The road to completion starts from the Gate of Truth

"Bingo! Found you!" Fang Yuan immediately went out and drove to the nearest entrance of the underground canal.

He didn't think that he was the only smart person in the world. He could associate fungi with dark and humid environments and then with underground canals. Sooner or later, the public security people would also think of it. For the safety of those police officers and comrades, and to prevent his scheduled experimental products from being stolen, Fang Yuan decided to fight quickly.

After all, it was a very dangerous (rare) unknown creature! 　　Found a rarely visited underground canal entrance. Due to the continuous years of old city reconstruction and road renovation, the original open-air canal had long been covered by a smooth cement road surface. If it wasn't seen on the map, Fang Yuan would not know that one of the manhole covers on the ground would be a passage leading to the underground canal.

He touched his hands together, and then pressed them against his chest. Fang Yuan instantly transformed his clothes into a one-piece waterproof rubber suit. Fang Yuan couldn't be sure what the environment of the underground canal was like before he saw it with his own eyes, but it was always right to separate himself from the humid environment.

"Oh, right, I almost forgot this!" Before turning over and getting into the manhole, Fang Yuan seemed to have thought of something, and then he put his hands together and pressed the ground. With a subtle blue lightning, a full-cover gas mask appeared in his hand. If the ground he used as the material for the refining could be accurately detected, it would be found that the ground within a radius of ten meters had dropped slightly.

With the alchemy that can change the level of the essence of matter, you can really get whatever you want, which is extremely convenient! 　　Putting on the mask, Fang Yuan got into the entrance of the underground water channel, and by the way, he also covered the manhole cover on the ground to avoid hurting innocent citizens.

(In recent years, it seems that there have been few accidents of falling into the manhole, but ten years ago, it was really...) The underground environment was just as Fang Yuan expected, humid and hot, especially now it is the hottest time of summer. Although it is slightly cooler underground than on the ground, the difference is very limited.

Moreover, this season is a good time for all kinds of insects and arthropods to reproduce. Compared with the sewer, the environment of the entire underground canal is just less foul.

No, in fact, due to water pollution, the smell in the underground canal is not very good. Even through the gas mask, Fang Yuan can smell the strange smell that he doesn't know how to express in words.

In short, it is very unbearable.

However, Fang Yuan is no longer the Fang Yuan half a year ago. He has completely digested the original dream and also received all the survival experience of another self in the battlefield. It's just a hot, smelly and humid environment. It's not like he hasn't experienced it before! 　　However, the dim environment underground did cause some troubles to Fang Yuan. Although his body has been strengthened and his vision is also far better than that of ordinary people, he is still a human being. After all, his vision in a dim environment is not as good as that of a real nocturnal animal. In this dark ditch with unknown dangerous creatures lurking, limited vision is a very deadly thing.

It is not impossible to refine a night vision device on the spot. After all, civilian night vision devices are sold everywhere on Taobao. Fang Yuan has also bought one and has analyzed its internal structure.

However, no matter how advanced those night vision devices are, they are still a layer outside the eyes, which greatly limits the field of vision. Therefore, Fang Yuan intends to solve the problem with the method of alchemists.

Put your hands together to form a circle, which is the beginning of alchemy. Then put your hands on your eyes. With the lightning flashing from the alchemy reaction, bursts of tingling pain occur in Fang Yuan's eyeballs.

However, this pain soon disappeared. When he put down his hands and opened his eyes again, the dim environment underground had become as bright as daylight for him.

')010'\u003eChapter 10 Remote Alchemy in a Different Way

The number of rod cells (visual cells that sense light brightness but cannot sense color) in the retina of owls is more than 10 times that of humans. In addition to the unique optical structure of the eyeball of birds, their night vision is more than 100 times that of humans.

Fang Yuan's recent refinement was to modify and optimize his eyeballs based on the eye structure and retinal cell structure of an owl without changing his own genes, so that he could directly have the same level of low-light vision as an owl.

