ebookslot Chapter 32 Facing Death in a Desperate Situation, the Soul is Weak
Chapter 32 Facing Death in a Desperate Situation, the Soul is Weak
Lin Zhuo carried a box of nutritional paste and energy bars on his shoulder and two boxes of electrolyte water in his other hand, steadily making his way back home. His appearance stunned all the neighbors.
Several passersby advised him that although the food was free, he shouldn't be wasteful.
Lin Zhuo could only laugh it off.
Back home, after turning off his electronic devices, Lin Zhuo was finally able to try opening a time portal. This way, he could bring all the food into the training ground, saving him the trouble of running out repeatedly and wasting rent money.
With a thought, his remaining disaster currency balance was automatically deducted.
[Selected Instance - Virtual Training Grounds for All Classes: Beginner]
[Network Notice: If you die in this instance, you will be immediately resurrected and enter a state of Soul Weakness (10 minutes)]
[The dungeon portal is opening. Please prepare.]
Suddenly, a large number of dark purple fluorescent stars bloomed on the open space of the living room in front of Lin Zhuo, hovering in the air and forming a spherical vortex.
This was the spacetime tunnel. He could hear a faint buzzing in his ears, like the rapid pulse of ten million tiny hearts, a continuous thumping sound. The living room light warped and distorted slightly at the edge of the spherical vortex, like the reflection of a wide-angle lens.
He carried the food and water, strode into it, and his figure was swallowed up by the vortex of time and space.
With one step, one arrives in the training ground's instance space.
This time, Lin Zhuo is determined to stay until he has mastered all his martial arts skills before he will leave.
However, while improving one's skill level is easy, breaking through skill bottlenecks is not so easy.
As the creator of these martial arts, Lin Zhuo did indeed envision the effects of reaching the pinnacle, but the specific methods for breaking through still needed to be explored and experimented with.
After all, it's not a popular method like the "Flowing Scripture" which has a complete framework and system. His other skills are compiled based on martial arts principles and his own ideas.
This unique personal understanding is the essence that distinguishes a martial art, and also the biggest obstacle that traps practitioners. It is easy to follow in the footsteps of predecessors, but it is not easy to surpass one's own past self.
Lin Zhuo placed the food and water in the training hall, then went to the bronze door and began setting up the training area.
Start with martial arts techniques, light footwork, and hard footwork that can be linked together.
Pushing open the door, he found himself in the Death Valley he had prepared for himself.
The ground is covered with a dense array of sharp blades, and rows of uneven, thorny cork stakes form the road. The towering iron walls on both sides are so smooth that even mosquitoes cannot stand on them. They are riddled with firing ports, and the hidden traps inside will fire crossbow bolts, spray flames, and poison water when triggered.
Many puppet figures were also squatting on the wooden stakes along the way, one arm of which was a revolver barrel that fired subsonic bullets, and the other arm carried a lasso or fishing net.
The entire valley track is one kilometer long. The further you go, the smaller the diameter of the wooden stakes becomes, and the more traps and puppets there are.
Lin Zhuo himself was amused by the unreasonable difficulty when setting up the venue.
He also knew that he would die many times on this road.
But this is exactly what Lin Zhuo is pursuing. The more difficult the challenge, the greater the reward. It's not just about improving the level of cultivation on paper, but also about nurturing one's personal fighting spirit.
"Whoosh—" Lin Zhuo lightly jumped on the spot to activate his nerves and tighten his mind. Then he used the Leap Technique and flew to the top of the wooden stake in a few steps.
Unlike sturdy stone stakes, these cork stakes wobble at the slightest touch, requiring Lin Zhuo to have an extremely stable lower body and excellent control of his center of gravity in order to walk on them.
But he didn't have time to dawdle. When he reached the top of the forest of stumps, the nearby puppets had already locked onto his target and started aiming.
Lin Zhuo swayed slightly, but before he could catch his breath, a series of metal bullets struck his protective aura. The bullets were pushed away by his circulating protective energy, but the bullets continued to fly, and the protective aura was shaken open, revealing weak points. In the blink of an eye, it was on the verge of collapse.
"Go." He immediately sprinted forward, his figure as light as a cloud or a feather, yet his speed was extremely fast. He flashed across the wooden stakes in a few breaths, covering more than a hundred meters in just a few moments.
With his leaping technique excelling at swift attacks and his dodging technique excelling at evasion, Lin Zhuo would switch to his lightness skill when encountering puppets blocking his path. He would transform his condensed Divine Speed True Qi into an escape enhancement, making him ten times faster and moving like a ghostly phantom. The crossbow bolts and puppet bullets would only hit a fleeting afterimage left behind him.
Lin Zhuo ran through the first third of the journey. After entering the middle section, the attacks became more intense. There was only a small space under his feet left, and the number of puppets blocking the way increased. It had come to the point where he had to frequently brush past them.
He immediately took out the Meteor Chain Hammer, and with his true energy flowing in, it coiled around his body like a serpent, deflecting the crossbow bolts around him.
After charging up, the hammer suddenly slammed forward, smashing into the puppet blocking its way. Even if it couldn't knock the firmly fixed puppet off, it smashed its head into pieces.
Faced with such perilous situations along the way, Lin Zhuo scanned left and right, constantly searching for the best route forward.
