Physique enhancement

His gaze settled on the small Leopard core in his bracelet's storage inventory. Its base color was reddish, with several pale red streaks winding around it. His fingers paused over the core. Lu Heng let out a long breath, a cloud of white mist drifting from his lips. He felt uncertain and somewhat nervous.

This was his first time seeing anything like it. He had no idea what it tasted like and did not dare bite into it, afraid it would be bitter and make him choke.

Holding the core between his fingertips, he brought it to his mouth with a gloomy expression. Then he steeled himself, tilted his head back, and sent it straight down his throat. Halfway down, it lodged in his esophagus, leaving his chest feeling blocked and tight and making him gag repeatedly. Lu Heng reached for the bottle of mineral water beside him and gulped down several mouthfuls of cold water, forcibly washing the whole core into his stomach.

After a while, warmth actually began to rise slowly from his lower abdomen, spreading along his arms and legs into his extremities. His slightly chilled hands and feet gradually warmed up. Just as the warmth spread throughout his body, a fierce wave of drowsiness hit him, making his eyelids too heavy to lift. Lu Heng sighed inwardly. He had only just had a full night's sleep the night before, yet he had not expected swallowing this thing to make him so overwhelmingly sleepy.

He walked over to the wooden bed inside the cave and spread out the leopard hide he had skinned intact yesterday. The hide was thick, its fur dense, and he laid it on the bed with the other pelts. Cold seeped up through the bed boards. His clothes were stained with melted snow and dried blood from last night's desperate fighting in the snow, and lying down in them would dirty the bedding. He took off his clothes. His whole body relaxed as he fell onto the leopard hide, closed his eyes, and quickly sank into a deep sleep.

The thudding of the Cold Stiff ramming the door outside never stopped, its dull echoes reverberating through the cave. The thick logs he had brought over earlier braced the door firmly, and no matter how the monster rammed it, it could not force it open. The wood muffled most of the noise, leaving it unable to wake the soundly sleeping Lu Heng.

He slept peacefully through the night.

The next day, faint light filtered into the cave through cracks in the rock wall. Lu Heng slowly opened his eyes, feeling indescribably light and comfortable all over. Bracing himself against the edge of the bed, he sat up, raised his arms, and stretched hard. All the aches from yesterday's fight and the soreness brought on by the cold had vanished completely, without a trace of lingering pain. Some of his wounds had scabbed over as well.

Lu Heng raised his hand and summoned the bracelet panel. His gaze fell on the attributes, and he was startled. Strength, agility, and stamina had all risen from eight to ten. A single Black Iron-grade Leopard core had actually brought such a tremendous improvement. He just did not know whether it was a one-time effect.

He got up and walked a couple of steps back and forth to loosen up. The dull aches left throughout his body by yesterday's struggle with the leopard had completely disappeared. The small wounds along his waist where its claws had slashed through his armor had all scabbed over, and even touching them no longer hurt.

Lu Heng bent down and picked up the Bronze Hunting Blade beside him. The moment he held it, he noticed the difference. It usually weighed heavily in his hand, but today it felt much lighter. It would presumably be much easier to swing.

He opened the bracelet's construction interface and glanced at the list of materials needed to upgrade the Shelter. He had long since stockpiled enough wood, but he was still short of stone.

After loosening up his limbs, strength flowed endlessly through his body. Lu Heng smiled bitterly to himself. He had only just enjoyed one peaceful night's sleep, and now he had to go out quarrying again. He lowered his head and felt his stomach. It was empty, yet he was not hungry at all. Presumably, the energy supplied by the crystal core could sustain him for a long time.

Gripping the Bronze Hunting Blade, he walked to the door and moved aside the thick logs bracing it, putting them into the bracelet's storage space one by one. The moment he pulled the door open a crack, a rigid black figure lunged through the gap, sending a gust of cold, putrid air straight at his face.

There was no time to think. His survival instinct moved his body first, and Lu Heng turned his wrist, slashing the hunting blade horizontally.