This kind of enhanced refinement that violates the structure of the human body will indeed cause damage to the body. If left alone, Fang Yuan's eyes will probably go blind within two weeks.

However, since Fang Yuan dared to do this, he naturally had the confidence to save everything.

With alchemy in hand, he will return to the ground and refine it as it was, ensuring that every molecule of every cell is exactly the same, without worrying about sequelae.

Walking forward along the personnel passage left by the construction workers, Fang Yuan came to the bank of the quietly flowing underground river in just a dozen steps.

He refined a stone pole from the wall beside him and probed into the water.

Very good, it's only waist-deep.

He took a look at the water quality. Although it was somewhat polluted, it was not to the point where Fang Yuan could not tolerate it. In addition, he was wearing a waterproof suit, so he had no problem wading through the water.

However, Fang Yuan looked at the environment here and found that the entire underground river was much narrower than he imagined, leaving him with not enough space to move around. If he were allowed to move forward through the unknown depth of water, once he encountered He may not be able to react to the danger - after all, the human body's movements in the water will inevitably be affected by the current and become slow, and the opponent is an extrahuman creature that is far superior to humans in both size and strength. No matter how careful you are, you can't go wrong. .

Moreover, if he just waded through the water so carelessly, the sound of the water being stirred would be impossible to cover up. Fang Yuan had every reason to believe that the hearing of creatures that could get used to living in such a place must be higher than that of humans. It's hard to say who hunted whom.

Therefore, he was not going to just walk all the way through the water to search like this.

He clasped his hands together, then leaned forward to press the water at his feet. The icy cold air instantly spread from the water surface in contact, freezing the water surface near Fang Yuan in an instant. In just a few seconds, the section of underground river where Fang Yuan was located was completely frozen. The river surface froze into solid ice and spread rapidly upstream and downstream.

——Since the terrain is not suitable for you, then change the terrain! This is the correct way for an alchemist to fight! If you can carefully observe the ice surface with a microscope, you will find that there are countless extremely tiny formations engraved on the inside of the ice. The layers are connected and nested with each other, spreading endlessly along the direction of the ice.

When the water molecules condense into ice, they automatically form new freezing formations according to Fang Yuan's will. They are connected and nested with the previously formed formations. Fang Yuan's spiritual power is connected with each other one by one. The refining array extends towards the upstream and downstream directions of the river.

This compound nested refining method allowed Fang Yuan to break through the inherent limitations of alchemy's refining range and achieve a remote refining effect similar to alchemy in an alternative way.

This can be said to be the result of alchemy that he developed on his own during more than half a year of study and thinking after absorbing the alchemy knowledge in the dream. If he were still in the steel-refining world in the dream, this hand alone would be enough for him to be... Named National Alchemist.

Moreover, this method of refining can not only achieve remote refining, but because it carries Fang Yuan's spiritual power, it can also play a role in simultaneous detection - when the ice surface spreads, it is where Fang Yuan's spiritual will lies. , it can be said to be an alternative mental power scanning.

"Found it!" A few minutes later, Fang Yuan sensed traces of the activity of some large animal somewhere three kilometers downstream of the river. That shape and posture were definitely not human - he immediately realized that this was His goal! Because the distance was really too far, Fang Yuan was afraid that the other party would have already run away when he arrived, so he made a prompt decision to use a remote method to deform the ice three kilometers away and use ice that was extremely strong at low temperatures as a weapon. It turns into endless spear stabs, covering every inch of the space where the creature is, ensuring that the opponent is not stabbed into a sieve and that the opponent has no extra room for movement.

During this long-range battle outside the visual range, Fang Yuan used alchemy while familiarizing himself with this perspective of sensing the external environment purely through his mind.

He could clearly "see" the humanoid creature, which was far taller and stronger than humans, roaring and smashing the ice spears into pieces, and then being pushed to the stone by more ice spears. of the river bank.

The ice spear, which is far harder and sharper than steel at ultra-low temperatures, when it pierces the opponent's body surface, it seems to have pierced a ball of tough rubber. It either slides away or can only penetrate slightly. depth, and then was broken off by the opponent with more intense struggling movements.

