Chapter 251: Informing

He opened his eyes and found himself still lying in his own bed.

Pain came from every inch of his body, as if he had been through a tough fight.

Cough, cough!

He couldn’t help but let out a few light coughs, and blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.

Fang Jing finally became aware, feeling his whole body numb and weak, as if his internal organs had been shaken.

The faint sunlight streaming through the window fell down, a bit dazzling.

“I’m injured!”

His eyes showed a hint of bitterness, his expression utterly exhausted.

Somehow, he had returned from the Mirror Image Space to reality.

This was Ichinose Apartment, the actual apartment in reality.

The cave had vanished, the anomalies were gone.

This was reality, a reality that felt deeply frustrating.

…He hadn’t expected that even after strengthening himself to this extent, he still couldn’t resist the “Strange Phenomenon” completely.

That entity called “Erosion” that appeared last was truly an extremely dangerous and abnormally powerful supernatural being.

That power was not something he could oppose at his current stage.

Forget direct confrontation; based on some hints in Juemon Inshi’s words, he hadn’t even perceived the true nature of “Erosion.” In front of “Erosion,” he was like a blind person, completely unaware.

In the end, it was his own lack of strength that led to this outcome.

He still needed to find a way to become stronger; the most important goal now was to break through the human body’s limit.

Doing so would allow his physique to improve from the inside out.

And with the foundation of his body having evolved and transformed, he could further advance his Annihilation Wheel Fist.

“Even if my current strength isn’t enough, I can still keep pushing forward. Even if the pure quality doesn’t match, can’t quantity bring about a qualitative change?”

He coughed a few more times, feeling that the injury was affecting his lungs, causing unbearable pain.

“Let’s go see Doctor Aoe for a check-up first.”

After propping himself up, he coughed twice again; his abdomen and lungs ached terribly, and each step he took doubled his pain.

He took out his Phone and made a call first.

About ten minutes later, a car picked him up and took him to the research building affiliated with the Unrinyoin Group.

After Aoe Byosetsu conducted further examinations, she had him take X-rays, a CT scan, and an MRI. Through careful analysis, she told Fang Jing a strange and puzzling thing.

“Most of your ribs are broken, and your internal organs have shifted. But the most incomprehensible part is that there’s a strange shadow on your right lung…”

Aoe Byosetsu also seemed very surprised.

“That shadow looks like a three-toed claw mark.”

…

Over the next week, Fang Jing had no choice but to rest quietly. The injuries he sustained were not light for an ordinary person, but his current physique had 10 attribute points.

This meant his vitality was far stronger than that of an average person.

Moreover, with the aid of his Primal Rage Resonance Field, his wounds healed twice as fast as a normal person’s.

Aoe Mitsuyuki was very interested in his physique and wanted to conduct research on him.

However, Fang Jing didn’t want to reveal too much information about himself, so he did not comply with some of her requests.

“All the data is normal. In just seven days, you’ve gone from a state of severe organ dysfunction back to a healthy body. This truly can only be called a miracle.”

Doctor Aoe’s tone was full of amazement.

Fang Jing didn’t pay much attention to this. After two weeks, his physical condition had recovered about seventy percent.

Once his rest period ended, Fang Jing eagerly began his training regimen.

——————————

As usual.

Fang Jing walked through the city under the setting sun. After leaving the bustling area, buildings mixed with restaurants, arcades, record stores, and 24-hour Convenience Stores stood everywhere.

Turning into a small alley, the noise gradually faded, and the streets became quiet.

Emerging from the alley, he saw a building with the sign of a well-known domestic chain gym.

His target was a small kendo dojo near the building’s parking lot.

Passing through the dim glass door, he entered the building.

Soon, he arrived at the dojo of the “Muhe Style.”

Reaching out, he slid open the glass door, revealing a spacious room. Though the area was large, the ceiling wasn’t very high.

