Chapter 7: A Minor Cheat Is No Cheat at All

"Gone mad?" Fang Can asked, full of astonishment.

Yang Lie nodded earnestly. "That genius read too many books and began to question the existence of martial arts. He claimed that the human body has no meridians at all, that the world must be governed by downward forces, and that his master could not possibly be hovering in mid-air without some physical support."

"In the end, he even tried to force his master to cooperate with his research to explore how people could fly. This infuriated the Sect Master of the Taixuan Sect, who had him expelled directly."

"After leaving the sect, rumors spread that the genius’s cultivation level began to drop slowly until he eventually lost everything and became a mere mortal again."

"I heard he was even dumped by his fiancée later on. All this simply because he read a few too many books. Tell me, isn't reading terrifying?" Yang Lie said, sounding absolutely certain.

'Good heavens, a budding scientist ruined by the brutes of a martial arts world,' Fang Can thought, unable to help but complain internally.

"So, there is no need to be literate at all. If there’s a secret manual you don't understand, just have those weak, bookish scholars read it to us. If you’re worried about being lied to, just hire a few of them to prevent them from colluding. You only need to trust in your own strength."

After saying this, Yang Lie waved his hand. "Go and memorize those acupuncture points. If you haven't developed a sense of 'qi' in a month, it means you're not cut out for this, and you should report to the chores department yourself."

With that, Yang Lie walked away slowly with his hands behind his back, leaving Fang Can alone to stare blankly at the iron statue in front of him.

'Why does it feel like... everyone in this world is a "Heart-Mind" extremist?' Fang Can whispered to himself.

Why is it that the more "pure and innocent" a person is, the better they can excel in martial arts? Does that mean the greatest martial arts genius is just a congenital "pure-hearted saint"?

From Yang Lie’s few words, Fang Can realized that the martial arts of this world and scientific research were two completely opposite things.

After all, science is a method of exploring natural laws, characterized by reproducibility and falsifiability.

But in this world, martial arts is, in a sense, a subjective, fanatical religion. Once a long-held belief is proven wrong, one’s "Dao heart" shatters, and all cultivation is lost.

"Damn it, a bunch of lunatics," Fang Can grumbled, but he still stepped up to the iron statue, preparing to memorize the eighty-eight acupuncture points.

After glancing at the locations of each point a few times, he stopped looking and turned his gaze toward the fellow disciples in the distance who were showing off their skills.

Footwork, palm techniques, fist techniques, swordplay, spear techniques...

Various martial arts moves were displayed by these disciples of the Tiger Demon Sect, all of them fierce and overbearing. Naturally, some were practicing the "Thirty-Two Tiger-Devouring Fists."

After watching silently for a few minutes, Fang Can took a light breath. He was preparing to "cheat" by taking his medicine.

With that thought, Fang Can took a sealed bag from his person, containing seven transparent, colorless pills.

The scientific name for this pill is arsenic trioxide, known in the martial arts world as arsenic or "Crane-Top Red." Once swallowed and dissolved in the stomach, a mere 0.1 grams is enough to be lethal.

Each pill in the bag Fang Can held contained at least twice the lethal dose. Once swallowed and the outer capsule was digested, his time would be up.

As a person with superpowers, one naturally needs to develop and utilize them.

Fang Can's superpower is "The Turning of the Tide"—it only triggers in negative environments. Under normal circumstances, he is no different from an ordinary person, other than being a bit more handsome.

Therefore, the question was how to stimulate his superpower in a reasonably safe way.

Since there was no danger, why not just manufacture the danger himself to trigger the power?

This small bag of arsenic was something he, a former wealthy heir, had paid someone to manufacture.

Each pill was wrapped in edible, digestible soft gelatin, which would dissolve in stomach acid after about an hour. Once it reacted with his body, it wouldn't take long before he would bleed from his seven orifices and die in agony.

However, while it was potentially lethal, the closer he got to death, the more his superpower would be stimulated.

As death drew closer step by step, his superpower would correspondingly elevate his talent to a height unreachable by ordinary people.

He had always carried these pills with him to ensure he could turn into a "little genius" whenever necessary to handle emergencies.

And this time, after transmigrating, these pills—which he kept close to his body—naturally came along with his pajamas.

'So, come forth, my talent.'

A faint smirk tugged at the corner of Fang Can's mouth as he took a transparent pill from the plastic bag and shoved it into his mouth.

"Gulp!" With the swallow, the arsenic entered his body.

The moment it hit his stomach, as the probability of death increased, Fang Can’s passive ability was triggered.

In an instant, he felt a tingling sensation in the nerve endings of his brain, and the whole world seemed to come alive.

It was as if a blind man could suddenly see, or a lame man could run. Fang Can felt his body brimming with vitality, while his mind became abnormally calm.

Laziness, lust, and other negative emotions that affected the body were suppressed, replaced by a cold, rational dominance over his thinking.

The sound of his accelerating heartbeat, the weapons waving in the distance, and the shouts of the others were all forcibly fed into Fang Can's brain. At the same time, things he had previously overlooked or forgotten were easily retrieved.

As various pieces of information were processed and absorbed at high speed, the "geniused" him had already committed the eighty-eight acupuncture points he had glanced at earlier to memory.

'This is the difference between a genius and an ordinary person,' Fang Can muttered to himself.

But he knew this was just the beginning; he was not yet at his peak.

Within the next hour, as the capsule in his stomach was further corroded, his talent would transform and improve step by step.

Until the moment death withered him, his talent and fortune would reach an extreme.

Of course, as long as he induced vomiting to forcibly remove the arsenic from his stomach, the crisis would naturally be averted.

Fang Can looked at his fellow disciples practicing martial arts with an indifferent expression: 'So... let me see if your so-called martial arts are truly subjective enough.'

'Or if my talent and fortune are superior.'

With these thoughts, the "Thirty-Two Tiger-Devouring Fists" he had briefly flipped through earlier were completely memorized.

And the techniques being practiced by the disciples in front of him began to be analyzed one by one in Fang Can's eyes.

Status Bar:
Detected that the host is in a hostile environment... Talent 1 triggered... Hidden attributes increased accordingly...

[Thirty-Two Tiger-Devouring Fists] - Learned
[Unknown Staff Technique] - Analyzed 3%
[Unknown Spear Technique] - Analyzed 1%
[Unknown Palm Technique] - Analyzed 5%
[Unknown Leg Technique] - Analyzed 2%
...

What no one knew was that in the eyes of a newly joined disciple, the moves they practiced were being learned with effortless ease.