Chapter 9: Life Blueprint!

Chapter 9: Life Blueprint! (Please add to your collection, vote monthly, and follow along!)

Second Brother Jiang flexed his fist encouragingly at Jiang Zhe.

"Xiao Zhe, don't listen to him. Don't pressure yourself."

Jiang Sisi shot her older brother a glare for bringing up outsiders again.

"Xiao Zhe, with your current strength, dealing with these weak beast soldiers should be effortless."

"But don't get complacent. Physical strength and power don't guarantee victory against beasts. A new martial artist's first 'bloodshed' is like forging a sword – it's an entirely different trial. You must adapt, temper your resolve, and never show mercy!"

Second Brother Jiang chuckled sheepishly. "Haha, my bad. Why should we Jiangs care about outsiders anyway?"

He quickly added, "But remember to kill plenty of beasts this time. Once you adapt to slaughter, when Grandfather and Uncle return, they'll take you to the Wilderness Zone for training. That'll accelerate your metamorphosis into a true martial artist."

The beast's roar from the iron cage, his cousins' advice, and the surrounding martial artists' excited chatter filled Jiang Zhe's ears, igniting his fighting spirit.

This was his first time participating in such a grand event in both lifetimes. Though his combined forty-odd years of existence included decades of wasted time, his heart remained young and passionate.

"A youth's chivalrous spirit bonds with heroes from five great cities. Open-hearted, hair bristling with passion. In casual conversation, life and death entwined."

Sixteen years of cultivation and scholarly reading allowed Jiang Zhe to channel his fiery determination into poetry.

Beside him, Second Brother Jiang paused, then clapped. "Brilliant! That perfectly captures us martial artists!"

"Tsk tsk, so reading those trash books actually helps. Unlike me back then – all I could muster was 'Wtf'!"

Jiang Sisi rolled her eyes and discreetly distanced herself from her clueless brother.

...Better pretend I don't know this educational system dropout.

Jiang Zhe twitched his lips. Brother Two really doesn't hold back with us, huh.

Beast Town was already prepared. The military began announcements as over a thousand pre-warriors gathered at the "exam hall" entrance.

"Second Brother, Sisi, I'm heading in. Wait for good news."

"Go get 'em!"

"Xiao Zhe, show 'em what you've got!"

With a round shield on his back and iron whip in hand, Jiang Zhe joined the surging crowd.

As rescuers took positions, the military commander shouted orders. Over a thousand pre-warriors surged into Beast Town like a tidal wave.

Night had fallen. Large spotlights illuminated parts of the town, but darkness still dominated.

Jiang Zhe prowled shadowy alleys like a waiting tiger hunting prey.

At a narrow alley's exit, a Tiger Mastiff with yellow-and-black stripes sniffed the air, suddenly twisting its head toward Jiang Zhe. Their eyes locked.

"Roar!"

It charged the alley, ready for a feast.

Unbeknownst to it, Jiang Zhe had already targeted it for his first kill.

In this narrow confrontation, man and beast clashed. Jiang Zhe sidestepped the charge, the beast snapping its jaws inches from his face.

"Disgusting. Good thing I skipped dinner. You're really asking for death!"

He slammed his shield into the beast's face, the force driving its head into the wall.

Is this human a monster?!

Dazed and nearly unconscious, the Tiger Mastiff barely registered Jiang Zhe's iron whip smashing its flank.

"Crack!"

The weapon rolled, reducing the beast's hindquarters to pulp.

"Roar!"

As the wounded beast thrashed, Jiang Zhe shifted his shield and rammed the creature's skull like a bear smashing a tree, splattering gore across the wall.

The stench of blood and viscera made Jiang Zhe's delicate eyebrows furrow.

He wasn't weak-stomached – not quite to the point of vomiting, just mildly unsettled. But his attention quickly shifted.

Light Points drifted from the corpse like moths to a flame, converging on his chest.

Unfazed, he recognized this as normal. The phenomenon was invisible to others – a side effect of cultivating the Golden Human Life Blueprint.

This technique for enhancing his Life Genome had two aspects:

External training was Conquer – defeating opponents to steal their spiritual essence.

If someone tore open his combat suit now, they'd see mysterious runes glowing on his chest and shoulders. These symbols temporarily stored the absorbed Light Points.

Initially, the best ink for drawing these runes was conqueror's blood, or energy-infused substances.

Blood was unavailable in the city, so Jiang Zhe had spent half a box of slag to create suitable ink.

