Night of Despair

Chapter 104: Cultivation Technique 2

Yu Hong looked at the radiation detector again and saw that the value inside the safe house had returned to single digits, close to zero.

“It seems that the talisman array inside the safe house might have played a role.”

He breathed a sigh of relief, turned on the electric light, and pulled down the shutter,

but he didn’t take off the suit, as the potential appearance of the Multi-eyed Bird meant he had to be vigilant at all times.

Picking up the Vortex Rune board, he sat down to think carefully.

“If I could use the storage function of the Vortex Rune on the safe house, would it be possible to create a stable battery that converts and stores radiation energy from the luminous stones?”

...

“What else could I do with a luminous stone radiation battery besides using it for grenades?”

He returned to his original idea of creating a cultivation technique that would enable him to deal with the shadow.

“If…if I could use my body to produce an explosion similar to the Vortex Rune, could I then easily solve the problem of dealing with the shadow?”

He followed this line of thought.

Yu Hong took out a piece of paper and began to write with a charcoal pencil.

“A cultivation technique specifically targeting the shadow.”

“Using Inner Qi as a pen to construct the Vortex Rune inside the body, creating an organization similar to a radiation battery that absorbs external radiation.”

“This type of organization needs to be extremely stable ordinarily, only temping to disrupt the battery structure to cause a huge burst of radiation from within when I make certain specific moves or enter a specific state, creating a radiation attack to counter the external shadow or Evil Shadow.”

“The talisman array returns to its original state when I exit the specific state or movement, resuming automatic absorption and storage.”

“Side effect: Radiation from the luminous stones can cause damage and mutation to the human body. This issue might be countered by my ever-increasing physical strength.”

After writing these words, Yu Hong carefully checked them to make sure there were no typos or significant errors before placing the paper on the wooden table.

“The enhancement by the Black Mark must be based on a feasible foundation. Now let’s see, if this base cultivation technique I envisioned works, then perhaps the Black Mark could further enhance and perfect it into a better technique.”

Looking at his hypothesis for the cultivation technique, Yu Hong put his hand on its surface.

“Enhance the technique targeting the shadow. Direction: Integrate with Heavy Leg Skill.”

Soon, a black line flashed, and the feedback tone sounded quickly.

“Do you want to enhance the cultivation technique?”

It was possible!

Yu Hong was overjoyed; he hadn’t expected to succeed on his first try.

He looked at the countdown appearing on the paper: 1 hour 04 minutes.

It seemed not too challenging considering how short the time was. With this thought, he pressed his hand down once more.

“Enhance the technique targeting the shadow, direction: Integrate with Heavy Leg Skill, increase control power, reduce side effects, enhance strength, and optimize the Vortex Rune to increase the total amount of stored radiation energy.”

Yu Hong quickly added everything he wanted to improve.

Then he waited for the feedback tone and quickly checked the new countdown that appeared.

“1 day 23 hours 11 minutes.”

“That’s about right; any longer and the risk would be too great,” he sighed.

He confirmed the start of the enhancement.

Obtaining the Vortex Rune this time had provided significant aid.

It had substantially increased his means to deal with the Evil Shadow.

Securing the paper undergoing enhancement with a block of wood, Yu Hong got up and went to Basement 1, the first one he had dug.

Inside the basement, he picked up the Vortex Rune board he had made before. The rune board, carved by Inner Qi, had now turned completely silver.

It looked very much like the enhanced silver talisman array before.

But their patterns were entirely different.

Yu Hong took the detector and measured it closely; the red value was only a negative single digit, showing the strong absorbing and storage ability of the talisman array.

Thinking it over, he decided to take this board out for a test.

Just as his Black Mark was enhancing the new integrated cultivation technique, once the integration was complete, he would be able to develop a similar ability to counter the shadow while practicing the Heavy Leg Skill.

But for now, the most pressing matter was to ensure the safety house’s security. It was hard to quickly obtain the energy core during such times; he would wait until the situation had stabilized and his training had strengthened before considering it.

Yu Hong made up his mind.

Taking the board, he returned to the first floor and turned on the communicator.

“Old Li, are you there?”

After some hissing static, a surprised male voice soon came through.

“It’s so clear? How has the signal suddenly improved?” Li Rushan exclaimed.

Yu Hong knew it might be the result of enhancing the communicator and probably only worked well when he and Old Li communicated, but he didn’t mention it and quickly changed the subject.

“A question, is there any way to avoid Multi-eyed Birds? How did you avoid their attacks before?”

“….Vision, smell, hearing, these strange birds track by sensory organs just like humans, but their sense of smell is very sensitive,” Li Rushan replied, “We didn’t pay attention to the scent before, later the support team came over and gave us some scent-neutralizing sand, and then the Multi-eyed Birds stopped approaching. I have twenty pounds of the sand here.”

“Is there any other way?” Yu Hong frowned.

“Next would be the sunlight series materials. The Multi-eyed Bird is a creature quite familiar to the frontline Aurora City and is one of the creatures restrained by the sunlight series materials,” Li Rushan replied.

