NOVEL ONLINE FREE Chapter 35: Time to Hunt
His days had taken on a strange, disciplined rhythm.
His mornings were dedicated to cultivation, where he wrestled with absorbing the remnants of the orchid's energy.
His afternoons, however, were now dedicated to his new "work": sitting in the second-floor café, observing Master Chen practice his art in the park below.
This had become his world.
An internal struggle with the energy of chaos, and an external observation of his target.
That day, after finishing his morning session, he felt his progress had slowed significantly.
He had assimilated most of the orchid's energy, but he felt as if he had hit a wall, an invisible ceiling.
He sat in his usual spot in the café and opened his mental interface.
"System, show my status."
[Host: Yuan Lin]
[Cultivation Realm: Qi Condensation - Level 1 (Peak)]
[Lord Authority Level: 7]
[Chaos Points: 1030]
He looked at his cultivation status. "Level 1 (Peak)."
He had absorbed a massive amount of energy, but he hadn't advanced to the next level.
He was stuck.
"System, I'm at the peak of the first level, but I feel stuck. What's stopping me from breaking through to the second level?"
The System's response came in the form of a clear chart, mapping out the path for him for the first time.
[Gray Chaos Cultivation Path:]
[First Realm: Qi Condensation (Contains multiple levels)]
[Second Realm: Foundation Establishment]
[Third Realm: Core Formation]
[Fourth Realm: Soul Formation]
[.....Insufficient Data.....]
[Note: You have reached the maximum energy that can be stored at Level 1. Breaking through to the Second Level of the Qi Condensation Realm requires not only more energy but the refining and circulation of all your current energy in one perfect cycle to strengthen and expand your spiritual pathways to accommodate more.]
Yuan Lin now understood.
He was at the end of the first grade, and moving up to the second wasn't just a matter of "filling up," but required a qualitative "upgrade."
This was the wall he was feeling.
But his curiosity didn't stop there. He had seen Master Chen's power.
"And how does my current level compare to the martial artists of this world? What is their system?"
[Analyzing local power system...]
[Martial Artist Path (Primal World C-73):]
[First Realm: Iron Body (3 Tiers: Lower, Middle, Upper)]
[Second Realm: Flowing Breath (3 Tiers: Lower, Middle, Upper)]
[Third Realm: Meridian Opening (3 Tiers: Lower, Middle, Upper)]
[Fourth Realm: Grandmaster (No tiers. Theoretical maximum.)]
[Target Analysis "Chen": Belongs to the Upper Tier of the Flowing Breath Realm. Possesses exceptional control over internal force, but the quantity is minuscule.]
[Comparative Analysis: The power of a martial artist at the `[Upper Tier of the Flowing Breath Realm]
is roughly equivalent to the power of a cultivator at `[Level 4 or 5 of the Qi Condensation Realm]`.]
Only now did Yuan Lin understand the full picture.
His path was an infinite ladder leading to the heavens, and he was still standing on its first rung.
Their path, however, was just a small hill.
And yet, Master Chen, standing at the top of that hill, was much stronger than him right now.
This realization didn't lessen his caution.
It increased his arrogance.
He became more convinced that his plan to recruit Chen wasn't just ambition, but a "mercy" he was offering him.
A chance to take him out of his small pond and into the vast ocean.
He refocused on the old man below.
Master Chen was practicing his slow movements as usual, his body like a willow branch swaying in an invisible wind.
Yuan Lin had memorized his movements by heart, but today, thanks to his increasing control over the `[Perception]` skill, he began to see deeper details.
He saw how Chen's calm blue energy didn't just circulate inside him, but sometimes extended outward like fine filaments.
Touching a leaf here.
A drop of dew there.
Absorbing a minuscule trace of life energy before returning to his body.
"He's like a bee collecting nectar from a thousand flowers to make one drop of honey," Yuan Lin thought, feeling a mixture of admiration and pity.
"What painstaking work for such meager progress."
And as he was lost in his arrogant analysis, something happened that broke the routine.
Master Chen finished his exercises earlier than usual.
As he was preparing to leave, a little girl ran toward him.
She was about ten years old, wearing a pink dress and carrying a rabbit-shaped backpack.
"Grandpa!" the girl shouted, laughing as she jumped into the old man's arms.
Master Chen hugged her, his wise and detached features disappearing, replaced by the warmth and affection of a loving grandfather.
He stroked her hair, adjusted her backpack, and began talking to her with a smile.
Yuan Lin felt a strange pang in his chest.
It wasn't pain.
It was... an annoyance.
He had been seeing Master Chen as a target.
An instrument.
A chess piece in his grand plan.
Seeing him now as a grandfather, as a human being with ties and a family, added a layer of complexity he didn't want.
It spoiled the simplicity of his brutal plan.
Driven by curiosity, he focused his `[Perception]` on the little girl.
And he was surprised by what he saw.
Her energy aura was as faint as any normal child's, but deep within her, he saw a sleeping, dormant version of the same calm blue energy that was in her grandfather.
A system notification appeared before him.
[Blood relative detected. Possesses a 45% aptitude for practicing "Internal Force." Status: Latent and inactive.]
"So, it's hereditary..." he thought.
He watched the grandfather and his granddaughter leave the park together, laughing.
For a moment, Yuan Lin felt a pang of something like envy.
Then, he coldly suppressed the feeling.
The "Lord" inside him, that entity that feeds on chaos and ambition, saw the scene from a completely different angle.
"This doesn't complicate things," his cold inner voice whispered.
"It simplifies them."
"This isn't just a family."
"This... is a weakness."
The thought of seeing a little girl as a weakness to be exploited didn't bother him as much as it should have.
He accepted it as a strategic fact.
This was the clearest evidence of how much he had changed.
He couldn't act now.
Not with the girl present.
He had to know where this man lived.
He had to find the moment when he was alone, and vulnerable.
He paid for his tea and went down to the street.
From a safe distance, he began to tail them.
This was the first time he was practicing real "hunting."
He moved in the shadows, using the crowds of pedestrians as cover.
His enhanced senses allowed him to track them easily, and he could feel their presence through their energy auras.
The grandfather and his granddaughter took the quiet side streets, away from the bustle of downtown, until they reached an old, quiet residential neighborhood.
They stopped in front of a modest five-story apartment building, its facade old but clean.
He watched them disappear inside the entrance.
Yuan Lin waited.
He found a dark alley opposite the building and leaned against its wall, observing.
After about an hour, the girl came out again, this time holding the hand of a middle-aged woman, likely her mother.
They left the building and disappeared down the street.
Master Chen was now... alone.
Yuan Lin waited until evening fell, darkness swallowing the streets.
He was still in the same alley, unmoving, like a granite statue.
He saw a light turn on in a window on the third floor.
He was there.
All the hesitation he had felt in the morning had vanished.
All the doubts had evaporated.
Only cold determination remained.
He had done his reconnaissance, gathered his information, and identified his target.
The time for training and observation was over.
He looked at the lit window on the third floor.
"Every great story has a beginning," he thought, his inner voice terrifyingly calm.
"And this... is the beginning of my story."
He stepped out of the shadows of the alley, crossed the street, and quietly entered the apartment building.
It was time to hunt.