At higher Stellar-Levels, this became easier – primal energy would form Secret Patterns on the skin, automatically absorbing stray Light Points.

Internal training was Visualization – performed after accumulating Light Points externally.

Visualizing the five human figures on the Golden Fragment was essentially mapping the Hercules Constellation's Star Chart. This refined the Light Points' nutrients, which combined with the Star Chart's reciprocal nourishment to solidify Stellar Nodes within the body. Each node represented a Genetic Tier increase.

181 nodes would eventually transform into the ultimate Golden Human Clan, achieving 1810x life enhancement.

This explained Jiang Zhe's infamous saying – What doesn't kill me will make me stronger.

His momentary distraction passed.

He knelt, sliced off the Tiger Mastiff's left ear, and stored it in his pack before leaving the alley.

As he emerged, a gaunt, half-meter-long Shadowcat lunged from the left.

Without looking, Jiang Zhe raised his shield.

"Meoww!"

The creature flew backward with a muffled thud.

"Little Shadowcat, meet your doom."

He didn't bother finishing it off – the Light Points already flowing toward him confirmed its conquest.

Either dead from impact or incapacitated.

Thud! Thud! Thud!

The faintest footsteps reached Jiang Zhe's enhanced hearing.

Scanning his surroundings, he found himself surrounded by sixteen glowing eyes – Shadowcats lurking in alleys, streets, and rooftops.

"Primitive H-Rank beasts with only animal instinct banding together? Interesting."

"Actually, this pack would threaten new pre-warriors. Guess I'll eliminate them."

"Need rescuing?" A voice echoed from the shadows as a figure landed on a nearby rooftop.

The rescue officer's arrival startled the Shadowcats, who immediately attacked both humans.

The six H-Rank Shadowcats on the rooftop lunged at the officer standing at the same height, while the nine on the ground charged Jiang Zhe simultaneously.

H-Rank Shadowcats could reach speeds of about 40m/s—nowhere near Jiang Zhe’s level.

He merely pushed off the ground with his toes, escaping their encirclement effortlessly.

He even dashed past two Shadowcats, his round shield and Iron Whip striking simultaneously. Using the sinking force of Eagle Form, he targeted the fragile hips of the two unlucky beasts.

“Two!”

Jiang Zhe still had the presence of mind to count. Breaking free of the encirclement and annihilation, the Shadowcats clustered at the alleyway where he’d stood moments ago. Yet he charged straight back—

Not suicide, but a tiger among sheep.

Moving far faster than the Shadowcats, he toyed with them.

Micro-Infiltration Body Technique: minimal movements for pinpoint dodges, letting him stroll through the Shadowcat swarm like a quiet courtyard.

His Iron Whip became a weapon of carnage—any contact meant instant crippling.

“Four!”

“Seven!”

“Nine!”

“And then… there’s this!”

Jiang Zhe grinned, suddenly hurling his Iron Whip upward. It soared to the second-floor rooftop, smashing through the skull of a leaping Shadowcat.

Decisive Strike!

One of the Jiang Clan’s treasured martial arts techniques, learned instantly by Jiang Zhe after a single glance.

“Ten!”

He laughed, calling out, “Hey, bro, you want the rest of these broken cats?”

The officer hadn’t dealt with his own besieging Shadowcats yet.

He’d merely been fending them off, his attention fixed on Jiang Zhe. If Jiang Zhe had cried for help, he’d have intervened immediately.

“The test continues!”

The officer coldly declared, leaping over ten meters away and vanishing into the night after a few bounds.

The remaining five Shadowcats scattered, but Jiang Zhe pursued at twice their speed—equal to theirs but doubled.

He picked them off one by one, severing their left ears.

Sparse, dim Light Points converged toward him, creating a dreamlike starlight flow in the night—beautiful and dazzling.

“This is too little. It’s like getting meat fibers from a mosquito’s leg…” Jiang Zhe muttered in dissatisfaction.

He understood the reason clearly.

Because the gap between apprentice-tier Beasts and his own strength was too vast, the “Conquer” sensation was insufficient.

To rapidly elevate his Life Genome tier, he needed to “Conquer” opponents at his level—or even challenge higher ranks.

“Accumulate bit by bit, build greatness from small beginnings. Daily progress without end, effort never wasted.” He comforted himself with a proverb.

Retrieving his Iron Whip.

How effortless the Decisive Strike had been—how messy its aftermath now.

He resumed hunting.

