After resting for a while, he opened the panel again. His head still felt heavy, but curiosity outweighed the discomfort. He focused on Poison Resistance and touched it.
A small sub-panel appeared.
[ Poison Resistance: Minor Achievement — 12% ]
He blinked.
'So it's percentage-based,' he thought. 'That probably means 100% is the next stage… maybe Major Achievement, or something like that.'
The idea made sense. It also made him sigh.
'Too bad I can't just eat poison whenever I feel like it,' he thought dryly. 'One near-death experience is enough.'
Next, he tapped on Tampering Self, Tampering Soul Technique.
Another panel unfolded.
[ Tampering Self, Tampering Soul Technique ]
[ Level: Entry ]
[ Exp: 0 ]
He frowned slightly.
'Exp?' he thought. 'How am I supposed to gain this? By killing? Meditating? Getting beaten up?'
Several possibilities crossed his mind. None of them were appealing.
Instead of overthinking it, he decided to test the simplest option. He sat down, adjusted his breathing, and began using the technique the same way he had practiced for weeks—controlling his posture, calming his thoughts, observing the strange looseness between his body and soul.
A minute passed.
Then another.
He opened the panel again.
[ Exp: 1 ]
His eyes widened just a little.
'It works,' he thought. 'Slow, but it works.'
The progress was painfully small, but it was real. For the first time since arriving here, he felt a sense of control that didn't rely on someone else's cruelty.
He continued for a while, repeating the process.
Breathe.
Focus.
The numbers crept up one by one.
There were no quests. No rewards popping up. No dramatic announcements or bonuses like in the novels he used to read.
He let out a tired sigh.
'Figures,' he thought. 'No shortcuts. Just grind.'
Still, he kept going.
In a place where everything had been taken from him, even slow progress was something worth holding onto.
'I like grinding useless things in the game anyway.'
Hours passed without him noticing. He knew he was not executing the technique properly.
His breathing slipped out of rhythm, his focus wavered, and his posture was far from ideal.
Even so, the experience bar kept moving, just very slowly.
'So even sloppy practice counts,' he thought.
When he forced himself to focus properly, everything changed.
His breathing steadied, his thoughts quieted, and the strange boundary between body and soul became clearer.
The exp increased faster then.
'Okay,' he thought. 'So the system isn't lying. Effort actually matters.'
Eventually, the number reached 100.
He opened the panel again and noticed a small indicator next to Entry Level.
An upward arrow.
He hesitated for only a moment before pressing it.
The change was immediate.
Information flooded his mind, not violently, but clearly. Corrections to posture. Adjustments to breathing. Subtle errors he had been repeating for a month without realizing it.
The logic behind each step suddenly made sense, as if someone had rewritten the instructions in a language he actually understood.
'…So that's what I was doing wrong,' he thought.
His body responded before he consciously told it to. When his eyes shifted, his muscles followed almost instantly.
Normally, there was a delay... eyes see, brain decides, body moves. Now the gap had narrowed to almost nothing.
'That's... so usefull, damn I might be superhuman now,' he thought.
He moved his hand slowly, watching it with focus.
The movement felt smoother, more intentional. His body no longer resisted him the way it used to.
More importantly, his awareness of his soul changed.
He could sense it clearly now.
Not as something buried deep inside, but as something distinct, layered within him.
It wasn't fused to his body. It was adjacent to it.
'So the spider-mask woman was right,' he thought. 'My soul really is separate.'
That realization brought a strange sense of relief.
'If that's the case,' he thought, 'then this technique suits me...'
He remembered her words about puppetry.
About controlling things indirectly and about separated souls.
'If most people have to force their soul away from their body,' he thought, 'and mine already is… then I'm starting ahead.'
He reached for the books he had dismissed a month ago and stacked them carefully.
Back then, they felt abstract and pointless. Now, he could see what they were meant to teach.
'These weren't meant to give power,' he thought. 'They were teaching fundamentals... How amazing this world is.'
He exhaled slowly and sat back down, adjusting his posture with his newly gained understanding.
'Alright,' he thought. 'Time to grind.'
...
He did not stop for three days.
