Chapter 061
Chapter 61: The Will of the Defeated
Two months passed in the blink of an eye.
During this time, Wang Jie walked the streets and alleys of Golden Hill Base, pushed forward every day. The bridge-building altar was the darkness before dawn, and Wang Jie shattered the darkness, bringing forth the light.
Mutated beasts no longer posed a threat to the base.
The various captains of the base continuously cleared the outer regions, expanding the safe zone. Rumor had it that the Southern Country Base was preparing to take action against the ocean.
Over these two months, the warmth from the wristguard spread throughout Wang Jie’s body, gradually flowing through him.
“Take me back,” Wang Jie spoke.
Qing Zheng, cheerfully pushing him along, replied, “Boss, as long as you’re alive and Blue Star isn’t destroyed, nothing else matters.”
“Boss, what should we eat today?”
“You decide.”
“Barbecue, with lots of spice.”
Wang Jie smiled, “Alright.”
As night fell, Wang Jie sat up slowly in bed. He could move again.
He let out a long breath. The feeling of movement was incredible. He looked at the wristguard again. Without it, he would have died in his first battle with Shu Mu Night and never made it to this moment.
It was truly miraculous.
“Let’s start the eighth set of beginner’s exercises.”
A familiar and expectant voice echoed in his ear. Wang Jie quickly applied the medicine that Four Eyes had prepared during this time and began his exercises.
One, two, three, four.
Two, two, three, four.
…
The familiar pain returned. He had experienced it once when Shu Mu Night had broken him, and now, it was happening for the second time. His bones crackled, blood flowed, and his meridians connected, making his body itch unbearably. Strange pains assailed him one after another, as if his entire body was being broken apart and reassembled.
It was more painful than ever before.
When the exercises ended, he collapsed onto the ground, sweat soaking the floor.
As the pain gradually subsided like a receding tide, Wang Jie felt a profound sense of relief, so much so that he almost wanted to stay lying there.
Indeed, pain was addictive. The more excruciating it was, the more satisfying the recovery.
He sat up and took a bath.
His cultivation was gone.
All eight seals had been shattered, but his strength remained.
Wang Jie looked at himself in the mirror. Had his skin become lighter? His gaze seemed deeper now.
“Boss.”
The door suddenly opened, and it was Qing Zheng.
Wang Jie walked out of the bathroom. “What’s up?”
Qing Zheng stared at Wang Jie in a daze. “Boss… you’ve recovered?”
Wang Jie wiped his hair with a towel. “Not really, just able to move now. What’s with that look?”
Old Five and Old Nine had arrived as well.
Qing Zheng spoke, “I smelled something bad and thought you were incapable of taking care of yourself, so I was worried.”
Wang Jie…
Although his body had recovered, Wang Jie didn’t immediately go out in public. His recovery was too rapid, and his cultivation was still gone. Even though his strength remained, he was still cautious.
He would never forget how Zuo Tian had once discarded their group of orphans into the fire with only one reason—to experiment.
Sitting by the window, the surroundings began to change. He found himself in the fields.
It had been a long time since he was here.
The first plot had eight green sprouts, representing the Starry Finger technique and Star-Gazing Sword technique.
The second plot was empty. He still didn’t know what could grow there. He had tried many things before, but nothing worked.
He walked up to the green sprouts representing the Starry Finger technique.
The materials needed for Starry Finger were five in total: the Will of the Defeated, Evil Person’s Severed Palm, Sweet Tears, Ten Proposal Letters, and Snow White Canine Tooth.
He had already completed the last four, but the Will of the Defeated was something he still didn’t understand.
The thought came to him suddenly during the altar battle with Shu Mu Night. This would be his attempt.
He raised his hand and touched the sprouts. Memories of his three battles with Shu Mu Night flooded his mind. Three battles… all lost.
The first loss was the easiest, without any suspense.
The second loss was the most tragic. Even though he had forced Shu Mu Night to expend a lot of power, he had almost been killed.
The third time, he had managed to defeat Shu Mu Night with a narrow margin. But without the warmth of the wristguard keeping him alive, he would have been dead.
In a fair fight, all three battles were losses.
But what of defeat? He had never given up, not once.
No matter what the trial takers said, he had never given up—challenge after challenge, fight after fight. This was the Will of the Defeated, his will.
The green sprouts suddenly shrank, as if accepting Wang Jie’s will.
The five green sprouts suddenly emitted light, gathering in the center, transforming into a figure that pointed at Wang Jie. It was similar to the Heaven and Earth Luo Xuan Finger, but as the figure pointed, Wang Jie saw an endless starry sky swirling with countless stars.
A cool sensation touched his brow.
He staggered back a few steps. When he looked again, the five green sprouts had disappeared, leaving only three in the first plot.
Wang Jie stood in place, his eyes vacant, recalling the Starry Finger technique.
As long as a battle technique was grown, there was no need to learn it—it would be directly usable.
Now, he had learned the Starry Finger technique. But…
He raised his hand and looked at his fingers. Could he really execute this?
When he had first learned the Heaven and Earth Luo Xuan Finger, he had tried to perform it, but lacked the strength. Over time, with constant growth, he had been able to unleash it. But this Starry Finger… no, even at the peak of the eight seals, he wouldn’t dare to attempt it. It could cost him his life.
This was a battle technique far beyond the realm of ten seals.
