Chapter Fifty-Six: Breakthrough, Part One

Although Liang Jing was somewhat disappointed, he soon forgot about it. After all, the energy within him was still very weak, not even able to flow through the pathways to his hands and feet, much less support any real enhancement. Perhaps when it became greater in the future, once those pathways were opened, it would reveal all sorts of uses.

By then, Liang Jing had come to a certain understanding of the energy within his body, and unconsciously gave names to all of it. The energy flowing through him he called inner force, and the channels through which it moved he called meridians. That was how novels always seemed to describe it.

The inner force swelled rapidly, while the life essence within his body was absorbed in great quantities by the meridians, seeping in of its own accord. The life essence in other parts of his body continued to diminish, gradually nearing exhaustion. At that very moment, the inner force that had been nearly depleted inside Liang Jing had already been replenished, and even increased by a large margin, filling all the familiar meridian channels that he had known before. Liang Jing had already suffered one lesson, and no longer dared to charge recklessly through the meridians. Instead, he merely guided the inner force to circulate faster and faster within the familiar pathways. As the inner force filled every known meridian, more and more refined life essence seeped in, continually being absorbed, assimilated, and fused. Little by little, the inner force became denser and denser, faster and faster, as if it had reached a limit. Then, all at once, without Liang Jing consciously directing it, it suddenly surged into an unfamiliar meridian it had never reached before. The inner force kept entering; the meridians that had once been full suddenly thinned and ebbed away.

Joy surged through Liang Jing's heart. His mind was clearer and more brimming than ever. He knew he had broken through.

Not daring to delay, Liang Jing slowly guided the inner force through the new meridian. At that moment, as if by natural instinct, his body suddenly absorbed a massive amount of energy from somewhere unknown, causing his inner force to increase by more than double in an instant. Moreover, that inner force had become far purer than before, and its nourishing, restorative effects on the body had grown considerably stronger.

Hah...

Liang Jing opened his eyes. Had anyone been watching closely, they would have seen a flash of brilliance cross his gaze the instant he did so. His face brimming with joy, he rose to his feet. This breakthrough was immense. Liang Jing, who had once been walking a lonely and thorny side path, had now found a road leading toward limitless growth. His spirits were lifted beyond measure.

Crackle, pop, crackle!

As Liang Jing stood and stretched his limbs, his body let out a burst of sounds like popping beans, startling him. He examined his body, flexed his arms, clenched his fists, and only felt that his strength had increased considerably. He hurriedly checked his physical attributes:

Liang Jing: Strength: 14 (1), Agility: 13+5 (1), Constitution: 13 (1), Spirit: 12+9 (1).

Every physical attribute had increased by one point. In other words, it was as though all of one person's attributes had been raised by one full level. Liang Jing also felt that his body seemed to have broken through to another plane. If his body were a wooden bucket, then the shortest stave had now been raised significantly. As long as more water was poured in, the bucket would continue to hold more and more. Likewise, as long as Liang Jing could obtain enough life essence, his body could rapidly improve in every aspect. This was a breakthrough past a bottleneck.

Just as Liang Jing was standing there, clenching his fists and kicking his legs with delight at the changes in his body, the others in the group had also come back from their dull vigilance and turned to look at him.

"How is it?" Jia Yujin asked with joy in his eyes when he saw Liang Jing wake.

"Very good! Not only has my strength increased, but more importantly, I have found a road, a broad and endless road..." Liang Jing was also trembling with excitement. Before, he had only believed that the body could grow only by instinctively absorbing life essence and slowly increasing its strength. But as the strength grew higher and higher, it seemed to have reached a certain limit, and further progress had become extremely difficult. In truth, that was indeed the case: even those gifted beyond measure would encounter a ceiling in bodily strength, and if they wished to advance further, they would have to break through as Liang Jing had now, into the second level of inner force, allowing the body to undergo some unknown evolution and make up for its weakest link.

