Before long, Ji Xun arrived at 117 East City Street, East District Five.
Everything here was familiar.
The black glass building was brightly lit, and black smoke billowed from the crematorium's chimney.
In recent days, there had been many more corpses in Innocent City, and the corpse collectors were overwhelmed, especially since this was a completely new branch.
Ji Xun visited the recruitment office.
A new manager, unfamiliar to him, was in charge.
Since the entire field team of the previous branch had been wiped out, no one recognized him.
When Ji Xun expressed his desire to join, there were no obstacles. He completed the formalities on the spot.
He received a "Corpse Collector's Handbook," a set of work clothes, and a dormitory key, marking his official induction.
He was assigned to the fifth team.
This team was responsible for a large area around Tangning Street, the busiest zone, and always short-staffed.
The manager informed the team that a new recruit had joined. Normally, new recruits had to thoroughly read the handbook and slowly familiarize themselves with the job the next day.
However, as soon as Ji Xun stepped out, the new team leader of the fifth team called out to him.
"Hey, newbie, Ji... Ji San, right? Help move the bodies from the truck to the morgue."
"..."
Ji Xun raised his eyebrows, his expression under the mask slightly amused.
It seemed exploiting newcomers was a tradition among corpse collectors, and this new team leader was well-versed in it.
However, the last person to do this was now dead.
Thinking of certain scenes, Ji Xun smiled faintly.
Without a word, he pushed a trolley and, along with another new recruit, loaded the bodies onto it and took the old elevator down to the third basement's morgue.
Upon entering, the recruit who had joined two days earlier found an excuse to slack off and said, "Hey, just put the clients in the empty boxes. Get familiar with the place; I'll be upstairs waiting for new assignments."
He too assumed Ji Xun knew nothing.
Saying this, he left.
Ji Xun shook his head, indifferent.
He placed each client into metal boxes, clearly sensing the extraordinary characteristics emanating from the bodies. He murmured to himself, barely audible, "The quality of recent corpses is quite high."
While the morgue might be a place others wished to avoid, Ji Xun liked it.
It was quiet and undisturbed.
Familiar with the process, Ji Xun efficiently handled the bodies and then found a corner to start meditating.
...
On the first day, he didn't have to go on any assignments.
Ji Xun spent the night in the morgue.
Early the next morning, Ji Xun opened his eyes from meditation.
He planned to go upstairs for breakfast before continuing with miscellaneous tasks and taking time to meditate and train.
This had been his routine for a while.
However, just as he got up, he noticed something astonishing, muttering, "My curse power increased by 200 points overnight?"
Rubbing his temples in disbelief, Ji Xun recalled that he had been monitoring his curse power growth to observe the difference with the Golden Fragment Breathing Technique.
He distinctly remembered his curse power value being 270 last night.
After ten hours of meditation, it had risen to 581?
An increase of 211 points!
"How could it increase so much?"
Ji Xun was bewildered.
Normally, ten hours of meditation would yield about 40 points of curse power at his current proficiency.
But last night, it was five times that?
"Could it be..."
Ji Xun's eyes shifted as he realized something.
In the labyrinth, he had noticed a significant boost in breathing efficiency while meditating, attributing it to the environment or the third-tier corpse he had absorbed.
He hadn't given it much thought then.
Now, without any environmental influence, the breathing efficiency was even higher!
The breathing technique was still at Level 1, which should not result in such a dramatic increase.
Ruling out various possibilities, Ji Xun's gaze fell on the pouch at his waist, and he muttered, "Could it be the jar?"
With environmental and personal factors ruled out, this was the only plausible reason.
"This..."
Ji Xun was at a loss.
The [X-711-Cursed Ceramic Jar] couldn't be contained but had no negative effects. Since leaving the labyrinth, he had kept it on his waist, thinking it might help block mysterious curses in case of trouble.
Now it seemed the jar had other, unexpected benefits.
It now seems that this jar not only has the effect of single-target curse immunity but also can gather elemental particles from the void, enhancing the power of curse training? X-S12
Ji Xun realized this immediately and snapped out of his daze: "I've found a treasure!"
