My fate is my own!

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!

On Tianjing Mountain outside Shangjing City, a blurred white figure raced along a rugged, weed-choked mountain path!

Wherever the white figure passed, swaths of grass and branches snapped under the tremendous force and flew into the air!

Swish!

A moment later, the white figure stopped.

He stood in a relatively open stretch of rocky terrain just above the mountainside's halfway point, still a considerable distance from the summit.

The place was barren.

Its most striking feature was the vast expanse of enormous rocks!

The small ones could easily be picked up by hand, while the large ones... weighed dozens of pounds, hundreds of pounds, or even several tons!

This was Tianjing Mountain's famous Boulder Field!

Rumor had it that the Boulder Field had formed during a minor earthquake thirty years earlier, creating this strange sight on Tianjing Mountain. Ever since, not a blade of grass had grown here, leaving only a barren expanse of weathered boulders.

This rocky belt encircled the mountainside like the Ring of Heaven, fallen from the heavens.

Because of it, this once obscure, unremarkable mountain outside Shangjing City had gradually become a tourist destination, and ten years earlier, it had officially been named Tianjing Mountain.

Dusk was approaching.

The Tianjing Mountain scenic area had already closed, and visitors from all over had been ushered down the mountain to prevent any accidents.

The white figure from moments before was Yang Yu, who had left his house to test his physical strength!

He had sprinted the entire way, moving like the wind!

Along the way, he had already experienced the enormous difference between his current self and his former self. In speed alone... he had just surpassed the limits of the human body!

At least 370 kilometers per hour!

It was hard to imagine that such an extreme speed, normally seen only when a supercar raced along a professional track, could come from a human being running on flesh-and-blood legs!

Monster!

The word flashed through Yang Yu's mind.

But an instant later, he dismissed the thought. He suddenly recalled the Insect Codex's descriptions of cosmic cultivators and the Insectoid Civilization at its peak.

Compared with them, Yang Yu's current speed was nothing but a joke.

According to the Insect Codex, even among ordinary wandering cosmic cultivators, let alone the mighty Insectoid Civilization, there could well be supreme experts capable of destroying stars with a wave of their hands!

Compared with them, he still had a long way to go...

Killing him as he was now would be as easy for them as crushing an ant.

Even the entire Earth Civilization was insignificant beside them, like a firefly compared with the brilliant moon!

"I'm going to become stronger!"

"Unseal more pages of the Insect Codex and roam the boundless universe!"

"A single planet like Earth is far too small!"

"If I'd never had an opportunity, that would have been that. But now that I have the insect civilization inheritance, I can experience a more beautiful, vaster world and gain a longer life—even one that lasts as long as heaven and earth!"

"First, let's see just how strong I am now." Yang Yu's eagle-sharp gaze swept toward a boulder weighing several hundred pounds like the edge of a blade!

"You'll do," Yang Yu murmured.

Then he stepped forward and gripped the boulder's edges with both hands. Veins writhed along his arms like coiling dragons, and his muscles bulged!

"Hah!" Yang Yu grunted as he exerted his strength.

Rumble!

The boulder, its base half buried in dirt and stone, immediately shook before he wrenched it free and hoisted it up!

Yang Yu exerted himself again and hurled it forward with both hands!

Whoosh!

The boulder tumbled through the air, flying nearly twenty meters before hitting the ground with a thunderous crash!

Boom!!!

A cloud of dust rose from the ground after the tremendous impact.

"This is how strong I am now?" Yang Yu's eyes lit up as he looked down at his hands, disbelief written across his face.

"Hahahahaha!"

"So the power sealed behind the restriction on the Insect Codex's first page really did make me as strong as a monster." After standing dazed for a moment, Yang Yu felt nothing but wild joy.

"Let's try a heavier rock!" A playful urge seized Yang Yu, and his searching gaze settled on another boulder, at least a third larger than the last!

Dusk gave way to night.

The red sun sank in the west, and soon the sky was filled with stars.

By the time the curved moon hung overhead like a blade, Yang Yu had finally finished burning off his boundless energy and settled down. He lay casually on his back atop a flat-topped rock, his arms and legs spread wide as he freely admired the moon and stars.

