Chapter 52: The Limit
[Origin -100] [Origin: 2203] [Strength +1] [Strength: 17]
Fang Qingyun decisively added one point to his own strength.
This spirit pressure chamber was clearly malfunctioning. This was no secret realm where he could rely on increasing his speed to continue skirting the edge of death.
He dared to do that in the secret realm only because he had figured out its rules.
Here, safety had to come first.
As his strength increased, the origin points stopped fluctuating.
Only his spiritual power increased, adding one point after a while.
Fang Qingyun stood up, preparing to leave the room.
Suddenly, an immense force surged toward him.
The power was overwhelming, like a mountain crashing down from above.
In that instant, Fang Qingyun heard his bones utter a painful groan.
His expression changed drastically. He immediately opened the system and began frantically allocating points.
[Origin -100]
[Origin -100]
[Origin: 2004]
...
[Strength +1]
[Strength +1]
[Strength: 19]
...
[Origin -100]
[Origin -100]
[Origin: 1805]
...
[Constitution +1]
[Constitution +1]
[Constitution: 19]
After adding two points to strength and then two to constitution, he finally stabilized the situation.
What on earth was going on?
A cold glint flickered in Fang Qingyun’s eyes. He held his breath, ready to allocate more points at any moment.
He was still in danger.
The origin points began fluctuating again.
Constitution and strength were the attributes that best countered pressure. He had increased four points in one go.
Even so, the origin points still jumped, hinting at the tremendous force he had just endured.
This was absolutely not something an apprentice martial artist could withstand.
Someone was definitely up to no good!
“Bastard, don’t let me find out who you are, or I’ll tear you to pieces!”
Fang Qingyun’s expression turned grim.
Having been so ruthlessly plotted against and nearly killed, his mood was anything but pleasant.
Moreover, his whole body ached, fueling the violence rising in his heart.
That was from the immense pressure, as well as the pain caused by the sudden increase in points.
To add four points at once, plus the one he had just increased, meant his attributes had jumped by five in such a short time—a huge strain on his body.
Fortunately, his original stats were already quite strong, or the transformation from the attribute increase would have left him screaming in agony.
He thought back to when each attribute had only four or five points at the start. If he had suddenly raised them so much back then, his body might well have collapsed.
He had no idea that, in a dark room, someone was staring coldly at the monitor.
The man’s face was originally calm, fingers idly tapping at the buttons before him, his eyes mocking.
To him, the figure on the screen was about to become a smear of bright red.
But when the dial was turned to maximum and Fang Qingyun still held on, his expression finally changed.
He pressed his face to the monitor, staring in disbelief at the struggling figure on the screen.
“How… can this be?!”
He checked the monitors again and, after confirming there was no malfunction, muttered, “It’s already at ten thousand jin, and he’s still not crushed? What secret is he hiding? Could it be that Liu Yexin really found that thing and gave it to her son?”
He was about to do something when, suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of another monitor. His outstretched hand slowly retracted.
“How did that old man get here so quickly?”
“Luck is on your side this time, Fang Qingyun!”
“Next time, I’ll take your life for sure!”
“But for now, how are you going to get out of this?”
He let out a low, chilling laugh.
After withstanding a pressure of ten thousand jin without dying, would the Institute of Research let Fang Qingyun go?
Those madmen, obsessed with their research, would surely want to dissect Fang Qingyun piece by piece to study him thoroughly.
...
Bang!
The door was violently kicked open. A middle-aged man with a dark, thunderous expression strode in, glaring at the surveillance screens, his face so grim it seemed he could squeeze water from it.
“This is the place!”
A man in a white lab coat hurried in, speaking in a low voice, “Someone breached your permissions here and took exclusive control of Room Seven.”
“And the person in Room Seven?”
The middle-aged man didn’t look at the monitor, for he had already noticed that the pressure in Room Seven had been cranked to maximum.
No one inside could possibly still be alive.
He asked merely out of habit.
But the answer he received left him utterly dumbfounded.
“He’s… he’s still holding on!”
“What?!”
The furious man stared up at the monitor in disbelief, his eyes glued to the screen.
It was real.
That boy was still alive?
He was withstanding over ten thousand jin of pressure?
How could this be?
The man in the white coat muttered, “How is this possible? Ten thousand jin of pressure—for an apprentice martial artist?”
How many martial artists could manage such a feat?
“What’s so strange about that?” The middle-aged man had already regained his composure. “Didn’t we determine when this was designed that the upper limit for an apprentice martial artist was ten thousand jin?”
The man in the white coat said nothing.
A theoretical assessment was still just that—a theory.
Moreover, their benchmark had been the greatest king in human history, the Martial Patriarch.
Could this child possibly match the Martial Patriarch, even at the apprentice stage?
The middle-aged man was finally intrigued. Staring at Fang Qingyun, he murmured, “Is this the boy who defeated Yan Ang? With this strength, it’s not surprising.”
“Director, what should we do now?” the man in the white coat asked softly.
“Hmph, and you have the nerve to ask!” The director shot him a cold glare. “Something like this happening in the Institute of Research—go catch the culprit at once! It must be an inside job. If they get away, don’t bother showing your face to me again.”
“Yes, sir!”
The man in the white coat rushed out.
As for actually catching that person, it was impossible.
Anyone who could block the director’s permissions, even briefly, must have enormous resources. Would such a person not have an escape route?
All he could do was nab the bait the culprit had left behind, to give the director an explanation.
“Is it worth it?”
The thought suddenly flashed through his mind.
After so much careful preparation, everything was ruined overnight.
He could already imagine the scale of the loss.
What was the purpose?
Was it really just for that young man, Fang Qingyun?
Was it worth it?
But then he reconsidered: if Fang Qingyun, as an apprentice, could already withstand ten thousand jin of pressure, what heights would he reach in the future?
Was it not worth it, then?
How would the Institute deal with Fang Qingyun?
An apprentice who could endure such force was certainly worth investigating.
The director was probably beside himself with excitement.
Indeed, that was exactly the case!
The director was watching Fang Qingyun with great interest.
He had not turned off the ten thousand jin of pressure.
“How long can you hold out?” Excitement lit the director’s eyes. If the chamber’s maximum pressure wasn’t limited to ten thousand jin, he would have increased it already.
A traitor?
He couldn’t care less about that. What mattered more to him was Fang Qingyun.
His mind was already conjuring up several experiments.
“Increase the pressure temporarily!” the director muttered. “If ten thousand jin isn’t enough, I’ll add more.”
He immediately began fiddling with the controls.
The spirit pressure chamber, as the most important facility of the Institute, was practically built by the director himself; increasing the pressure temporarily was not impossible.