Chapter 9: TrainingLi Anping had no idea how much trouble he had caused the Zhongdu Police Bureau. Currently, he was dashing through Zhongdu City’s streets, jumping across tall buildings, his movements quick and agile, like a phantom in the darkness, within his mind he continued to converse with Black.
“Your greatest advantage, is your body’s super speed regeneration. This advantage is not only during combat, but also extends to your current training. With your regeneration as support, you can train recklessly without worry, squeezing out every drop of your potential. The speed in which your body grows will far surpa.s.s others.”
Li Anping replied: “I understand, in the future just go ahead with your devilish training, since I can’t die anyway. As long as I can get my revenge, it doesn’t matter how many times I die.”
Black laughed: “It’s best if you cooperate. Tough medicine counters tough diseases, after being an ordinary person for 20 years, now that you want to match up to this world’s strongest humans, it is impossible unless you train at the life and death extremity.”
At this point, Li Anping suddenly said: “However, the reason why you are training me to this extent, is for me to kill more people right, to replenish the energy we used.”
“Hehehehe.” Black only replied with laughter, and ignored his question: “The half a day training earlier, you’ve already shown improvement, your strength is now 2.1, agility 1.9, const.i.tution 3.1. The effect is very apparent, next up, go to the suburb region with little people to run. After all, it’s better to have no eye witnesses for what we do.”
Li Anping had indeed felt himself getting stronger, but as his body got stronger, with his seemingly undying ability, his suspicion grew greater. Finally, he could not help but ask Black.
“The other ability user, just how exactly how strong are they? Among the humans, isn’t my current power level enough to exact revenge on Shang Zheng Bang?”
Black was uncertain: “Your current strength, according to the cla.s.sification of you humans, has not even reached Level 1.” But next, he said: “However, with your current skills, killing an ordinary person like Shang Zheng Bang is easy as pie. The problem is we have already alerted them earlier with the hospital killing and Chang Zheng and his gang.
Since his father is the Mayor of Zhongdu City, they will definitely send people to protect him. This could most likely be an ability user, it is very difficult to gauge how strong he is. You are currently a greenhorn, victory is uncertain. On Huo Qing’s end, since he’s a mafia boss, he definitely has some fighting experience, the person he sent to kill you was already an ability user. It is highly likely that he has a second one, and the threat level won’t be any lower. Certain specially trained warriors may also be a match for ability users. There isn’t much a.s.surance if you choose to approach them now.”
Li Anping nodded, but was not discouraged. He knew from the start that revenge was not easy, thus he continued to ask Black about the ability users.
At this point, Li Anping suddenly slipped, having stepped on a broken roof brick, he fell from the fifth storey high rooftop.
In midair, Li Anping’s expression was calm as he tried to readjust his body posture. However, the speed at which he fell from the fifth storey was really fast, he could only do his best to ensure his body was upright. Next, both his legs numbed and he landed heavily on the ground.
This was not the first time he had met with an accident while running, as he had never received proper training, he had been relying on his superior physique to roam around the skysc.r.a.pers and street like parkour. It would be a miracle if he was uninjured every time. However after getting injured multiple times, not only Black, but even Li Anping had gotten used to it as he just took a few seconds to recover from it, waiting for his legs to heal, and continue to run again.
“Honestly speaking, I am not extremely familiar with the matters regarding you human ability users, however, once you have built up the foundation for your body const.i.tution, we should find a chance for real life combat, to increase your experience in dealing with an ability user.”
Black thought for a while and continued: “Ability users, I believe they are split into 6 categories. Ancient, Domain, Mutation, Parasite, Bloodline and External (ED-notice up for debate). There are also some other things like ability, order and rules… you’ll have to collect the information on your own in the future.”
Li Anping sensed the uncertainty in Black’s words, although he was an expert in training the body, he had little knowledge on the ability users among the humans. Li Anping would have to rely on himself.
Additionally, Black’s origins are unknown, and he’s very unpredictable, although Li Anping seems to agree with him on the surface, he had always been wary of him, making full use of his time to familiarize with the power in his body.