During this period since the world had mutated, Liang Jing had been under immense pressure. The monsters were too powerful, and worse still, they kept growing stronger and smarter. If his own rate of growth could not keep up, then sooner or later he would be abandoned and eliminated by this world.

Even with the system and the power of duplication, he still felt enormous pressure when facing those terrifying mutated monsters, because his strength had already become very difficult to break through. Only by nourishing himself with the life essence of high-level monsters might he have a chance at another leap. At times, Liang Jing even found himself wondering whether humanity was truly beyond saving, already finished.

Yes.

At the time, Liang Jing had stubbornly refused to admit it, but the many dangers and hardships before his eyes were constantly reminding him. That was also why he needed to find a human settlement and gather information; he wanted to know whether others had found some different way to increase their strength. After all, one person's path could not possibly be endless. But now, discovering the effect brought about by advancing his inner force had shown Liang Jing a future. The gloom and confusion in his heart were no longer as heavy.

More importantly, he could kill monsters and obtain their purest life essence. That would allow him to break through rapidly and raise his inner force level at high speed, at least twice as fast as others. If the target was a human awakener, the effect would be three times greater still, since the efficiency of absorbing life essence from one of their own kind was much higher.

With that advantage, Liang Jing was confident he could stand at the summit.

At that moment, he even felt a desire to go and find trouble with other awakeners. In his heart he thought: you'd best not provoke me, or even if you are the hope of humanity's future, I will still have to lay a painful hand on you. Liang Jing would not go out of his way to kill others, but if they provoked him, that was another matter entirely. He was not the kind of person who would swallow humiliation for the greater good; doing that would be even worse than killing him. If anyone dared to cross him, even if there were no benefits at all, he would still be willing to punch a hole in the heavens. Let alone now, when there were such tremendous rewards.

"What? What's going on?" Jia Yujin knew that Liang Jing rarely showed such obvious joy on his face. He was usually rather stern, or perhaps one should say he kept everything bottled up inside, a rather sulky sort. Seeing him like this, there must have been something extraordinary that Liang Jing had discovered, something enough to make him excited.

The others were also looking at Liang Jing with curiosity and delight, thinking that if this path were one they too could follow, how wonderful that would be. In this perilous world, how desperately they longed for power, and how envious they were of those awakeners.

"Old Jia, when you have time, sit down cross-legged too. Calm your mind and follow the flow of the inner force through the meridians. That's exactly what I did just now... and then..."

Liang Jing did not plan to hide anything. He explained the conclusions he had drawn, as well as the experience he had just gone through, while the others listened with expressions of wonder, excitement, and disappointment.

"Really?" Jia Yujin was now incomparably excited. He knew very well that over this period, his own strength had increased only a little. After all, he did not possess Liang Jing's ability to obtain life essence. Hearing that there was another way he himself could use to increase his strength naturally thrilled him. After all, who would not want to become stronger and stronger? Especially someone like him, who had been combative since childhood.

Liang Jing nodded with a pleased expression, confirming it.

"You don't need to be too disappointed. As long as you're alive, there is always a chance. Who knows? Maybe one day you may awaken on your own, or perhaps in the future we'll find some way to generate inner force within the body, or maybe after we reach Capital N others will discover different methods of increasing strength."

"Besides, haven't you noticed the changes in yourselves over this period? As long as you keep training and eat the flesh of mutated monsters, your bodies will still grow stronger. This is only one path."

Seeing the disappointment on the faces of the others, Liang Jing comforted them.

"Of course, you can also use your own minds and think of other methods. After all, this world has changed; everything is new from the ground up. The way to increase strength might be right beside us, only we haven't discovered it yet."

With the efforts of many minds together, one can outdo even the wisest. A single person's strength is limited, but if everyone thinks together, studies together, and puts ideas into practice together, there will always come a day of breakthrough. Though the human body is frailer than that of monsters, it also possesses far greater room for development.

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