Yang Zicang already knew that in the Lost Illusion Company, only with promotion could one use Chronos to restore youthful appearance—for here, rejuvenation granted a more beautiful and handsome appearance, like that of elves and fairies.
He looked at the psychic card in his hand. On the mist-covered cover was a samurai pushing a box across a ruined square. The back described the scenario inside.
—This psychic card is a mind training ground constructed by this hero.
—Fighting in the storm embodies our will; flashing amid the rain of boxes is the passion every martial artist dreams of! As long as you clear it perfectly, I, the Shining Wind Samurai, will grant you the mental blessing of stable three-ring mental strength!
—Come on, if you’re a martial artist, push a hundred boxes.
At the very bottom of these lines, there were several blood-red characters: –A trial that hot-blooded men dream of—don’t miss it.-
–I somehow feel… an inexplicable fire burning inside me.-
–After all, it’s a psychic card—it can influence one’s mind.-
Yang Zicang looked at it hesitantly, –Even if I get the pattern by clearing it perfectly, is it really okay?-
–The ones that appear here…- Wei Zhenguo said uncertainly, –should be fine.-
Yang Zicang glanced around. The –people- were growing eager again because of his hesitation, ready to recommend their favorite cards.
–Forget it, let’s start with this one.-
The tall, thin young man crossed the room and inserted the psychic cassette into the slot beside the door.
{Without gain and loss, there is no cherishing of the present.}
The door emitted a sound.
{Therefore, please stake 1000 to 10000 Chronos as your bet. A GOOD rating allows you to recover 90% of your stake; a SUPER rating allows you to claim the Chronos lost by others, up to ten times your stake.}
{This cassette’s Chronos pool currently has accumulated: 175,300N Void Zero Chronos.}
So much! Even if you stake the full ten thousand Chronos, a single perfect run can’t win all the Void Zero Chronos.
So that’s what Captain Jiao Ma meant by giving me those 10,000N Void Zero Chronos earlier?
Yang Zicang bit his lip. Void Zero Chronos—even if you use it for over ten thousand years, it won’t send you onto a new fate trajectory. It’s a wonderful thing. Unfortunately, Void Zero Chronos cannot be augmented.
On his chest, within the glowing silver-white ring, the number 9000N was displayed, with 10000N reflected beneath it.
Stake a thousand, or stake ten thousand?
He looked at the door. It was his first time entering, and he knew nothing. Better to play it safe.
[I stake 2000N Void Zero Chronos.]
[Wei Zhenguo stakes 8000N Void Zero Chronos on my behalf.]
Yang Zicang turned around. The man at the doorway waved his employee card.
–Uncle Wei, you…-
–A man should act boldly. It’s only eight thousand. If you don’t make it, it’s on me.-
Yang Zicang was taken aback for a moment, then declared loudly, –All right!-
Click.
The cartridge was pushed deep into the slot, snapping firmly into place.
[Dog Bark Gate asks whether I wish to enter the training ground of –Fierce Hero Chronicles: Box-Pushing in the Gale.-]
[What a steal—being able to enter the training ground without earning any daily Chronos income…]
Yang Zicang gazed at the world beyond the swiftly opening door.
If he wasn’t mistaken, this wasn’t his first time entering a training ground.
The dream realm he visited during the daily summary must have been a similar psychic scenario!
Stepping across the open door was like entering an energy field of cascading water curtains. As the youth passed through, the door behind him lit up with a hexagonal ripple barrier that sealed entry and exit. Many strangely shaped heads crowded outside the force field, peering at the figure within.
— –Can the new guy clear this training ground?–
— –It’ll be tough—he has to rely on his mental power to push.–
— –A first-timer who staked ten thousand years right away…–
— –Whoa, young lad, so bold, blind rush, sure to bleed dry.–
Whoosh~
A fierce wind swept across the vast grassland. He now stood on a dilapidated stone plaza in the center of the grass. Across the plaza stood an ancient, abandoned temple, with various battered boxes scattered on the ground.
A ring glowed on Yang Zicang’s chest.
[To prevent cheating, communication is disabled here.]
Fortunately, he could still use the Moxel ability. Yang Zicang looked up at the low-hanging dark clouds; in the howling gale, this place felt like an old Warring States world.
In front of an ancient temple, a graceful silhouette stood with one hand on his sword hilt, poised in the wind like a scene from an ink wash painting. Beside him was a rock engraved with several names.
{I will demonstrate once for you.}
He walked slowly into the rapidly expanding ancient rock field.
Six spinning wooden boxes suspended in the sky, like falling meteorites, exuded a mental pressure as they gathered energy to descend.
Their speed was not fast, but when they were still over ten meters above the ground, one of them suddenly accelerated and collided. At that moment, a rock on the ground lit up.
The warrior’s eyes flashed sharply; his wrist moved at high speed, and the long knife screamed as it was drawn, cutting through the air, just in time to slash the wooden box that had descended before him toward the illuminated stone.
Rumble!
The wooden box landed steadily on the lit rock a few meters away.
