After hearing Yuan Chengfang and Wu Cheng explain the general workings of the Investigation Department, Li Feng could not help feeling puzzled.
"In that case, why don't you recruit more people?"
"Heh, you think it's that easy?"
Yuan Chengfang shook her head.
"To become an Investigator, you need a substantial understanding of what the Investigation Department does, as well as demons, monsters, ghosts, and supernatural anomalies.
"More importantly, you need keen spiritual perception. Only then can you pick up on Paranormal Entity auras...
"In other words, you have to be the sort who attracts ghosts or anomalies.
"Recruiting four or five people a year is already a good result...
"Take this year, for instance. Including you, only five people qualified, and that's already more than in previous years..."
At last, Li Feng understood why Zhou Xing, the Personnel Office Director, had treated him so warmly.
In that case, he did indeed possess some special talent, just as he had suspected.
What Li Feng did not know, however, was that Yuan Chengfang had left something out: the Response Department and the Night Patrol Office also snapped up recruits.
Anyone with even a little aptitude for combat would be given to those two first.
In a sense, the Investigation Department's Investigators were people rejected by the Response Department and the Night Patrol Office, too good for the bottom but not good enough for the top.
Li Feng was one of them.
He had some talent, but not much.
Of course, Li Feng knew none of this yet.
Even if he had known, he probably would not have been very disappointed. He might even have felt relieved.
Only someone stuck in the middle like this could avoid attracting attention and have a better chance of staying alive.
Besides, he had already awakened an innate ability.
Surely an ability originating from his soul had to be stronger than his predecessor's talent?
At a little past three, the group arrived at the Investigation Department's South City branch.
There were many more people here, though most were ordinary people whose primary job was to assist Investigators with investigations into Paranormal Entity cases.
After giving him a brief tour, Yuan Chengfang explained some procedures to Li Feng.
"Our day-to-day work as Investigators is pretty easy.
"We mainly look after our assigned areas.
"For example, your area covers a two-kilometer radius around your residential complex. That's also the maximum range of the Tracking Compass.
"When there aren't any cases, you only need to check it once in the morning and once in the evening.
"Then come here every morning to check in and report whether anything anomalous has happened in your area...
"As for everywhere else...
"When a case occurs, someone will naturally report it..."
At this, Li Feng's mouth fell open.
There were only four Investigators in the entire south city district. How much ground could they possibly cover?
"Don't we need to patrol?"
"Patrol? That's the Night Patrol Office's job."
Yuan Chengfang smiled at his question and spoke in a rather curious tone.
"What are we? We're Investigators.
"What do Investigators do? We investigate Paranormal Entity cases.
"When a Paranormal Entity incident occurs, someone will report it. We just investigate when that happens...
"As for anything else, other departments will take over.
"Remember, once we discover a Paranormal Entity during an investigation, our job isn't to rush in and fight. It's to report it immediately or notify the Response Department."
"Right, understood!"
Li Feng nodded emphatically. The Investigation Department suited him perfectly.
After explaining a few more things, Yuan Chengfang glanced at the sky outside and said with a smile:
"It's getting late. You can head home for today!
"Remember to come in tomorrow morning."
"Yes!"
Li Feng answered loudly, then picked up his things and left the Investigation Bureau South City Branch.
He hurried home, hastily filled his stomach, and eagerly picked up the Human Body Tempering Art to study it carefully once again.
The Human Body Tempering Art did not temper the entire body at once. Instead, it targeted specific parts, progressing layer by layer.
It was divided into Skin Tempering, flesh tempering, tendon tempering, bone tempering, and organ tempering...
After familiarizing himself with the entire training process, Li Feng went back and carefully studied the Skin Tempering section.
Only after committing all its key points to memory did Li Feng begin practicing according to its instructions.
As he practiced and visualized his own appearance, he immediately felt threads of coolness seep into his skin, accompanied by faint stinging sensations.
At the same time, bizarre visions and strange murmurs kept appearing before his eyes and echoing in his ears.
This was why, despite this world being so dangerous and filled with demons, monsters, ghosts, and anomalies, cultivation had never been made universally available, let alone taught in schools.
The reason was that cultivation in this world produced all kinds of hallucinations.
If students whose minds were not yet mature, or people with weak resolve, practiced cultivation, they could easily be misled by those hallucinations and ultimately stray down the wrong path.
And this was already the Human Cultivation Method best suited to humanity.
With other cultivation methods, once practitioners reached a certain level, those hallucinations could even affect reality. They might harm not only the practitioners themselves, but also cause tremendous damage to those around them.