The weather was clear, and the moon and stars shone high above.

Yang Yu's mood was as bright as the starry sky. He could not have felt better!

Listening to the chorus of insects across the mountain, he felt that the world had never been so clear and vivid.

His speed had not merely surpassed human limits, nor had his strength alone increased dramatically. After all his tests, Yang Yu discovered that he had been enhanced in every way... beyond strength and speed, his muscle toughness, resistance to blows, reflexes, and even his five senses...

Every aspect had reached an astonishing level!

He was now like a superhuman who had stepped out of a comic book. Apart from flying, he could do almost everything many superheroes in Marvel comics could do!

Lying on the boulder, Yang Yu relaxed his entire body while silently calculating his test results and tallying his physical capabilities.

"My strength is now enough to lift a boulder weighing 750 kilograms!"

"And I can throw it a full three or four meters!"

"My speed matches a top-tier supercar at full throttle. If I give it everything I have, I can even break 400 kilometers per hour!"

"My resistance to damage is a little weaker. I still can't withstand modern firearms. But small-caliber handguns and the like can no longer threaten my life. At most, their bullets can break through my skin and lodge in my muscles. As for blades, swords, and clubs, I can ignore their attacks completely!"

"If I entered international kickboxing or boxing competitions, my resistance to blows alone would let me stand there and take every attack. My opponents would wear themselves out, and I could easily become world champion... Just imagining it is hilarious. Still, my current strength can't withstand humanity's powerful modern weapons. I can't be that conspicuous yet, or I'll invite trouble."

"Besides my strength, speed, and resistance to blows, my jumping ability is now ridiculously good too. Even from a standing start, I can easily jump more than thirteen meters straight up if I put everything into it."

"My five senses are at least seven or eight times sharper than a normal person's. My reflexes, my ability to track movement with my eyes... there's too much to list. Almost everything that could be enhanced has improved dramatically."

"This feeling... this feeling is absolutely incredible!"

Lying on his back, Yang Yu extended an open hand, then abruptly clenched his fist!

Crack!

His fingers struck his palm with such force that they produced a crisp sonic boom!

"I might as well have wasted the past twenty-odd years. Only now do I feel truly free."

"My fate is my own!"

"This is what it feels like to have power!"

"I need to become stronger—dozens of times stronger than I am now, hundreds of times... more and more!"

"But to become stronger, I need to unseal more pages of the Insect Codex. Every page contains a legacy of power left by the Insectoid Civilization for its inheritor. As long as I unseal the pages, I can obtain it easily!"

"This is far quicker, easier, and safer than slowly cultivating like an ordinary cultivator!"

The path of cultivation was fraught with danger. A single misstep could lead to devastating consequences.

Absorbing the Insect Codex's power involved none of those problems!

Moreover, the inherited power contained within the Insect Codex's pages was incomparably pure and far stronger than what ordinary cultivation could produce!

After all, the Insectoid Civilization had reached an unimaginable level in the universe!

Naturally, the inheritance it had left behind was far beyond anything an ordinary cultivator could compare with!

"Money!"

"I need more money! I need to buy vast quantities of precious medicinal ingredients and rare natural treasures! Only with enough of those can I unseal the Insect Codex's pages one by one!"

"To unseal the first page of the Insect Codex, I spent the entire fortune of several million yuan I earned by illicitly selling the antiques I'd secretly kept over the years, working myself to the bone and even taking enormous risks. That was only the first page, and it cost so much already. The precious materials needed for the second page of the Insect Codex are even more daunting. I'll need at least ten times as much money as before!"

"I'll have to spend at least fifty million yuan to gather enough resources!"

"I need money!"

"A lot of money!" Yang Yu pondered carefully, his eyes shining brilliantly in the darkness.

PS: Thanks to "Ang Peach," "Reader 150526200312765," "Sahara Ocean," "Live for Myself Dian," "Dark Realm*," and the other readers for your tips! Also, while this book is still new, I'm begging for recommendation votes and favorites! Concentrate your fire and let me have it! This time, I, Old Fish, want to climb the rankings!