Wang Jie exhaled deeply, suppressing his thoughts for now.
His gaze fell once again on the three green sprouts in the first plot. The Starry Finger technique was out of his reach for now, but the Star Gazing Sword Style was different. Like the Heaven and Earth Luo Xuan Finger, it only required three materials. So, as long as he restored his cultivation to seven seals, he could execute it.
And the materials weren’t difficult to find. They were just… a bit strange.
He left that world and stared at the sky, lost in thought. Without the illusion of the martial arts hall, the sky grew clearer, more transparent. The bridge was visible, yet out of reach.
Now, the biggest question was whether he could still cultivate the imprint force.
Imprint force, known as Lock Force among trial takers, was a power used to rapidly advance the cultivation of battle slaves. As long as there was enough imprint force, one could reach ten seals in a short time without obstacles.
On Blue Star, it had taken the strongest cultivators ten years to reach seven seals due to lack of guidance. Yet, with the arrival of trial takers, Bai Yuan and the others had reached nine seals in just one year. If someone had been teaching from the beginning, a large number of ten seals would have appeared in just three years.
The benefit of imprint force was speed. But the downside was losing one’s future. Wang Jie didn’t know how far that future reached, but he knew that now that he had started to re-cultivate, he didn’t want to rely on imprint force.
But if not imprint force, what else could he cultivate?
No one had told him how.
Qi?
Qi could combine with strength to increase battle power, but he didn’t have a way to enhance his qi either.
Thinking about this gave him a headache.
Lian Qin arrived. “I’ve never had the time to thank you. I happened to have some business and came to see you.”
Wang Jie smiled. “No need for thanks. I did it for myself.”
He had said this to many people before.
Lian Qin smiled softly.
She had changed. Wang Jie could tell. She no longer carried that same flirtatious charm.
Though she had a daughter as old as Lian Fei, Lian Qin was still under forty. She had given birth to Lian Fei early, so she never worried about her age. But now, she had matured in a way Wang Jie had never seen before.
Lian Qin looked at Wang Jie. “I also want to thank you, on my behalf.”
Wang Jie took a sip of tea, not speaking.
“If it weren’t for you back then, I really would have collapsed,” Lian Qin said, her gaze dimming. “As one of the Five Extremes, I thought I was strong enough to survive the apocalypse. I’d seen so much death that I believed I could face it calmly.”
“But it was all a lie. Facing death without fear only means it wasn’t cruel enough. The biological fear of death can never be avoided.”
The two spoke for a while, and finally, Lian Qin took out a note and handed it to him. “This is from Zuo Tian.”
Wang Jie’s gaze froze, his eyes wide as he looked at Lian Qin.
Lian Qin forced a smile. “Don’t look at me like that. I have nothing to do with him. This was something he had someone bring to me before the battle on the beach. It just arrived now.”
Wang Jie took the note. It contained only one sentence: I wait for you in the starry sky.
Looking at the six short words, Wang Jie fell into deep thought. Zuo Tian had gone to the starry sky? How had he gotten there?
Before the beach battle… this meant he had known all along that he could reach the starry sky.
The note was left for him. Did Zuo Tian know he would survive the beach battle, or was there another reason?
“I’ve read it. Why he can go to the starry sky, no one knows. But he definitely couldn’t have known the outcome of the beach battle in advance. It seems to be a contingency plan,” Lian Qin said.
Wang Jie was confused. “A contingency plan?”
Lian Qin nodded. “I asked the person who brought the note. They said Zuo Tian had instructed them that if you died during the beach battle, don’t deliver it. If you survived, then deliver it.”
“After the battle, the outside world said you were dead, so that person didn’t plan to bring it to me. Later, when they heard you were alive, they brought it.”
Wang Jie understood. Zuo Tian couldn’t have foreseen the future. He had just left a backup plan.
But how had he gotten to the starry sky?
The Armor One Sect took Bai Yuan. Chu Yao took Liu Ying. So what about Zuo Tian? How had he left?
Wang Jie looked at the note again, wondering if Zuo Tian had left it deliberately to make him think he was gone when he was still on Blue Star, not wanting to be found.
Lian Qin left. She came only to deliver the note to Wang Jie.
She understood the complicated relationship between Wang Jie and Zuo Tian, and not bringing it to him would have weighed heavily on her heart.
Soon after Lian Qin left, someone else arrived—Bai Xiao.
This beautiful young girl had grown much thinner and looked haggard. She spoke to Wang Jie with many concerned words, but some things remained unspoken.
“I don’t know where Bai Yuan went. I can’t find him,” Wang Jie spoke first.
Bai Xiao’s face turned pale, her eyes devoid of color. “Since I was young, my father always doted on me, giving me whatever I wanted. After the apocalypse, he shielded me from many disasters, unconditionally loving me. He made me experience the happiness of being a daughter…”
Wang Jie didn’t interrupt. He was an orphan and couldn’t understand what it felt like to have parents.
Tang Jie had come because of this girl.
Bai Xiao said a lot, and in the end, she bowed and knelt before Wang Jie. “I know this request is unreasonable and selfish, but please, if possible, help me find my father. I will do whatever you ask, please…”
Not long after, Wang Jie watched her leave, her back desolate.
Bai Yuan was a man deserving of respect. If he had indeed been taken by the Armor One Sect, how could he find him?