Chapter 58: Grandmaster-Level Combat Arts, A One-Man Hunt!
Outside the office, the corridor lights cast five distorted, approaching shadows through the frosted glass door.
The sound of heavy footsteps, mixed with suppressed and malicious whispers, reached He Yu’s ears clearly.
His heartbeat did not quicken; his breathing remained as steady as ever.
Fear?
That emotion seemed to have long been replaced by something much deeper beneath the cerebral cortex—a chilling, absolute calmness, akin to a precision instrument.
Call the police? It was too late.
Run? In this top-floor office, the only exit was that very door. Outside stood five desperate outlaws armed with weapons. To charge out now would be no different from a lamb walking into a tiger's den.
Deep within his serene eyes, everything in the real world was being rapidly deconstructed and calculated.
A slight shift of his will.
A faint, techno-styled dark blue light curtain, visible only to him, silently unfolded across his retina.
System Mall.
Amidst the dazzling array of product categories, his gaze did not linger for a second, locking directly onto the [Skills] section.
His sight moved like lightning, sweeping across rapidly.
[Master-Level Piano Performance], [God-Tier Culinary Arts], [Photographic Memory]...
His fingers swiped swiftly across the virtual interface until they finally stopped on an icon glowing with a scarlet, dangerous light.
It was an emblem intertwined with a bullet, a sharp blade, and a fist.
[Grandmaster-Level Military Close-Quarter Combat]
[Required Reputation Points for Exchange: 20,000 points]
[Effect: The host will instantly master the world's top and most efficient military unarmed combat techniques, including Krav Maga and Systema. Your body will acquire the corresponding muscle memory, and your nerves will be branded with the most primitive and purest combat instincts. You will become a walking humanoid weapon.]
He Yu’s pupils contracted slightly at that exact moment.
This was it.
Without a shred of hesitation.
"Redeem!"
The moment this thought settled in his mind, the system's cold notification chime rang out.
[Ding! Redemption successful!]
[Current Reputation Point Balance: 35,850 points.]
The next second, an indescribable, terrifying torrent surged violently backward along his spine, instantly piercing through his central nervous system!
This was not mere knowledge infusion.
It was a branding! It was a reshaping!
He could clearly "see" countless figures practicing assassination techniques deep within his consciousness.
How to snap a wrist with the least amount of effort, how to strike nerve clusters from the trickiest angles, how to judge an enemy's shifting center of gravity within a second and deliver the most fatal blow!
He could even feel every single muscle fiber in his body vibrating and reorganizing at a microscopic frequency under the impact of this information stream.
The body that originally belonged to a frail scholar was being forcibly rewritten into a killing machine.
A sense of power—explosive power—poured forth from the depths of every cell across his limbs and bones.
He was still seated in the chair, but his entire aura had undergone a heaven-shaking transformation.
If he had been a piece of warm, gentle jade the second before, at this moment, he was a blade of hundred-refined steel concealed beneath that jade!
Crisis was, at the same time, opportunity.
A thought arose in his mind.
Reputation points.
These five desperate men who had delivered themselves to his doorstep were not only walking trouble, they were walking reputation points!
His gaze fell upon the miniature model ornament of the "Valley of Hope" placed on the bookshelf diagonally behind his desk.
In the shadow of the model's base, a black dot no larger than a needle point was aimed precisely in his direction.
That was a concealed miniature camera.
With another shift of his will, he silently activated it, routing its signal directly into the unpublicized "Principal's Office 24-Hour Slow Live Stream" window known only to a few core followers.
Having done all this, he slowly stood up.
He walked to the back of the office door, grasped the cold metal door handle, and proactively unlatched the lock.
"Click."
A soft sound.
He did not pull the door wide open; instead, he left a crack just wide enough for a single person to pass through, creating the illusion that the door had not been properly latched and was left ajar.
This was an invitation, and also a trap.
Afterward, he calmly walked back to his desk, sat down once more, picked up a design document regarding campus landscaping from the desk, and lowered his head to read through it.
He concealed all his murderous intent and dangerous aura beneath a calm facade.
As if he were completely oblivious to the coming thunderstorm.
Outside the door, after a brief pause and exchange, the five dark shadows finally lost their remaining patience.
"Bang—!"
A deafening crash!
The heavy solid wood office door was violently struck open from the outside by a tremendous force, slamming fiercely against the wall with a dull thud.
Five burly, fierce-looking thugs swarmed in immediately, their faces twisted into bloodthirsty, cruel grins like sharks smelling blood.
Their positioning was exceptionally professional, instantly forming a standard semi-circular attacking formation that completely sealed off all of He Yu's escape routes.
The air was instantly filled with a pungent mix of body odor, tobacco, and cheap alcohol.
The leader of the thugs was a bald man with a ferocious scorpion tattooed on his neck.
He stepped forward, the dagger in his hand flashing with a chilling, cold light under the illumination.
The blade pointed straight at He Yu's throat.
"Kid, don't move!"
The bald man grinned, revealing a row of yellowish teeth, his voice raspy and vicious.
"Come with us, or else—"
Before he could finish his sentence—