No matter how the gun muzzle wavered, and whether or not he was looking straight at the target, as long as he knew exactly where the bottle was and the target didn’t move, the mont the muzzle dropped it would be steadily aligned with the bottle’s body, not off by a hair.
Lock-on?
No way, did it really trigger?
"Wait, does Mu Shuang have this kind of ability?"
Cheng Ye put down the handgun, shock filling his eyes.
The answer was almost certainly yes.
It seed he’d discovered another terrifying thing—this Perfect Level Hundred Martial Students talent gave a bonus far greater than Iron Body, which he’d searched out from Dai Zun.
The latter could only numb his sense of pain, enhance his bodily control, and let him reach Embryo Realm combat power.
But the forr... huh? Iron Body enhances bodily control?
A thought flashed by, and Cheng Ye picked up the Vortex Stab again, repeatedly thrusting and feeling it out in the small shop’s basent.
About eight minutes later, he suddenly stopped.
That subtle, mysterious feeling... was gone.
The weapon still felt familiar in his hand, but that "complete extension of the body" unity was gone; only a faint, blurry sense of connection remained.
If he wanted to stab precisely at a certain spot, he had to keep his eyes fixed on it and focus his mind to land the blow; the slightest distraction and it would go off course.
It was the sa with the handgun: when he picked it up, that "auto-lock" extension feeling was completely gone, leaving only basic proficiency in how to hold it.
"As expected, this kind of powerful force is another active skill that only I can use!"
"Its duration is much longer than Iron Body’s, about... 15 minutes or so, and its effectiveness doesn’t weaken over ti."
After confirming what he’d suspected, Cheng Ye let out a long breath.
Having verified Hundred Martial Students’ limitations, he not only didn’t feel upset about the talent being restricted, he even felt sowhat relieved.
It was too terrifying. The more frightening the talent’s bonuses, the more his sense of safety plumted!
People like Mu Shuang, who possessed Perfect Level talents—across the vastness of the Wasteland, they might not be rare cases; there might even be a lot of them!
If every Perfect talent holder could casually "lock-on to heads," this world would be far too dangerous.
Just imagine himself as the target, soone aiming at him with this ability... just thinking about it was enough to make one feel despair.
Unless he could maintain Horned Starfish Extraordinary State around the clock, running into such a person would be a dead end.
This way was better. In its normal state, Hundred Martial Students only increased his basic combat power when using cold weapons.
It stood to reason that other Perfect talents wouldn’t be so broken as to leave people completely powerless to resist.
"Still, I have to be careful." Cheng Ye rubbed his chin. "If soone awakened a Perfect Level shooting talent, I might not even have ti to activate Horned Starfish."
But there was a way around that too, as long as he kept raising Heart-Protecting Fire’s level and let the fla keep growing stronger.
Once it could be like Liu Kun’s Scorching Eagle, extending its monitoring radius to one or two kiloters, then as long as anyone aid at him or fixed their gaze on him, he could detect it imdiately and the threat would be greatly reduced.
Before that, Cheng Ye had already made up his mind: out in the Wilderness, he had to wear Battle Armor around the clock!
"And I need to buy a helt too; if that doesn’t work, I’ll just custom-order a bulletproof one." he muttered.
Other people had firepower deficiency phobia; he had defense deficiency phobia.
Before he was completely safe, no amount of defensive prep could be called excessive.
"Also, I need to get a private training room. So things can’t be taken to the public training ground to test."
Sitting on the edge of the bed in the small shop, Cheng Ye’s thoughts were all over the place.
His physique talent was a pure nurical bonus, letting his base stats keep breaking through, increasingly inhuman.
Iron Body and Hundred Martial Students, on the other hand, were more like active skills; once activated, his combat power would skyrocket.
If he’d still been in that "lock-on" state just now, he was confident that in the instant Mu Shuang blew up the hairline trigger, he could’ve at least landed one shot on her with the Wild Bull Fighting Handgun.
But fortunately, he hadn’t had that talent active then; otherwise if he’d actually shot Mu Shuang dead, the trouble would’ve been huge.
"No wonder the ancients said, ’Those who practice martial arts must first cultivate martial virtue; observe virtue through martial arts, train the heart through training the body.’"
Cheng Ye couldn’t help but sigh softly. "The stronger you are, the more serious the damage you can cause. Without enough discipline and self-control, you’re a walking catastrophe."
Right now he was just an ordinary person who’d grasped a bit of Extraordinary power, yet he could already imagine the consequences of losing control and the huge harm it would inflict on the entire social environnt.
Those Extraordinary of the old era, those near-Immortal beings—if they’d indulged their power, the damage they caused would be tens of thousands of tis greater than his.
Perhaps a single stray thought could result in swathes of casualties.