In this town, Jiang Zhe preferred the Tiger Mastiff and Shadowcat.

These two soft targets were truly easy to kill.

The armored wild boar, a tank-type opponent, couldn’t withstand a single whip strike either—but required 20% more force to crush.

…

Near the sealed town, inside a large building, surveillance screens displayed battles across the town.

One screen focused solely on Jiang Zhe’s movements.

Representatives from various factions gathered before the screens, each with missions—to determine whether this unprecedented genius was truly exceptional or just hype.

Soon, his first kill occurred. His shocking physical strength left a deep impression.

Someone asked, “Is it his natural physique? Or a Striking Art?”

“Does it matter?” A scarred, muscular man retorted. “Either way, it’s earth-shattering!”

“Look, over a dozen Shadowcats—he’s surrounded!” Someone gasped, drawing everyone’s attention back to the screen.

Then… the monitoring room filled with sharp intakes of breath.

“That burst speed isn’t right, is it?”

A voice murmured, “Computer analysis says instantaneous speed reached 80m/s—definitely!”

“Sss—Elite Warrior tier?!”

“Micro-Infiltration Body Technique?!”

“Him? Sixteen years old? Marked as a potential Mentalist in intelligence reports?”

“Heavens! This is a monster!”

…

Now, representatives from all factions resembled ignorant children, gasping repeatedly.

“Major Huo, let’s negotiate—a copy of this footage for my Limit Martial Arts Pavilion?”

“My Thunder Gym wants one too.”

“I’ll take it for HR Union—”

“Hmm?” A pack of wolfish gazes cut him off, forcing the bespectacled youth to swallow his words.

His assistant whispered, “Manager, what use do we have for this footage?”

The youth suddenly realized, “Right! Jiang Zhe is already ours under HR Union’s records. Just need to file paperwork officially.”

The monitoring room’s atmosphere turned icy. More dagger-like glares pierced them.

Assistant: “…”

Manager: “…”

At dawn’s first light.

“Wuuu—wuuu—”

Sirens blared across Beast Town as the test director’s deep voice boomed from loudspeakers.

“Time’s up! All Pre-Warriors, assemble at the exit immediately!”

At the gathering point, they tallied beast ears for scores.

Jiang Zhe topped the charts with 134 beast ears (some weren’t even collected properly), securing first place decisively.

He received his Martial Artist ID: 426073204608010001!

The Martial Artist certificate required printing at city hall’s department.

Southern Military Zone wasn’t an issuing location.

But such trivialities didn’t concern this young master—his butler would handle arrangements upon returning home.

When his Second Brother asked if he wanted to meet the two martial arts academies and military zone leaders, Jiang Zhe declined the socializing.

He wasn’t Luo Feng, lacking any background. But with Jiang Clan as his backing, he could casually dismiss the presidents and managers of the two academies.

He had more important matters to attend to after returning home.

…

Lanling Base City, Jiang Clan residence.

Back home, Jiang Zhe went straight to the study room, locked the door, and entered the Primordial Core.

Beneath an unnamed Ancient Tree, he sat cross-legged, holding the Divine Core in one hand and the Golden Fragment in the other, preparing to perform 【Visualization】 to study the first diagram’s content.

“Three Stellar Nodes mean three times Genetic Tier!”

“Forming one Stellar Node equals one Genetic Tier? But I have none now—is my Genetic Tier zero? Don’t joke!”

“Whatever, I’ll test it myself.”

Jiang Zhe began Visualizing the incomplete Star Chart within the first diagram’s human outline.

The three Stellar Nodes arranged in a triangle—aligning them to his forehead and shoulders. The first to condense would be the forehead node.

With the Divine Core enhancing his comprehension, Jiang Zhe quickly entered the state. The Three-Star Chart became increasingly vivid in his Consciousness Ocean.

The patterns on his chest and shoulders grew hot, reddening his skin until he resembled a boiled shrimp.

He clearly felt countless Light Points flowing within the runes.

After several cycles, they began merging into his body.

Some dormant bodily function awakened, initiating Metamorphosis from the base Genetic level.

—This was actually transforming the 1x Life Genome Tier he already possessed!

Jiang Zhe stared in shock.

Simultaneously, the Visualized Three-Star Chart in his Consciousness Ocean exerted force.

Unknown sources reciprocally nourished it with refined energy, flowing from the Consciousness Ocean through his Whole Body, merging with the Light Points’ Energy Interweaving to jointly reshape his Genetic code.

(End of Chapter)

Chapter end