From his pocket, Su Jingxing took out his second-hand phone and took a look.
Mhm?
Three minutes?!
While his consciousness was within the space of the "Martial Arts Practice Card" for ten years, only three minutes had passed in reality?
T-this is beyond incredible!
After the initial shock, Su Jingxing was ecstatic.
The ability of the Martial Arts Practice Card was simply too powerful; it could completely make up for his lack of talent.
He was excited to find out what level of mastery he was at after cultivating the Seven Steps Fist for ten years.
Su Jingxing drew a deep breath, put down his phone, and walked a few steps away. Then, he began to perform the Seven Steps Fist.
Whoosh!
As soon as he made a move, the air was filled with whooshing sounds from his fist winds.
His feet move along with his fists, whirling and shifting with great mastery.
Straight ahead, one step, two, three, four, five!
Bang!
Accompanied by an explosion in the air, Su Jingxing took five steps in one breath before he had to stop.
He took five out of the seven steps! That meant he was at the cultivation level of Perfection!
After tirelessly practicing "Seven Steps Fist" in the Martial Arts Practice Space for ten years, Su Jingxing's mastery of the fist technique had reached Perfection.
Although this wasn't the highest achievable level, he had already surpassed most of the practitioners of this technique.
It has been decades since anyone from the Wei Family's dojo—the origin of Seven Steps Fist—had achieved this level of mastery.
Su Jingxing's current strength was close to 3000 catties.
If he were to use the Seven Steps Fist and take five steps in a row, he would be able to unleash around 13,000 to 14,000 jins of power!
In terms of strength alone, Su Jingxing was stronger than a seventh-grade martial artist.
With the Martial Arts Practice Card and "Seven Steps Fist", Su Jingxing could finally somewhat keep himself safe within Qinghe City.
He was one step closer to taking revenge on Wan Rong!
Huff…
Su Jingxing exhaled and calmed himself down, ending the practice.
Martial Arts Practice Card!
As compared to normal skill cards, the Martial Arts Practice Card was rarer and more effective.
The card had come from a Corpse Puppet; if he wanted to obtain it again, he would most likely have to find another Corpse Puppet.
But corpse puppets were not ubiquitous. The appearance of a single one of them had caused massive panic in Forestry Town, as well as the death of eleven.
If Su Jingxing wanted to find another Corpse Puppet, he would have to "create" it himself!
First, he had to steal a corpse, then dispose of it in the wilderness and wait for Corpse-raising Insects to get attracted to it. After the reconstruction is complete, the corpse would turn into a Corpse Puppet.
Before the Corpse Puppet began to move, he would have to dismember it. Then, finally, he would be able to extract a card from it.
The entire process required Su Jingxing's close monitoring.
There were many problems with the plan: putting aside whether Su Jingxing could break the Corpse Puppet's terrifying body with his fist technique alone, the very first step of the plan—which involves stealing a corpse—was extremely difficult.
Every corpse that enters the crematorium would be kept under surveillance the second it passes the gate, all the way until it burns to ashes.
Su Jingxing might be a member of the Corpse Collection Team, but that didn't mean it was possible for him to steal corpses.
As for hunting for corpses outside the crematorium…
He thought it best to discard the thought. The more he thought about it, the more it gave him a headache.
Shaking his head, Su Jingxing stifled his impatience. He then picked up his phone and left the back mountain.
He decided to get dinner at the canteen before heading to the working area to see if he could extract a few extra cards.
[Corpse discovered. Would you like to extract it?]
Mhm?
Su Jingxing, who was walking along the corridor, froze and glanced around.
There were no corpses nearby, so why did the notification suddenly appear?
In his bewilderment, Su Jingxing took a few steps back. The notification disappeared.
Then a few steps forward—
[Corpse discovered. Would you like to extract it?]
The notification popped up again!
He took a few steps forward, and the notification disappeared again.
A few steps backward. The notification appeared. A few more steps backward. The notification disappeared.
