Yang Tian drove back to the small five-story building.
There were many like him—people who wandered and trained. Unlike him, however, most of them settled their temporary residences outside Tianxiong City in the High Alert Area. Yang Tian located himself in the area between the High Alert Area and Danger Zone.
He started learning how to use the Warriormate as soon as he went upstairs.
At that same moment, Drago emerged from Yang Tian's breast pocket and hopped on to his shoulder. It opened its eyes wide to look at the gadget around his wrist in full curiosity.
Following the instructional manual and the smart guide in the Warriormate, Yang Tian spent about two hours inputting every voice command.
He later took out his cell phone, turned it off, drew out the SIM card, and transferred it into the card slot of the Warriormate.
Then, he took out and put on a Bluetooth earpiece from the product box.
After putting in the SIM card and restarting the Warriormate, it said, "Thank you for using our high tech product from Stellartech, Warriormate. You currently have operating system version 1.0. You would need to upgrade it to version 2.0. Upgrade fee: 1,000 Wu."
"What the hell?!"
Yang Tian could not help but curse out loud when he heard that. He did not expect this thing would still need to be upgraded. 'What if there are 3.0, or even 4.0 in the future? Does it cost that much as well?'
What a scam!
Yang Tian felt like he got conned by purchasing this thing.
'Alright, I'll just suck it up!' he thought. Following instructions, he connected the system with his bank card and paid 1,000 Wu, then commanded, "Upgrade to version 2.0!"
It took about half an hour before the Warriormate had completely upgraded.
Operating system version 2.0, compared to 1.0, showed significant improvements. Version 1.0 was a lot stiffer, but version 2.0 had become a lot more humanized and intelligent. Yang Tian thought it was worth the one thousand he paid.
"Master, I am No.100001. You can give me another name. I'm glad to be at your service."
Since Yang Tian was wearing the earpiece, the AI started speaking into his ear as soon as the upgrade was completed.
It was the voice of a young lady, crisp and gentle.
"I guess I'll call you 'Blackie' then!" He looked at the black-colored Warriormate and said without giving much thought.
…
After that, Yang Tian connected Blackie to the Warriors Alliance website and went into the Combat Skills purchasing page.
Following instructions from Blackie, Yang Tian removed Warriormate from his wrist, closed his windows, and placed it on his tea table.
A beam of light projected onto the white wall from the Warriormate and formed a very clear display image.
There were many Combat Skills to choose from. After browsing through them, Yang Tian chose a skill called Shadow Break, which was a set of blade forms suitable for beginners.
There was currently a little more than a hundred thousand Wu in Yang Tian's bank card. If excluding the 50,000 he wanted to send to his parents, there were less than 50,000 left to be used. Fortunately, this basic Combat Skill only cost a mere 20,000 Wu. With the 10% processing fee added on, Yang Tian paid 22,000 Wu to have it downloaded into his Warriormate.
Yang Tian took no time to log off the Warriors Alliance website as soon as he made his purchase so that he could watch the Shadow Break tutorial video.
The video was very long—he started at noon and finished by night time.
He checked the watch after the video had turned off, and it was already 8 pm.
"Transfer 50,000 Wu to my father's card. The bank card number is ****," Yang Tian instructed Blackie, and the money was transferred to his father's account.
After the transaction, he had Blackie call up his family's landline to make sure his father received the transfer notification from the bank. His parents then nagged him for some time before they hung up the phone.
After talking to his parents, Yang Tian called up Qin Fei and the two exchanged words of love for quite a while.
He realized that ever since Qin Fei took the courage to kiss him, their relationship had progressed a great deal. Yang Tian knew that by the time they saw each other again, it probably would have taken another step forward.
Yang Tian wore a silly smile on his face for quite a moment after they hung up.
"Squeak squeak squeak…"
When Yang Tian finally finished all his tasks, the little green dragon made noise to announce his presence.
Yang Tian could hear the tone of dissatisfaction from his squeaking.
"It's not that I was ignoring you, I really had a bunch of things to do! I bought some raw beef. I'll grill them for you in a minute, okay?"
As soon as he heard 'grilled meat', Drago squeaked joyfully and hopped on to Yang Tian's shoulder, rubbing his head against his face affectionately.
…
6 am, at the crack of dawn. Yang Tian rose from his sleep. After washing up with river water, he ate a can of beef and went downstairs with his Tang dao.
Drago jumped up to his shoulder. Yang Tian realized that this little creature was really thoughtful because every time there were outsiders, he would hide so that people could not see him.
In fact, that was what Yang Tian had been hoping for—to keep Drago a secret weapon. Especially during fierce battles in the future, Drago could appear out of the blue to make a fatal blow.
The enemies that Warriors faced in this world were sometimes not only Monsters but also humans as well. Much like his encounter with Wang Wei previously who tried to murder him to get his hands on the Grade Two Beast Core.
Yang Tian went to the first floor.
The first floor used to be a storefront and had a big empty space. After some cleaning, it could become Yang Tian's training ground.
After spending about an hour cleaning, the floor was spotless, and Yang Tian started to practice Shadow Break.
The first floor had rolled-up doors. Once pulled, the room became dim. Yang Tian took off his Warriormate and turned on the projecting function. He started practicing while watching the explanations.
Shadow Break was a basic Combat Skills so it was not too difficult. With continuous practice, it would exercise most muscles in the body, thus initiating the ability to control one's physical power.
On top of that, this set of forms came with a specific breathing method. To practice the forms with it, it could trigger physical potentials at the highest level.
Yang Tian thought he might not have remembered much just by watching the tutorial video once yesterday afternoon which was why he turned it on during practice. Much to his surprise, he realized that his memory served him very well when he started practicing. Following the beginning of his movements, the memory of the saber method started flowing out of his mind like spring.
He could perform the entire form at his first try.
Even though it could still flow better, the practice session went smoothly.
If the inventor of Shadow Break was to see Yang Tian performing the form so well at first try, he would have been very shocked!
He was not only surprised by this. He also realized that practicing the saber form with a certain breathing frequency allowed him to feel warm all over the body. It simply felt like he had unlimited strength in his body; like a flow of energy circulating within!
The tutorial video took a few hours to reach the end. as the Warrior who was demonstrating had to pause once in a while to explain certain crucial transitions, and on top of that, some movements required a few repetitions.
Nevertheless, once learned, the entire set of blade forms only took half an hour to perform. If the movements were sped up through time, it could even be completed within a few minutes.
When Yang Tian finished running through the form the second time, he felt that practicing indoors in a confined space could not satisfy him.
"Nature is the best teacher!"
Yang Tian suddenly recalled the advice from Qin Fei's grandfather, Qin Zhengyang.
"Drago, let's go! Let's practice outside!" Yang Tian smiled at Drago.
He turned off the Warriormate projection, put it back on his wrist, and walked toward the staircase.
Drago squealed with joy and jumped up on his shoulder.
"Hiss… hiss… hiss…"
One hour later, in the woods outside of Huangqiu City, Yang Tian moved his body swiftly. The saber in his hand turned into sheets of white light; its friction with the air produced hissing sounds.
Drago was up on a tree, and his claws kept scratching on the tree branches, pulling leaves off. The leaves caught the air current and flowed toward Yang Tian who was practicing his saber.
Some of these falling leaves had been sliced half by Yang Tian's blade…
A long moment later…
Yang Tian sheathed his saber and exhaled.
"Drago, pull out fewer leaves next time, will you? My saber is not fast enough yet," Yang Tian told him with a light pant.
"Squeak squeak!" Drago answered.