Chapter 120: Order Me Some Takeout [Wugeng, Please Subscribe!]

This time, the journey back to Dominance City aboard the Magic Crystal airship still took eight days, and thankfully, the voyage remained smooth throughout.

By the third day after takeoff, Lin Huang had already advanced his Fate Technique, "Art of Warfare," to the third level. Over the next five days, he dedicated himself to practicing this technique in his cabin, accumulating more than three hundred shards.

Meanwhile, Lin Xin spent all eight days holed up in her room, engrossed in playing the Gunmaster game, seemingly lost in its virtual world.

The Magic Crystal airship arrived at Dominance City shortly after three in the afternoon. The two disembarked but made no stops within the city; instead, they promptly mounted the Violet-Eyed White Roc and soared back to Wulin Town.

After being away for over twenty days, Lin Huang immediately enlisted Lin Xin’s help to conduct a thorough cleaning of their home. They spent more than two hours scrubbing every corner, finishing just in time for dinner around six o’clock.

After the meal, Lin Xin returned to her room to resume gaming.

Lin Huang cleared the dishes, then settled onto the living room sofa to catch up on the news.

The media had been persistently covering the parasite infestation in Xia City for several days, but the frenzy had finally died down.

It had been over a week since the parasite incident began. According to information from the Imperial Network and Hunter Intelligence websites, the truth behind the infestation in Xiagong City remained elusive. The investigators had yet to discover the hidden battleground beneath the Xiagong Ruins.

Besides the parasite episode in Xia City, the Seventh District had seen little major news during this period.

Lin Huang opened the news page and was momentarily stunned. The entire feed was nearly monopolized by news about a single individual.

“Gold Medal Hunter Ranked Second, Jiang You, Recently Breaks Through to Transcendent!” This headline led the page, followed by numerous reports detailing Jiang You’s exploits.

Lin Huang had heard of Jiang You but knew little about him, except for the online nickname, “Eternal Runner-Up.”

The Gold Medal Hunter Ranking listed one thousand slots, mostly filled by warriors at the Golden Third Tier. Those who made the list generally had a high chance of breaking through to the Transcendent realm, especially those within the top one hundred.

Most hunters did not linger long at Golden Third Tier—usually no more than a year or two—because accumulating life force was relatively easy. By defeating suitable Transcendent monsters, breakthroughs could be swiftly achieved. Hence, the top one hundred rankings on any district’s Gold Medal Hunter list tended to fluctuate significantly every year or two.

However, Jiang You had remained steadfast in second place on the leaderboard for a full seven years. The first-place holder had changed four times during that period, yet Jiang You had never moved from second, earning him the moniker “Eternal Runner-Up.”

Many were curious why he had stayed so long at the Golden Third Tier, but only he knew the answer.

After seven long years, he finally succeeded in advancing—a major event in the Seventh District.

Various media outlets, bored and eager for attention, had seized on this development, turning it into a hot topic.

“Has today’s news turned into a personal feature?” Lin Huang shook his head with a smile.

Closing the news page, he suddenly recalled the task card he had yet to activate—something he had planned to do as soon as he returned.

Considering the next month held no pressing matters, he retrieved the card.

The golden task card displayed, on its front, the image of a blonde woman clad in a black maid’s outfit.

“Activate task card,” Lin Huang commanded promptly.

The image on the card shifted as the blonde woman lazily stretched around her waist before locking eyes with Lin Huang.

“Brother, we meet again,” she purred, batting her eyelashes flirtatiously at him.

Lin Huang smiled silently, waiting for her to issue the task.

“Now, I shall assign your mission!”

“Task details: Advance the ‘Art of Warfare’ to level six within thirty days!”

“Completion reward: One Healing Card.”

“Failure to complete within the allotted time will result in punishment: Random loss of one functional card.”

“Task assignment complete. For more information, please refer to the description on the back of the card.”

After delivering the task, the blonde woman gave Lin Huang another coquettish wink. “Brother, you must do your best!”

“To raise the Art of Warfare to level six in one month...” Lin Huang was speechless. He realized he had once again been trapped by a task card. “How is this even possible?!”

At present, his Art of Warfare was only at level three. To advance from level three to four required 800 card shards; he had just over 300, so he still lacked 400. From level four to five demanded 1,600 shards, and to reach level six, a full 10,000 shards were necessary. Altogether, he needed over 12,000 shards in a month.

Accumulating that many shards in such a short time was utterly impossible!

“No use thinking about it now—the task is already activated. It’s too late to back out,” Lin Huang said, rising and heading upstairs.