‘If I can control this power completely, I would be able to stop relying on Black, or even expel him from my body, eliminating this threat.’
Thinking of this, Li Anping’s lips curled into a smirk, not just because of this plan, but also because Black had no reaction towards his thought, implying that Black cannot sense what Li Anping is thinking.
At this point, Li Anping had already learnt how to think in his mind but at the same time, not share his thoughts with Black. This means he is differentiating and separating the two in his head, cognitive thinking and conversing with Black.
In actuality, ever since he left Chang Zheng’s factory, he had been probing and experimenting on this. Now, he had finally mastered it.
The ability to absorb souls, not only strengthened Li Anping’s body const.i.tution, but also strengthened his brain. This was a complete form of evolution.
On the other hand, Black did not know that so much thoughts had gone through Li Anping’s mind at this moment as he continued to say: “Human society is a ma.s.s society, even ability users cannot escape it.
Especially since you are dealing with a Mayor, equivalent of going against an entire force, there is definitely more than 1 ability user on their side. In fact, they might even have all sorts of experts working together. Modern military might is very powerful, it’s not something an ordinary ability user can handle.
Thus, you must endure. We can cause trouble here and there but to deal with them openly, we must wait until you have the strength to overwhelm them. Otherwise, even with your almost undying body, there are still many ways to kill you. Fire, acid, lightning attacks etc.”
Five days later, a small forest in Zhongdu suburbs, a shadow was traversing at a high speed. It is Li Anping.
Due to technological advancement in Great Xia, they had always worked hard on environmental preservation. For example, in Zhongdu City, after leaving the City area, one would be able to see large areas of natural forests.
In the densely concentrated forest, due to no tr.i.m.m.i.n.g for many years, it is always hard to move in, the needle like leaves scratched Li Anping’s body, causing him pain similar to being cut by a knife.
But in this environment, Li Anping was still moving at full speed, fast like a shadow, almost causing an afterimage to be left in the places he moved through. Thus, as the needle like leaves swept through his body, it caused even more pain, and left behind numerous cuts. Especially in high speed movement, with the huge kinetic force, Li Anping had lost count of how many times he’s been pierced by tree branches, but all he did was to pull them out and did not stop moving.
The energy stored in his body was used to continuously heal his injuries. Moreover, there was almost no paths in the dense forest, with undergrowth acc.u.mulated up to a few decades, there was a danger of falling down any moment. With Li Anping’s speed, all he needs to do is slightly lose focus and he could bang into a tree trunk, bones breaking, organs bursting or bleeding were all quite possible.
He could only maintain balance as he continued to move, avoiding tree branches, trunks and the leaves, rocks and other obstacles.
Numerous times, he had broken his limbs, pierced his eyes, blood vessels and even once, he missed a step and his head hit a rock. His entire skull cracked and his brain matter almost oozed out.
The clothes on his upper body has already been torn to shreds, thus he removed his upper top, revealing his strong abdomen and chest muscles.
Few days after receiving his new powers, Li Anping had completely changed beyond recognition. His entire body had perfect muscular contours, like giant stones wrapped around his skeleton.
In the forest, Li Anping’s speed got faster and faster, as time flowed, it was as if he had grown eyes all over his body, being able to fluidly evade all the obstacles in his way. The rate at which he got injured decreased, and his sprinting speed gradually increased.
Suddenly, Li Anping roared and shot out of the dense forest, before him was a giant plain field.
‘Not bad, running continuously for 10 hours. To train to this extent, Li Anping’s talent is greater than I thought.’ Black thought, but he still critiqued: “Even after spending 10 hours adapting to the forest environment, your balance, stamina, reaction speed, agility are all still terrible. Along with all the souls spent to heal your injuries, there is only 3 portions left. You need to start devouring people soon or it’s going to run out.”
Li Anping’s palms were on his knees as he breathed heavily, speaking discontinuously: “With this kind of training, I have to absorb souls every day to keep up huh.” He could feel his heart beating rapidly, sending to him waves of explosive pain, as if it was going to jump out any moment.
