Looking at the puzzled Li Feng and the equally puzzled Yuan Chengfang, Wu Cheng could not help saying rather speechlessly:
"Captain, Brother Li Feng, don't you two ever check your phones?"
"What happened?"
"Yesterday, Night Patrol Officer Tian Yue from the Night Patrol Bureau killed a Paranormal Entity near Pine Court Residential Community. Apparently, it was a Wedding-Dress Bride wearing a wedding dress..."
At this, Li Feng could not help speaking up.
"The Wedding-Dress Bride?"
He had not expected the Night Patrol Bureau to be so efficient.
He had only just submitted his report, and the Night Patrol Bureau had killed the Wedding-Dress Bride that very night.
Hearing Li Feng's exclamation, Yuan Chengfang and Wu Cheng glanced at him but thought little of it.
They merely assumed Li Feng found the Paranormal Entity's name strange.
"Right. Since the Paranormal Entity was wearing a wedding dress, they gave her the codename Wedding-Dress Bride..."
"Oh!"
Li Feng nodded in understanding, then asked:
"But what does that have to do with me?"
"What does it have to do with you?
"Didn't you call the Night Patrol Bureau yesterday to report a reaction from anomalous power west of your residential community?"
At this, understanding immediately dawned on Yuan Chengfang.
Seeing that Li Feng still looked confused, Yuan Chengfang could not help smiling as she said:
"Did you forget that Investigators receive a reward when a report they submit turns out to be true?"
"Huh?"
After hearing Yuan Chengfang's explanation, Li Feng could not help slapping his forehead.
"Oh, right! I've been so focused on cultivating these past two days that I nearly forgot about that."
For one thing, it was exactly as Li Feng had said: he had spent the past two days thinking about cultivation.
For another, although he had received his predecessor's memories,
he did not have perfect recall of every memory and every detail.
Many things required him to encounter the relevant situation, or even think back carefully, before he could remember them.
Just as now, it was only when Yuan Chengfang and Wu Cheng mentioned the reward for submitting an accurate report that Li Feng recalled the relevant memories.
Once he remembered, Li Feng immediately took out his phone, opened the Investigation Department's app, and found a notice posted in the early hours of the morning.
"Investigation Department trainee investigator Li Feng's report of an anomalous power reaction west of Pine Court Residential Community has been verified...
"Codename: Wedding-Dress Bride...
"Killed by third-class Investigator Tian Yue...
"Li Feng is hereby awarded ten contribution points and ten thousand yuan."
Reading this, Li Feng could not help feeling delighted.
He knew that the special departments in this world offered extremely generous pay and benefits.
But he had never expected a reward of ten thousand yuan merely for submitting an accurate report of anomalous activity.
In his previous life, that would have been two months' wages.
As for contribution points, besides being used to purchase certain anomalous items available internally, they were also an important criterion for promotion.
For example, a trainee Investigator needed at least one thousand contribution points to qualify for promotion to third-class Investigator.
That alone showed how difficult it was for Investigators to advance.
They would need to discover and report a hundred genuine anomalous incidents like the Wedding-Dress Bride case just to qualify for promotion to third-class investigator.
And that was only the qualification. Whether they actually received the promotion depended on their direct superior's final assessment of their usual performance.
"Haha, not bad, not bad! You've only just joined us, and you've already earned some merit...
"That's a fine start!"
Yuan Chengfang patted Li Feng on the shoulder and praised him loudly.
"Exactly. I've been at this for over a year, and I only just managed to become a third-class Investigator.
"Back when I started, it took me almost a month to discover my first anomalous incident..."
Wu Cheng looked at Li Feng with envy and resentment in his eyes.
Yes, he envied Li Feng's good luck.
Ten points might not amount to much.
If someone relied solely on this method to earn points, never mind one year—even two or three years might not be enough to save up the thousand points needed to become a Full Investigator, third-class Investigator.
But opportunities like this, where they could simply follow the Compass's indication and earn points by submitting a report without facing any danger, were exceedingly rare.
Wu Cheng himself had narrowly escaped death several times to earn enough points for promotion.
Investigators from the Investigation Department did indeed only need to investigate the relevant information.
But how could investigating anomalous incidents possibly be free of danger?
After all, although the Investigation Department struggled to recruit people, it still took in three to five recruits every year.
Over the years, the Investigation Department should have had far more people.
