Chapter 28: Astonishment

After purchasing the Panlong Staff and the Mandarin Duck Blades, Yan Luo was completely penniless. Fortunately, Wang Dongwei provided a hundred units of biological energy; otherwise, he wouldn’t even have enough points for teleportation.

He left the Dream Space and returned home. Yan Luo didn’t search for any martial arts techniques—right now, the most important thing was to familiarize himself with his own body. After all, his strength, agility, and constitution had all improved dramatically.

With these two weapons, he practiced the basic techniques: swinging, sweeping, and blocking with the staff; chopping, stabbing, and slicing with the twin blades. The Panlong Staff weighed sixty-two pounds—a superb tool for strength training and enhancing his physical condition.

After searching for some information online, Yan Luo set his mask of emotions to “Joy,” immersing himself in the enhanced learning state that increased his intelligence by ten percent, memorizing all the material he found.

Improving combat skills through training wasn’t something achieved in a day or two.

When night fell, he slept, and woke up the next morning. Now, his most urgent task was to collect emotions to craft new persona masks.

Yan Luo left his house. He couldn’t collect emotions by hiding indoors.

Exiting the residential complex, Yan Luo wandered aimlessly through the streets. It was Sunday, with plenty of people out and about. Yan Luo’s attire was simple: a black-and-white striped shirt, black jeans, and the emotionless mask currently set to “neutral” on his head.

Many girls on the street surreptitiously turned their heads to look at him. His appearance and height were already above average, and after activating the basic life gene, Yan Luo’s looks had become exceptionally striking.

“This won’t do…”

In the zombie world, he’d acquired plenty of emotions to fuse into masks, but that was thanks to its unique nature. The Heartless Puppet could only absorb intense emotions, and only from nearby sources. He paused on the street, pondering what to do next.

Currently, the Heartless Puppet had stored two points of grief, four of sadness, one of joy, one of shock, one of disappointment, and one of disgust.

Suddenly, the sound of a suona drifted over, accompanied by crying.

Yan Luo walked toward the source and found a funeral being held in a nearby complex. Many people in mourning attire were gathered by a makeshift altar. He was struck by inspiration: if he could quietly knock someone out, swap clothes, and blend into the crowd, he could follow the night vigil and funeral procession, absorbing plenty of sadness and grief.

Maybe he could even get a few free meals.

Yan Luo licked his lips.

He was hungry…

He was broke.

Otherwise, he wouldn’t be eating instant noodles.

But in the end, he didn’t act on the idea. With his appearance and aura, he’d stand out easily, and if anyone questioned him, he’d have no answer. Besides, it felt immoral to crash a funeral just to collect emotions.

He returned home.

Back in his kitchen, Yan Luo decided to treat himself to a proper meal instead of instant noodles. He cooked a pot of rice, stir-fried vinegar cabbage and spicy shredded potatoes, prepared a cold dish of smashed cucumber, and feasted heartily. With his improved physical condition, his appetite seemed to have grown as well.

After eating, he practiced martial arts basics: horse stance and bow stance. Then he took out the Panlong Staff, training his arms and waist with the sixty-two-pound steel staff. Human strength is usually dispersed; consolidating scattered force into unified power would greatly increase his might.

Just like the spiral stamping in Bagua Palm, where force rises from the heel in a spiral, integrating the body’s energy into a single stream that bursts forth from the hand—thus enabling the devastating “Monument-Smashing Palm.”

After practicing with the staff for a while, Yan Luo was drenched in sweat. The weight was no joke—sixty-two pounds! Ancient generals wielded heavy weapons, but most relied on horses for support.

Feeling tired, he stopped and rested, then took out the Mandarin Duck Blades.

He worked on the fundamentals: thrust, sweep, chop, parry, and slash.

Thrusts were either straight or angled;
Sweeps could be to the left or right;
Chops could be vertical or diagonal—vertical chops ran from head to toe, diagonal ones struck at forty-five-degree angles;
Parry involved deflecting rather than clashing, using the back of the blade to absorb the opponent’s force. The Mandarin Duck Blades had hand guards to intercept opposing weapons;
Slash involved large motions, pivoting the lead hand while the upper arm drove the forearm in a straight cut.

These basic techniques had to be practiced until second nature. With a solid foundation, he could then learn advanced moves and martial arts. Yan Luo gripped both blades, set his mask to “Joy,” boosting his intelligence for learning, and practiced with both blades at once, rapidly improving.

Late at night, he showered and went to bed. Early the next morning, at six thirty, Yan Luo woke up.

He faced a dilemma.

Eighteen years old, in his final year of high school, just a few months away from the college entrance exams. Saturday had come and gone, Sunday too; now it was Monday.

Yan Luo’s grades had always been average—if he tried hard, maybe he could make it into a university, though there was a good chance he might fail. Now that he was a World Tuner, his fate was radically different from ordinary people; he no longer needed to attend school.

But…what was he supposed to do at home? Train in martial arts?

Martial arts weren’t mastered overnight. Right now, collecting emotions to fuse into persona masks was most important. He hadn’t absorbed any while wandering the streets yesterday. Perhaps…he could try going to school? Suddenly skipping classes would attract attention.

With that thought, Yan Luo got up, ate breakfast, shouldered his backpack, and headed to school.

He arrived at seven twenty.

Classes at his school began at seven thirty; the first period was self-study.

Yan Luo had always kept to himself, rarely speaking, wearing a cold, unapproachable expression. With average grades, he was extremely low-key. Even in his final year, some classmates might not even remember his name. He entered the classroom, found his seat, and sat down.

“Right, let’s check if there’s an Inner World nearby.”

He took out his phone and tapped scan.

“Scanning for Inner World… Please pay fifty units of biological energy for one scan.”

“Huh, scanning costs biological energy too?” After paying, Yan Luo had just forty points left.

“Beep! In the area of the Surface World where you are located, one Inner World has been detected on a different worldline. Now parsing… This Inner World is a Level Two Historical War World.”

Level Two…

Yan Luo, before the next mandatory task, had permission to freely enter Level One Inner Worlds twice. Near his residence, there was a Level One Sports Competition World.

But this one was Level Two—if only it were Level One.

“I wonder if a Historical War World is very dangerous?”

As Yan Luo pondered, nearly everyone in the class was staring at him. Previously, his looks were decent, but not exceptional, and his withdrawn demeanor made him invisible. But now…with the basic life gene activated—his first step in the biochemical path from ordinary to perfect life—his physical and facial features had evolved toward perfection.

Even at just the basic level, his appearance, skin tone, and the aura gained from surviving the zombie world made him stand out dramatically at school—like a pop idol suddenly appearing in a classroom.

Utterly out of place.

“You… Are you Yan Luo?”

Suddenly, someone shouted.

“What’s wrong?”

Yan Luo looked up and saw it was the class monitor—a twin-tailed girl with glasses, bold and tough, not afraid to fight with boys.

“You really are Yan Luo? How did you get so handsome?” The class monitor was utterly incredulous.

You have received a strong emotion:

Shock +1

“Is it really Yan Luo?”

“No way…”

“Oh my god, was there a hidden heartthrob in our class? How come I never noticed before?”

“Could it be plastic surgery? But with only two days’ absence, that’s impossible!”

You have received strong emotions:

Shock +1, Shock +1, Shock +1…

The Heartless Puppet generated a string of notifications. If one could visualize this scene, more than forty students in the class would have “Shock +1” floating above their heads, some with their mouths agape and exaggerated expressions—perfect for meme material.

In just half a minute, he’d collected twenty-eight points of shock!

Yan Luo: “…”

Did I just walk into the UC Editorial Department?