In the end, Xia Fei was fooled by Slaughtershadow as the passageway collapsed, trapping him in the secret chamber.
Xia Fei’s acute sense of touch let him feel that more text could be found behind the plate, so he turned it around and took a look.
‘How’s that? Got scared shitless by it, right? There’s actually another path that leads outside; it’s up to you to discover it, though.’
Xia Fei flung the metal plate with a flick of his wrist
It followed an arc and sank into the wall with the precision of a surgical incision.
He gritted his teeth. Not only was Slaughtershadow cruel, he was also apparently a prankster, for him to come up with something like this to torture his inheritor. There was another passageway outside, but where was it? He had checked this hall twice and discovered nothing out of the ordinary; if there really was a passageway it should be incredibly well-hidden.
He then grabbed the thin book that was encased within the reinforced glass. No matter what, he had to take things step by step. Thus, Xia Fei decided to check what the last item Slaughtershadow had left behind was.
The book had fewer than thirty pages and weighed nothing in his hands. The paper was made of a special plant fiber that smelled of blood as if it had been soaked in a slaughterhouse for years.
“‘Origin’?” Xia Fei read the title aloud. The font was old yet elegant, and it was obviously handwritten, not printed.
Normally, due to the special status and heritage of technique books, they were unlikely to be printed in large quantities. If it was, it would not be much of a secret. Therefore, most secret technique books were hand-copied by trusted people, and ‘Origin’ was obviously such a case.
Xia Fei quickly looked through it. He was incredibly quick at reading books and had super human comprehension, so it did not even take him two minutes to read the entire book.
Xia Fei let out a gentle sigh. It was not a book on combat technique or anything like that; it was about how to take in the universe’s origin power.
It was said that the universe’s source of power was a special energy generated when it was formed but had quickly disappeared after the universe’s inception. However, a type of mysterious crystal was able to absorb a large amount of such energy and was able to store it in even now. This was the Heart of Spirit.
The Adjudicator Union could be how it was today because it was able to provide itself with a steady supply of elite warriors, and this was because they had out how to let the human body absorb pure energy. When Xia Fei was in the Heaven Execution Training Camp, he understood the process well, but because there were side effects when too much was taken, he always erred on the side of caution. His body was the money-maker; it would be a shame if he ruined it because of greed.
The opening of the seventh brain region was the same case. Although Xia Fei’s seventh brain region was completely open, it was also due to that that he had lost the ability to increase his cultivation naturally. It was as if there was always a balance at work; gaining often came with losing, and the more one gained, the more they lost.
This book went through how to let the human body absorb the universe’s origin power, and once mastered, anyone with decent abilities would experience rapid growth with the help of the Heart of Spirit.
Of course, there was a price for such a training method. First of all, the amount taken must be strictly managed. It was just like adding more water to a pool of water; anybody could grasp the concept of overfilling.
Second, because the universe’s source energy was too violent, it would put incredible strain on the body if directly absorbed and must be converted into rays that humans could absorb before being directed into the human body.
No doubt that there would be huge wastage in energy during the conversion process. In order to absorb one hundred units of energy, one must spend at least one thousand units, for a huge portion of it would be lost in the air during the absorption process.
Considering how expensive Hearts of Spirit were, using them to increase one’s performance rapidly was an exceedingly expensive method. Thankfully, the Adjudicator Union was not short on money at all and could provide a small number of members with such incredible techniques.
There were three ways of converting the energy. The first was known as wave warp. It was the simplest and easiest to perform, as well as the method of choice in the training room of the Adjudicator Union
Although wave warp was cheap, it had a very low degree of conversion from the Heart of Spirit. If the human body absorbed too much of the waves, it might cause nausea, vomiting, and even irreparable damage.
Also, this method made the people using them more volatile and prone to anger. The invisible rays were like raging fires, fierce and difficult to tame.
Xia Fei breathed a sigh of relief. Who would have thought that the side effects of wave warp was this severe? Thankfully, he did not take in much of the energy when he was in the Heaven Execution Training Camp, but who knew if Moon Song and Chen Don, who had exposure to it for over two years, had developed any side effects? He would want to warn them if he could.
If the first method was setting oneself on fire, the second method could be compared to sealing oneself in thousands of miles of ice. Although the energy was tamer after conversion, it still had incredible side effects.