The South District branch had only four members, and the other three city districts were hardly any better. Even including the Investigators at headquarters, there were fewer than thirty in all of Yuanyang City.
It was easy to imagine what had happened to the other Investigators.
That was the real reason Wu Cheng envied Li Feng: he had become a trainee Investigator less than two days ago and had already earned ten points without taking any risks.
After staying a little longer, Wu Cheng returned to the area he was responsible for.
Li Feng, meanwhile, stayed behind.
He wanted both to continue familiarizing himself with various matters and to ask Yuan Chengfang about the key points of cultivation techniques.
After a day of explanations from Yuan Chengfang, Li Feng's understanding and insight into the techniques had deepened considerably.
There was little to say about the Visualization Method; Li Feng had already reached perfection in it.
From there, aside from continuing to accumulate power, he would need to switch Visualization Methods, visualize a weapon closely connected to his own power, or visualize some other object.
As for martial cultivation and Body Tempering, Yuan Chengfang's explanations gradually helped Li Feng understand them as well.
In essence, they involved using external forces to strengthen oneself.
The Human Body Tempering Art used a variety of movements and the practitioner's own mental power to draw in spiritual energy from the world, gradually refining the skin, flesh, tendons, bones, and internal organs.
Other techniques, besides drawing in World Spiritual Force, would also subtly alter the practitioner and draw down the corresponding Paranormal Entity power.
However, World Spiritual Force was scarce. And after a certain level was reached, without the corresponding power of rules, no matter how much World Spiritual Force one drew in, it would quickly disperse and cease to have any tempering effect.
That was why the Human Cultivation Method had limited potential.
As for techniques that imitated other beings, the beings they imitated already possessed innate abilities derived from various rules, so their potential for growth naturally far exceeded that of humans.
After reaching their limits, they might even be able to work backward to deduce those rules and become beings that controlled them.
Once Li Feng understood the essence of this cultivation, he could not help wondering.
Mind fog can rapidly raise my mastery of the visualization method.
Then what if I combine mind fog with spiritual energy to temper my body?
Li Feng had also asked Yuan Chengfang about this.
Of course, he had certainly not asked outright whether he could temper his body with mind fog.
He had merely asked whether other powers or innate abilities could be used directly to temper the body.
Yuan Chengfang's answer was yes.
There were many exceptionally gifted humans who had awakened innate abilities and used those abilities to temper their bodies.
It was indeed possible to strengthen the body directly with power.
However, they could only temper and strengthen their bodies with power originating from themselves.
If they accepted someone else's power for tempering, their bodies would naturally begin to shift toward the owner of that power.
The change would be far more thorough than that caused by imitative martial arts.
It was practically the same as willingly letting someone refine them, turning themselves into resources for that person's cultivation.
As for those geniuses who had awakened innate abilities...
They could not strengthen themselves without limit, either.
The rank of their innate ability determined their upper limit.
In fact, many of the beings imitated by martial arts also had limits.
However, humanity's ancestors and sages had already found a solution: cultivate more martial arts with compatible attributes, fuse more powers, and break through the boundaries of their race.
To a certain extent, geniuses who awakened innate abilities merely possessed an extra martial art naturally suited to them from birth.
In the end, if they wanted to break through their limits, they would likewise need to learn other Paranormal Entity martial arts.
After learning all this, Li Feng could hardly wait.
He did not know whether his mind fog had a limit, but since it could grow by devouring anomalous power, surely it was fairly powerful?
Moreover, according to Captain Yuan Chengfang's explanation, even if his mind fog did have a limit, Li Feng could cultivate other techniques to break through that restriction.
That afternoon, Li Feng left the Investigation Department again and hurried home.
For one thing, he was eager to test his idea and use the power of mind fog to accelerate his cultivation of the Human Body Tempering Art.
For another, he had no desire to encounter another Paranormal Entity like he had yesterday.
His journey passed uneventfully. This time, Li Feng encountered no anomalies and soon arrived home.
Since he had already eaten outside, Li Feng rested briefly before picking up the Human Body Tempering Art and carefully reading through it once more.
Only then did Li Feng slowly begin performing the movements, visualizing his own image in his mind.
With just a thought, the visualization avatar he had long since created and merged with his mind appeared in his consciousness, performing the same movements as him.
During normal cultivation, Li Feng would have imagined spiritual energy from outside continuously merging into his skin, strengthening and tempering it.
