Chapter 176 - Black Skull
“Don’t worry, I will definitely be able to get enough people for you, and I can guarantee you that our study group will be full of life. You won’t get any awkward silences.”
Chu Feixiong scratched his head and looked at him with slight embarrassment. “But their quality… is a bit lacking. I’ll just use the words that the lecturers in the military school said: They’re all a bunch of rotten and conceited people. Don’t mind them, okay?”
Chu Feixiong told Meng Chao that the students from the heroic spirit course were all very arrogant, and they regarded the brand new, deviant cultivation method from Agricultural University’s martial arts course with disdain. Some of them found it interesting, but because of their female squad leader, they had biased opinions about Meng Chao.
Some of them also thought that Meng Chao was not really that strong because he was Chu Feixiong’s best friend. After all, Chu Feixiong was a joke rarely seen in the military school’s heroic spirit course; he was the weakest of the weak. Going through any exchange with him and his friends was just a waste of their time!
For the last half a month, Shao Jianqing organized the students at night into pairs so they would recall their fights during the day and think of more effective strategies. Most of the students in the heroic spirit course naturally wanted to join the female squad leader.
However, during the two months Chu Feixiong stayed in the military school, he had also found some friends. They were mainly from the martial arts course, firearms course, engineering course, and logistics course. They were the weakest of their courses, and they empathized with each other and treated each other as brothers facing the same difficulty. They were usually punished together, and as time passed, they became familiar with each other.
Since they could get into military school, they were all quite intelligent and had good fighting skills. The main reason behind why their results sucked was because of their personality. They were either too wild or thought of themselves too well. They were too opportunistic or too careless.
Aside from not wanting to go through their courses properly, they used every means to do whatever they wanted. There was nothing they would not dare to do. When these brats gathered together, they polluted the atmosphere of the military school, and the lecturers got so angry that they said that even if these people graduated, they would still end up as pests in society.
“That’s the situation. I don’t think they’re really here to learn the Ultimate Style. They’re just bored and want to have some fun. In fact, it would be great if they could get some entertainment,” Chu Feixiong told Meng Chao. “Don’t go thinking that these brats will learn from you obediently. They’re all rotten to the core. They’re really bad!”
“Don’t worry. It’s very normal,” Meng Chao said with a smile. “They’re all hot-blooded youngsters. No one will be impressed so easily. Coincidentally, I’m the best in using the truth to convince others. Later, just bring those brats over, and I’ll teach them a lesson.”
“Alright!” Chu Feixiong agreed and went to summon those people.
As for Meng Chao, he went to the five-thousand cafeteria and used the monster coins he obtained during the day for a monster meat set that contained a lot of spirit energy.
The cafeteria at the east lake base ran on the standard self-sufficient model. The prey from the freshmen squads mostly consisted of Ghost-arrow Pigs and Hundred-eyed Toads. Hence, the main course for dinner was honeyed Ghost-arrow Pigs and smoked toad legs.
Since the Ghost-arrow Pigs were relatively small, it was easier to bring out their flavor compared to large artiodactyla-type monsters like the Demonic Halberd Pigs. There was even a trick to cooking them—they had to pluck out the poison needles and stab them into the flesh.
When a small amount of poison was injected into it, the flesh became softer, more tender, and plump.
Once it was blended with wild honey, it had a unique numbing effect in the mouth, and the sweet taste did not fade away even after a long time.
There were people who called Ghost-arrow Pigs the land pufferfish. They were a rare delicacy.
Smoked toads were a famous dish that existed even on Earth. Once their skin was removed and their poisonous glands cleaned out, they could be skewered on a branch from a pine tree and smoked carefully. The taste would then be even better than that of frogs and bullfrogs.
In the past, some people stayed far away from this tasty dish because toads looked ugly.
But when they transmigrated to the Other World, they had no other choice. Once they found that even earthworms tasted great, they no longer cared about the toads’ outer appearance.
Besides, the Hundred-eyed Toad was bigger than even the largest bullfrog on Earth. Even after it was smoked and shrank, its legs were still thicker than a drumstick. If anyone picked one with their hands and bit down with a growl, they would not be able to reach the bones, so eating it was a real pleasure!
Meng Chao used his monster coins to buy a total of ten honeyed Ghost-arrow Pigs and twenty smoked toad legs, which formed a mountain of meat in front of him.
Even if the superhumans’ metabolism was incredibly quick and they spent energy five times faster than normal people, Meng Chao’s astonishing appetite still caused quite a number of people to look at him strangely.
He chose the most discreet corner in the cafeteria and used the mountain of meat to hide himself.
Then, he rubbed his temples gently while he focused on Kindling, which was at the top of his field of vision. He checked his results.
He had to kill one thousand normal monsters for the third segment of the Fight for the Ultimate Style quest, and his progress had risen to 178/1,000. It should not be difficult to complete it over the next few days, but he had decided to get a five-star rating, so he planned to complete the quest by at least twice the required amount. It would be best if he could kill three thousand normal monsters.
He also obtained extra contribution points and skillfulness points after killing monsters. Since he had talked about his strategies in detail with the students and promoted the Ultimate Style, he obtained contribution points from it as well. Right then, he had forty thousand points.
