The Fog Rises

Not only could Chen Chuan make use of urban legends, he had also mastered several simple esoteric rituals. With reference materials at his disposal, he could actually produce even more complex ones if given sufficient time and materials. However, esoteric rituals suffered from many drawbacks. Most of the time, they had to be drawn in advance upon the ground or on buildings. Using them to restrict a fighter was virtually impossible. For powerful fighters, even if they did not understand the application of biological fields, their senses for danger were extraordinarily acute; the moment they sensed something amiss, they would instantly evade. Moreover, such diagrams could be destroyed with the utmost ease by them. Inscribing them directly upon buildings was therefore no good idea—it would simply be wasted effort. His current idea was to draw the ritual diagrams on the inner lining of his protective suit and prepare an auxiliary sacrificial ritual. As for the sacrifices, they would be the enemies about to appear. He spent an entire afternoon working diligently, carefully drawing across several pieces of clothing, and then managed to inscribe portions onto his gloves and protective mask as well. In this way, a complete set would suffice. Once this was done, while waiting for the ritual materials to set and adhere, he logged onto the academy's platform. Last month, he had submitted an application for third limit cultivation training. Five days later, the academy had replied, notifying him that it had entered the review and approval process and telling him to wait. By early October, word came that confirmation had been obtained from the Disposal Bureau, noting that he had already signed a confidentiality agreement, which spared him several procedural steps. However, they had sent him another agreement document at the time, mainly to ensure that cultivation knowledge of the third limit would not be privately disseminated to the outside. Once that document was signed, knowledge on third limit cultivation became accessible to him on the platform. He had browsed through it earlier; materials from both the old era and the new era were available. Most old-era materials were free, while most new-era cultivation methods required purchase. The prices were steep, but well within what he could afford. Even so, certain knowledge remained temporarily restricted from him. For instance, protocols for taking special medicine and associated service programs were categorized as unsearchable. This was because the academy required official distribution records of special medicine from the government before unlocking them; distribution records from corporations were not recognized. Yet it did not matter if he lacked these; with the Second Self, he had no particular need for them. What he primarily studied were key principles and knowledge regarding cultivation, such as better methods to refine vital essence and accumulate the changeless mind. These two were extraordinarily important. Through his personal experience, he understood that the changeless mind could be used to stabilize oneself and prevent the spirit from deviating, while vital essence served as a stable anchor, allowing a fighter to maintain physical existence and prevent unknowable changes from occurring within the body. New-era cultivation methods had been continuously summarized and optimized upon the foundations left by predecessors. They could be called the most efficient, and he felt purchasing them was thoroughly worth it; he had been applying these methods over the past several days. Yet old-era methods were not devoid of merit either. Because medicines back then had more impurities and came from disparate sources, numerous techniques for identification and targeted application had been developed, with greater emphasis placed on practical application under various extreme environments. For instance, one technique allowed a person to continue cultivation and sustain combat capability even when severely wounded; another maintained cultivation throughout sleep. There were even techniques detailing how to use the small remaining portion of mutated tissue to maintain cultivation and unleash burst combat strength after losing the majority of one's limbs. This was an eye-opener for him. Aside from these, he focused primarily on the force-release methods of the third limit. At this stage, jin and the methods of tempering it grew far more complex and meticulous. When reaching higher levels, it required the participation of both vital essence and the changeless mind, far exceeding anything in the first or second limit. The application techniques of the Furnace Breathing Technique he had encountered before were just like this. This was because any fighter who reached the third limit was inevitably someone whose body possessed a high coverage of mutated tissue. According to the platform's materials, the coverage had to be at least forty-five percent or higher. At times, the coverage rate could even serve as a yardstick to measure the strength of a third limit fighter. Of course, in actual combat, far too many factors had to be considered; a simple figure alone could not decide the outcome. Still, it was sufficient to demonstrate the vital role it played. To raise their coverage rate, some third limit fighters would expend tremendous effort to compensate for their deficiencies, while others turned to implants and illicit transplants of mutated tissue. Because he practiced Zhouyuan jin, he had pursued full coverage right from the very beginning. Thus, he had no need to double back and make up for deficiencies; he needed only to march forward. In theory, he could learn most of the force-release methods in these courses, but he currently lacked the time and energy. Therefore, he only selected a