Chapter 24: Chapter 24: Upgrading Skills
"Not bad!"
"Looks like you’re quite the treasure, kid."
Li Qing looked at Chen Yu with growing admiration, his gaze becoming more and more intense.
"Captain, what did you want to see me for?" Chen Yu couldn’t help but ask.
Li Qing looked at him and said, "Nothing major. Just come with me in a bit. We’re going to meet someone."
"Meet someone?"
"Who are we meeting?"
Chen Yu blinked.
Li Qing: "We’re going to see the General Captain."
"The General Captain..."
Chen Yu lowered his head.
He had heard Tie Niu mention the General Captain of the Mercenary Team before.
A fourth-level Martial Artist, incredibly powerful.
He commanded all the Mercenary Squads in Qing City.
The supreme leader of the Mercenary Team in the Qing City Safety Zone.
’Looks like this ability is just too powerful...’ Chen Yu thought to himself.
But it was too late to do anything about it now.
Chen Yu hadn’t expected that being an "Awakened" would cause such a huge reaction.
Everything was... beyond his expectations!
"Don’t worry, it’s not a bad thing. With your abilities, the General Captain will definitely take a liking to you. He might even recommend you to the Superpower Academy."
"..."
Chen Yu kept his head down and didn’t speak.
’Go to the Superpower Academy... If possible, I’d rather just be an ordinary Mercenary.’
For other Awakened, this might be a good thing, but for him, it was a different story.
"You rest here for a bit. I need to step out. We’ll leave as soon as I get back," Li Qing said, looking at Chen Yu.
Chen Yu nodded, and Li Qing left the office.
Sitting on the sofa, Chen Yu was lost in thought.
’Oh well, I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. There are plenty of mutant beasts in this world. Worst case, I’ll just have to kill them slowly over time...’
Having cleared his thoughts, Chen Yu stopped overthinking it.
If he really had to go to the Superpower Academy, it wouldn’t be the worst thing.
There would still be plenty of opportunities to slay mutant beasts.
It would also be good to see what the other Awakened in this world were like.
Summoning his interface, Chen Yu checked his personal information.
Name: Chen Yu!
Talent: Infinite Physique (Tier Two 0/1000) [Unique Talent]
Skills: Spirit Devouring Skill (Beginner 0/100), Freezing Breath (Middle Level 0/5000)
Source of Life: 638 points
’Five thousand...’
’Looks like I won’t be able to upgrade this advanced ability anytime soon.’
Looking at the skills on his interface, Chen Yu sighed inwardly.
Five thousand points of Source of Life... Based on the amount gained from killing a Level 3 Wilderness Wolf, he would need to kill at least ten Level 3 Mutant Beasts.
Even for a Thorny Earth Mouse, he would still need to kill nine Level 3 Mutant Beasts!
As for Level 2 Mutant Beasts, the number required would be ten times that.
To take down that many Level 3 Mutant Beasts at once, he would probably have to run into a massive beast horde.
Or a small beast tide.
Of course, there was another possibility: killing an even stronger mutant beast.
Taking down a single Level 4 mutant beast might be enough.
However, with his current strength, encountering a Level 4 mutant beast would be a death sentence.
The gap between each level of mutant beast was enormous.
With his Middle Level Freezing Breath skill, freezing a Level 3 Mutant Beast was no problem, but a Level 4 mutant beast was a different matter.
Besides, the Middle Level Freezing Breath consumed a huge amount of Qi.
Using it just once before had used up a full quarter of his Qi.
If he used the Freezing Skill at full power, his Qi would be depleted after four uses at most.
And that was under ideal conditions. If he faced a large group of mutant beasts and had to use it continuously, his reserves might be gone in just two or three uses.
The greater the power, the greater the consumption.
His Qi would also need to be improved to sustain such high consumption.
’I’ll upgrade the Spirit Devouring Skill first.’
As soon as he made the decision, a prompt popped up.
Chen Yu immediately chose to upgrade it.
A slight tremor ran through his body, and in the next moment, another prompt appeared.
"Skill upgrade successful!"
Looking at the prompt, Chen Yu closed his eyes and activated the Spirit Devouring Skill. An invisible stream of air quickly gathered above his head in the office.
In just one minute, his Qi was fully restored.
’At this rate, my Qi can be fully restored in just a few minutes.’
Chen Yu estimated that it would take five or six minutes to completely replenish his Qi.
This recovery speed could be considered incredibly fast.
The Spirit Devouring Skill consumed his Spiritual Power. After one minute of use, Chen Yu didn’t feel much of a drain and was still full of energy.
’Once I break through to Level 2, the duration of Freezing Breath will be even longer.’
Chen Yu felt the Qi within his body. By opening his acupoints and breaking through to Level 2, his strength could also rapidly increase.
If his physical body Evolved once more, he estimated that he could probably take on a Third-level Martial Artist or mutant beast head-on without even using skills.
Although the Source of Life required for his body’s Evolution increased each time, the changes from each Evolution were also astonishing.
This kind of improvement was leagues faster than regular cultivation.
Coming back to his senses, Chen Yu checked his interface again. The Spirit Devouring Skill had been upgraded to a Middle Level skill, and the next upgrade would require a full one thousand points of Source of Life.
A tenfold increase!
This skill was very important to him; Qi was fundamental.
Being able to recover quickly meant he could respond swiftly to danger in the future.
Closing his eyes, Chen Yu felt the Qi inside him and the faint tremors in his acupoints. With nothing else to do, he began to cultivate by circulating the Starry Sky Breathing Skill.
...
A dozen or so minutes later, the office door opened. Li Qing walked in, and Chen Yu woke from his cultivation.
"Let’s go. Come with me to see the General Captain," Li Qing said, looking at Chen Yu.
Chen Yu nodded, got up from the sofa, and left the office with Li Qing.
After going downstairs, Li Qing and Chen Yu got into a black sedan.
They drove out of the station compound and headed toward the city center.
——
「About half an hour later, the car entered a quiet residential complex.」
Sitting in the car, Chen Yu looked out the window.
It was a villa district.
All detached villas.
The people who lived in a villa district in the city were almost all either rich or influential.
As the General Captain of the Qing City Safety Zone Mercenary Team, it was perfectly normal for him to live in a villa district.
Soon, the car arrived at the gate of a villa. A license plate scanner automatically opened it, and Li Qing drove into the villa’s open-air parking lot.
To the side of the parking space, two other vehicles were parked: a black SUV and a military off-road vehicle.
After getting out of the car, Chen Yu scanned the villa.
The villa was quite large, with a private courtyard and well-tended plants, giving it a clean and elegant feel.
"Follow me," Li Qing said, heading toward the villa’s main hall. Chen Yu followed behind him.
Just as they entered the main hall, a woman in a sky-blue shirt and black jeans came down from the second floor.
’It’s her!’
Chen Yu was stunned as he watched the woman descend the stairs.
This woman was none other than the one who had entered the city with them.
The person from the Superpower Academy, Meng Li!
"Huh? What are you doing here?"
Meng Li’s face showed surprise when she saw Chen Yu.
"...You two... know each other?"
Hearing this, Li Qing looked at Chen Yu with astonishment.
Chen Yu nodded. "Yeah, she’s the one who entered the city with us."
"You’re Chen Yu, right?"
Just then, Meng Li came to stand before the two men, her bright eyes fixed on him.
"Let’s have a formal introduction. I’m a first-year student at the Superpower Academy!"
Meng Li extended a small, delicate hand.
"Chen Yu, a member of Qing City’s Twelfth Mercenary Squad." Although he didn’t seem particularly fond of this Meng Li, he still shook her hand politely.
