Roadmap to the Boundless Sky-Chapter 151Book 3, : Fog Setting In

Chen Chuan wasn’t able to just use supernatural beings. He could use simple rituals, though, because he had references. Given enough time and materials, he could even perform more complicated rituals.

But they had a lot of flaws. Most of the time, they needed to be drawn on the floor and the walls ahead of time, so it was practically impossible to use them to restrain martial artists.

After all, even if a martial artist didn’t know how to use biofields, their awareness of danger was incredibly sharp. The moment they sensed that something was amiss, they would avoid it.

They could also easily destroy arrays. That was why drawing on the building was not just a bad idea, but a waste of time.

Chen Chuan’s plan was to draw the arrays inside his protective gear and set up a supplementary ritual for which he could offer sacrifices. 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

Who was going to be sacrificed?

The enemies who were about to attack them, obviously.

After an entire afternoon’s worth of work, he managed to set up arrays in his clothes, gloves, and protective mask. That set should be enough.

Once Chen Chuan was done and had to wait for the ritual materials to sink into his clothes, he logged into the university platform.

The month before, he had applied for training resources for Third Limit martial artists. At that time, the university had told him that his application was under review, and they would give him a reply within five days. All he could do was wait.

In the beginning of October, the Resolution Department told him that the university had learned that he had signed an NDA. This skipped certain steps of the review process, and they sent another contract to make sure that he wouldn’t spread any knowledge about Third Limit training to other people.

Once Chen Chuan signed it, the university allowed him access to what he sought.

He had skimmed through the information available before and found that the university offered knowledge both from the new and old eras. Most of the information from the old era was free, while most of the information from the new era needed to be purchased, and it wasn’t cheap. Chen Chuan could accept it, though.

Even so, there was still some knowledge that he couldn’t access, such as how he was supposed to take the special medicine properly and all services related to it.

This was because the university would only give it to him after getting a record from the government that he had been given special medicine. As for records from other companies? They didn’t recognize those.

Chen Chuan was fine with not being able to access that information. He didn’t need it, not when he had his second self.

His focus was on how he should train, such as how to better refine blood essence and build a mental foundation.

These two things were of incredible importance. From his experience, he had learned that he could stabilize his body through his mind and not allow his thoughts to stray. Blood essence, meanwhile, was an anchor that could keep him in his physical form and not let his body go through unknown changes.

The new era’s training method was built upon the foundation left by the predecessors. Through repeated reviews and optimization, their method could be said to be the most efficient. After buying it, Chen Chuan found it worth the money, and he had been using it over the past few days to train.

But that didn’t mean that there was nothing he could learn from the old era’s methods. After all, there were plenty of impurities in their medicine, which came from different sources, so they had plenty of ways to identify and target them. Their focus was on ways to train while in various extreme environments.

One of them was a way to keep training even while heavily injured. This allowed them to remain in fighting form.

Another was to train while sleeping.

There was even one that taught how to use what little was left of one’s mutated tissue after losing most limbs. It came with techniques on how to release powerful attacks, which opened Chen Chuan’s eyes.

Aside from these, he also learned about the ways to use refined forces.

At the Third Limit, martial artists were able to access more complicated and fine-tuned ways to practice and use refined forces. The more advanced techniques required blood essence and a mental foundation, which made them much more complicated than those at the First and Second Limits. The techniques that complemented the Furnace Breathing Technique were some of them.

This was because all Third Limit martial artists had large quantities of mutated tissue. Based on what Chen Chuan learned from the platform, at least forty-five percent of their bodies were covered in mutated tissue.

Sometimes, the coverage even became the standard for measuring a Third Limit martial artist’s strength. Of course, in a real fight, there were many more things to consider, and a simple set of numbers couldn’t determine who would win. Even so, the amount of mutated tissue was an important factor on whether a person would win or lose a fight.

Some Third Limit martial artists went to great lengths to increase their coverage and overcome this weakness of theirs. Some even used implants or went through illegal mutated tissue transplants.

Since Chen Chuan practiced the All-Encompassing Force, he focused on covering his entire body with mutated tissue right from the start, so he didn’t need to do anything extra. All he had to do was continue onward like he had always done.

In theory, he could learn most of the refined forces offered by the courses, but he didn’t have the time nor the energy for that. He picked a few practical ones and focused on practicing them to vary his attack patterns.

While practicing the refined forces, he bought all sorts of training information from the university as reference. He was also taking medicine nonstop, which led to him improving bit by bit every day.