Yang Zicang walked over to examine it—the wooden box and the weathered brick fit together perfectly, seamless. This person’s accuracy was absolutely astonishing.
The man sheathed his sword and stood erect, then looked at where Yang Zicang had been standing earlier—now empty—and said:
{Did you all see clearly?}
Yang Zicang, standing at the edge, nodded.
The man spoke into the air:
{Good, now it’s your turn to perform. A total of one hundred and eight wooden boxes will fall. As long as you cover all the remaining ninety-nine stone bricks in the order they light up, you will pass perfectly.}
–Such a requirement—indeed, it’s really hard.-
[Dog Bark Gate’s Prompt: Push the falling boxes from the sky into the lit rock bricks within the time limit. Wind will interfere with your actions.]
As the voice faded, Yang Zicang suddenly felt his body becoming buoyant and unsteady. He looked at his hand, which was rapidly being covered by a fog-like energy shroud, causing his appearance to become eerie.
He had a realization: this was equivalent to mental projection, forming a psychic body that enveloped his physical form. In the ensuing exercises, though it wouldn’t be as agile as directly controlling his body, it was far better than the ethereal feeling at work of having to rely entirely on imagination to grasp things.
–This training ground does have some merits.-
There were still ninety-nine bricks awaiting to be filled.
Yang Zicang looked at the remaining five floating, spinning wooden boxes in the sky. As one brick lit up with a dim golden glow, one of the five boxes suddenly came whistling down.
–Let’s start, then!- Yang Zicang murmured to himself, quickly dashing toward the falling box.
But just as he was about to touch the box, a high-speed whistling suddenly echoed from the sky!
Yang Zicang took a deep breath; surprisingly, two boxes came crashing down in quick succession.
{A martial artist’s essence is to be sharp and decisive!}
Bang! Feeling unsteady, Yang Zicang swung a punch, but only grazed the edge of the falling box.
–Damn!- His movements were completely twisted, like someone with an underdeveloped cerebellum.
A dull thud—the first wooden box smashed onto Yang Zicang’s head and crashed to the ground, while the second box was already about to land.
–No good, this movement of mine…-
This felt like a failure right from the start! Yang Zicang, who had initially not wanted to use his scheduling ability, made an instant decision: forget the training results for now, he couldn’t let the eight thousand Chronos his colleagues had paid for go down the drain.
Let’s just finish this level first!
[Trajectory, schedule!]
[Grid expansion, thousand!]
Yang Zicang suddenly lunged at the fallen wooden box, shoving it with both hands toward the golden brick position that glowed diagonally ahead. At the same time, the quadrilateral in the ring on his chest swiftly spread out, shooting into the sky.
In the mental field, hazy thin lines instantly trembled, as if synchronizing with the box’s trajectory at high speed—overlapping, replacing!
At that moment, more information about the scheduled trajectory flooded into Yang Zicang’s mind.
Boom! As if countless previously overlooked fragments of information manifested.
–It’s not unusable!-
Yang Zicang turned his head and looked—he could almost perceive the falling trend of the box. It had never been a simple parabola governed by physics; rather, psychokinesis was dictating its descent direction.
But the driving force and its variations were extremely simple. His own scheduling ability instantly cracked the amplitude attached to it and corrected the trajectory.
At this moment, Yang Zicang seemed to glimpse the very essence of his Moxel ability.
Countless mathematical symbols danced within his sea of spirit, surging, flickering, rising and falling like tidal waves, brimming with poetic grace.
After he redirected the destination with a single thought, Moxel automatically recalculated the trajectory, sending him plummeting toward the second golden brick that flared to life.
He tried to look down at the ring on his chest.
He recalled the voice from the mental realm manifested by the Sage’s Heart—the term –Mind Moxel.-
–Mind Moxel…-
Wuwu!
Before he could dwell on it, the moment the second crate landed solidly, three wooden boxes came roaring down from the sky.
Yang Zicang twisted his head to look.
So this is what you mean!
[Because I am the great quadrilateral, so I can…]
–Ah!-
Yang Zicang bellowed.
The three howling crates exploded outward in three directions, hurtling toward the three beams of light that blazed up from the ground, and touched down firmly.
Behind the curtain-like force field that stood at the edge of the plaza, the silhouette of Wei Zhenguo stepped up to the field, pressed a hand against it, and peered inside.
Gasping for breath, Yang Zicang straightened up and stared at the enlarging black specks in the sky.
Suddenly, they struck like cannonballs—boom, boom!
—-Incredible, he’s already placed the first wave of five crates into their fixed positions!-
–Xiao Zang!- Wei Zhenguo shouted from outside the fluctuating force field. –You can push slower at the start. The number of bricks per wave is fixed. Only after you’ve pushed all the bricks through will the next wave begin to fall. Use this time to take a break.-
The voice barely made it through the rippling force field into Yang Zicang’s ears, yet he felt no desire to rest whatsoever.
He had already plunged fully into a state of spiritual ecstasy—every moment of synchronization, every pulse of vibration, every tidal ebb and flow of countless subtle energy symbols, their decryption and replacement—all of it was pure joy!
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