Professional skills can be learned with training cards bought with money, but curse power can only be accumulated through hard meditation and self-training.
There's no exception to this.
He had heard that wealthy people use secret elixirs to aid their breathing methods, achieving training efficiency several times that of others.
But such a money-burning training method is only affordable for the great nobility.
Moreover, the elixir formulas are top secrets, unavailable to ordinary people.
Envy is useless.
Ji Xun had estimated that even with his incomplete breathing method, which greatly surpasses others in curse power growth, it might take him a year or two to reach the level of a formal curse card master through normal meditation.
But unexpectedly, he found a clay jar in the labyrinth that could potentially increase training efficiency fivefold?
Maybe even more!
This curse text jar, numbered X-711, was said by Chujio to be a new number, meaning it was a newly discovered artifact from the old continent by the Cao family.
They probably hadn't figured out its exact use yet.
The confirmed functions now are single-target curse immunity and aiding in breathing method training.
These two functions alone make it priceless.
Ji Xun thought of many things, his eyes shining brightly.
Although there was an increase in the labyrinth, it wasn't as exaggerated as last night, probably because the jar wasn't kept close?
Or maybe there were other environmental factors affecting its increase?
But there's no rush to figure it out.
No one knows this thing is in his hands now, and he has plenty of time in the future to slowly test its functions.
The canteen had already opened, so Ji Xun didn't stay in the morgue and went upstairs.
Today, he would start the body collection tasks.
...
Half a month flew by.
Ji Xun, in his new identity, continued to work as an inconspicuous body collector at the Golden Oak Branch in East District 5.
Every day, he went on missions, collected bodies, cremated them, and trained.
His days were regular, ordinary, and unnoticed.
During this period, the assassination incident of Governor Cao Sihai continued to ferment.
It was like a tsunami following an earthquake, with huge shockwaves hitting Wuzui City wave after wave.
There were daily armed conflicts in the city.
Besides the gangs, many unidentified forces also got involved.
Without the common external enemy of the Governor's Mansion and the Cao family, gang fights within Wuzui City became more frequent.
There seemed to be many forces behind the scenes fanning the flames.
Body collectors in all major districts were working at full capacity, and the crematoriums never stopped.
There were not only more bodies, but their quality was also getting higher.
Previously, most of the collected bodies were those of card apprentice corpses.
But gradually, first-tier curse card masters and even second-tier curse card master bodies started appearing on the streets...
The pollution of the bodies increased, and mutation incidents happened frequently.
Several body collector teams in different districts encountered mutation incidents during field missions, with bodies mutating on site, reanimating in the vehicles, or crawling out of the morgue... all sorts of strange incidents emerged one after another.
The job's danger level skyrocketed.
Even with increased wages from the Golden Oak Company, they were always short of people.
But this was good news for Ji Xun.
The attributes he could devour daily increased more and more.
The new team leader of Team 5 and some veteran employees were squeezing this "solitary" newcomer to the limit.
Now, the morgue was almost exclusively managed by Ji Xun.
Delivering bodies, cremating them, doing the dirty and tiring work—it was all him.
Ji Xun didn't mind and continued to work diligently, keeping a low profile in the company.
...
On this day.
In the gloomy underground third floor.
"Huff" "Huff" The sound of the wind echoed in the empty corridor, faintly mixed with heavy, rhythmic breathing.
Ji Xun, shirtless, was doing squats in the morgue while practicing some basic combat moves.
His body was now completely different from the skinny figure he had when he first crossed over, with bulging muscles like they were chiseled by a knife.
Not only were his muscles large, but their lines were also very smooth.
Sweat soaked his body, making it glisten like it was coated in oil, giving his skin a steel-like texture to the naked eye.
At this moment, Ji Xun was doing one-handed push-ups while counting aloud: "197, 198, 199...200!" Reaching two hundred, he leaped lightly and landed on the ground.