Sure enough, this is indeed some kind of extraordinary creature.

Fang Yuan knew how terrifying these ice spears he had made were. There was no known creature in the world that could withstand a round of stabs from hundreds of ice spears. Even armored vehicles would become brittle due to the steel becoming brittle at ultra-low temperatures. The creature was pierced through the main armor plate, but it resisted this large-scale attack for several minutes, and even now it is still struggling and resisting vigorously.

However, no matter how terrifying the opponent's physical strength is, this creature whose name I don't know can only fight hand-to-hand. Facing the long-range attack launched by the "mage" outside the visual range, it can do nothing but roar and roar. Less than.

The temperature of the ice spears controlled by Fang Yuan became lower and lower, their hardness became higher and higher, and their number increased. They quickly pierced and blocked all the monster's power points, completely restricting the opponent's activities. space.

When the monster completely gave up its struggle, more than ten minutes had passed. After such a long period of continuous refinement, Fang Yuan felt that his mental power was almost drained.

This is really a tenacious opponent - purely in terms of endurance.

"It finally calmed down..." Fang Yuan sighed and took his hands away from the ice. His hands were red from the cold due to the long period of freezing. If his physique hadn't been greatly enhanced, he would probably be cold. He must have been frostbitten... He once again used his remaining mental energy to make the soles of his shoes into spikes that would not slip on the ice. Fang Yuan walked on the ice "click-click-click" all the way to the hunting site downstream. .

He wanted to see with his own eyes what kind of creature it was.

')011'\u003eChapter 11 On the Importance of Last Strike

Click, click, click.

The sound of footsteps hitting the ice with hard spikes grew closer and closer.

In a dim space that turned into a forest of ice spears, a tall humanoid figure was being pierced by countless ice spears and nailed to a stone wall. In the distance, a shadowy figure was gradually approaching... " What the hell is this?" When Fang Yuan arrived at the hunting scene and saw the true appearance of the prey, he immediately felt as if he had been mentally contaminated.

What an ugly monster this is! The whole body is covered with elastic but wrinkled skin like rubber, the feet are like hooves, the face is like a dog, with pointed claws, the body is tall but hunched, and Fang Yuan's eyes are overly sensitive in the darkness. , and even saw that the opponent's body was covered with fungi and moss, looking ugly and dirty. Coupled with the strong smell of corpse that could still be smelled on the monster even through a layer of gas mask, it was really disgusting.

"This is the ghoul in COC! Do I have to go through SanCheck again?" Fang Yuan staggered back a few steps, and he suddenly felt that his action this time was a mistake.

I originally thought that the so-called supernatural creature would be a werewolf or something, but I didn't expect it to be such a blind and ugly monster.

Fang Yuan has read the series of novels by Master Ai Craftsman, and even played in the COC running group for a while in college. He naturally knows what kind of virtues the ghouls in the story have.

The monster in front of me completely conforms to the description in the book from top to bottom, but there is a slight difference in height and size - compared to the average size of most ghouls, which is a medium build of 13, this ghoul in front of me is medium-sized. The Qixing species must be around 18 in size, maybe even higher.

Originally, Fang Yuan had planned to take the prey back for dissection and collection, but after seeing such an ugly creature that ruined one's outlook, Fang Yuan had completely given up that idea.

But...how could monsters from COC appear in the real world? Fang Yuan suddenly thought of this.

You know, none of the supernatural creatures and supernatural powers in the Cthulhu mythology system are good things. Any human being who accidentally comes into contact with related items or creatures will at best have a crazy result. As for the physical mutation of the body and the growth of tentacles or Attracting the attention of an unspeakable person is an extremely tragic ending.

