Chapter 21: Absorbing Insect Crystals

“Personal System, are you talking about that cold mechanical voice that always sounds in my ear?” Wang Ying asked.

“Exactly, that counts as the Personal System Earth’s Will gave to each Earth’s Chosen to guide the evolution of humans. After all, humans are the wisest of all beings on Earth, the Chosen Ones of Earth’s Will,” Xu Feng said.

He took out two Insect Crystals and casually gave one to Wang Ying, saying, “Give it a try. But it might be a bit painful when absorbing it. Try to endure it a little.”

Wang Ying received the Insect Crystal, carefully examined it, and looked up to ask something. Then she saw Xu Feng sitting cross-legged on the sofa, holding the Insect Crystal in his right hand, with a pained expression on his face.

The Insect Crystal in Xu Feng’s hand was quickly dissolving at a speed visible to the naked eye. The pain on Xu Feng’s face grew more intense, his body began to tremble slightly, and he let out some uncontrollable groans.

Wang Ying was startled. Seeing Xu Feng’s condition, absorbing the Insect Crystal was actually so painful. For a moment, Wang Ying hesitated.

At this moment, Xu Feng felt as if thousands of ants were crawling inside his body. Pain, itchiness, soreness, numbness—all kinds of unbearable sensations rushed over him at once.

Although it wasn’t his first time using an Insect Crystal to improve his strength, every time he did, it was like this. There was no issue of building resistance; the pain didn’t lessen even after enduring it many times. However, once his strength increased in the future, the process would become faster, and the pain would be much reduced relatively.

This kind of improvement at the cellular level was felt more deeply the stronger one became. If one couldn’t endure this pain and moved around while absorbing the Insect Crystal’s energy, it could easily interrupt the improvement process and cause it to fail. Although it wouldn’t cause any harm to the body, the pain suffered earlier would be for nothing, and the Insect Crystal would be wasted.

Soon, Xu Feng’s face showed a relieved expression, his forehead covered in sweat. He let out a long breath, which carried some tiny gray particles, as if he had exhaled a puff of smoke.

At the same time, a thin layer of greasy substance appeared on Xu Feng’s skin, as if he hadn’t bathed for months.

“Whew, it’s finally over. The first improvement really has the best effect. This One-Star Insect Crystal actually gave me two Free Attribute Points,” Xu Feng said with a joyful expression on his face.

“What, haven’t you started absorbing the Insect Crystal yet?” Xu Feng asked, seeing Wang Ying holding the Insect Crystal with a hesitant look.

“From the way you looked, absorbing the Insect Crystal seemed very painful?” Wang Ying asked.

“Of course, this is an improvement at the cellular level that can change a person’s genes, so it’s naturally very painful,” Xu Feng said. “Also, remember not to move around while absorbing it, or it will fail, and the Insect Crystal will be wasted. Then the pain you suffered earlier would be for nothing, and the next improvement would be even more painful.”

Wang Ying hesitated, but after glancing at Xu Feng, she finally gritted her teeth, clenched the Insect Crystal, and closed her eyes.

Soon, the Insect Crystal in Wang Ying’s hand also began to dissolve bit by bit. Wang Ying let out some uncontrollable painful groans, and her body trembled even more violently than Xu Feng’s. But even so, Wang Ying still gritted her teeth and persisted.

Xu Feng glanced at Wang Ying, stood up, and walked toward the bathroom. He was covered in a layer of greasy substance and felt extremely uncomfortable.

By the time Xu Feng finished his bath and came out, Wang Ying had already finished absorbing the Insect Crystal. Fortunately, because of Xu Feng’s reminder, Wang Ying didn’t dare to move even in pain. Her first improvement ended successfully.

“Good, the first improvement takes the longest time and has the best effect. When you become stronger in the future, this improvement process will speed up, and the corresponding pain will shorten a lot,” Xu Feng said with a smile. “How many Free Attribute Points did you get for the first time?”

“I only got three points. Really, it hurt so much,” Wang Ying said.

Xu Feng was stunned for a moment, shook his head, and confirmed once again that Wang Ying was indeed the favored daughter of Earth’s Will.

Generally, absorbing an Insect Crystal would give one to three Free Attribute Points, but it was rare to get the maximum value on the first try. After all, the first time absorbing an Insect Crystal, the body needed to consume some energy to adapt, making it hard to achieve the maximum improvement.

“Alright, Free Attribute Points can be added to any attribute. Generally, there are two ways to allocate points. One is to only add points to key attributes. For example, since you’ve already decided to be a healing profession, you would mainly add points to Spirit, with supplementary points to Constitution, Perception, Agility, and other attributes. The other way is to advance all attributes evenly. Both methods have their pros and cons. The advantage of the first method is that you can raise your Star Level quickly and improve your strength faster, but the disadvantage is that you lack staying power and have weaknesses. In the later stages, you must have team support. The advantage of the second method is that it’s comprehensive, with no weaknesses, but the improvement speed is so slow it makes you want to kill yourself,” Xu Feng explained the two allocation methods in detail.

“Then how do you allocate your points?” Wang Ying asked.

In his previous life, Xu Feng used the first method. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to add points to all attributes, but at that time, he was too weak to obtain so many Insect Crystals. If he added points to all attributes, it would be manageable at the early One Star and Two Star levels, with only dozens to hundreds of Attribute Points required. But in the later stages, the difference between each level for the five attributes was several hundred points. If he added points to all attributes, the gap would be thousands or even tens of thousands of points. Xu Feng simply couldn’t obtain that many Insect Crystals.

But in this life, the effect of “All Attributes Improved by One Tier” in Xu Feng’s talent gave him the confidence to add points to all attributes.

“Because of my talent, I choose to add points to all attributes,” Xu Feng said.

“Talent? Right, I still don’t know what your talent is,” Wang Ying asked curiously.

“Hehe, it’s not worse than yours,” Xu Feng laughed. “Alright, I think you’ll need to take another bath, otherwise you won’t be able to sleep tonight.”

“Ah~” Wang Ying screamed, only then noticing that a layer of greasy dirt had appeared on her body. She immediately shouted and rushed toward the bathroom.

…

Xu Feng looked at the 2 Free Attribute Points in his personal interface and couldn’t help but fall into deep thought.

2 Free Attribute Points weren’t much. If he was truly determined to follow the path of adding points to all attributes, 2 Free Attribute Points actually didn’t amount to much.

When an ordinary person’s body was first digitized, almost everyone was at G-level, with Attribute Points around 5. But to advance to F-level, which is One Star, the Attribute Points must reach 15, equivalent to three times the physical quality of an ordinary person.

To reach Two Stars, any Attribute Point must exceed 50. To reach Three Stars, Attribute Points must reach 120. For Four Stars, it’s 180 points, and for Five Stars, it’s 300 points…