain more and more abilities in the future, but you cannot understand every ability inside and out, nor can you train every ability to its limit.

"The strength of an ability depends entirely on how much effort you put into training it. The higher an ability's Proficiency, the stronger it will inevitably be.

"So you need to make choices. You need to decide which abilities deserve your main focus."

Liu Sishan looked at Zhang Ping and spoke seriously.

Hearing that it was Situ Shibai's advice, Zhang Ping humbly accepted it.

He knew who Situ Shibai was, and he knew just how powerful the old man was.

An Ability Copier.

Just from the name, it was clear that Situ Shibai possessed a great many superpowers.

Situ Shibai's advice was extremely valuable as a reference for him.

Most Awakened had only one ability, so they had no choice. They could only dig deeply into every bit of potential that one ability possessed, and its Proficiency would naturally become very high.

But multi-ability users like Situ Shibai and Zhang Ping had too many abilities, which instead scattered their efforts. Their abilities' Proficiency would certainly not match that of single-ability users.

Take the Pure Water Body, for example.

Zhang Ping had only just discovered that transforming into Pure Water Form could detoxify him.

That was a sign of insufficient Proficiency.

It meant he was not familiar enough with this ability and did not have enough control over it. If he understood it thoroughly, he would have transformed the instant he was poisoned and removed the toxins from his body.

Appraisal Technique could tell him the basic information about an ability, but that did not mean it revealed all information.

How to develop an ability.

How to train an ability.

Those all required time and energy spent researching and experimenting.

The more developed an ability was, the more familiar he would become with it, allowing him to use it with ease in battle.

Therefore, Situ Shibai's advice had come at exactly the right time.

At the very least, Zhang Ping had now realized that while more abilities were better, he had to be clear about which abilities needed focused training and which were merely supplementary tools.

At present, among his abilities, setting aside those like the Contract Gem and Nightwalker that could not really be trained, then setting aside purely supportive abilities like Appraisal Technique and Other-Eater, the strongest was the Nethermist Body, followed by the Pure Water Body, with Fire Eater last.

These three abilities made it difficult for him to choose.

The Nethermist Body was powerful, but the problem was that he did not understand the nature of Nether Mist at all. An ability he did not understand would be extremely dangerous against an enemy who did.

For example, if during battle an enemy attacked a weakness of the ability while he himself knew nothing about that weakness, then caught unprepared, life and death could be decided in minutes.

The Pure Water Body had extremely strong survival capabilities, but its nature was too easy to see through and counter.

For example, against a Fire Element Awakened at the same Level 9, if Zhang Ping relied solely on the Pure Water Body in battle, he would almost certainly be suppressed. If the opponent fired nine Fireballs at him, even if the Pure Water Body could absorb water molecules from the air to recover, his entire body might still be vaporized in an instant.

That would be equivalent to being instantly killed.

Fire Eater had similar problems. It was too easy to counter.

Moreover, his Fire Element storage was limited. It would be difficult for him to last through an entire battle; he might run out of fire halfway through.

After considering it for a moment, he looked at Liu Sishan and asked, "Sis Sishan, what ability does your captain have the highest Proficiency in?"

"You want to use the captain's abilities as a reference? As far as I know, the captain's strongest publicly displayed ability should be Light Element Control," Liu Sishan replied, realizing Zhang Ping's intention.

Light Element Control?

Abilities related to light really did seem difficult to counter, and they had extremely fast attack speed and tremendous power.

The question was, how could he gain such an ability?

Eat light?

Tilt his head back, open his mouth wide, and let light shine into his stomach?

After thinking about it, Zhang Ping felt that idea was completely unreliable.

"Don't rush to choose yet. Let's finish eating these materials first and see whether you can gain a better ability. It won't be too late to choose then," Liu Sishan said when she saw his troubled expression.

Zhang Ping looked at the assorted materials on Liu Sishan's bed and could not help asking, "Sis Sishan, don't tell me all these materials are coated in poison too?"

"Some are coated in poison, while some are highly poisonous on their own. Try them first. Even if the Pure Water Body can't detoxify you, I brought Antidote," Liu Sishan answered.

Zhang Ping took a deep breath and ultimately decided to eat them.

Sometimes, only by being ruthless toward oneself could one obtain what one wanted. Wanting both comfort and everything else—how could there be such a good deal?

He picked up the various materials and ate them one by one. Whenever he felt uncomfortable, he took them back out, repeating the process over and over.

Several hours later, he felt that he truly could not eat any more. Even though he had taken everything out of his stomach, he still felt full.

"Sis Sishan, I can't do this anymore. Your method doesn't seem very reliable," Zhang Ping said, sprawled on the bed with an agonized expression.

He had not gained any ability at all.

Those metals had not been absorbed in the slightest. Instead, the toxins coating them had made him feel miserable.

In order to gain abilities, he had endured the intense pain. Each time, he only transformed into Pure Water Form to detoxify himself when he could no longer endure it.

Yet it was still useless. No new ability had appeared.

"Why is this happening?"

Liu Sishan looked at Zhang Ping, deeply puzzled.

Yesterday, Zhang Ping had gained three abilities in a row, leading him to believe he could gain abilities easily.

But judging from what had happened now, that did not seem to be the case.

After feeling miserable for a while, Zhang Ping simply transformed into Pure Water Form and sprawled on the bed. In Pure Water Form, all feelings of discomfort disappeared, replaced by an acute sensitivity to temperature.

The campfire outside the tent, Liu Sishan on the bed opposite him, and the salt carriers eating breakfast in tents farther away—each person had a different temperature, and he could sense them all.

"So Pure Water Form has this ability too."

Zhang Ping marveled inwardly. The more an ability was used, the stronger it became, and only through using it more could he understand it better.

He controlled his body into the shape of a snake, wriggling back and forth across the bed like one. Then he turned into a wolf and tried walking on all fours.

Finally, he turned into a bird, but no matter how he adjusted himself, he could not fly.

The bird he became had a wingspan of a full three meters, and its abdomen was hollow. Although he could not fly, gliding after leaping from a high place should not be a problem.

At last, he transformed back into flesh and blood and looked at Liu Sishan. "Sis Sishan, abilities really do need constant practice to grow stronger. For now, I'll focus on training Nether Mist and the Pure Water Body. I'll decide again once I gain new abilities."

For now, he would ride a donkey while looking for a horse.

Since there were no other options, he could not be bothered to keep agonizing over it.

He already had ideas for the development direction of Nether Mist, and after the training just now, he also had a preliminary plan for the Pure Water Body.

The Nethermist Body would follow the path of a reaper in the future.

A black cloak, a black skull mask, and an enormous scythe—its appearance alone would be intimidating enough. The enemy would probably lose half their courage before the fight even began.

The Pure Water Body would follow the path of endless transformation.

First, he would focus on training the transformation speed between his flesh-and-blood body and Pure Water Form. Then he would imitate various animals, changing in countless ways to adapt to most environments.

Furthermore, the two abilities could be used together.

He could use Nether Mist to cover pure water in a shell. Not only could it isolate high temperatures, it could also create new forms.

Thinking about it that way, these two abilities had enormous potential when combined. The future looked bright!