The South Outer City District.
This place was a chaotic zone.
It wasn't peaceful like the West District.
It was home to all sorts of people.
Even late at night, many workshops were just starting to open for business.
Su Qing silently headed toward the outer edges.
'A chaotic zone meant there were many prying eyes here.'
'The more people, the more eyes.'
'All I have to do right now is stick to the plan.'
'Sigh, every single house here is occupied.'
Su Qing sighed.
Even late at night, Su Qing could see the glow of fires.
Every house here was occupied.
The South Outer City District was practically the most prosperous area outside the County City.
"We had an agreement!"
"But you went back on your word! Widow Liu, open this door for me!"
Late at night, a slightly drunk man was fiercely kicking at a door.
People from the neighborhood came out to watch the spectacle.
"Isn't that the Li Family's boy? Thirty years old and still no wife, and now he's harassing Widow Liu."
"If Old Li saw this, he'd probably jump right out of his grave."
"That's right. That Li Fugui has truly squandered his entire family fortune."
...
The crowd chatted amongst themselves, but no one was willing to step forward and say a word.
Su Qing also stopped to watch.
"Li Fugui, you get the hell away from here! You kick my door again, and I'll come out and gut you!"
A loud, fierce voice boomed from inside. It sounded like Widow Liu was not a frail woman.
"Come on, Liu Xi, let me in!"
Li Fugui kept knocking.
Harder and harder.
Until...
"Whoa!"
"Widow Liu actually killed someone!"
The gawking crowd scattered in a panic.
Just a moment ago, Widow Liu had thrown open the door and slashed at Li Fugui with a kitchen knife.
The blow sent Li Fugui crumpling helplessly to the ground, blood pouring from the wound.
After striking him in the chest, Widow Liu then slit his throat.
Her eyes, exceptionally vicious, swept over those who hadn't fled.
Including Su Qing.
Su Qing met her gaze with indifference before turning and leaving.
'Just another farce.'
'These spectacles were utterly devoid of Order.'
Su Qing was beginning to understand more and more what "the law of the jungle" meant.
In the outer city, there was basically no law to speak of.
Su Qing understood this.
The only laws were the ones the residents made among themselves.
That's how things were in the West District.
'Killed an eerie creature and then witnessed this, all in the dead of night.'
Su Qing was at a loss for words.
'Why is this world so hard?'
'Why couldn't I have transmigrated into a rich and powerful family?'
Su Qing couldn't help but sigh internally.
'If I had transmigrated as the scion of a powerful family, life would have been so much better.'
Reaching the southern edge, he found only self-built houses, all of them looking rather dilapidated.
A number of beggars were gathered around a bonfire, speaking in a dialect Su Qing could barely understand.
Su Qing didn't trust these beggars one bit.
There was hardly a safe place to stay here.
'Sigh, it's getting late. I'll just have to make do and rest somewhere.'
With that thought, Su Qing leaned against a wall by the roadside and feigned sleep. With the bright firelight and the crowd of people, Demon Fiends generally wouldn't appear in a place like this.
Unless it was a powerful Demon Fiend.
「The next day.」
Su Qing got up.
He went to practice his martial arts as usual.
At the same time, he decided to move farther away from the outer city and release the Demonic Puppet.
He would have it build him a shelter in the wild.
That way, he wouldn't need to go into the city at all.
Soon, he reached a deserted area.
"Extract."
Su Qing hadn't extracted the Demonic Puppet yet.
He wanted to take advantage of this and use it as a one-time storage Space.
The moment the Demonic Puppet appeared, it took the form of that little girl, but its face was expressionless.
"Go cut down some trees for me, then shave them into planks."
"Remember, leave four large tree trunks."
At Su Qing's command, the puppet quickly set off.
Then, Su Qing took out ten First Layer Grass Cakes and began to eat.
He began to practice the Cyan Snake Posture.
As for why he didn't synthesize Second Layer Compressed Grass Cakes, first, there was a chance of failure, and second, it wasn't cost-effective.
A single Second Layer Compressed Grass Cake required nine First Layer ones to make, and crucially, it only staved off hunger for five days.
It just wasn't worth it.
Although one was equivalent to five days' worth, Su Qing felt it was too much trouble.
The reason he'd wanted to earn money before was that the Great Replenishing Pills he had synthesized felt much more useful than the grass cakes he'd synthesized.
However, Su Qing had now experienced the benefits of being powerful.
He would only choose to make things like the Great Replenishing Pill in the future when obtaining the raw materials wasn't so troublesome.
With the Demonic Puppet,
Su Qing practiced for almost fifteen hours a day.
Thirty Skill Level points a day.
And so it went.
Thirteen days later, as Su Qing's Cyan Snake Posture was breaking through, his entire body was seized by violent, painful tremors.
Immediately after, his whole body turned red and hot.
Steam began to rise from his skin.
His bones began to crackle and pop.
Gradually, Su Qing's condition improved significantly.
'Whew... what was that? Why was that so painful?!'
After Su Qing endured the most excruciating period, he felt a restrictive layer covering his body, and his skin felt incredibly sticky.
He lightly touched his cheek.
And felt a layer of skin.
It was his own skin.
'I'm molting? Practicing the Cyan Snake Posture actually made me molt?'
Quickly, Su Qing tore away the loose skin from his face and body.
After a careful inspection, he went to a nearby stream for a refreshing bath.
As he stepped ashore, Su Qing noticed his point of view was different.
It was as if he was a head taller.
'I'm taller?'
Su Qing couldn't help but look around, examining his own arms and legs. He was covered in streamlined muscles that didn't impede his flexibility in the slightest.
'I really am a head taller.'
Host: Su Qing.
Realm: Fourth Layer of Body Tempering [Second Layer Cyan Snake Posture (Evolution): Mastery (1/1000)]
Synthesizer Level 2 (263/300) [Synthesis Success Rate +1%, Mutated +1%, Evolution +1%]
'Body Tempering... the Fourth Layer of Body Tempering.'
Su Qing looked at his Realm, feeling as if he had arrived in a fantasy or Immortal Cultivation World.
The two words "Body Tempering" was not a name that belonged in a martial arts world.
'Just how strong am I now?'
It was difficult for Su Qing to know just how strong he was.
But then he stomped his foot hard.
BOOM! With a loud bang, the soil sank several inches, and the ground shook violently.
'I'm really strong.'
Su Qing started to laugh.
This was the strength he had dreamed of.
"Human traffickers."
"It's time to put an end to them."
Smiling, Su Qing returned to the simple wooden hut he had built. It was just a square box, but it was good enough to keep the rain out.
"Take all that skin on the ground and burn it for me."
Su Qing ordered the Demonic Puppet, and it quickly disposed of the skin Su Qing had shed.
With the skin burned, Su Qing now looked at his Demonic Puppet and was in a predicament.
However, when he touched it,
The Demonic Puppet vanished.
It was now in one of the nine slots in his Synthesizer.
Even Su Qing himself didn't know the full extent of his current strength.
The Inner City was hard to enter. The walls were high, government soldiers guarded the gates, and Su Qing didn't have the money to pay the toll.
So Su Qing returned to his original spot.
He brought out the Demonic Puppet to stand guard.
'Replicate the Second Layer Cyan Snake Posture once.'
The moment the Synthesizer finished one replication, Su Qing collapsed.
'I've gotten this strong, and I still can't handle it even one time?'
...