Even with his current physique, this kind of high intensity training continued to challenge his body’s limits.
However, almost immediately a wave of energy flowed through his body and the pain in his heart stopped. Not just his heart pain, his other body parts too, no longer hurt but instead got even stronger.
This was Li Anping’s super speed regeneration ability, no matter how insignificant his injury was it would be repaired instantly. For a normal person even if they endure such rigorous training and manage to survive, they would either cripple themselves or at least cause hidden injuries in their internal organs like their heart.
But for Li Anping, he had no such worry, no matter what intense training he goes through, he did not have to care about his health and safety.
He could sustain his growth at the fastest pace, not even having to rest or eat.
As of now, Li Anping has already trained non-stop for 21 hours.
“Hehe, didn’t you want to punish evil and promote kindness? Absorbing a few evil people’s souls, a day is nothing.” Black laughed: “That’s all for today. Go find something to eat, get some rest and after that we can go hunt some baddies.”
Although soul energy could be used to replenish his stamina, replacing food, but Li Anping was not going to be so luxurious.
Li Anping asked: “What are my body stats now?” He looked at the tattered running shoes on his feet and threw them away. It seems that in future, he would have to train without shirts or shoes.
“Strength 2.1, Speed 2.0, Const.i.tution 3.2, but currently your body had already used up the excess energy that was stored. To maintain this type of training result, you need to eat people daily.” Saying so, Black laughed and waited for Li Anping’s reaction.
LI Anping was not as resistant and hesitant as before, he frowned and said: “Training daily already uses a lot of time, how am I going to find that many evil people.”
“Just grab a few people and eat them.” Saying so, seeing that Li Anping was about to blow up, he quickly laughed: “Zhongdu City is so huge, we’re bound to find some bad people. Just go to an area with lots of dark society triads and ask around, and understand their distribution. Wasn’t that Huo Qing a mafia boss? Just go consume his henchmen.”
Li Anping nodded, thinking that Black was right, but suddenly, he had a thought, wasn’t this the same as treating those people as prey? Like a lion picking its food in its territory.
“No, I am doing this for justice, to exterminate the evil forces.”
Shaking his head, he shrugged off the feeling of hunting prey and ran back towards the direction of his house.
Chapter 10: Ma.s.sacre(Notice: The first part of the chapter may cause disturbance to certain readers, to skip it, Ctrl F Safe zone. Once again, this book is pure fiction.)
Few days later, in a single-storey house in the suburbs, Li Anping released his hand from a man’s neck, letting him fall to the ground. The man’s limbs had been twisted unnaturally, the veins on his face were bulging, evident that he had received inhumane torture when he was alive.
The interior walls of the room were painted with blood. Other than this man, there was also another man and woman, they were torn into pieces and thrown casually at one corner.
This was a child trafficking lair.
Li Anping had gotten information from a small hooligan and rushed here overnight. When he pushed open the door, he saw a middle-aged man p*netrating a little girl who was not even 10 years ago. She struggled desperately as she cried profusely but another man had stuffed her mouth with his socks.
Li Anping used the most-b.l.o.o.d.y method he could think of to murder the three traffickers on site.
Only until now, did the blood calm him down slightly.
The room opposite still held 5 children, including the girl he knocked out, a total of 6. According to the plans, they would have been moved out the next day, whether it was to be a child bride in the mountains, adopted by a farmer as children or even for extraction of organs to sell to the rich people.
Although the bloodshed had calmly Li Anping down, the killing intent in his heart was like a dark hole that could never be filled up.
(Safe zone)
“What is my stats now?”
“Hehe, Strength 2.3, Agility 2.2, Const.i.tution stagnant at 3.4. As your body grows stronger, your growth rate will slow. After spending so many days killing and training, the effect was not as evident as your first few days of awakening. However, the energy that we acc.u.mulated is sufficient for you to revive 15 times, or for 15 temporary boosts.”
