At four in the morning.
Liu Sishan returned.
The eyes beneath her mask looked tired and sad.
She walked around the campfire and entered the tent, where she found Zhang Ping doing push-ups.
"Sisi, you're back."
Zhang Ping looked up and greeted her with a smile, sweat streaming down his face.
After reaching Level 9, his strength and other attributes had barely improved, but his primary attributes, stamina and Mental Strength, had risen considerably. Most noticeably, he now needed only three hours of deep sleep a day to replenish his energy. He even felt as if he had the boundless energy of a husky.
With nothing else to do,
he had simply ordered his body to do five thousand push-ups as a warm-up.
Liu Sishan knew Zhang Ping had woken early. She sat down to one side and nodded. "Mm. Good morning."
"Sisi, how are things in Mingzhu City?" Zhang Ping caught his breath, then asked.
Liu Sishan took out a brocade pouch and dumped a jumble of things onto the wooden bed. As she sorted through them, she said gloomily, "The Illusory Light Curtain has trapped the Heavenly Fox in the City Lord's Manor. Over the past two days, Prince Yue has taken his subordinates out to hunt for food. More than two hundred people have fallen victim to them.
"My teammate Jin Bo couldn't stand by and watch. He insisted on taking people to test Prince Yue's strength, but Prince Yue was much stronger than we'd estimated. Jin Bo was badly wounded, and two teammates covering him were killed.
"Your training has to end here. We'll return to the city at daybreak."
"What abilities did Prince Yue use?" Zhang Ping's expression grew serious.
Liu Sishan stopped what she was doing. "Only his tail. It can split and extend or retract at will. It has incredible piercing power, and it's flexible and extremely fast."
"..."
Zhang Ping couldn't help recalling the vision he had seen from the watchtower.
If he had used Appraisal Technique on Prince Yue then, Prince Yue's tail would probably have smashed his head apart in an instant.
Half an hour later, he finished all five thousand push-ups.
Zhang Ping sat down on the wooden bed opposite Liu Sishan and wiped the sweat from his face with a towel.
His gaze fell on the metals and other materials spread across her bed. "Sisi, did you go back to Mingzhu City to get these?"
"Yes. Didn't you say eating something could give you a corresponding constitution? These are materials to test that ability." Liu Sishan nodded.
If Zhang Ping could turn his body into steel, or even Superalloy, his defense would increase dramatically.
And compared with turning into soft water,
harder, heavier metal would undoubtedly have far greater destructive power.
Water
required tremendous Mental Strength and control to be effective.
She had only developed damaging techniques after her Mental Strength increased. Early on, fighting by manipulating Pure Water had left her with little offensive power.
Zhang Ping's primary attributes were stamina and Mental Strength, while hers was Mental Strength alone.
That meant each time Zhang Ping leveled up, the gains were divided between two attributes. Hers all went into one.
It would be much harder for Zhang Ping to make his Pure Water Body as deadly as hers.
For example,
at Level 1, Zhang Ping's Mental Strength and stamina were both 2. Her Mental Strength was 4.
At Level 2, his Mental Strength and stamina would both be 3. Hers would be 6.
At Level 3, both his attributes would be 4, while her Mental Strength would already be 8.
At Level 4, both his attributes would be 5, while her Mental Strength would have reached 10!
Looking only at Mental Strength, the gap between them was obvious.
Ever since learning Zhang Ping's primary attributes, Liu Sishan had been considering how to train him and how to play to his strengths while avoiding his weaknesses.
Unfortunately, Jin Bo's serious injury and the wounds suffered by several other Cleanup Team combatants meant she had to return and take his place. Her plan to train Zhang Ping herself had come to nothing.
After thinking it over carefully last night, she had requested these materials from the organization. She wanted to see whether Zhang Ping could gain a constitution better suited to him. Once they returned to Mingzhu City, he could work out how to use it himself.
Zhang Ping stood and picked up a black chunk of metal. "What if I get Metal Poisoning?"
"I brought the appropriate Antidotes. Go ahead and eat it," Liu Sishan encouraged him.
Zhang Ping thought for a moment. His mouth and throat gradually turned into Pure Water. Then his mouth split open like a snake's, and he swallowed the dark iron chunk whole.
His stomach had not turned into Pure Water. He felt the metal drop into it.
After a while, he began to feel unwell. "Sisi, what metal was that chunk I just ate?"
"You said it yourself. Iron," Liu Sishan said with a smile.
