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The next day, Wei Yuan threw the Divine Dice—and rolled a four.
"I only get three days to train under Li Degui? Why couldn't it be something epic like Divine Descent?" Wei Yuan sighed softly.
That day, Li Degui began teaching him techniques.
Wei Yuan made limited progress. Li Degui didn't say much the whole time. He was only responsible for three days of training anyway—how much someone learned was up to them.
At the end, Wei Yuan asked, "Mr. Li, about what I mentioned yesterday…"
"Oh, I had Huang Kaishan look into it," the old man said calmly. "He found that farmer and asked him about it. The guy was drunk and talking nonsense."
Wei Yuan felt a jolt inside but didn't press further.
The third day came.
Wei Yuan eagerly tossed the dice again—it landed on the God of Wealth.
"Damn, my luck's terrible!"
Shaking his head, he sighed in frustration.
He spent the whole day learning from Li Degui, practically squeezing every ounce of effort out of himself—memorizing, copying movements, trying his best to grasp each technique.
And the result? Barely passable.
"Alright, starting tomorrow, you'll train with the others," the old man said, offering no further comment, clearly implying he'd done his part.
Wei Yuan got the message—he hadn't left much of an impression.
But actually, that was fine by him.
"I've got the Divine Presence on my side. Staying low-key might even be better," he thought to himself.
Wei Yuan rolled the dice again—this time, it landed on Eye of Truth!
Eye of Truth!
That meant he could use the Time Stop today.
After breakfast, Wei Yuan went to the Li residence and did some warm-up exercises in the eastern corner of the courtyard.
Soon, the other trainees began arriving.
Everyone gathered in the center of the courtyard and lined up in formation.
Wei Yuan quietly stood at the back.
In the front row were the top three: Huang Kaishan, Li Kuo, and Rong Ran—the strongest of the bunch.
Guys like Zhang Wu had to stand further back.
Training began!
Wei Yuan focused hard, following along with everyone. His movements were either a step behind or slightly ahead—anyone could tell at a glance that he was new.
After the drills, some people quickly left the Li residence, some practiced lifting stone locks to build strength, and others paired up for sparring to improve their combat skills.
Wei Yuan walked over to the southern corner of the yard, picked up a 20-jin stone lock, and started lifting it up and down to train his strength.
That afternoon, after training, Wei Yuan left the Li residence and strolled down the street. He saw a fish vendor and bought a black fish.
Then he went to a blacksmith and bought a fish-gutting knife, before heading back to the Qin residence.
First stop: the study room to practice calligraphy.
Mr. Qin showed up and asked him to write a letter to a friend. Wei Yuan immediately ground some ink and wrote as Qin dictated.
The letter was full of poetry and kind of hard to understand.
But Wei Yuan got the general idea: "I'm doing well, I miss you a lot—do you miss me too?"
Basically, sappy stuff between lovers.
After dinner, Wei Yuan had a relaxing bath. Once the sky turned dark, he shut the door and lit a candle in his room.
The candle flickered gently.
He glanced at the fish in the washbasin, then picked up the knife.
"Time stop—The World!"
Wei Yuan focused, activating the Time Stop ability.
In that instant, the candle flame froze in mid-flicker, the wind outside disappeared, and the world went completely still.
The fish in the basin froze, mid-splash, tail curled as if swimming.
Wei Yuan crouched down and grabbed the fish, sending a few droplets of water flying.
He'd done this enough times to know exactly how Eye of Truth worked.
In those five seconds of frozen time…
The world around him was completely still—like a paused video.
But Wei Yuan could move. He could change things.
Like now: the fish, the water—everything responded to his movements.
For example, if he were walking down the street, froze time, walked up to someone, punched them in the face, and then ran off…
When time resumed, that person would suddenly fly backward, holding their cheek in total confusion, looking around in panic, then cursing—but never knowing who hit them.
They might not even be sure if someone hit them or if something just fell on them.
But today, Wei Yuan had something new in mind.
He picked up the fish knife and stabbed the fish in the belly. The skin split open, blood squirted out.
He dug out all the guts, bubbles, and intestines inside.
Then he put the fish back into the basin.
Five seconds passed!
Whoosh!
Time began flowing again.
In the basin—
The fish's tail started moving again, but blood immediately poured out into the water, turning it red. The fish seemed to suddenly feel pain, twitched hard a few times, then flipped belly-up and died.
"Confirmed."
"Within those five seconds of Time Stop—I can kill living things." Wei Yuan's eyes narrowed.
If he used Time Stop to stab someone in the gut with a knife, there was no doubt—blood would spray everywhere, and they'd be cut wide open.
In short, during those five seconds, Wei Yuan was basically an invincible god of death.
"....."