Chapter 41: Three Upgrade Routes

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Get off work.

Go home.

Lock himself inside.

Feng Mu stood in the middle of the bedroom, concentrating on his hand.

The next second, his palm writhed. A deathly white wrist bone thrust out from the center of it like a blade, and blood dripped from the split flesh onto the floor.

Feng Mu controlled the bone, testing the limit of its growth. It reached roughly fifteen centimeters—the length of a short dagger.

“If I hadn’t restrained myself this afternoon, and had instead transformed completely into a Bone Man, then this distance should have been able to double.”

The realization came to him, but he felt no regret whatsoever. Exchanging stunted development for the ability to conceal himself among humanity was well worth it.

After all, if people could tell at a glance that he was an aberration, then no matter how powerful he became, he would still be nothing more than a rat in the street, with no road to survival.

On the contrary, appearing harmless while concealing himself and waiting for the right moment to strike was how one could bring endless calamity.

“I was originally pure and kind. It was the [Trait] that led me astray.” Feng Mu let out a long sigh inwardly.

He continued his experiments.

And the surprises kept coming.

He discovered that his palms were not the only parts capable of thrusting out bone blades. A row of bone thorns could also erupt from his shoulders. His back could sprout a dense mass of bony lumps, while the ribs in his chest could split into saw-toothed hooks.

Feng Mu tried them one by one. Before each attempt, even he had no idea what form the bones would take once that particular part of his body was activated.

At that moment, he developed an immense interest in his own body, as though he were exploring and developing his body’s G-spot. His smile gradually took on a sickly cast.

Bone spikes could emerge from his elbows and knees, complete with blood grooves.

His toes could kick out five bone hooks, like the razor claws of a feline.

The bones of his face could spread across it, forming a white mask devoid of features, revealing only a pair of pitch-black pupils.

That was the full extent of the changes available to the second stage of the [Iron Eater].

“Each transformation cannot be shaped at will. I can only control its length to a limited degree, and each time, no more than two parts of my body can transform locally.”

“In other words, if I maintain the mask throughout, then when I use the hand blades, I can’t also use the claws, shoulder spines, or other forms of attack and defense. The reverse is true as well.”

“Other than the ten bone fingers, which I can control freely at all times, any attack or defense from the other parts requires me to switch between forms as needed. That means there’s an additional opening during every transition.”

Feng Mu now had a general understanding of the bone-transformed state of the second-stage Iron Eater. Any deeper insights into its details would have to be gained through actual combat.

In any case,

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he named this state the Bone-Transformed Form.

“If I had allowed the bones to burst fully through my body this afternoon, then my current form should have become the complete integration of all the Bone-Transformed Forms above…”

Feng Mu rubbed the cold mask covering his cheeks and thought darkly:

“So, to be more precise, my current Bone-Transformed Form is the castrated version. Hm. The castrated version is good!”

As for the increase in his overall strength, Feng Mu found it difficult to provide an accurate assessment. If he had to offer a point of comparison, then it would be this…

Yesterday’s self? I could beat ten of him.

After experiencing the changes in his strength, he began formulating his upgrade plan for the next stage.

The status panel of the second-stage [Iron Eater] was perfectly clear.

Compared to the first stage, the second had two additional consumption slots. In other words, during the second stage, he could continue consuming two more kinds of iron-based metal.

Two kinds of iron-based metal meant that he could ultimately absorb two additional traits. To advance to the third stage, he would need to fill both consumption meters, doubling the total experience required.

“Of course, I could also choose the same type of iron for both slots. Although I would only be able to absorb one trait in the end, that trait would most likely be strengthened.”

“For example, after the new trait appears, perhaps it won’t be white anymore, but another color?”

Feng Mu pondered for a while, then wrote down three plans on a sheet of paper.

The first was to choose two different types, neither of them pig iron. Once he reached the peak of the second stage, he would possess three traits in total. Although they would most likely all be at the initial white grade, they could be used in combination, expanding the number of weapons in his arsenal.

The second was to choose pig iron for both slots. Once he reached the peak of the second stage, he would possess only one trait, but [Molded Form] would be strengthened to the extreme. [Crane Claw Technique] would also undergo an even more terrifying mutation as a result of the improvement to [Molded Form].