During this period, Li Anping had, at the same time as training, continue to roam the streets of Zhongdu City, moving about in the shadows, killing people everywhere. In this process, he had observed all sorts of crimes, theft, rape, killing, corruption, robbery…… After being consciously involved in the dark side of this world, he had seen more crime during this period than the last 20 years of his life.
“Nevermind, the one thing this world doesn’t lack is sc.u.mbags.” Li Anping said bitterly. He proceeded to pick up the phone on the ground and called the police.
Seeing the girl who had fainted on the bed, Li Anping frowned again: “The police will arrive shortly, they should be able to send these children back to their parents.”
Thinking of this, Li Anping decided to leave, and walked out through the door. With a bit of force from his legs, he leapt into the air and jumped over the wall.
In the darkness of the night, he was like an elegant night elf, jumping across the rooftops and buildings. His fluid movement was the result of his incessant training.
“At this rate, you are improving too slowly.” Black begrudged: “Good people, bad people, what’s the difference, they’re all food to you. You’re like a picky eater now, it’ll affect the speed of your growth.”
“Let go of your principles.” This was not the first time Black had tried to convince Li Anping: “Only by freeing your desires can you become much stronger, the morality that you hold tight is only restraining you as an obstacle in your evolution.
You’ve seen for yourself these few days, humanity’s evil is everywhere, you can’t take care of all of them. No, or should I say, humanity’s so-called kindness and evil, is just a benchmark that most people agree with. An agreement that imposes rules which are beneficial to the majority.
And your ‘Justice’? Hehe, it is just the action of your satisfying your goals. At least it could be said to be a dream.”
“Exactly because society’s laws have loopholes, that my power is needed. There is no way I can let those evildoers have their way. The few children earlier, if I had not saved them, their future would be ruined. Yesterday on that cruise ship, the group of young ladies were cheated into coming here from abroad, if I had not saved them, they would be living a life of miseries, a life worse than death.”
Li Anping stopped at a building nearby, looking at the vibrant lights in Zhongdu City, said: “Only absorbing evil people’s souls, that is my baseline. Killing without principles, that will only bring destruction to myself.”
Ignoring Black’s chattering, Li Anping gathered strength on his leg and with a jump, vanished from the rooftop. He had grown to enjoy jumping across buildings as a form of movement, this made him feel like the superheroes in movies.
18 hours later, Li Anping finished his training.
He got home, washed up, and changed his clothes to go eat dinner. Li Anping’s daily schedule now was to train, devour baddies, and find information on Huo Qing and Shang Zheng Bang in the process, after that was dinner and rest. Rinse and repeat.
Entering a buffet style barbeque store at random, Li Anping paid the money and ordered a bunch of lamb and beef, eating away rapidly.
After an 18-hour high intense training session, Li Anping’s stamina had been largely expended. Now he needed to replenish his energy, and these types of buffet where he could take as much food as he wanted for a fixed price, especially with lamb and beef which were full of protein, it was just nice for him.
In the blink of an eye, Li Anping wolfed down his food and had already consumed more than 30kg of meat, but showed no signs of stopped. This caused most of the waiters to stare in awe.
Even the boss lady who was at the reception counter took a look at him multiple times while watching TV.
Li Anping could not care less. He felt that his stomach was a bottomless hole, after swallowing a huge plate of beef, it was instantly digested. The protein was absorbed by his stomach and continued to supplement the areas in his body which he trained today. Muscles, tendons, they all became tougher and firm.
Black said: “Your body after the modification, has also become better at digestion. After every training, you need to absorb large amounts of nutrients, if you consume just meat products, it is not a balanced diet, and you waste a lot of time eating it. Are there higher-grade food to eat?”
Hearing Black’s words, Li Anping thought of a few types of food, but all those cost money. Thinking of this, Li Anping ordered 10 more chicken drumsticks. Chicken meat was the most highly acclaimed source of protein. His action caused the lady boss’ eye to twitch.
She absent mindedly pressed the remote controller and changed the channels.
