While Luo Feng was lost in thought, Huo Yuhao suddenly began coughing violently. His voice grew so weak that anyone listening could tell something was wrong.
Luo Feng snapped out of his shock and asked with concern:
"Huo Yuhao, are you all right?"
"I'm fine. It's just that too much was involved, so it took quite a chunk out of my lifespan. After making this prediction for you today, I only have ten years left to live. I originally intended to make just a shallow calculation, but the further I looked into the future, the stranger things seemed.
"I discovered that your world might face an apocalypse. To avoid losing you as a partner, I could only grit my teeth and keep going.
"But a mere fatal loss like this is nothing worth worrying about.
"Luo Feng, all I hope for you now is that you survive."
After spinning that pack of lies, Huo Yuhao made sure to play the pity card, too. Sure enough, the innocent, kindhearted Luo Feng on the other end fell for it.
Luo Feng was deeply moved. He had never imagined a stranger would go so far for him, especially when they had only formally met today.
With only ten years left to live, he could already picture Huo Yuhao with graying hair, a hunched back, and a face covered in wrinkles.
A true man would die for someone who understood his worth.
Right now, he was ready to rip out his heart and hand it to Huo Yuhao.
Their conversation lasted a full day and night. Having successfully hoodwinked City Lord Luo, Huo Yuhao was in excellent spirits, while Luo Feng had already plunged into a flurry of activity.
With his plot-knowledge cheat pushing things along, Huo Yuhao believed Luo Feng would progress much faster than in the original story. Many of the early and middle-stage opportunities in Swallowed Star were unlike the secret realms in other cultivation novels, which could only open at a specific time.
Those opportunities in Swallowed Star were mostly just sitting there, waiting to be discovered. It all came down to fate.
The seed of friendship had been sown. Now he only had to wait for it to sprout and bear fruit, even if Huo Yuhao's methods had been a little underhanded.
But making money was nothing to be ashamed of! Besides, he wasn't entirely lying to Luo Feng.
With that matter settled, Huo Yuhao turned his attention back to himself.
Over the past few months, he had made sure to meditate and cultivate every night, but the gains had been minuscule.
On the Douluo Continent, the higher one's innate soul power, the faster one cultivated. That was an inborn advantage.
Huo Yuhao's innate soul power was only rank one, and the meridians in his body were narrow and blocked. If he cultivated normally, he would never reach the Soul Elder realm in his lifetime.
Only after experiencing his cultivation speed firsthand did he truly understand why ordinary people on the Douluo Continent had no chance of getting ahead.
His cultivation crawled along like a snail, and he had no resources either. How was he supposed to soar? Even someone like him, with a system and cheats, had no idea where to start with such an absurd body. He genuinely didn't know how the original Huo Yuhao had kept going.
At night, he sat cross-legged and slipped into meditation in one smooth motion.
Over these past few months, he had used his understanding of Tai Chi from his previous life to make a simple upgrade to his meditation method.
It hadn't become some invincible cultivation art, but his meditation speed had increased to three times its original rate.
He was now ten years and three months old, with his soul power barely at rank nine and a half. That was already quite fast-an increase of nearly two ranks in a year.
Regardless of their talent, Soul Masters generally cultivated particularly quickly for a period after their martial soul awakening. That was an indisputable fact.
After all, the amount required to break through to rank ten as a Soul Scholar was completely different from what it took to become a Soul Grandmaster.
Originally, Huo Yuhao would have needed another year, reaching rank ten as a Soul Scholar only when he turned eleven. With his improved method, however, he estimated that he would need just two months to reach rank ten.
In short, it was time to get grinding. After all, hard work might end in failure, but without it, however comfortable life might be, success would never come.
Two months later.
The sky had only just turned the pale white of a fish's belly when Huo Yuhao gently exhaled a breath of stale air in his room. At this moment, he had finally reached that fateful rank ten. Ten and a half years old, with rank-ten soul power-players with rank-one innate soul power could be this capable, too.
He stretched, trying to shake off all his exhaustion. Over the past two months, he had practically forgotten to eat and sleep. Every day, he was either cultivating or on his way to cultivate. Apart from going out for a walk each morning, he had done almost nothing else. He decided to give himself a day off today.
Of course, he hadn't spent those two months entirely on cultivation. After receiving the plot-knowledge cheat, Luo Feng in Swallowed Star had progressed astonishingly quickly, several times faster than in the original story.
In just two months, he had reached Intermediate Warlord, only two steps away from War God.
And the only reason that short distance remained was that he wanted to hone his movement techniques and combat skills rather than let his cultivation become too unstable.
