Chapter 28: Mental Force Part 4
Daluo left after a brief conversation, leaving Luo Ling to his thoughts.
Alone in the room, the former Martial Transcendent chewed on his food as his mind whirled at a breakneck speed.
An animal is at its most dangerous stage when cornered. Even the docile rabbits bare their fangs when they have no other choice.
Li Kai had become a cornered animal, relentlessly pursued—not only by fellow hunters but also by shadowy figures whose identities were as murky as their motives. As the one who’d driven him to this brink of no return, Luo Ling was likely at the center of Li Kai’s resentment. The man probably couldn’t wait to tear him apart if the chance ever came.
So, what to do?
Luo Ling was well aware of how dangerous a man could become when stripped of everything to lose. Such men retaliated with a ferocity untethered by logic, willing to risk their lives in a blind drive to bring down the source of their misfortune.
They were like a sword hanging at the back of your neck.
The best way to deal with such people was to eliminate them before they could grow into someone who could threaten your daily life.
Unfortunately, Li Kai was no longer in the village and his whereabouts were unknown. If he was still around, Luo Ling would have already made plans on offing him without arousing suspicion.
“But, I really dislike being used like some fool,” he grumbled, furrowing his brows. Those bunch of shady people used his name to fan the flames. Now, Luo Ling would bear the brunt of a desperate man’s retaliation.
Luo Ling curled his fingers into a tight fist, the veins appeared throbbing under his tender skin. In the silence of his room, a promise was made to himself. One day he’d find them and when he did, he’d gift them an arrow to their knees. Nothing less could appease this anger in his heart.
For the time being, however, it was impossible to deal with this appalling situation. Luo Ling shoved the matter to the back of his mind, refocusing on his priorities—namely, amassing proficiency points for [Meditation].
Unlocking Inner Breath was what needed to be done first.
-~X~-
Three days went by uneventfully amidst Luo Ling’s relentless efforts to awaken his mental force. He threw himself at [Meditation], zealously breathing in and out to accumulate the proficiency points. During this time, his only distraction was when dealing with Xiao Ru and meals.
And, on the evening of the third day, his efforts finally bore the long-awaited fruit.
With a sound like eggshells cracking, the barrier sealing his mental force splintered into fragments, scattering like dust in the air. A second after the disappearance of this barrier, Luo Ling’s five senses enhanced to an astonishing degree. His nose picked up different scents around him, and the range of his olfactory organ increased twice.
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And it wasn’t just his sense of smell that sharpened. His hearing amplified, capturing sounds from the entire room. He could pick up the soft, steady breathing from the adjacent room, signaling someone in a deep, restful sleep. His other senses had also heightened, though their impact would only become evident when truly put to the test.
Luo Ling felt his glabella throb, pulsating in the rhythm of his heartbeat.
At the same time, his frontal lobe sparked to life, functioning with newfound clarity. His heartbeat quickened, driving more blood to his brain, and in this rhythmic pulse, the blood itself seemed to transform—coalescing into invisible "drops" of mental force. This force held no tangible form or weight, only a subtle, potent presence that filled his mind.
Luo Ling’s body revealed physical signs as the nutrients and oxygen in his blood transformed into Inner Breath. Noticing his own condition, he promptly terminated operating the breathing exercise to awaken mental force, and his heart stopped pumping more blood into his brain than necessary.
He collapsed onto the floor, chest rising and falling in erratic waves. His face, ghostly pale and worn, did little to hide the fierce gleam of triumph in his hollowed, dazed eyes. The symptoms—an almost bloodless pallor and aching exhaustion—were the price of forcing Inner Breath to awaken prematurely. There was a reason why it had been advised to attempt awakening the mental force only after you went through puberty and your body had finished growing up.
But for Luo Ling, this sacrifice was a mere pittance compared to the power now coursing through him.
Desperate times call for desperate measures. In this unfamiliar world, without anyone looking out for him, Luo Ling had to toughen up and watch out for himself. He already experienced firsthand what a lack of awareness could lead to. Had Li Kai been slightly more capable, his corpse would have been rotting somewhere by now.
Luo Ling brought his attention to the ten drops of Inner Breath swimming freely in his psyche. The martial artists of the Murim world measured the quantity of Inner Breath in Drops. A newly promoted Martial Master had an inner breath count ranging between twenty to thirty drops. Compared to them, despite also being a Martial Master himself, Luo Ling only had ten drops.
This, however, didn’t dampen his mood as it had been an expected outcome. Physically, he was only nine years old, after all.
Drawing from his inner breath reserve, Luo Ling instantly expended two out of his ten drops, creating an invisible sphere that radiated outward with his glabella at the core. It expanded swiftly, phasing seamlessly through the room's furniture until it reached its boundary, enclosing a two-meter radius around him.
Loads of information flooded into his brain as all his five senses seemingly enhanced into a newfound state. He saw the dust particles flying in the air before they gathered into a layer on the floor and other surfaces. Heard the grinding noise of termites chewing on the delectable wood in the furnitures. Smelled the stench of his sweat-soaked clothes discarded on the chair. Felt the smoothness of the ground and the ruggedness of the poorly plastered roofs. He tasted the hairy…
“Shit!!! Terminate terminate!!”
Luo Ling promptly retracted a drop of his inner breath and terminated the sensory feedback associated with taste and touch. The mental force bubble shrunk by a meter. He had forgotten the accidents that could happen when letting your senses freely expand together with inner breath. Just now, he nearly ‘licked’ a spider crawling under his bed.
A shudder ran down Luo Ling's spine as he fought off the lingering disgust from almost licking a spider. The sight of its hairy legs was enough to unsettle him—Luo Ling despised all kinds of bugs, especially the ones covered in bristles, like spiders and caterpillars. This disdain was one reason he never fully warmed up to the Formless Poisons School, despite their steadfast alliance with his own school. Their obsession with breeding grotesque insects had always struck a nerve in him.
“I’m back to Martial Master now,” Luo Ling mumbled, his heart once again going deathly calm. His initial excitement was due to successfully recovering his inner breath, not becoming a martial master. He felt no joy at this achievement.
He had been a Martial Transcendent for years before his eventual death, and even touched upon the final realm of the martial path—the Martial God. Compared to the reality-bending abilities he experienced as a God; a mere Martial Master stage was not worth writing home about. It was only a transitional stage and eventually, he would surpass it.