Li Wen calmly retracted his gaze.

Without any hesitation, he swiped his card and headed straight for the "Exclusive Training Area for Top-Tier Techniques" on the first floor.

Compared to the lively main hall and the upper floors, the training area for top-tier techniques still maintained its deserted atmosphere.

Not even New Year’s Eve could lower the high threshold for practicing top-tier skills.

A few scattered figures were dispersed among the individual training booths, each immersed in their own world of flashing blades.

Li Wen familiarly pushed open the door to the training room he always used.

Cold metal walls, a mixed scent of disinfectant and sweat filling the air, and thick, tough, energy-absorbing material underfoot.

He took off his jacket, revealing a worn, black training uniform. He walked to the weapon rack and gripped the Standard Rapier he had used many times.

The hilt was cool to the touch, its heavy, metallic feel quickly spreading through his palm and sinking deep into his bones. This familiar sensation was like a command, instantly igniting the dormant elements within him.

WHOOSH—

He took a deep breath, then slowly exhaled.

’The warmth of the holiday reunion, the expectant gazes of his parents, the complicated glance from Xue Jun and the others...’ All these emotions were forcefully suppressed and expelled with that long breath.

His gaze quickly became focused and sharp, like a tempered blade, with no trace of slackness remaining.

The training rhythm he had honed over the past half-month kicked in automatically, requiring no thought.

BUZZ! SWISH! He swung the first slash, and the air let out a low hiss.

He didn’t activate his trump card ability right away. Instead, relying on his body’s muscle memory, he swung his arm over and over like a craftsman, repeating the Minor Achievement-level moves of the Rainbow Light Saber Skill that were already etched into his muscle fibers.

With every slash, every step, every turn of his Body Technique, he carefully felt the vibrational feedback from the blade and the subtle deviations in its trajectory, searching for those "raw" spots that he had not yet fully tamed.

The fluency that came with Minor Achievement in the Rainbow Light Saber Skill was significant, but the path beyond it was harder. Every step of improvement required more meticulous polishing.

Time slipped away quietly with each drop of sweat.

About an hour later, Li Wen felt his body warming up and his muscles starting to ache slightly. He precisely identified several key points in his Minor Achievement-level ultimate moves—ones requiring immense bursts of power and control—that were still not fluid enough. ’The time has come!’

The thought arose, no complex ritual needed—

’Activate, Absolute Focus LV5!’

BUZZ!

It was as if an invisible nuclear reactor had ignited deep within his mind! The qualitative change brought by LV5 soul strength manifested instantly.

His main consciousness wasn’t completely submerged as before. Instead, it retained a clear film of perception, like a calm commander high in a control tower, looking down on his instincts as they instantly entered an overclocked computational state.

His entire Spiritual Power was held in the grasp of his will like a precision scalpel.

The fifty percent comprehension bonus erupted.

His five senses were instantly elevated to an extremely acute state.

The trajectories of dust motes in the air, the vortexes created as the blade cut through the air currents, the exertion state of every muscle fiber in his body, the rhythm of his blood flow and heartbeat... Countless pieces of information flooded in like a waterfall, only to be instantly sorted and integrated by that "calm commander."

Those subtle points of stagnation he had encountered during his practice just now were clearly magnified and locked onto, like specks of dirt under a microscope.

In his mind, images of past practice sessions, key descriptions from the saber skill manual, and even insights gained from fighting virtual opponents were frantically disassembled, compared, and reassembled by a terrifying computational power...

His body’s instincts faithfully received the commander’s information.

Wrist, forearm, shoulder blade, hip, ankle... Every joint and every muscle bundle seemed to have received a new, more efficient sequence of commands.

SWISH! CHING! The flash of the blade suddenly changed!

It was the same Shocking Rainbow Form, but its trajectory underwent an extremely subtle yet micrometer-precise adjustment mid-motion.

The whistling sound of it cutting through the air instantly became shorter and more condensed. Fewer afterimages of the blade remained as the energy converged at its very tip! The power multiplied!

The returning slash! What was originally a backhanded upward cut with a slight lag during the rapid spin became a nearly perfect arc of light under the overclocked computation and ultimate control.

The angle of his waist’s rotation was precisely optimized, as if an extra point of support had appeared out of thin air. The transition between dissipating and borrowing force during the spin became seamless. The blade followed the man, and the man moved with the blade.

Sweat rolled down his forehead and into his eye, bringing a slight stinging sensation. But Li Wen didn’t even need to blink.

His instincts, under overclocked computation, perfectly took over his physiological responses. The path of the sweat and the speed at which it would enter his eye were instantly calculated, and his eyelid blinked with millisecond precision, flawlessly blocking the sweat from interfering with his vision.

’Focus on the now! Focus on this slash! Focus on carving this insight into my very bones!’

On his panel, the experience value for [Saber Skill · Top-Tier (Minor Achievement)] silently yet steadily jumped upwards, at a rate several times faster than before... Time was given meaning in the flashing of his blade; every second was precious.

...

[You have trained your saber skill for 3 hours. Rainbow Light Saber Skill +1]

[You have focused on training your saber skill for one hour and twenty minutes. Rainbow Light Saber Skill +4]

[Skill: Saber Skill · Top-Tier (Minor Achievement 30→35/100)]

The afternoon passed in the blink of an eye.

As his saber skill realm continuously improved, the speed of its growth gradually decreased.

When he was at the introductory level, he could gain about 8 experience points a day.

Now, he could only gain a little over 5 points.

Of course, this speed was still leagues faster than anyone else’s.

This made Li Wen appreciate the importance of comprehension even more.

At the same time, he finally understood why those geniuses could cultivate so quickly.

And he could only experience the high comprehension bonus for less than two hours a day.

Those geniuses had it 24/7!

Over the years, the gap between them would become a chasm.

’Good thing my comprehension can keep increasing, while theirs is fixed.’ Wiping the sweat from his forehead, Li Wen packed up his things and left the Fire Hall.

Leaving the Fire Hall, he found the decorative evening lights were just coming on outside.

The lively New Year’s Eve atmosphere hadn’t completely dissipated. The streets were a bit more crowded than in previous days, mostly with pedestrians heading home after visiting relatives and friends or finishing their reunion dinners.

Li Wen boarded a familiar bus route.

The bus moved along smoothly, the streetscape outside blurring past the window.

Li Wen leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes to rest, letting his mind review every detail of his afternoon saber practice.

Until...

A violent jolt suddenly snapped Li Wen out of his semi-meditative state! 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

The driver slammed on the brakes, the screech of tires against pavement piercing the ears! Cries of alarm and the sound of collisions erupted inside the bus!

"What the hell is going on?!"

"Was there an accident?"

"Up ahead... what happened up ahead?!"

The passengers, still in shock, all stood up to look toward the front.

Li Wen immediately squeezed his way to a window. Just a short distance ahead, he saw it: the collapsed pit of the Qingmu Project—the very same one that had once been the focus of the entire county’s news, the one that had buried many of his father’s coworkers.