Although the "Demon Feast" can devour the supernatural characteristics of corpses to enhance the body, if muscles do not undergo resistance training, they will continuously atrophy, and strength will decrease.
Ji Xun did not want his great talent to be wasted due to laziness.
So, he planned training time for himself every day.
He had a personality that could endure loneliness, becoming a veritable training fanatic.
However, the moment his feet hit the ground, even though he tried to control it, his footsteps were unusually heavy.
"Thud."
It sounded like a heavy object hitting the ground.
Upon closer inspection, Ji Xun had a heavy iron belt around his waist, and iron blocks on his feet.
The weight he carried was already over two hundred kilograms.
He added ten to twenty kilograms almost every day.
Recently, body collection missions were frequent, leaving insufficient time for training. He could only increase the load, reducing training time with higher intensity to achieve the desired training effect.
Among the spoils from the Frost Knight were many high-end physical training recovery potions, which greatly helped Ji Xun.
Even with high-intensity training, his body showed no hidden dangers.
Day after day of monotonous training, his attributes visibly increased.
With the devouring power of the Demon Feast, his attributes were already vastly different from half a month ago.
"Ji Xun"
Strength:4.92
Constitution:4.77
Agility:4.12
Toughness:4.02
Spirit:6.11
Curse Power:1554
Aura: Gambler of Doom
Elemental Affinity: Darkness 33/Light 9/Earth 11/Wind 8/Water 16/Fire 11/Thunder 3/Wood 4
Skills: [Demon Feast Lv1 (101/2000)], [Shadow Stealth Lv1 (13/500)], [Advanced Firearms Specialization (1566/3000)], [Golden Breathing Method Fragment Lv1 (233/800)], [Basic Qigong Specialization Lv2 (99/300)], [Basic Combat Specialization Lv2 (57/300)]
...
Before the labyrinth in the Grand Cemetery, Ji Xun's strength and other attributes were around 3.
This was equivalent to a mid-level melee card apprentice.
Now, his attributes were approaching 5, on par with some high-level card apprentices.
This exaggerated increase was thanks to devouring the third-tier Frost Knight captain in the labyrinth and the high-quality clients in the morgue recently.
It wasn't just his physical stats that changed!
His curse power, boosted by the Cursed Text Clay Jar, reached an astonishing "1554" with daily meditation and hard training.
This level is comparable to the sixth or seventh tier of an ordinary breathing method card apprentice.
But according to the Golden Fragment Breathing Method, he was only at the second tier.
After all, the incantation was only trained to the second tier.
If others knew about these exaggerated stats and the speed of improvement, no one would believe it.
Moreover, all his skills—breathing methods, combat, qigong—were steadily improving.
His combat power visibly increased.
He could leap over high walls with ease, crush red bricks with his bare hands, and his iron body skill could defend against ordinary slashes and stabs...
In his previous life, this would already be considered superhuman. Now, he could do it effortlessly.
Ji Xun felt great.
He even thought that if his body continued to grow like this, "Ji San" would soon have to disappear, and he would need a new identity to re-enter.
This was just the beginning. The Golden Fragment Breathing Method was only at the second tier, and his physical attributes still had a long way to go to reach the card apprentice limit. The potential for future improvement was immense.
Regardless of the chaos in Wuzui City, he had no interest in getting involved. He would stay low in the morgue until he couldn't improve any further.
Without transitioning to a formal curse card master, he could only be cannon fodder in the current Wuzui City.
After finishing a set of push-ups, Ji Xun rested for a moment before preparing to switch hands for another set.
Just then, a voice came from the communication tube on the wall: "Team Five, there's a mission!"
Ji Xun was used to it by now.
The mission frequency had been high these past few days, often interrupting his training.
He quickly removed the weights from his body and stored them in his storage ring.
He would have liked to carry the weights with him, but sitting on the ancient steam truck of the body collectors with several hundred kilograms would easily arouse suspicion.
Wiping off his sweat and putting on his clothes, Ji Xun grabbed his toolbox and quickly went upstairs, jumping onto the already running truck and speeding down the street.