This route focused on maximizing the power of a single weapon—a path of extremes.

The third was to choose two different types: pig iron for one, and another undecided material for the other. Once he reached the peak of the second stage, he would possess two traits. [Molded Form] would be strengthened, and at the very least, [Crane Claw Technique] would improve as well.

This was the most balanced option.

Feng Mu personally leaned toward the third plan the most. He couldn’t help it—steadiness was rooted in his bones. He disliked having a glaring weakness and favored becoming a well-rounded fighter.

He was in no hurry to decide. He planned to search around over the next few days, see what kinds of iron-based metals he could find, and then make his choice according to the circumstances.

More importantly, he also had to wait for progress from Ma Bin’s side, in order to determine whether he needed to reserve a consumption slot for the fragment of Nether-Yin Ninefold Calamity Grudge Iron.

Thus,

Tonight, there was no need to practice his body-tempering exercises. He had no iron to consume and no blood to draw, leaving him with an unexpected stretch of free time.

Feng Mu, who was accustomed to spinning endlessly like a wound-up top, suddenly found himself with nothing to do. To his surprise, he felt uncomfortable.

He let his mind go blank for the first time in a long while and sat in a daze. When he checked the time, it had only just passed midnight.

He glanced at his phone and read the text message Ma Xiawei had sent him. The contents were much the same as yesterday’s and held little of value, so he ignored it.

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“Forget it. I can only go to sleep.”

Before getting into bed, Feng Mu removed the blood-soaked garment, now torn through with holes. He casually bundled it up, planning to burn it tomorrow together with whichever calamity corpse he happened to choose.

“Activating the Bone-Transformed Form is rather hard on my clothes.” Feng Mu thought about it. “From now on, I’ll have to carry an extra set whenever I go out.”

Lying in bed, his thoughts drifted wildly. For a while, he imagined his identity as a villain being exposed, leaving him hunted everywhere and forced to hide. Then he imagined himself mutating into a calamity corpse and leading a horde of corpses in a counterattack against the human world.

A moment later, he imagined gathering all the fragments of the Nether-Yin Ninefold Calamity Grudge Iron and ascending directly to godhood.

Finally, he imagined Upper City collapsing and plunging into ruin, the heavens tearing apart as countless extreme evildoers from [Fate] descended from above. They knelt in dense ranks before the entrance to his building, welcoming his return.

His thoughts grew more and more outrageous. In a daze, Feng Mu slowly drifted off to sleep.

…

The black market.

A place that did not do business during the day, opening only after Upper City’s lights had gone out.

Calling it a door was inaccurate. In truth, it was merely a gathering of stalls. There were no storefronts and no walls. Any gap wide enough for air to squeeze through was generally wide enough for people to pass through as well.

Entry was unrestricted, and no one blocked the exits.

If someone actually put up railings and installed a gate one day, eight out of ten people in the black market would probably stop coming.

From the very day it came into being, the black market had possessed an innate quality of “impossibility.” The law did not apply there, and order did not exist.

Most of those who came to trade wore masks to conceal their faces. Everyone who came and went was a beast wearing human skin.

That was not to say they had lost their humanity. It referred instead to the rules governing trade in the black market, which followed the logic of animals more closely. The goods being traded were goods, but the parties conducting the trade could also become goods themselves.

Robbery, theft, devouring one’s fellow traders, and cold blades drawn from behind—the same scenes were constantly unfolding in the shadows.

Zhang Gao had spent many years in the black market without incident. This was partly because he had several brothers who watched his back, but more importantly because the goods he had traded over the years were always of a single, unremarkable kind. They had little value and rarely provoked anyone’s covetous attention.

Yes.

He bought only one thing in the black market—

Black cores.

In the eyes of most people, black cores were crystallized ash left behind after a calamity corpse was burned. They were similar to the foul-smelling lumps sometimes mixed into the ashes of people who had died with dangerously high levels of radiation in their bodies.

Medically speaking, they were classified alongside kidney stones.

The black-core business had always been discreet and safe. But over the past two days, something had suddenly begun to feel wrong, putting Zhang Gao in a foul mood…

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