He paused and continued.

“If you want some, I can try to get you some. It should be available next month, hold on till then.”

“How much?” Yu Hong asked, somewhat surprised. The miser was actually willing to pluck a feather.

“I have a set of communication equipment here, take a look at it for me, will you? Aside from our connection, the rest of my communications are very poor, can’t make out the words clearly, all relying on morse code,” Li Rushan said casually.

“Okay,” Yu Hong responded. “By the way, is internal mailing available now? To Baihe City?”

“It’s possible, but it will cost extra. One reason is Baihe City is being attacked by Language Persons, you know, those things are undetectable, can’t find them until they attack. Also, there are too many Multi-eyed Birds outside now, no one dares to go out without a blanket of sunlight series luminous stones, transportation costs are getting higher. What are you sending?” Li Rushan asked.

“I’ll bring it over to you later. A small thing.” Yu Hong said. The enhanced Red Value detector, it was time to bring it to the stuttering kid, just right to deal with the Language Persons.

“All right, it happens that a postal service expert will pass by here tomorrow, I can entrust it to make a detour. And another thing, remember to be more cautious when you do jobs. I threw the thing you left down in the Charred Wood Forest by your place, remember to pick it up,” Li Rushan finished, cutting off the communication.

A thing? What thing?

Yu Hong narrowed his eyes slightly, quickly donned his equipment, and went out the door. Soon, he found a male corpse in a camouflage suit with eyes wide open in death on the right side of the yard wall, in the burned-over Charred Wood Forest.

In the corpse’s hand was a black rifle more than a meter long with a scope, Yu Hong didn’t recognize the model.

He forcefully pulled the rifle from the corpse’s grasp, then searched the body.

Nothing was left, picked clean, only the rifle in hand suggested that this guy was likely the only companion of Ge Shenghao who had escaped.

‘What were you running for then? Wouldn’t it have been more straightforward to die by my hand?’

Yu Hong carried the gun, figuring that Li Rushan must have left it purposely as evidence; otherwise, this thing would’ve been gone by now.

Whoo!

Suddenly, from deep within the forest behind, came another strange cry of a Multi-eyed Bird. @@novelbin@@

Yu Hong hurriedly sped up, rushed into a cave, closed the door and hid, not daring to make a sound.

He had had enough of these strange birds.

*

*

*

Three days later…

Baihe City.

At the dark, massive entrance of an underground pipeline outside the city, teams headed for a hazard-clearing mission gathered at the pipeline entrance.

There were more than ten teams, many of them new recruits.

From 1 to 16, each team had a member holding a wooden sign as a landmark.

Behind the sign with the number 3, eight young soldiers lined up loosely, some with listless spirits, some with numb eyes, and among these people, three standing in the middle were particularly noticeable.

These three were Ou Li, Chen Qiaosheng, and the sullen Lin Yiyi.

“Alright, silence!” called a team leader as he slowly walked out of the pipeline entrance.

A tall man with a buzz cut clapped his hands and shouted.

“Now, equip your gear. After this exploration mission is over, based on individual findings, you can go to the system registration to calculate contribution points.” After delegating the orders, the man turned and left without a second glance at the crowd.

The team leaders returned to the front of their groups.

Xue Ningning, her arm in a sling hanging in front of her chest, returned to the front of Team Three.

She surveyed the members of her team with resignation, shaking her head gently.

Even though the route they took during this exploration and cleaning mission was relatively safe, the team still encountered several dangerous situations.

At critical moments, the team’s coordination was off, and Xue Ningning had to take the initiative herself, using luminous stone weapons to beat back the sneaking monsters, getting injured herself, with two team members also severely hurt and sent away for rest.

They had almost failed the mission. Ultimately, it was Xue Ningning who led a group of people, pushing hard to complete the mission.

Now looking back, Xue Ningning felt that the trio of Ou Li was of little use, almost no help in the middle of the mission.

She considered replacing people, but if anyone was eliminated from here, considering the condition of Ou Li’s trio, it was highly unlikely they would be accepted into any other team…

“Ningning, everyone’s heard about your team’s situation, want to replace someone?” a fellow female team leader asked quietly.

Ou Li of Team Three was alright, conforming to standards. Chen Qiaosheng was a physical wreck, barely useful except for following at the back. Lin Yiyi liked to foolishly charge forward, fearless and pain-insensitive, but several times disrupted Xue Ningning’s plans.

But if she were to replace people, if Lin Yiyi left, she could only go to other more dangerous teams. Team Three, because of Xue Ningning’s influence, was relatively the safest, and with the temperaments of Chen Qiaosheng and Lin Yiyi, their danger level would exceed that of Team Three if they went elsewhere.

With that in mind, Xue Ningning shook her head.

“Just recruit some more people to fill in, no need to replace anyone.” It’s better to let these three follow behind the team than to send them off to other teams to die.

After all, with their respective shortcomings, except for Ou Li, going to other teams meant a real risk of throwing their lives away.

As for Ou Li, she also realized the child was selfish, but that was just a shell to protect herself.