He originally thought that the real world was just an urban supernatural world with some supernatural powers, but he never expected that a spur-of-the-moment hunt allowed him to hunt a Cthulhu-type monster—could it be that the world he was in was also a Cthulhu-system worldview? The scary world below? Such speculation made Fang Yuan shudder, and for a moment he even felt that there was some kind of indescribable monster watching him in the darkness behind him... Fang Yuan, who was immersed in thinking there, didn't notice that when he stood still, The ghoul, which had lost the strength to struggle, opened its eyes again.

Unlike those brainless ghouls in other worldviews, the ghouls in the COC worldview are actually an independent lower-level race, but no matter how low-level they are, the life essence and wisdom of this race are superior to ordinary humans.

In other words, this thing is not a beast with only instinct, but a terrifying hunter with more cunning and wisdom than humans! Bang——! ! ! The loud noise that was particularly deafening in the underground enclosed space woke up Fang Yuan who was deep in thought.

Hearing the sound of ice breaking, Fang Yuan came back to his senses and was shocked to find a huge black shadow coming towards him.

The sudden attack put Fang Yuan into the most dangerous situation instantly.

not good! I actually forgot to do the last hit! ! ! This thought flashed through Fang Yuan's mind, and he had no time to regret that he had been foolish enough to let down his guard in front of an enemy who was not yet dead.

Because the ghoul's ferocious claws have reached his head! At this moment, the world in Fang Yuan's eyes seemed to slow down. The excellent vision he copied from an owl allowed him to clearly see everything happening in the dim space.

Whether it's the fragments of ice flying after being broken, the flesh and blood residue flying out of the ghoul's wounds (the result of being frostbitten), or the ferocious claws heading towards his face with piercing killing intent, Everything could be seen clearly, as if it was slowly playing in front of Fang Yuan's eyes like slow motion.

An unprecedented sense of crisis instantly flooded Fang Yuan's heart.

At this moment, Fang Yuan's consciousness seemed to be divided into two parts.

One is that he was shocked and panicked by the sudden crisis, which eventually turned into anger and murderous intention. The emotional stimulation caused the adrenaline content in Fang Yuan's body to soar rapidly, causing his body that reached the limit of the human body to explode in just a short moment. It is fully activated and has entered a combat state that is most suitable for combat.

The other one is a cold and indifferent self, as if he doesn't care about everything in the world or even his own life and death. He watches everything that happens in front of him with cold eyes, but does not panic or waver at all. Instead, he calculates with cold calculations. What kind of means can be used to obtain the maximum results at the minimum cost.

The combination of the two Fang Yuan was the extreme operation he showed in the next few tenths of a second.

When the ghoul's sharp claws were about to touch Fang Yuan's hairy skin, he suddenly leaned back and avoided the ghoul's fatal attack with an iron bridge posture.

Then, at the moment when he was about to fall to the ground, Fang Yuan raised his hands above his head and touched each other, then he pressed his hands on the ice in a backflip to support his body. As his body turned, his legs were moved up, and after a short period of accumulation, he kicked the hips of the ghoul that was unable to change direction in mid-air with the inertia of the body turning. I mean the waist and abdomen.

Fang Yuan knew very well that the ghouls in the COC system were not undead creatures, but living creatures, most of which were transformed from humans, so they also inherited more or less the inherent physiological defects of humans.

- For example, the lower body... I mean the relative fragility of the waist and abdomen.

Although this physiological defect will inevitably be alleviated to a large extent after humans are transformed into ghouls, since the opponent still maintains a human form, this weakness cannot be completely eliminated.

Snap! 　　The touch like kicking a rubber tire made Fang Yuan feel uneasy. This ghoul was much stronger than he thought! If this flying kick were used on a human, it could even kick the human lumbar vertebrae out of the body, but this ghoul seemed to be completely unharmed, and it stood firm immediately after being repelled.

However, before the ghoul, who almost fought back, could attack again, Fang Yuan's alchemy, which he had completed in a short moment before, had already started.

Just as Fang Yuan pressed his hands on the ground, blue alchemy lightning appeared. When the ghoul king was just kicked down from mid-air, the ice on the ground suddenly "came alive".