Zhang Ping frowned and turned his abdomen into Pure Water. Reaching in, he took the chunk out of his stomach. "That's definitely not ordinary iron. Even if I swallowed regular iron, it wouldn't make me feel this bad. What metal is it?"
"Then why didn't you ask before eating it?" Liu Sishan said, smiling.
Zhang Ping rolled his eyes. After exercising, he had been too lazy to think it through. He had trusted her, too. Liu Sishan had no reason to harm him, but that very lack of caution had caught him out.
He was not especially clever.
Like anyone else, he could be lazy and had his own little schemes. When he had first arrived in this world, he had even given up on trying.
If the Contract Gem's ability had not been so unusual, he would either have been eaten by the Heavenly Fox by now or be working the fields, sweeping streets, or collecting night soil.
Since Liu Sishan was keeping him guessing, he used Appraisal on the metal. The result: a chunk of iron coated in poison.
It really was iron. It was just poisonous!
He looked at Liu Sishan and frowned. "Sisi, why did you put poison on it?"
"To test your resistance to different toxins and harmful substances. If Other-Eater can even absorb my Pure Water, why couldn't it absorb toxins and turn you into a Venomous Body?" Liu Sishan replied.
Her Pure Water might appear harmless, but it was more dangerous than poison.
If someone else drank it, she would hold their life in her hands. And once it entered their brain, she could even influence their thoughts.
She had originally intended to teach Zhang Ping a lesson: never casually accept food or drinks from someone else. But before she could, he had digested her Pure Water.
Once she learned he had Other-Eater, though, that lesson had become unnecessary.
Zhang Ping felt a little dizzy, but he couldn't resist complaining. "Well, we have our result. I'm about to die of poisoning."
"Then why not try turning into your Pure Water Body?" Liu Sishan prompted.
Zhang Ping froze. The next moment, his body shifted into Pure Water Form, and sure enough, the feeling of being poisoned vanished.
"It worked! So Pure Water Form can remove poison and Negative Statuses too."
He tried changing back to a flesh-and-blood body. The symptoms did not return.
Liu Sishan was not surprised. Pure Water had a property that repelled and purified anything impure. That was how the dust on Zhang Ping's body had been expelled earlier. It could even cleanse impurities hidden inside his body, including waste.
It was far more efficient than a marrow-cleansing transformation that sent filth spraying from every pore.
"Zhang Ping, I asked the captain how someone with abilities like yours should train.
"He suggested focusing on one or two abilities and treating the rest as supplementary tools.
"You'll only gain more abilities in the future, but you can't know every one of them inside and out or train every one to its limit.
"How strong an ability becomes depends on how much effort you put into training it. The higher its Proficiency, the stronger it will be.
"So you need to choose which abilities to focus on."
Liu Sishan looked at Zhang Ping as she spoke, her expression earnest.
Hearing that the advice came from Situ Shibai, Zhang Ping took it to heart.
He knew who Situ Shibai was and how powerful the old man was.
An Ability Copier.
The title alone made it clear that Situ Shibai possessed a vast number of powers.
His advice was immensely valuable to Zhang Ping.
Most Awakened had only one ability. With no choice to make, they could only explore its full potential, and their Proficiency with it would naturally be high.
People with multiple abilities, like Situ Shibai and Zhang Ping, had their attention divided. Their Proficiency with each ability was bound to lag behind that of someone with only one.
Take Pure Water Body, for example.
Zhang Ping had only just discovered that Pure Water Form could remove poison.
That showed a lack of Proficiency.
It meant he was not familiar enough with the ability and did not have enough control over it. If he understood it well enough, he would have changed forms the instant he was poisoned and purged the toxin from his body.
Appraisal Technique could tell him the basics of an ability, but not everything.
How could an ability be developed?
How should it be trained?
He would have to invest time and effort in research and experimentation to find out.
The more he developed an ability, the more familiar it would become. Only then could he use it freely in battle.
Situ Shibai's advice had come at exactly the right time.
Zhang Ping now understood that more abilities were better, but he needed to be clear about which ones deserved focused training and which were merely supplementary.
Of the abilities he currently possessed, he first ruled out ones he could not train, such as Contract Gem and Nightwalker. He also set aside the purely supportive Appraisal Technique and Other-Eater. That left Nethermist Body as his strongest ability, followed by Pure Water Body, with Fire Eater last.
Choosing among those three was difficult.
Nethermist Body was powerful, but he did not understand the nature of Nether Mist at all. An ability he did not understand would be dangerous against an enemy who did.
