"The Red Falcon, a small bird species native to the Celestial Martial Country, is known for its speed!"
"Its flight speed can easily break the sound barrier, making it nearly impossible for other birds to prey on."
"Ancient pirates valued this trait, domesticating them for maritime communication."
"Originally, these Red Falcons only had a few red spots on their wings, but after a thousand years of domestication and selective breeding, the Red Falcon is now the color of blood jade, and its flight speed has reached Mach 2."
On the way back, Chen Qi looked up information on the Red Falcon online while flipping through Yu Hongwu's cultivation notes.
According to Yu Hongwu's writings, the Red Falcon Fist was created by a predecessor who was inspired by observing Red Falcons.
The Secret Technique, [Heaven-Reaching Palace], was also created by the founder of the Red Falcon Fist after seeing a Red Falcon King soar into the heavens on beating wings.
Although he didn't plan on cultivating it, Chen Qi was still very interested in some of the principles and knowledge it contained.
Soon, Chen Qi had collected numerous videos of Red Falcons from the internet.
They were only the size of a palm, with long, narrow, pointed wings and a rather long tail. When flying, they looked like a flash of red lightning.
One video, in particular, captured a Red Falcon King hunting, its speed terrifyingly breaking Mach 3.
It was truly like a bolt of lightning streaking past, and the prey's head was gone.
'In all of martial arts, only speed is unbeatable!'
'According to the Secret Technique, as long as one masters Heaven-Reaching Palace, their own speed will reach its absolute peak!'
'The speed of every Grandmaster of the Red Falcon Fist throughout history has approached 100 meters per second.'
'Among all Martial Arts Grandmasters, that's already the fastest.'
'In the Red Falcon Sect's thousand-plus-year history, only three have cultivated to become Grandmasters, and they were hailed as having unparalleled speed in the Martial Arts Realm.'
It had to be said, after witnessing the speed of the Red Falcon King, Chen Qi was a little tempted.
Being a bit faster was never a bad thing.
Of course, Chen Qi had no intention of changing his plans right now.
Compared to inexplicable things like "Martial Dao Will" and "Divine Communication," the V5 [Spirit Realm Declaration] was far more trustworthy.
So, in the days that followed, Chen Qi once again entered "hard study" mode.
"Cloud Pattern," "Clay Script," "Golden Text," and "Divination Text"—Chen Qi successfully conquered these four ancient scripts in succession within ten days.
By this point, Chen Qi had already mastered 13 ancient scripts, with only [Rope Text] and [Doumu's Spiral] remaining.
Along with [Divination Text], they were known as the three most difficult ancient scripts to learn, and they were the bottleneck for all Magic apprentices.
In truth, there was no inherent difference in difficulty between these three ancient scripts.
The ease of learning them depended entirely on whether one had the talent for it.
For example, the original Jomoya Chris was very talented in learning [Rope Text], but got stuck on [Divination Text].
And Ireland Zoff was highly talented with [Doumu's Spiral], yet was completely clueless when it came to [Rope Text].
As for Chen Qi, even with the dice suppressing things, he still encountered difficulty in learning these three ancient scripts.
He had learned [Divination Text] very easily, and [Rope Text] couldn't hold him back either, but [Doumu's Spiral] gave Chen Qi a very bad feeling. It seemed it would require much more time.
That was why Chen Qi had previously ranked [Doumu's Spiral] as number one in terms of learning difficulty.
'These three ancient scripts are on a completely different level from the others.'
'Could it be because the civilizations that invented these three scripts were the most powerful?'
While this was only Chen Qi's speculation, his intuition told him it was the most logical answer.
As his studies deepened, Chen Qi discovered that this process wasn't just about polishing his Spirituality.
After mastering these ancient scripts, he seemed to have gained something extra himself.
It wasn't obvious before, but after learning [Divination Text], Chen Qi found that his "intuition" had become sharper.
For example, after mastering Virtual Technology, he had casually written a few small programs.
Running them a few times before hadn't revealed any problems, but after learning [Divination Text], he found bugs popping out of the woodwork.
Whenever a piece of code ran in front of him, he could immediately sense any discordant parts within it.
The contrast between before and after was so stark; this had to be a side benefit of learning "Divination Text."
He wondered if learning the other two ancient scripts would grant him other abilities.
Well, Chen Qi's intuition told him, 'unlikely'.
He had learned "Divination Text" easily because of his innate talent, and "Divination Text" had only enhanced that talent, not granted him something from nothing.
Sometimes, this intuition of his could be quite discouraging.
...
"Boss, I've found the whereabouts of that dog."
"I wouldn't have known if I hadn't looked into it, but that dog has actually been alive for over 30 years."
"I'm sending all the information to you right now."
In his spare time from studying, Chen Qi would also occasionally conduct biological experiments to further develop [Body Control].
If he could develop so many applications at LV1, there was no reason for LV2 to just rest on its laurels.
Of course, since the ability had become more powerful and its effects more uncontrollable, Chen Qi no longer dared to use himself as a test subject.
So he chose to use actual lab mice.
As a result, just as he injected his will into a lab mouse's cells, before he could even think about how to strengthen its body, the mouse "mutated."
To be precise, the lab mouse got cancer.
After being injected with Chen Qi's will, the mouse's cells gained a terrifying corrosiveness, beginning to visibly devour other cells.
Even when Chen Qi canceled the ability and withdrew his will, this trend did not reverse.
The lab mouse's body could no longer assimilate the mutated cancer cells.
The lab mouse was dead in just one day.
Undeterred, Chen Qi conducted several more experiments, but whether it was insects, birds, or livestock, they all exhibited the same symptoms as the lab mouse.
Their bodies simply couldn't handle it!
Out of a final sense of caution, Chen Qi forcibly halted his research and did not rashly proceed with human trials.
Yu Hongwu was just a special case. Who knew if an ordinary person could withstand it? After all, plenty of people die from cancer.
However, these failed experiments also showed Chen Qi the terrifying nature of the [Red Heart Seven].
He wasn't arrogant enough to think that the animals' deaths were solely due to his "will."
'What is the true nature of this Card?'
Chen Qi stared at the Red Heart 7 on the back of his hand. His "intuition" told him that this was a very important matter.
In the King's Game, the most dangerous thing wasn't the players, but the game itself.
So, adhering to a spirit of never admitting defeat, Chen Qi continued to research his own abilities.
This time, the test subject he chose was the "Dog of Death" from the urban legends.
The creature was clearly a dog, yet it was as large as a calf and even had horns. It was definitely tough.
Most importantly, this damn dog actually ate the corpses of players.
Chen Qi suspected that the creature had originally been an ordinary stray dog that mutated because it ate a player's corpse.
After all, players themselves were enduring the Card's Erosion. It was perfectly reasonable for some of that power to remain in their corpses.
Thus, Taruno received an order from his big boss, telling him to investigate the history and whereabouts of a dog.