Luo Feng was clever, and bold as well.
As the saying went, wealth and honor were found amid danger. After breaking through to Warlord Level, he had headed for Mist Island. With Huo Yuhao's tips helping him avoid quite a few dangers, he had successfully made it ashore.
After finding and consuming a few small Vegetation Spirits along the island's edge, his cultivation had soared. He fought as he advanced, honing his combat skills while moving toward the Mist Island Inner Layer. After all, the Vegetation Spirits on the outskirts were weaker, and their medicinal potency was far poorer.
Luo Feng planned to break through to Planetary Level on Mist Island before leaving. There was no shortage of sparring partners there anyway. As long as he didn't provoke the king at its center for now, there wouldn't be any major problems.
During this time, Luo Feng had given Huo Yuhao several Vegetation Spirits. Unfortunately, a mere ten withdrawal points weren't enough to redeem even a hundred-year-old one, but all of that had been within his calculations.
After all, consuming a single thousand-year-old Vegetation Spirit could turn an ordinary person into a War God. If something like that were cheap, Huo Yuhao would take the system's surname.
During this period, Luo Feng had also redeemed many cultivation methods. Before heading to Mist Island, he had used the money from selling the Dragon Egg to buy a large collection of manuals, then explained every last one to Huo Yuhao in detail.
The cultivation methods in Swallowed Star were divided into the Basic Cultivation Method and the Genetic Origin Energy Cultivation Method.
By training the body through the Basic Cultivation Method and activating it to a certain degree, one could then practice the Genetic Origin Energy Cultivation Method to absorb energy from the universe.
The Basic Cultivation Method could be downloaded directly online, and Luo Feng had already obtained the Genetic Origin Energy Cultivation Method long ago. He had given both to Huo Yuhao. Unfortunately, even Luo Feng himself didn't possess those advanced Guidance Techniques, which was something he regretted as well.
After obtaining the cultivation methods, Huo Yuhao had immediately begun practicing them. To his disappointment, however, he hadn't succeeded. His body lacked one crucial thing.
That was the RR Virus. Without the key, no matter how hard he worked, he couldn't even cross the threshold.
But as long as his thinking didn't slide downhill, solutions would always outnumber difficulties. During this time, he and Luo Feng had discussed an utterly insane idea. Once Luo Feng broke through to War God, they could give it a try.
Huo Yuhao found that he and Huo Xingling had a peculiar affinity. Almost every time he went outside, he would see her.
He discovered that Huo Xingling was not only mute, but a dimwit as well.
Sure enough, the moment he stepped outside, he saw the dazed girl carrying a bamboo basket to dig up wild vegetables. Deep winter was approaching, yet she still wore only a thin layer of clothing. She really was hopelessly foolish.
Huo Xingling went to the hill behind the village to dig up wild vegetables at different times each day, yet whenever he opened his door, he would find her walking past. It almost made him think the little mute was waiting specifically for him.
Still, seeing her shiver, Huo Yuhao ultimately softened. He fetched a padded coat from his house and hurried after her.
He didn't know the girl's surname. He had only heard the village chief call her Xingling, but he thought it sounded strange to call someone he took for a boy by that name, so he had always called her Little Mute, just like the other villagers.
Huo Yuhao quickly caught up with her, snatched the basket from her hands, and pulled the thick padded coat directly over her slight frame.
"Being mute is one thing, but you're an idiot, too. It's freezing, and you don't even know to put on more clothes. What are you going to do in the future?"
Exasperated that iron would not become steel, Huo Yuhao roughly ruffled her hair. She wasn't annoyed by his words and remained as dazed as ever.
There was no helping it. Huo Xingling only behaved somewhat normally when the village chief was around. At all other times, she looked dull and vacant.
Although Huo Yuhao never spoke gently to her, he had taken good care of her over these past few months.
Huo Yuhao didn't look after the little mute because he pitied her. Having experienced two lives, his heart was far harder than most people imagined. He was a career fanatic without a shred of sentiment.
If he had to give a reason, it was that the little mute possessed an aura very similar to his own: a singular, absolute loneliness.
They lived in this world, seemingly alive, yet hardly different from the dead.
The two of them were probably that sort of person. If they suddenly died one day, there likely wouldn't even be anyone to remember them.
I'd been agonizing over whether to destroy Shrek and write a tragic romance with Zhang Lexuan, but I've just made my decision. To flesh out the outline, Shrek has to go. I'm really sorry to all you buddies who love Shrek.
(End of chapter)
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