He had completely abandoned all distractions and was focused solely on charging forward. But at a certain point, his movements suddenly slowed down, and he realized that his hands and feet were trembling uncontrollably under the pressure of fear, and he was now weak and exhausted.
Because of that momentary distraction, his foot suddenly slipped, and he lost his footing on the swaying wooden stake. He slid and flew off, falling into the stake covered with iron spikes. The ground beneath him was a mountain of gleaming blades.
Lin Zhuo is not far from death.
At the most critical moment, he stretched out his fist, quickly mustered a burst of true energy, and slammed it into the wooden stake. Even though his fingers were broken off by the iron spikes, he still managed to jump back into the air by the force of the impact.
Arrows and projectiles flew from all directions, tearing through the thin protective aura, landing one after another on the body, embedding themselves in the flesh, piercing the bones, and shattering the internal organs.
Lin Zhuo, with a grim face, used his lightness skill again to rush forward, but this time he was too badly injured to run more than a few dozen meters before he fell from the height.
The sharp knife in front of me suddenly magnified, my heart pounded like a hundred drums beating in unison, my eardrums throbbed with pain from the rush of blood, and my past life flashed through my mind at breakneck speed…
When Lin Zhuo regained consciousness, he had already returned to the training ground hall.
Player Information
Name: Lin Zhuo
Health condition: Excellent (Soul depleted [Countdown: 9 minutes 52 seconds])
[Training behavior successfully assessed; [Shrinking Earth Movement Technique] basic proficiency +1%]
Health status coefficient × 1.6 (Excellent)
[Environmental bonus coefficient ×8 (between life and death ↑↑↑, stump forest ↑↑)]
[Final Calculation Result: [Shrinking Earth Technique] Proficiency +12.8%]
[…[Flick of the Finger Invisibility Technique] Proficiency +12.8%]
[...Environmental bonus coefficient ×8 (between life and death, bullet rain)]
[Final Calculation Result: [Jade Belt Entangling Mountain Technique] Cultivation Progress +12.8%]
[...Environmental bonus coefficient ×8 (between life and death, target height increases)]
[Final Calculation Result: [Hoshimaru's Wrath] Training Progress +12.8%]
In just a few dozen seconds, he had completed the training of four martial arts techniques simultaneously, which was incredibly efficient. But Lin Zhuo was not happy.
The weakened state of his soul left Lin Zhuo's mind blank, and all sorts of desolate and sorrowful emotions kept surging up. This kind of suffering was like a wound in his heart, lasting like a long, damp night, and he couldn't muster the energy to do anything.
He sat cross-legged on the ground, silently reviewing his gains and losses.
The main reason for this defeat was not a lack of internal energy; such a mistake was truly rudimentary.
Admittedly, animal physiological instincts always exist, especially when they hear bullets whizzing past their ears, their nervous system will become as noisy as a child.
But Lin Zhuo didn't think this was a reason to excuse himself. He only felt disgust. A body that couldn't obey him and weak nerves proved that he wasn't tough enough, pure enough, and that he still harbored fear, dread, and selfish thoughts of living a cowardly life.
"Hmph." Lin Zhuo silently mocked himself, "Useless thing."
He was a little hungry, but had no appetite.
After thinking for a while, I felt that I should not waste this sorrowful state of mind when my soul was weak, so I took out the Snake Bell and began to play "Nuwa's Death" from "Nuwa's Great Banner", letting the sorrow in my heart flow out like water along the melody.
Lin Zhuo gradually felt more at ease and began practicing the seventh movement of the suite, "Green Hill Tomb".
He pondered the countless heroes who have perished in the mountains throughout history and into the future, and the historical destiny that humanity may never be able to unite under the same banner and dream, but is destined to be filled with conflict and slaughter.
Let the sorrow continue to be sorrowful; he now draws strength from this music, draws fire from the heroism of history and the people, and cleanses the impurities and dregs hidden in his mind.
There is no need to be afraid or cowardly.
For the first time, Lin Zhuo treated himself as the target of the sonic attack, listening intently and focusing all his attention on it, willingly accepting its influence. This behavior was very dangerous; one wrong move could lead to demonic possession and mental instability, something even the resurrection mechanism of the virtual training ground couldn't reverse.
But Lin Zhuo still believed in his own judgment and his own magnanimity, and would never give up.
Gradually, my tired hands and feet regained their strength, like tempered steel, stronger than before.
[Combat action successfully assessed; [Seven Mysterious Heart Bell] basic cultivation progress +1%]
【Exquisite Coefficient x3 (Perfectly Natural)】
[Practice Results Statistics: (Inner Insight and Ease +2%) (Clear Mind and Subdue Thoughts +1%)]
[Final Calculation Result: [Seven Wonders Heart Bell] Practice Progress +6%]
As the period of spiritual weakness ended, Lin Zhuo felt energetic again, and even his sluggish appetite returned.
He was still immersed in the state of mind he had just experienced. This state of mind was precisely the ultimate goal pursued by the Seven Wonders Heart Bell. The bottleneck of this martial art had been quietly broken, and it was only waiting for the required training level to be reached before it could be perfected.
Although it was an unintentional act, the result made Lin Zhuo chuckle.
It was not time to relax. After resting for a while and regaining his strength, he opened the bronze door again and stepped into the Valley of Death. He was determined to succeed in this one go and not stop until he had accomplished his mission.