The blade sliced through flesh and bone with almost no resistance, the motion absurdly smooth. The Cold Stiff before him was cleaved straight into two pieces with a single slash, and its body hit the ground heavily and stopped moving.

Lu Heng looked down at the filthy black blood staining the blade, marveling inwardly. Before swallowing the crystal core, that slash would at most have sunk into the Cold Stiff's body. It could never have cut straight through its flesh. A difference of just two attribute points had actually made such a huge difference in combat strength.

He quickly cleared away the two pieces of the Cold Stiff's corpse from the doorway, putting them both into his storage space. Without delaying any longer, he left the cave and headed toward the riverbank. With his physical capabilities improved, he would be able to quarry much faster. With luck, he could gather enough stone to upgrade the Shelter today.

On the way to the riverbank, the cold wind lashed his face, stinging his skin until it felt tight. The outdoor temperature was already low enough to cause frostbite, and now the snow was falling ever more heavily while the cold continued to deepen. The longer he stayed outside, the greater the risk.

With one hand gripping the hunting blade tightly, he alternated his gaze between the path ahead and the snow beneath his feet, carefully checking for animal tracks. Partway there, he glanced back at the mountain hollow where he was hiding. There had been no signs of pursuit along the way, and he relaxed a little.

A short while later, he reached the riverbank where he quarried stone. This stretch of ground, churned up by either a mudslide or a flash flood, had been covered with a "blanket" of snow.

Lu Heng breathed out a cloud of white mist and turned to look at the place where he had fought the leopard last night. After an entire night of heavy snow, the blood, fur, and trampled signs of battle had all been buried beneath a thick layer of snow. Yet several broad, deeply sunken animal tracks had appeared on its surface.

They were not depressions left by his struggle with the leopard, but enormous paw prints belonging to Coldrock Bears.

The bloody scent of last night's fight had ultimately drawn the Coldrock Bears downstream to the riverbank. But the snow had fallen without stopping all night, covering the scent of blood layer by layer and smoothing away the smaller traces of battle. The bears could not determine exactly where the prey and the person had gone. After lingering on the riverbank for a long time, they finally gave up the pursuit when they could pick up no useful scent and returned to the upstream mountain woods.

Lu Heng stared at the half-covered bear tracks in the snow, his back tightening slightly as he silently counted himself lucky that the heavy snow had arrived in time. Without snow to cover the scent, what awaited him after last night's desperate fight would not have been just one leopard, but two ferocious Black Iron-grade Coldrock Bears.

The sound of his axe striking stone stood out sharply on the open riverbank. Lu Heng held back his strength with every blow, tapping lightly and prying slowly, deliberately keeping the noise down for fear that any lingering sound would draw the Coldrock Bears back to investigate.

After a long time at it, he pried loose the final neatly shaped piece of bluestone and put it into his bracelet. At last, he had gathered all the stone needed for the upgrade.

Lu Heng straightened his aching back and surveyed his surroundings with his blade in hand, planning to gather some firewood along the way.

All the wild grass on the ground had been pressed down and buried deep beneath the thick snow. Digging through it to look for wild vegetables would consume a great deal of stamina for very little gain. It was not worth it at all, so he abandoned the search for edible plants.

Along the bank, fierce winds had torn branches from many dead trees. Broken lengths of wood lay half-buried in the snowdrifts. The wood was thoroughly dry and frozen hard, perfect for making a fire to keep warm. Lu Heng bent down to gather the pieces one by one, tied them into bundles, and put them into his storage inventory.

Wind and snow kept battering the branches, and accumulated snow rustled down from time to time, blanketing the entire riverbank. He slowly patrolled upstream and downstream along the bank. Last night's old bear tracks had also been covered by snow, and there were no fresh paw prints. Once he confirmed that the Coldrock Bears had completely left the area, his lingering unease finally vanished.

Having confirmed that the place was safe for the moment and that he had ample firewood, Lu Heng lingered no longer. He turned and retraced his route to the cave, eagerly anticipating returning to upgrade the Shelter.