“Zhongdu City’s Top 10 Outstanding Youths will receive their awards on the 30th of this month, at Zhongdu TV Station. Awardees include the courageous youth who fought a criminal, the Youth Entrepreneur Shang Zheng Bang…”
Lady boss saw this and said: “What great husband material, rich, handsome, and such a strong sense of justice. A righteous, handsome rich youth, if I was 20 years younger I would go for him.”
Before she had finished her words, Li Anping slammed the table and stood up. When everyone looked at him, he snorted and walked out with a displeased expression.
Only the lady boss was left mumbling: “Poor f.u.c.k hating the rich…”
Li Anping walked out of the barbeque store, walking alone of the streets, inside his emotions were running wild.
“Don’t come to this store anymore, change to another one next time, we do not want unnecessary attention.” Black reminded: “Don’t think about revenge now, be patient. Once you’re sufficiently strong, a small fry like Shang Zheng Bang is just an ant to you. Don’t ruin your future just for a moment of pleasure.”
“I know.” Li Anping clenched his fists tight as he murmured: “I’m just indignant, the evildoer was him but in the end, after the newspaper and media reports, the ma.s.ses’ cognition had been completely reversed……”
Hearing the lady boss’ words, Li Anping wanted to punch her to death, but she was not an evil person, just misguided by the media. This situation where he could easily kill a person, but could not think of a reason to do it, caused him to be extremely gloomy.
At the same time, a ruffian with rainbow coloured hair b.u.mped into Li Anping’s shoulders and fell to the ground.
“f.u.c.ker, can’t you look where you’re going?” The ruffian instantly got up and pointed at Li Anping’s chest while scolding.
Around him were several similarly dyed hair gangsters with non-mainstream clothing as they surrounded Li Anping and taunted.
“Are you courting death? Finding trouble with us Rainbow Gang.”
“Apologise, f.u.c.k, my clothes are torn.”
Li Anping eyes shone with rage as he said coldly: “Sorry, can I leave now?”
Li Anping had a large build, and in the eyes of these amateur gangsters he had an aura of deterrence, but after he apologised, they got bolder and continued their taunting.
“Compensate us, f.u.c.k this shirt cost me 5000 dollars, you think you can get away with an apology?”
“He’s right, if you don’t compensate us, don’t think about leaving.”
The pa.s.serbys seeing Li Anping surrounded by hooligans, instantly walked away, only a few left to observe the scene from far away.
Li Anping laughed coldly in his heart, unsure if he was laughing at the people’s indifference, or laughing at the ignorance of the people in front of him.
He nodded obediently, and said softly to the hooligans: “I didn’t bring so much money with me, why don’t you go with me to retrieve it?”
The few of them got more energetic, not expecting the man in front of them to be so cowardly, really going to compensate them 5000 dollars, and immediately went with Li Anping to withdraw the cash.
“Should’ve admitted your mistake from the start.”
“Nevermind, we’ll let you go this time, go retrieve the money.”
After a few minutes, the few people started to find something weird going on. They found that Li Anping was moving about in the small alley, the surrounding becoming more and more desolate. Making eye contact with each other, the hooligan who was knocked down by Li Anping earlier asked: “Where are you going? I’ll tell you, don’t think of escaping.”
Saying so, he grabbed at Li Anping’s shoulders.
Seeing n.o.body around the vicinity, Li Anping turned around and looked them coldly in the eye. His hand waved and with a few ‘piak piak piak’ sound, the few of them had already fallen on the ground with a tight slap across their faces.
Li Anping grabbed the guy he had knocked down and pinned him on the wall.
“Huo Qing’s men, where do they gather?”
The hooligan was still a student, he had only watched too many TV series and movies, and learnt how to act like a hooligan, there was no way he could endure Li Anping’s interrogation. Feeling his throat tightly held, becoming tighter like he was going to suffocate.
Hearing Li Anping’s question, he quickly replied with a choking voice: “Volcano, Volcano Bar, most of the city’s major hooligans hang out around there to drink!!”