And now, the obsession with sealing off Extraordinary people was, in a sense, a form of protection.
It both protected the safety of ordinary people and kept Extraordinary from being devoured by their own power.
"I can wield this kind of power without an obsession, so I have to hold fast to my true self."
"Otherwise, one day this power will drag down a road of no return."
Once he’d made up his mind, Cheng Ye swept all stray thoughts from his mind.
In a sense, he and Mu Shuang were the sa kind of people: both had harsh standards for themselves and didn’t feel sha in admitting mistakes.
But he wouldn’t get stuck in a dead end or obsess over "where he went wrong, what he lost"; instead, he habitually reflected on both sides of things, searching for the deeper impact each change had on him.
This clarity let him always maintain a "Mount Tai collapses before him yet his expression doesn’t change" calm.
A mont passed.
Cheng Ye tested Hundred Martial Students’ bonus again and found that although this skill’s duration was much longer than Iron Body’s, its cooldown ti had also increased accordingly.
For every 15 minutes of "lock-on" state, he had to wait an hour for it to recover.
What was more special was that after using it twice in a row, the cooldown would lengthen further, each ti by another 15 minutes.
"Looks like Hundred Martial Students is also squeezing so kind of potential out of my body, I just haven’t noticed it yet."
Cheng Ye nodded thoughtfully.
Fifteen minutes of burst ti was already enough in combat.
Besides, this was an active skill; when not in use it didn’t occupy a skill slot, and he could equip it only when fighting.
At present, Heart-Protecting Fire and Green Grass Physique already occupied two slots, and the remaining space had to be left for new skills to maximize effectiveness.
As for his grasp of Snake Power and Eagle Power, whether due to enhanced constitution or an upgraded level of Life, his progress was much faster than expected.
At this pace, he’d complete cultivation of the Four Forces in at most a week, and then he could start Tendon Gate training.
Even if he couldn’t train Limit-Breaking Tendons like Jiang Chuan, just opening the Twelve Tendon Gates would give his strength a huge boost.
What was even more terrifying was that, based on past experience, Cheng Ye faintly suspected that his Tendon Gates wouldn’t be restricted by a single skill; they could be stacked endlessly like when he stacked Dragon Power before.
Even if they were just ordinary or excellent-grade Tendon Gates, stack enough of them and you’d eventually trigger a qualitative change.
As for searching material, although all Twelve Tendon Gates were Level 3 skills and required 100% compatibility to search—
With Pinghai Building delivering a steady stream of "takeout" to his door, collecting them shouldn’t be difficult.
Just Wang Qing and his three buddies would be enough for him to happily search for quite a while!
"Next up is waiting for the contract responsibility system to open, and preparing for its assessnt."
"As long as I repair Dapo Town’s hydropower station, my energy will be inexhaustible. I won’t have to look at anyone’s face or pay a single cent!"
He pulled up the small shop’s iron door; warm sunlight poured over him, making his whole body feel lazy.
With two bags of Nutrient Paste dangling from his mouth, Cheng Ye felt a bit of novelty—this was the first ti since fusing his skills that he didn’t need to frantically replenish energy; it actually felt a little strange.
After drinking and resting for a bit, he didn’t dare delay, heading straight to the Industrial Bureau at a brisk pace.
Even though the details of the contract responsibility system hadn’t been made public yet, and nothing had leaked from the checkpoint, you could always see clues from the Industrial Bureau’s material allocation trends.
For example, every so often an Inspector would place a huge order with the Industrial Bureau, making Old Sun green with envy.
So much so that when the two of them had been hanging out lately, Old Sun was always openly and covertly leaking so insider info to him; so of it was even toeing the red line and technically counted as minor violations.
The goal was to help him qualify for the contract responsibility system so he could be taken care of a bit.
From that alone it wasn’t hard to deduce that Inspectors who obtained contract responsibility qualifications must have a pool of "public funds" they could use, specifically for purchasing personalized supplies that weren’t included in the main budget for Satellite City construction.
As for what to buy, Cheng Ye had already been nailing that down step by step; now he was just doing a final confirmation with Old Sun, to make sure that once the funds arrived they could be moved imdiately.
He didn’t want to repeat the disaster of buying the vehicle fra last ti, getting squeezed to the back of the line and forced to wait five whole days.
Everything was getting back on track. With Wu Rui stationed there with the Cross Legion, all the shady little moves in the Buffer Zone seed to have completely disappeared.
In the blink of an eye, two days passed.
At six o’clock, the alarm rang, and Cheng Ye shook his head and rolled out of bed.
He reflexively opened Defense Communication, but one glance made him spring upright.
The second batch of Satellite City contract responsibility slots had finally opened!
...
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