Under such circumstances, making cultivation universally available was naturally impossible.
Only after reaching adulthood and joining an organization could people obtain a cultivation method.
As time passed, Li Feng felt tingling and stinging all over his body, while the visions and murmurs became increasingly clear and bizarre.
Just then, however, a cool current suddenly surged through his mind, instantly devouring the countless visions and murmurs.
Vaguely, Li Feng sensed that the cool current in his mind—or rather, his Mind Fog ability—seemed to have grown slightly stronger.
He could not help feeling delighted.
He had never expected Mind Fog to possess such a hidden capability, able to grow by devouring the mental hallucinations produced during cultivation.
And to think he had been worrying earlier about having no way to strengthen Mind Fog.
Now, he could temper his body without interference from hallucinations while gradually strengthening Mind Fog. It truly killed two birds with one stone.
The visions and murmurs had indeed been devoured and cleared away.
But the tingling and stinging in his skin could not be removed.
Instead, with the visions and murmurs gone, Li Feng's attention became even more focused on his skin, making those sensations all the clearer.
After only a short while, Li Feng could no longer bear it and had to stop cultivating.
"Huff, huff, huff..."
Li Feng rubbed his tingling, stinging skin while panting heavily.
Cultivation really was no easy task.
If even a human cultivation method was like this, he could only imagine what the others were like. Those involved distortions of the body and alterations at the genetic level.
Naturally, the entire process would be even more excruciating.
Only after quite some time did the tingling and stinging gradually fade.
Li Feng clenched his fists hard and pinched his skin.
Nothing. It felt no different.
There was none of the toughness the book said would appear upon reaching the beginner stage.
In other words, after enduring that miserable tingling and stinging throughout his training, he had not even reached the beginner stage.
"Fuck!"
Li Feng swung his fist in frustration and let out a disgruntled curse.
It seemed his talent was not enough to let him advance a realm a day and crush everyone in his path.
A little later, once he had fully recovered, Li Feng turned his attention to the Humanity Visualization Method beside him.
He could forget about quickly getting started with the Human Body Tempering Art and gaining enough combat strength to protect himself.
Hopefully, the Humanity Visualization Method would yield some results.
Since he had awakened Mind Fog, an ability originating from his mind and soul,
he figured he ought to have some advantage when practicing a Visualization Method.
After carefully reading through the Humanity Visualization Method once more, Li Feng immediately sat cross-legged on his bed and gently closed his eyes.
Following the Humanity Visualization Method's instructions, he began visualizing his own form, gradually gathering mental energy to fill it.
Li Feng had thought it would take some time to enter a meditative visualization state and form an image of himself.
Yet almost as soon as the thought arose, a clear image of him appeared in his mind.
It was somewhat insubstantial.
Still, the entire process had happened in a single stroke. Not even a trace appeared of the hallucinations that, according to the description, should have been worse during visualization than during Body Tempering.
Unlike an ordinary visualized form, however, a mass of endlessly churning fog lay beneath his feet. It was the manifestation of Mind Fog.
Sensing the image in his mind, insubstantial yet incredibly clear, with almost every detail visible, Li Feng could not help freezing for a moment.
He had indeed believed that awakening Mind Fog would give him some advantage in practicing the visualization method.
But he had never imagined that advantage would be so great. With a mere thought, he had already formed an image of himself in his mind.
According to the Visualization Method's introduction, this was far beyond the beginner stage. He had already reached minor mastery and was approaching major mastery.
This...
Am I already about to reach major mastery in the Humanity Visualization Method?
What happens after that? How am I supposed to keep cultivating? Do I switch to another Visualization Method?
Still, his Visualization Method was only approaching major mastery. Perfection remained some way off.
At least for now, he could continue refining the mental image he had visualized.
For the time being, there was no rush to change cultivation methods.
In that case, he would first cultivate this Visualization Method to its absolute limit.
Having made his decision, Li Feng gathered his thoughts and prepared to continue refining his mental visualization.
At that moment, however, he suddenly noticed something strange.
His thoughts had been wandering wildly just now. That was far beyond a mere lapse in concentration; his mind had been somewhere else entirely.
Under normal circumstances, his visualized form should have collapsed instantly, forcing him out of the visualization state.
Yet Li Feng was still maintaining that state. Even his visualized image had not wavered in the slightest.
Not even perfect mastery of the Visualization Method should have produced such an effect.
Once again, Li Feng found himself momentarily dazed.
Even so, the image he had visualized remained extremely stable, without the slightest disturbance.
Coming back to his senses and feeling the image of himself in his mind, Li Feng finally became certain that he possessed exceptionally high, perhaps even unusual, talent for visualization.