Dozens, hundreds, and thousands of ice spears surged out from the ice surface, fiercely pushing the unstable ghoul to the top of the underground space. Fang Yuan's hard ice spears pierced at high speed in anger, and even directly penetrated its tough muscles and bones, skewering it on the top of the ice spear like a skewer of meat.

PS: Let me ask, do ghouls have balls? ')012'\u003eChapter 12 Unexpected Intruder \u0026 Strategic Shift

"Hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo..." Fang Yuan, who had just escaped from the desperate situation of death, gasped for breath, as if his physical enhancement was fake, breathing in the filthy air that still had a stench through the gas mask.

The psychological stimulation from the crisis stress response made Fang Yuan unable to calm down immediately.

And after this moment of fighting, the original special psychological state of being divided into two seemed to have disappeared. He finally came to his senses and realized what he had just encountered and what he had done.

It was not until then that Fang Yuan reacted-he was actually fooled by this ghoul! 　　The ghouls in COC are indeed an extra-human race above humans. Their physiques are far superior to humans in terms of strength, endurance and recovery. The wounds caused by Fang Yuan's alchemy attack on it before have actually begun to heal in the few minutes when Fang Yuan rushed over.

Before, this ghoul had been pretending to be powerless to resist, just to lure the magician who attacked from nowhere to show his true form (it mistook Fang Yuan's alchemy for magic).

And Fang Yuan just took the bait! 　　If Fang Yuan hadn't suddenly burst out and counterattacked in the crisis, he would probably have been eaten by this ghoul today! 　　"...Sure enough, I can't underestimate any enemy! It seems that the battle experience in the dream is not mine after all..."　　Fang Yuan calmed down after being shocked and angry, knowing that the problem was with himself.

However, reflection should wait until the battle is completely over before talking about it. Now the most important thing is to deal with this ghoul who almost pitted him.

Before, he burst out and performed beyond his level in the extreme state, and refined an ice spear that was harder, sharper, and faster than all the previous ice spears in an instant without formation, which has completely stabbed this ghoul into a sieve.

But the vitality of the ghoul was as strong as described in various novels, and it still didn't die even in this state.

Fang Yuan looked up at the ghoul that was pierced by countless ice spikes but still refused to give up struggling. After thinking for a while, he didn't rush forward, but walked a few steps to the bank of the underground river canal, put his hands together, and then pressed on the stone rock wall.

Swish--　　A dull sound similar to rubber being pierced sounded, and the ghoul that was blocked at the top of the underground space by the ice spear was pierced by dozens of steel spears pierced from the ceiling. Black blood as sticky as oil flowed from the wound of the ghoul and dripped down along the spear tip "tick-tick-".

In order to ensure that it was killed, Fang Yuan deliberately pierced a spear from the back of the ghoul's head and came out from its forehead. The vital points of this kind of humanoid monster are generally the heart and the brain, which Fang Yuan can still confirm.

After carefully checking the opponent's vital signs again and again using the principle of remote refining, Fang Yuan was sure that the opponent was dead, and finally put his mind at ease and approached the monster's body that was pierced with thousands of holes.

Originally, Fang Yuan had just thought about whether to use this monster as a material for refining the Philosopher's Stone, but unfortunately, the Philosopher's Stone refining array he learned was specifically for humans, and he had no idea whether it would be useful for non-human creatures like ghouls. In order to prevent more trouble, he decided to kill it directly.

Reversing the previous refinement, the ice spear and steel spear all shrank and returned to their original state. The huge monster corpse fell heavily on the ice, making a loud "bang" sound, and the splash of dark blood even splashed on Fang Yuan's face. On the clothes - fortunately, this is a waterproof rubber suit, so there is no need to worry about the liquid containing unknown ingredients contaminating the skin.

Fang Yuan took a few steps forward and squatted down to observe the monster up close.