After several tries, Su Jingxing finally came to a conclusion.
The notification had a certain range limit!
It wouldn't appear if he was out of the range.
And this range also took the other side of the corridor wall into consideration.
Su Jingxing walked for a long time before he arrived at the other side of the wall. Sure enough, there was a corpse lying in the corner.
He was at the back door entrance of the farewell ceremony hall. Every corpse would stop by this place briefly before entering the hall.
The notification earlier was clearly triggered by this corpse.
But the strange thing was that the corpse was more than two meters away from where Su Jingxing had received the notification!
Could it be that my extraction range had increased?
Su Jingxing was pleasantly surprised.
There was no other way to explain it; the notification had appeared even before he got close to the corpse.
Previously, they only appeared when he was within one meter of the corpse.
How much has the extraction range increased?
Su Jingxing stifled his excitement and walked towards the corpse, testing his theory by calculating the distance between him and the corpse.
As expected, the extraction range had increased!
It had increased from one meter to three meters.
"Why did it increase?"
When the excitement was over, Su Jingxing began replaying the events that took place on that day.
The increase in extraction range probably didn't have anything to do with the Corpse Puppet. It couldn't have been the effects of the Martial Arts Practice Card either, since that could only be used to cultivate one's martial arts secret manual.
The only possibility was the Spirit Accumulation Pill he got when he unlocked the Requiem Card!
Soul power?
My extraction range had increased along with my soul power?
After figuring out what was going on, Su Jingxing was pleasantly surprised.
This came as a better surprise than the Martial Arts Practice Card.
The logic was simple.
If his extraction range increased whenever his soul power increased, then as long as Su Jingxing kept taking Spirit Accumulation Pills, his extraction range would eventually be big enough to cover the entire crematorium!
Or even the entire Qinghe City!
When that day comes, Su Jingxing would be able to extract cards in the comfort of his home.
Being able to become stronger while lying down in bed was simply too good to be true.
Tsk!
Su Jingxing swallowed some spit to stifle his excitement, then left the corner.
A few steps later, he slowly began to compose himself.
It was a wonderful dream, but incredibly difficult to realize.
And the reason for that was because Requiem Cards were even harder to acquire than Martial Arts Practice Cards.
At the very least, he already knew the source of Martial Arts Practice Card: Corpse Puppets.
As for Requiem Cards, Su Jingxing had no idea where they came from, or how he ended up obtaining one.
Su Jingxing had gone through the particulars of all ten deceased members of the patrol team—none of them stood out in any way.
There was only one ninth-grade martial artist among them, and he had produced an Internal Force Card.
Therefore, Su Jingxing couldn't identify which corpse had produced the Internal Force Card.
He did not know where or how to get them, and he would have to rely on luck if he wanted more of them.
Increasing his soul power to the point where his extraction range can cover the entire crematorium was a long and arduous journey!
He got so excited, but in the end, he still had to go back to diligently moving corpses for Essence Energy Cards, Strength Enhancement Cards, and the occasional Internal Energy Cards.
He had planned to go to the black market that night, but after all the trouble the two cards had put him through, Su Jingxing had no mood to carry on with that plan.
Anyway, he was still a few dozen Essence Energy Pills short of 300.
He should be able to hit that number in a day or two.
With this in mind, Su Jingxing got back to diligently moving corpses and covering others' shifts the next day.
The day passed by, and he rinsed and repeated what he did on the following day.
By evening, he had gathered 300 Essence Energy Pills.
After taking all the Strength Pills he had obtained, the strength of both his hands exceeded 3,000 catties.
Even without the Seven Steps Fist, Su Jingxing's strength was already on par with an eighth-grade martial artist.
Of course—
Strength was only the superficial trademark of a true eighth-grade martial artist; the key was to be able to exude internal force!
And the way to do that was by delivering internal force into another's body through punches!
It could deal burst damage on the spot and damage veins, blood vessels, and bones, or destroy the opponent's internal organs after some time.
This was what exuding internal force meant!