He rested when his body demanded it, drank water, ate the tasteless food, then went right back to grinding the technique.
It was tiring in a dull, persistent way, but there was also something oddly satisfying about watching the numbers rise.
Every point felt earned.
When the exp finally hit 500, the panel changed again.
Major Achievement.
He stared at it for a long moment.
'Five times the exp,' he thought. 'That's… fair. I guess.'
His head throbbed lightly, his body felt heavy, but his control was on a completely different level now.
Breathing, posture, muscle tension—everything responded faster. The strange delay between intention and action had almost disappeared.
'This is probably what normal cultivators call "foundation",' he thought. 'I just brute-forced it with a system.'
After resting for a while, he decided to stop pushing the same technique.
Overtraining felt like a bad idea, and curiosity was already pulling him elsewhere.
He picked up another book.
Shadow Stalking Technique.
The name alone made sense for this place.
'Assassins, I need to learn to stalk now...' he thought.
He skimmed the basics first. The technique focused on suppressing presence, minimizing movement noise, blending intent with surroundings, and using shadows not as cover, but as flow.
It was less about becoming invisible and more about not being noticed in the first place.
He stood up slowly and tried the first step.
Lower breathing. Relax shoulders. Reduce friction in movement.
He took a step.
The sound was faint.
'Okay,' he thought. 'This one's real.'
He moved again, slower this time, focusing on how his weight transferred through his feet.
The vibration sense he had gained made it easier to tell when he was disturbing the air too much.
'So this isn't just physical,' he realized. 'It's perception-based too.'
The panel flickered faintly.
No exp yet.
He frowned, adjusted his stance, and tried again, this time deliberately syncing his movement with the ambient vibrations he sensed in the room.
A few seconds later—
[ Shadow Stalking Technique: Entry Level ]
[ Exp: 1 ]
He let out a quiet breath.
'Nice,' he thought. 'New grind unlocked.'
Despite the exhaustion, a small smile tugged at his face.
'If this keeps up,' he thought, 'I might actually survive long enough.'
After reaching Major Achievement in Tampering Body, Tampering Soul, Zhao Zhiyu noticed a clear shift in how his body responded to intent.
Control was no longer something he had to force. It happened naturally, as if his muscles and nerves were finally one.
That control made the difference.
When he returned to training the Shadow Stalking Technique, the progress became obvious.
His movements grew smoother, quieter, and more deliberate. He no longer just reduced sound, he also adjusted presence.
The vibrations he sensed in the air guided his steps, letting him move in ways that did not disrupt the surroundings more than necessary.
As he practiced, a question kept returning to his mind.
'If there are levels like Entry, Minor, Major… then techniques have ranks too,' he thought. 'That means this isn't the top. Just the basics.'
Unlike the tempering technique, this one demanded constant movement. He had to walk, stop, turn, follow imaginary targets, and adjust his pace again and again.
It was physically taxing in a way sitting meditation never was. His legs burned, his back stiffened, and his concentration wore down quickly.
Four days passed like that.
Slowly, painfully, the exp climbed.
When the panel finally updated to Minor Achievement, Zhao Zhiyu felt the change immediately.
It was subtle but unmistakable.
When he focused on a target... real or imagined—his body instinctively aligned with their shadow. His outline softened and his presence thinned.
He did not disappear, but his movements blended so naturally behind someone that it felt like he was being pulled along by their shadow rather than following it.
'So this is what it's meant to do,' he thought.
Testing it further revealed the limits just as clearly.
The technique was exhausting. Holding that state drained his focus quickly, and his muscles tensed if he pushed it too long. More importantly, it had a strict condition.
He could not hide freely in shadows.
He could only merge while following a target.
No target, no effect.
'That's what the book says so that's while get obviously,' he thought, then paused.
It wasn't a tool for ambushes from corners or hiding in darkness. It was a technique designed for pursuit. Tail someone and stay close, while staying unseen.
Zhao Zhiyu exhaled slowly, wiping sweat from his forehead.
'Not perfect,' he thought. 'But it's fine anyway.'
Despite the exhaustion, he felt a quiet sense of elation.