In that case, he naturally had to make good use of it.
Gathering his thoughts once more, Li Feng resumed visualizing himself. Wisps of mental energy, mingled with the special spiritual energy of the outside world, gradually gathered around his visualized body.
Following the normal procedure, the next step was to merge these energies into the visualized body.
Yet in the next instant, the mass of Mind Fog beneath its feet suddenly unleashed a devouring force, instantly swallowing the gathered energy.
Li Feng was briefly taken aback.
But before he could think about what had happened,
the mass of Mind Fog abruptly expelled a much purer mass of energy, which instantly merged into his visualized body.
In an instant, that illusory body grew more solid, faintly taking on a tangible quality. It was now only one step away from major mastery.
"This..."
Li Feng could not help feeling delighted.
So Mind Fog was purifying the energy.
He also began to suspect why he had not experienced those more severe hallucinations.
Mind Fog had already devoured them.
In other words, with Mind Fog present, he could visualize without any reservations, never needing to worry about the illusions or hallucinations it might produce.
Once he understood this, Li Feng wanted to throw back his head and laugh.
He might have little talent for Body Tempering, but when it came to mental visualization, he was unquestionably one in ten thousand.
Filled with excitement, Li Feng resumed his mental visualization and gradually entered a meditative state.
Little by little, the illusory body he had visualized in his mind grew increasingly solid. Eventually, it became fully tangible, breaking through to major mastery in one stroke.
Entering a meditative state and visualizing the outline of a body constituted the beginner stage;
visualizing a clear but illusory body constituted minor mastery;
making the body solid constituted major mastery.
It even began to show faint signs of lifelike vitality, as though it were about to come alive.
The night passed uneventfully. When Li Feng grew mentally exhausted, stopped visualizing, and opened his eyes, the eastern sky had already turned pale with dawn.
Feeling somewhat foggy-headed, Li Feng rubbed between his brows.
"Hmm, shouldn't I feel refreshed after visualization?"
But thinking back on the process, had he not been gathering mental energy and spiritual energy from outside, constantly feeding them into the visualized body?
It made sense that visualization would drain his mind.
After resting for a while and feeling his mental energy recover slightly, Li Feng finally got out of bed and washed up.
Then he took out the compass and examined it carefully.
No matter how Li Feng moved it, the Compass needle remained motionless.
At this, Li Feng immediately relaxed. It meant there were no demons, monsters, ghosts, or anomalies within a two-kilometer radius.
At around six or seven, Li Feng left his residential complex and headed to the South City Investigation Division Branch.
When Li Feng arrived, Yuan Chengfang, Wu Cheng, and the other third-level Investigator, Zhao Fei, had yet to arrive.
After another long wait, Yuan Chengfang finally showed up.
The moment they met, before Li Feng could even speak, Yuan Chengfang laughed and said:
"Haha, Li, didn't sleep well yesterday, did you?"
Li Feng replied with a wry smile:
"Heh, Captain! I really didn't sleep well yesterday!"
Not sleeping well was an understatement. His mental energy had practically been wrung dry.
"Haha, I understand!
Who didn't go through the same thing at first?
Everyone gets a little excited when they first receive a cultivation method..."
Yuan Chengfang patted Li Feng on the shoulder and reassured him with a smile.
After a brief pause, Yuan Chengfang offered him some more advice.
"Cultivation isn't something you can master overnight. Take your time.
Even with a Human Cultivation Method suited to our kind, getting started in three to five days would already make you a genius. Taking ten days to half a month is perfectly normal...
With other cultivation methods, it's entirely possible to take six months or a year just to get started..."
Hearing this, Li Feng couldn't help opening his mouth, wanting to tell Yuan Chengfang that he had already fully mastered his Visualization Method.
But after giving it some thought, he closed his mouth again.
It was better not to casually tell others that he had fully mastered visualization in a single leap.
After arriving and exchanging a few words with Li Feng, Yuan Chengfang immediately asked the staff whether anyone had reported a case.
Upon learning that no one had, Yuan Chengfang turned back to Li Feng and said:
"Since there aren't any cases, you can go home and get some proper rest today.
Remember, cultivation isn't something you can master overnight. Take your time.
And if there's anything you don't understand, you can ask me anytime."
"All right. Thank you, Captain!"
Li Feng's head had been foggy all this time, and he really did feel awful. He immediately nodded, said his goodbyes, and left the South City Investigation Division Branch.
After getting something to eat, Li Feng hurried home. Without even showering, he collapsed onto his bed and fell into a deep sleep.
Before you continue