The floor was laid with wooden boards, probably waxed daily, making the surface extremely smooth. However, the dull gray color showed it had been used for quite a long time.

He reached back and closed the door.

After taking off his shoes, he stepped slowly into the dojo.

This was an Ancient Sword Style dojo teaching the swordsmanship of the Muhe Style.

Besides Fang Jing, there were quite a few disciples in the dojo.

However, they weren’t very old; some were even children. It seemed more like play than serious sword practice.

This was the children’s group practice, mostly kids accompanied by their parents, training in the dojo.

On the other side, more intense training was for the inner disciples. The Muhe Style, as an Ancient Sword Style, didn’t use Bamboo Swords for practice but Wooden Swords and real swords for paired training.

The Muhe Style was a school based on actual combat.

Moreover, Fang Jing knew very well that the true inheritors of the Muhe Style were Fang Hunter experts who learned to hunt Corpse Hounds.

The current head of the Muhe Style was named Takami Takuma, nearly eighty years old. In his youth, he served as one of the Twelve Artifacts of the Fang Hunters, known as “Vajra.”

This title was taken from one of the Twelve Guardian Generals of the Medicine Buddha, representing the “Hour of the Dog” and symbolizing the “Dog” in the zodiac.

Speaking of which, half of the “inherited” titles of the Twelve Artifact Masters of the Fang Hunter Organization were related to zodiac concepts.

The disciples practicing with paired swords showed no signs of slacking; both sides gripped their Bamboo Swords and struck fiercely at each other.

Swinging swords without protective gear was highly dangerous.

However, this practice wasn’t about full-force execution but followed the prescribed movements of the swordsmanship.

Similar to the “sun zhi” in Karate, it required stopping instantly at the moment of a cut or thrust.

This training tested eyesight, hearing, and precision. Mastering these techniques to the highest level could easily kill an enemy.

However, in the eyes of a master like Fang Jing, he could see at a glance that this training method was still at an Elementary Level.

The disciples currently were learning only the initial techniques.

These techniques were designed to be used against humans.

They couldn’t be called weak, but they assumed the opponents were human.

The Muhe Style likely had specialized swordsmanship for dealing with non-human entities.

Fang Jing had enrolled in the Muhe Style, pretending to be an ordinary person who had only learned competitive swordsmanship, starting from the basics.

With the aid of his own Fate Grade, he learned the Muhe Style swordsmanship incredibly quickly, mastering most of its techniques in no time.

However, his purpose in coming to the Muhe Style dojo wasn’t solely to learn swordsmanship. His true goal lay in something else—to find the opportunity to break through the human limit.

The idea of breaking through this human “ceiling” had been on Fang Jing’s mind for a long time.

Unfortunately, he hadn’t had a clear direction in the past.

Luckily, he obtained that peculiar brass pocket watch from the black-clothed man who called himself “Juemon Inshi.”

This wasn’t an ordinary brass pocket watch. According to Juemon, it contained a vast amount of his memories.

It was also the memory of this city, this land.

On this point, the black-clothed man hadn’t deceived him.

When he got the pocket watch, he opened its cover. Instantly, the watch emitted a heat that burned his skin, and at that moment, through his consciousness, he could hear a voice emerging from the void.

“You deliberately awakened me. Is there something you want to ask?”

A low, smooth male voice accompanied the appearance of a shadow behind him. The shadow drifted over and transformed into a man wearing a hat.

This was Juemon Inshi, though he wasn’t a physical entity. Looking closely, one could see that his body, including his clothes, was semi-transparent.

This was Juemon Inshi’s thought form, a semi-Spirit existence, but not his true body.

It possessed all the memories of the original and had a certain degree of thinking ability.

Fang Jing could use the pocket watch to summon him at any time and obtain information about this land from him.

After summoning this guy, Fang Jing had a sudden idea and told him about his desire to break through the human limit.

Surprisingly, Juemon Inshi also offered some advice and told him a few things.