Once in his room, he didn’t immediately begin training but sent Lin Xin a message first: “I’m going to focus on practicing the Art of Warfare this period. Looks like we’ll be living on takeout for the next month…”

After sending the message, he closed the door and began circulating the Art of Warfare.

Currently, his third-level technique took about fifteen minutes to complete one full cycle. By midnight, he had only gathered about twenty more shards.

The next morning, he rose at six and resumed training. Around eight, Lin Xin knocked and called him for breakfast.

“From now on, I’ll make my own cereal for breakfast. You don’t have to order lunch for me anymore, either. But I’ll need you to help order dinner,” Lin Huang planned to save time by handling breakfasts and lunches himself.

“No problem, leave it to me! But won’t you be hungry if you skip lunch?” Lin Xin agreed readily but couldn’t hide her concern.

“I’m fine. I won’t get hungry,” Lin Huang smiled and shook his head.

“Alright then...” she acquiesced.

After breakfast, Lin Huang returned to his room to continue training. By bedtime, he had accumulated nearly eighty shards.

Over the following days, Lin Huang consistently woke at six, prepared a bowl of cereal and some fruit, then trained steadily. He took about ten minutes around six in the evening to eat dinner before resuming practice until midnight. His daily training lasted nearly eighteen hours.

Finally, by midday on the fifth day, he had gathered the necessary 800 shards and successfully advanced the Art of Warfare to level four.

The fourth level brought a more complex full cycle, slowing the technique’s circulation once again.

Five more days passed before he shortened the cycle time from the original half-hour to just ten minutes.

Fortunately, shard accumulation quickened, with over a hundred shards collected daily. As the cycle speed increased, so did his shard intake.

By the twentieth day, Lin Huang elevated the Art of Warfare to level five.

“Only ten days left. I’ll have to gamble on the Insight Card!” he thought. He had long decided that the only hope to complete this task lay with the Insight Card.

He drew the Insight Card, took a deep breath, then crushed it, starting to circulate the fifth-level Art of Warfare once more.

In the state of insight, the first cycle still took half an hour. The second dropped to twenty minutes, the third to ten, the fourth to three minutes, and the fifth to just one minute...

Each subsequent cycle sped up further.

By the tenth cycle, Lin Huang’s life force completed a full cycle nearly every second.

In less than four hours, he accumulated the required 10,000 shards and broke through to level six.

Yet the Art of Warfare did not cease circulating.

The sixth level’s full cycle was several times more complicated than the fifth.

Completing the first cycle took three hours, the second two hours...

After more than seven hours, the cycle speed finally returned to an extraordinary pace of one cycle per second.

Over the next eight hours, he gathered 30,000 shards.

The Art of Warfare broke through again, reaching level seven.

Lin Huang’s body had been in continuous circulation for nearly twenty hours, but the insight state persisted...

His life force began circulating at the seventh level’s full cycle.

After more than thirty hours, he amassed 90,000 shards.

The Art of Warfare advanced once more—to level eight.

Only then did Lin Huang finally emerge from his insight state.

Two full days and nights without rest had left him spitting blood from his nose and mouth.

Upon waking, he immediately grabbed a glass of water and drank deeply before closing his eyes and collapsing heavily onto his bed.

When he awoke again, he found Lin Xin standing vigil at his bedside.

“What happened?” Lin Huang asked, surprised.

“Brother, you scared me half to death!” Lin Xin recounted what had transpired.

During Lin Huang’s two days of insight training, Lin Xin had knocked repeatedly at dinner time with no response. On the third day, still no answer. Unable to bear it, she opened the door to find him in a deep sleep. Fearing for his health, she called emergency services.

“Thankfully, the doctors said all your vitals are normal. Your body just entered an automatic sleep state and would soon wake up,” she said, her eyes reddening slightly.

“Don’t worry, I’m fine. I was just exhausted from training and needed to rest,” Lin Huang reassured her, rubbing her head affectionately.

“You say rest, but you were asleep for a whole week!” Lin Xin pouted, displeased.

“A week? No wonder I feel so hungry...” Lin Huang was stunned. “Xin’er, can you help me order some takeout? I’m going to freshen up.”

“Got it!” Lin Xin jumped up and headed toward the living room, already pulling up the online food ordering page.

~~~~~~

[The fifth update is here! Many thanks to “Waiting for Five Hundred Years Only for a Good Book” for the generous ten-thousand coin reward! I haven’t checked the subscription count on the backend yet. For friends reading on other sites who can’t subscribe to the official version, even a small token like 0.12 yuan on Qidian would be appreciated. Bullet here sincerely thanks you!]