few practical ones to focus on practicing, mainly to enrich his offensive repertoire. During this period, while purchasing and studying various cultivation insights from the academy, he continued taking medicine without pause. His strength showed a slight increase almost every day. This was only natural. Other fighters did not enjoy an ample supply of special medicine like he did; typically, corporations and the government only distributed doses after one had achieved merits or made contributions. For fear that fighters might develop complications, authorities would sometimes deliberately prolong the intervals between doses. None of them could use medicine continuously as he did. Outside of his training, he did not neglect the surrounding security. He kept his training sessions around midday as much as possible. A sneak attack on the estate during the daytime was quite unlikely, as it was very easy to observe and deploy personnel then. Thus, an attack would almost certainly come at night, or in the hours approaching dawn. During these hours, he remained fully dressed, keeping his firearms and blades close at hand, and replaced sleep with meditative sitting. The instant there was any movement or he detected anything, he could react immediately. Several more days passed, entering late October. Outside, the maple woods had turned mostly crimson. After finishing his cultivation that day, Chen Chuan glanced at his boundary credential. The weather forecast indicated that dense fog might blanket Center City over the next two days. He looked out at the swaying branches, rustling like waves of the sea, and the red fallen leaves swirling everywhere. He thought to himself, *It's coming.* Two days later, October twenty-third, four o'clock in the morning, on the outskirts of Mount Motie. The tall man stood alone beneath a streetlamp, gazing at the empty road ahead. In the distance, everything was shrouded in hazy mist; even with his sight, he could not see very far. At that moment, he heard the roar of vehicle engines. Bright headlights shone through the mist. First came a lead armored vehicle breaking through the fog, its glistening, damp chassis bearing the insignia of a security firm. Behind it, one armored vehicle of the same model after another emerged from the mist in succession. The convoy slowed to a halt as it drew near. The front door of one modified, extended armored vehicle swung open, and a hunchbacked figure draped in a gray smock stepped out. He was emaciated from head to toe with bulging eyes, and his hands hung almost to the ground. Even hunched over like that, he stood over two meters tall. In a hoarse voice, he said to the tall man, "Xiao Sheng, the boss is calling for you." Xiao Sheng hurried over. When he reached the side of the vehicle, the rear window rolled down smoothly. Sitting inside was a slicked-back-haired man in his forties. A walking stick rested under his hand, and he wore a high-collared imported formal suit. His lips were thin and bloodless, and a snake-shaped pendant dangled from his left ear. Yet whenever his gaze glanced over, it gave an unnerving, unblinking stare that chilled one to the bone. Even though Xiao Sheng had faced him many times, his heart still skipped a beat. He hastily bowed his head and said respectfully, "Boss." The middle-aged man asked, "Is everything ready?" Xiao Sheng said, "There is a slight problem. Over the past few days, I tried sending a contact signal every day, but there hasn't been any response up to now. My assessment is that the contact arranged by the client has most likely been purged. "Even if our resonators can breach the perimeter field lockdown, they still won't be able to bypass that inner line of defense in a short span of time. So we can't count on handling things from the inside anymore." The middle-aged man did not appear troubled by this. "Then use the field-shielding creature." Xiao Sheng said, "It's just that Mount Motie's biological field is relatively strong. If we use this method, we'll only have about half an hour to forty-five minutes for the raid, and that includes our retreat time. The actual window given to us might only be fifteen to twenty minutes. But if I were given a few more days to prepare..." The middle-aged man interrupted him. "The client is pressing hard; there's no time left to wait. This weather is also ideal for the operation. Proceed according to your plan—you've never disappointed me in past operations." Xiao Sheng said solemnly, "Understood, Boss." "Get in." Xiao Sheng immediately ran toward a vehicle in the rear. Once inside, he looked back and saw that everyone had removed their boundary credentials according to plan, easing his mind somewhat. The convoy set off once more, driving toward the interior of Mount Motie Estate. They met no resistance upon entering the defense perimeter because, through a series of prior maneuvers, they had become temporary residents of a mansion on Mount Motie and secured passage clearance. Otherwise, they would never have been able to enter the Mount Motie residential area so openly. The initial stretch went smoothly, but as they drove toward the Meng family estate, two patrol cars approached and transmitted a communication: "Convoy ahead, in accordance with nighttime transit safety regulations, please halt and present your resident credentials and current destination." The convoy did not continue forward; one vehicle after another came slowly to a stop. The two patrol cars drove up. One pulled forward toward them while the other stopped farther back. Guards kept their hands positioned to draw weapons easily, with fingers hovering over the boundary credential alarm. The moment they detected anything wrong, they would instantly trigger the alert, setting Mount Motie's security system into motion immediately. ... ...