Outside of the damage on the body, the worst part was that it could make the user world-weary, even possessing suicidal tendencies.
The people who took in energy using the second method could suddenly become withdrawn and be uninterested in anything and anyone around them, becoming quite gloomy. If they continued taking in energy, it might cause extreme mental damage, such as hallucinations.
Xia Fei shook his head. The second method would not do, either. Although wave warp had strong side effects, at least it did not have mental damage. Sometimes, mental damage was worse than a bloody wound. They said ignorance was bliss, but who was willing to become mentally ill or mentally handicapped because of it?
Humans were different because of their ability to think critically and learn. If they lost that ability, would they be any different from walking corpses?
There were also the world-weariness and suicidal tendencies; Xia Fei would seek death rather than get bored of living. Suicidal tendencies were even worse, so he did not like the second method at all.
The last method, known as gentle-conditioning, was much more agreeable than the other options.
This method completely avoided the shortcomings of the previous two methods; it neither caused any damage to the body nor made the user hate life, but this gentle concept was not perfect, either.
Contrary to its name, gentle-conditioning did not make its user gentler but, instead, made them more bloodthirsty.
Using this method to cultivate one’s self would form a line of thinking similar to cult members and would become indifferent to life, human or otherwise. One would not even blink an eye when they randomly killed others.
Xia Fei laughed. “Heh, not bad. The last gentle-conditioning sounds decent. I still have a purple Heart of Spirit in my spatial ring. It has plenty of energy in it; we can try it some time once we make it out of here.”
He did not really care about the mentioned side effect. In Xia Fei’s mind, all of the pathological manifestations were because of insufficient will. If someone had the nerves of steel, they would not waver just because of some side effects. Xia Fei had always been confident in himself and cared not about something in his consciousness. As long as his body was in good condition, he was of the belief that any obstacle could be overcome by his will.
He continued reading the manual and discovered that the requirements for converting the Heart of Spirit into gentle-conditioning waves were high. Not only did it have strict requirements in terms of equipment, it also required a purple Heart of Spirit of the highest purity. In addition, it produced the greatest conversion losses of all the three methods.
Even a tiny piece of purple Heart of Spirit could be in the hundreds of millions. Such expenditure and wastage was not something he could simply afford.
The Adjudicator Union probably had similar information on the matter, which was why they would use Heart of Spirit to improve the strength of the members as quickly as possible, but because of how expensive it was, they had chosen to use the cheapest method.
Xia Fei put the book away. The four items Slaughtershadow left behind were now in his hands; all there was left to do was escape from this place.
Phantom had a long face, evidently not having a better plan.
The air quality was decreasing. Now that he was in a sealed space, oxygen consumption was a very real problem. No matter what Xia Fei had under his sleeves, there was nothing he could do sans oxygen.
The nameless combat suit and the new Bloodthirsty Ice God both had a tiny air canister. Xia Fei had already used up half of the oxygen supply on the nameless combat suit, combined with the Bloodthirsty Ice God, both could provide about an hour of oxygen supply. Including the leftover oxygen in the chamber, Xia Fei estimated that he had at most three hours.
In a span of three hours, he could get intimate with his favorite woman until exhaustion, he could stuff himself with chocolate until he exploded, he could practice all of Crafty Thrust, Breath Control, and the Beast Spirit Codex, but this was no time for such things at all when his life was on the line.
Just as before, Xia Fei checked the secret chamber in detail once more, leaving no gap or speck of dust unchecked. Moreover, he tried to keep his heartbeat and blood flow in control to reduce exertion.
Most disappointing was that there was nothing just as before. The walls were completely sturdy with no signs of the mentioned path.
Extreme times required extreme measures.
Xia Fei sat cross-legged in the secret chamber. He was working his brain out, thinking through everything that had happened ever since he walked through the passageway. From the structure of the secret chamber to Slaughtershadow’s personality, nothing was overlooked.
Xia Fei tried to imagine that he was Slaughtershadow and thought using his logic.
‘If I were Slaughtershadow, where would I hide the secret passage, and how would I hide it?
‘Is it enough just to be crazy? Does Slaughtershadow have any other hopes or requirements for the successor to his belongings?’
The clock ticked as Xia Fei tried to figure something out and remained calm. The more critical the moment, the calmer he had to be.
The air quality was getting worse as time passed, not leaving much time for Xia Fei to ponder.