This was normal.

Other martial artists didn’t have so much special medicine. They needed to contribute to the government or some company before receiving it.

Due to everyone being worried that something would go wrong with the martial artist, sometimes, the government and the companies would even intentionally hold back on giving out the special medicine to drag out the time between doses. No martial artist could take the special medicine like Chen Chuan.

While training, Chen Chuan did not forget about keeping the manor safe, so he did his best to train in the afternoon. It was unlikely for the manor to be ambushed during the day, because it would be far too easy to notice the attackers, and they could mobilize their forces the moment they saw them. That was why Chen Chuan was sure that the ambush would come at night or near dawn.

During this period of time, he always wore his full set of protective gear and kept his gun and sabers within reach. He had also replaced sleep with meditation, allowing him to be able to react the moment he heard or noticed something.

A few more days passed, and it was the middle of October. Most of the maple tree leaves had turned red.

One day, after he finished training, Chen Chuan checked his Realm Pass and noticed that Central City would be shrouded in fog for the upcoming days.

As he watched the swaying branches and fluttering red leaves while listening to their loud rustling, one thought rose in his mind: They’re coming.

***

Two days passed, and it was the twenty-third of October. At 4 a.m., the tall man was standing under a streetlamp at the perimeter of Motie Mountain.

He stared at the spacious road ahead. A thick layer of fog shrouded the area further ahead, and even he had a hard time seeing into the distance.

Just then, he heard the roar of an engine, and bright lights shone. An armored car leading a motorcade tore through the fog. The emblem of a security company was painted on the damp car. After it, similar armored cars showed up one after another.

The motorcade came to a slow stop after drawing near. One of the cars was an armored limousine. The door opened, and a hunched man in a gray hoodie walked out.

He was thin and had bulging eyes. His arms were so long that they practically touched the ground. Even so, he was more than two meters tall. In a hoarse voice, he said, “Xiao Sheng, the boss is calling you.”

Sheng Hui—the tall man—hurried over. The car window at the back rolled down to reveal a man in his forties, who had his hair combed back.

In his hands was a cane, and he wore a high-collared suit. The man had thin, bloodless lips, and there was a snake-shaped earring hanging off his left ear. When he looked over, it was as if he was staring into one’s soul, and it was terrifying.

Even if Sheng Hui had spoken to his boss multiple times, he felt his heart flutter in fear. Quickly, he ducked his head and said respectfully, “Boss.”

“Is everything ready?” the middle-aged man asked.

“There’s a bit of a problem. I’ve been trying to send a contact signal every day, but I haven’t received any reply. I believe the target has gotten rid of the mole the client put inside.

“If that’s the case, then even if our resonators break through the external domain lockdown, they won’t be able to do anything about the internal defenses for some time. We can’t hope for it to be taken out from within.”

The middle-aged man didn’t seem to be troubled by this. “Then, use a biosentient entity to perform a domain lockdown.”

Sheng Hui protested. “But the biosentient entity of Motie Mountain is quite strong. If we use this method, we’ll only have forty-five minutes for the attack. That includes the time we’ll need to retreat, which means that in reality we’ll only have twenty minutes for the attack itself. If I had a few more days to get things ready—”

“The client wants results now. We don’t have any more time. This weather is perfect for our operation. We’ll use your plan. You’ve never let me down in our previous operations,” the middle-aged man interrupted him.

“Got it,” Sheng Hui said earnestly.

“Get in.”

Sheng Hui immediately ran to the car behind the limousine. Once he was inside, he turned around to take a look at the group and found that everyone had removed their Realm Passes, just as planned. The sight eased his worries a little.

The motorcade started moving again toward the residential area. When they entered the security zone, no one stopped them, because they had tampered with the system beforehand and become temporary residents of a manor in Motie Mountain, which allowed them to get access to the place. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have been able to saunter into the residential area in broad daylight.

They ran into no trouble in the beginning, but when they headed to Meng Shu’s manor, two patrol cars came over and sent them a message.

“Motorcade ahead, in accordance with the nighttime driving safety regulations, please stop and present your residential identification and state your current destination.”

They came to a slow stop.

Two patrol cars drove over, though only one approached. The other one stayed back, and the patrol guard inside put his hand at a place where it would be easy for him to draw his gun. He put his other hand on the alarm on his Realm Pass. The moment something went wrong, he would send the alarm, and the security system in Motie Mountain would kick into action.