Strictly speaking, it was actually Fang Yuan's first real enemy in the real world. Looking at it up close, I found that it... was indeed disgustingly ugly! Especially the corpse smell became more obvious when the dark blood flowed out. Fang Yuan almost vomited in the gas mask! ——If he hadn’t made this mask himself, he would have doubted whether there was a quality problem with it! "Damn it, I don't want to take this thing home!" Fang Yuan gave up the original idea of ​​taking this ghoul back as an experimental specimen. He knew that he would never be able to stand being with this kind of creature - even a corpse. ——Being in the same room for a long time.

But it would be a pity to give up such a precious extraordinary biological sample. Fang Yuan thought about it and decided to take away part of the other party.

I saw him using his alchemy skills again and pulling out a crystal clear sword from the ice.

But this is not an ice blade. In order to ensure the strength of the blade, Fang Yuan removed the hydrogen atoms from the water molecules in the ice cube, then refined the remaining oxygen atoms into carbon atoms and helium atoms, and then used the carbon atoms to form diamond crystals. The structure is arranged, so such a single crystal diamond sword is made.

Although everyone knows that diamond has high hardness and brittleness, and can easily break under huge pressure, Fang Yuan does not intend to use it to chop directly.

If you look closely at the blade of the crystal sword, you can see that it is densely covered with tiny formations.

This is an airflow-driven forging array temporarily designed by Fang Yuan. Countless such forging arrays are connected in series to create a high-speed cutting airflow on the blade. The sharpness is definitely sharper than any steel knife! Injecting spiritual power into the handle of the knife, Fang Yuan activated the countless forging formations on the blade one after another. Fang Yuan placed the blade on the ghoul's thick arm. As expected, the sword was like cutting through butter, easily cutting through the previous chain. Countless ice spears could barely block the tough skin and muscles and cut through them.

Fang Yuan pulled the blade along the ghoul's elbow joint, and a section of the arm with huge claws was cut off.

After freezing the limb with ice-making, he used the stone on the bank as a material to make a two-foot-long box, put the whole thing in, covered it with a lid, and then made the lid and box into one. Not even a single gap is left.

This is the part Fang Yuan plans to take home.

In the previous battles, what impressed Fang Yuan the most was the ghoul's overly strong skin and muscles. To study the structure of this biological tissue, only so many samples are enough. .

As for the remaining corpses, Fang Yuan decided to destroy them on the spot.

But just when he was about to use decomposition to decompose the remaining corpses of the ghoul, his hearing, which was enhanced to the limit of the human body, heard a movement.

Further downstream, human voices were heard, and they were less than a kilometer away! Fang Yuan was shocked, knowing that his previous battle was too noisy and attracted attention on the ground.

Fortunately, the battlefield between him and the ghoul was on the side of a corner of this culvert, which happened to miss the line of sight downstream. It was impossible to directly detect him at that distance, so he still had some time.

After looking at the ghoul's body, Fang Yuan finally decided to leave it to the government as an explanation and not dismantle it.

But he couldn't delay any longer. Apart from the police, the only people who could be found here were the national supernatural force response personnel who didn't know whether they existed. Fang Yuan knew that his condition was not very good after a fierce battle. He was not prepared to meet them face to face - or in other words, even if he wanted to meet, it would have to be under his leadership, not a scene like being caught at a crime scene! He quickly checked the battle scene to see if there were any traces that could be linked to his personal identity. After careful inspection with alchemy, he found a few hairs that he had fallen off. He decomposed them instantly and cleaned the ice surface. Then he picked up the box, turned his shoes into ice skates, and immediately slid silently upstream as fast as he could.

Of course, he would not forget to use Freeze Refining again during the evacuation process, completely blocking a section of the culvert behind him with an ice wall to block possible pursuers behind him as much as possible.

... Perhaps he was lucky today. Fang Yuan finally left the culvert without anyone noticing. He first restored his clothes to their original state, and then restored the imitation owl eyeballs that were not suitable for the daytime environment to their original state, avoiding everyone along the way. The surveillance camera returned to where the car was parked, and he finally drove home with a box of loot as if nothing had happened.

Of course, he didn't know that the way he acted so neatly and without leaving any clues would actually arouse greater interest from some people.