Now, however, Li Feng began controlling the mind fog beneath his visualization avatar's feet, spreading it out once again to envelop every part of his body.
As he practiced the skin-tempering method, it combined with the spiritual energy outside and merged into his skin along with it.
"Hiss!"
Even though he had mentally prepared himself, Li Feng still sucked in a sharp breath.
The skin all over his body prickled with itching and pain, making him want to scratch uncontrollably.
It was even more distinct and intense than when he had first cultivated.
Unlike before, however, Li Feng experienced no hallucinations this time.
After a moment's thought, he understood why.
Previously, he had experienced hallucinations because the mind fog existed only within his mind.
The World Spiritual Force drawn in during Body Tempering could penetrate his body and invade his mind, causing Li Feng to experience all sorts of hallucinations.
Only when the stimulated mind fog erupted did it devour the power affecting his mind and eliminate the hallucinations produced by body tempering.
Now, however, Li Feng was using mind fog mixed with spiritual energy to temper his skin directly.
The power that caused those hallucinations was devoured by the mind fog before it even had a chance to enter his body.
Naturally, Li Feng no longer experienced any hallucinations.
However, he had to devote much more of his attention to enduring the itching and stinging caused by Skin Tempering.
Despite himself, Li Feng's cheeks and the muscles throughout his body kept twitching, while sweat poured off him.
Even the movements of the skin-tempering method became slightly distorted, causing him to draw in spiritual energy at an uneven rate.
That made him feel even worse, and tiny blood-red spots appeared all over his body.
Finally, after barely managing to finish the entire sequence of movements, Li Feng immediately collapsed to the floor in agony.
"Hiss... hah, hiss... hah..."
Li Feng kept sucking in sharp breaths as he rubbed his entire body with his hands.
Only after a long while did Li Feng begin to feel better, and the blood-red spots across his body slowly faded.
He examined his skin again, pressing and pinching it, leaving a red mark.
He did not feel that his skin had become much tougher, but it was clearly more sensitive.
That made sense. Mind fog was, after all, a power rooted in the mind and soul, and was not particularly suited to defense or attack.
When it was used to temper his skin, any increase in defense naturally came second. Instead, his skin's sensitivity and perceptiveness would improve noticeably.
Still, any change was enough.
As long as there was some change, Li Feng had the motivation to keep cultivating.
What he feared was suffering terribly only to gain nothing.
Once he had fully recovered, Li Feng practiced the Skin Tempering method again.
By the time he had completed it three times, it was already eight or nine in the evening.
By then, Li Feng was drenched in sweat, his face deathly pale.
Yet a deeply satisfied smile rested on his face.
Finally. He had finally reached the initial stage.
Body Tempering should have taken three to five days to reach the initial stage, yet he had achieved it after only three rounds—and three rounds with distorted movements, at that.
He dragged a fingernail hard across his skin, leaving only a red mark that quickly disappeared.
His skin could clearly sense every trace of the movement, yet drawing his fingernail across it felt like scraping a layer of kraft paper.
This was the sign of reaching the initial stage of the Human Body Tempering Art: his skin had developed noticeable resilience.
Over the next few days, Li Feng's life gradually settled into a routine. Every morning and evening, he checked the compass for reactions from anomalous power nearby.
Then he would rise early and report to the Investigation Department, ask Yuan Chengfang about cultivation, and chat and joke with his colleagues.
Gradually, they became familiar with one another.
When there was nothing to do, Li Feng began taking a more flexible approach to when he went to the Investigation Department.
He might report in at five or six in the morning, or at nine or ten, depending on his mood.
His practice of both the Visualization Method and Body Tempering also progressed steadily.
However, perhaps because mind fog was more oriented toward the mind and soul, Li Feng's skin tempering remained at the initial stage and had yet to reach minor mastery.
At times, Li Feng felt rather discouraged. Skin Tempering was simply too painful, yet the gains were meager and did nothing to improve his combat strength.
After finishing another cultivation session, Li Feng slumped to the ground and ran his fingers through his sweat-soaked hair.
Suddenly, Li Feng's eyes lit up. He held his hair in a distracted grip, gradually pulling harder.
Only when his scalp began to hurt did Li Feng abruptly snap out of his daze.
"Heh heh heh..."
Whatever had crossed his mind, Li Feng couldn't help chuckling to himself.
Before you continue