The progress of the repair of the ten main meridians had also reached 67%. In one week, he should be able to completely clear them. At that time, he should be able to get another killing move aside from Demon Subduing Slash.
As for now…
Meng Chao thought about it for a while before he smiled softly and scrolled to Army Fist in his skill list.
It was a basic fist technique that hundreds of Red Dragon Army’s soldiers mastered. Many students also came into contact with it during their middle school or high school years.
Meng Yishan also came from the Red Dragon Army, so there was no way Meng Chao would not know it.
But in the past, he seldom used Army Fist to fight, so his Skillfulness with it was at a Normal Level.
Since his best friend had a unique heroic spirit and could only practice the Army Fist, Meng Chao would definitely help him. He wanted to show him how the Army Fist looked after it evolved in the distant future once countless Red Dragon Army soldiers spilled their blood for it one after another!
Besides, the untameable brats were waiting for him to teach them a lesson using the Army Fist!
After thinking about this, Meng Chao no longer hesitated. He decided to spend lavishly and threw more than ten thousand contribution points into increasing the Skillfulness of Army Fist.
“Hiss…”
A piercing pain raged through his body.
It was as if a dam in the depths of his brain had collapsed, and the memory fragments from his previous life surged into him like a tidal wave.
He felt as if each nerve ending was withstanding an electricity shock of one hundred thousand voltage. His cells screamed, and his blood boiled. His organs twitched madly, and his muscle fibers acted like an aquatic dragon that had just woken up. They bared their claws under his burning skin and continuously swelled, shrank, and trembled.
[Congratulations. Your Skillfulness with Normal Level Army Fist has reached 100%. It is now upgraded to Specialist Level.]
[Congratulations. Your Skillfulness with Specialist Level Army Fist has reached 100%. It is now upgraded to Master Level.]
[Congratulations. Your Skillfulness with Master Level Army Fist has reached 100%. It is now upgraded to Perfect Level.]
Meng Chao pushed the future Army Fist to Perfect Level in one go!
Even if the Army Fist was just a basic fist technique and he had awakened to supernatural powers and cleared all 1,024 branch meridians, which pushed his physical constitution to much greater heights, he was in so much pain that he gritted his teeth. He also became so hungry that he saw stars. It was as if a monster had punctured a hole in his stomach.
The aromatic meat mountain in front of him was meant for him to replenish his energy once he drained too much of it by increasing his Skillfulness.
Meng Chao swiftly ate the eight smoked toad legs along with their bones. He could not even be bothered to chew them. Then, he shoved three honeyed Ghost-arrow Pigs down his throat, and it was only then that the hunger he felt subsided. He let out a satisfied sigh.
‘Before, there were two factors stopping me from activating the skills from my previous life. One of them was that I didn’t have enough contribution points. The second was that I didn’t have enough nutrients,’ Meng Chao thought. ‘But these two aren’t a problem while I’m at the northern battlefield. As long as I keep killing, I can get dozens of monsters to eat every day. I’ll get tons of nutrients, so it won’t be a dream for me to push all my basic skills to the Ultimate Level.
‘It was the right choice to come to the northern battlefield. I might even be able to reach two stars and break the record of turning from a one-star superhuman to a two-star superhuman!
‘And aside from this…’
Meng Chao gently rubbed the center of his eyebrows.
Goosebumps broke out once more on the skin on his neck.
It was as if he could sense the pain of his blood gushing out once more.
When he leveled up his Army Fist, he saw bits and pieces of his memories.
He was in a huge training camp, where he received training that was much harsher than the one received in the Red Dragon Army.
The training camp seemed to be underground, because there were dozens of lights that were even brighter than the sun hanging above his head, which made it really obvious when the trainees decided to slack off.
Someone he had seen in his nightmare was also there—it was the instructor with the bad breath.
This time, he did have a painted skull on his face nor any disguise of the Other World creatures. It allowed Meng Chao to see his face. But there was nothing special about it; it was a forgettable face.
The only thing sticking out was the top of a skull-shaped tattoo under his properly fastened collar.
There were wisps of black flames coming out of the skull’s black eye sockets. After circling around the skull a few times, they crawled into its mouth.
This was the second mark that Meng Chao remembered clearly aside from the X-shaped eye.
‘Looks like I received this instructor’s special training in this mysterious underground training camp in my previous life, and I changed from a normal citizen to a third-class fighter.’ Meng Chao thought in silence. ‘My Army Fist was perfected and strengthened in this training camp to the point that I formed muscle memories and instinctive reactions. That’s why I was able to easily push it to Perfect Level after returning to the past.
‘But I don’t think that this underground training base belonged to the Red Dragon Army.
‘The atmosphere at the base of the Red Dragon Army shouldn’t be this gloomy, brutal, and strange. Everyone gave off a dreary air.
‘Where is this located? Who is the instructor? Why did I join this mysterious squad in my previous life? What sort of mission did we carry out? Why did we need to massacre a village that belonged to a civilization of the Other World?’
Meng Chao had a feeling that he needed to become stronger before he could answer these questions and unveil this mystery.
While he was thinking about his next step, a thin and short person brought over a meat mountain that was just as ridiculous as Meng Chao’s in front of him, jumped on the bench nimbly, and squatted down.
It was the Panther Girl, Wu Wu.