If an enemy targeted a weakness in his ability during a fight, while he remained completely unaware of that weakness, one surprise attack could decide whether he lived or died.
Pure Water Body was excellent for staying alive, but its nature was too easy to see through, making it easy for an enemy to counter.
Take a Fire Element Awakened at the same Level 9. If Zhang Ping fought using only Pure Water Body, he would almost certainly be overwhelmed. Even if he could absorb water molecules from the air to heal, nine Fireballs striking at once might evaporate his entire body.
That would be an instant kill.
Fire Eater had a similar problem: it was too easy to counter.
Besides, he could store only so much Fire Element. He might run out halfway through a fight.
After thinking it over, he looked at Liu Sishan. "Sisi, which ability has your captain trained the most?"
"You want to use the captain's abilities as a guide? As far as I know, the strongest ability he's shown publicly is Light Element Control," Liu Sishan replied, realizing what he had in mind.
Light Element Control?
Light-based abilities did seem hard to counter. Their attacks were extremely fast and powerful, too.
But how was he supposed to gain that ability?
Eat light?
Look up, open my mouth wide, and let light shine into my stomach?
Zhang Ping thought about it and decided the idea was absurd.
"Don't rush to choose. Let's try eating these materials first and see if you gain something better. You can decide afterward," Liu Sishan said when she saw his troubled expression.
Zhang Ping looked at the assortment on her bed. "Sisi, don't tell me all these materials are coated in poison."
"Some are. Others are highly toxic to begin with. Try them first. Even if Pure Water Body can't remove the poison, I brought Antidotes," Liu Sishan replied.
Zhang Ping took a deep breath and decided to eat them.
Sometimes he had to be hard on himself to get what he wanted. He could not expect to stay comfortable and gain everything.
He picked up the materials and swallowed them one by one, taking each out whenever he felt unwell. He repeated the process again and again.
Several hours later, he felt he truly could not eat another bite. Though he had removed everything from his stomach, he still felt full.
"Sisi, I can't do it anymore. Looks like your method isn't very reliable." Zhang Ping collapsed onto the bed, his face twisted with discomfort.
He had not gained a single ability.
None of the metals had been absorbed. The poisons smeared on them had only made him miserable.
Hoping to gain an ability, he had endured the intense pain, waiting until he could bear it no longer before changing into Pure Water Form to purge the poison.
But it had been useless. No new ability had appeared.
Why did this happen?
Liu Sishan looked at Zhang Ping, thoroughly puzzled.
Yesterday, he had gained three abilities in succession. She had assumed it would be easy for him to gain more.
Now, though, that did not seem to be the case.
After suffering for a while, Zhang Ping simply turned into Pure Water Form and lay sprawled on the bed. All his discomfort vanished. In its place came a keen awareness of temperature.
The campfire outside the tent, Liu Sishan on the bed opposite him, and the salt carriers eating breakfast in a more distant tent—each gave off a different warmth, and he could sense them all.
So Pure Water Form can do this too.
Zhang Ping marveled at the discovery. The more he used an ability, the stronger it became, and the more he learned about it.
He shaped his body into a snake and slithered across the bed. Then he became a wolf and tried walking on four legs.
Finally, he turned into a bird, but no matter how he adjusted himself, he could not fly.
The bird he had become had a wingspan of three meters and a hollow belly. Though he could not fly, he should be able to glide if he leaped from somewhere high enough.
At last, he returned to a flesh-and-blood body and looked at Liu Sishan. "Sisi, you were right. Abilities only grow stronger through practice. For now, I'll focus on Nether Mist and Pure Water Body. I'll reconsider when I gain something new."
He could make do with these until something better came along.
Since he had no other choice, there was no point agonizing over it.
He already had an idea of how to develop Nether Mist. After the practice he had just done, he had a preliminary plan for Pure Water Body as well.
With Nethermist Body, he would take the path of a grim reaper.
A black cloak, a Black Skull Mask, and a massive scythe would make an imposing sight. His enemies might lose half their nerve before the fight even began.
With Pure Water Body, he would pursue endless transformations.
First, he would focus on changing faster between his flesh-and-blood body and Pure Water Form. Then he would practice taking the shapes of different animals, allowing him to adapt to almost any environment.
The two abilities could also work together.
He could use Nether Mist to wrap his Pure Water in an outer shell, shielding it from high temperatures while creating new forms.
The more he thought about it, the more potential he saw in combining them. There was a great deal he could do with those two abilities!