Chapter 114 - 85: Streetlight Conqueror

Chen Jue felt that spending 200 to learn professional Rock Climbing techniques was well worth it.

The hand grip training, in particular, had greatly increased the friction of the skin on his fingers.

According to Yu Jie’s demonstration, a professional Rock Climbing athlete’s fingers were covered in calluses, their knuckles were a size larger than the average person’s, and the skin on their palms was incredibly rough to the touch, as if they were born with a pair of anti-slip gloves.

Back when Chen Jue had an office job, he had rarely even gone to the gym to lift weights, so his hands were still soft and smooth.

But after training with a hand gripper and Darts for a while, the condition of his hands was slowly starting to resemble that of a Rock Climbing athlete.

In addition, while Rock Climbing, Chen Jue had to quickly find suitable footholds and handholds to push off from, which was a significant test of his reflexes and eyesight.

If he failed to grip a hold or place his foot in time, he would slip, lose his strength, and fall from the Rock Climbing wall.

If this happened during unprotected Rock Climbing out in Nature, it could cost you your life.

’The safety rope basically mitigates all the risk for the athlete.’

’But with this rope, it’s not much of a trial for my courage,’ Chen Jue mused. After scheduling his next lesson with Yu Jie, he drove away from the sports and business park.

...

Back at his apartment, he picked up a few packages that had been delivered and took them upstairs. He opened them to find a shot put, a javelin, a power twister, and the soaking tub he had ordered online.

It was the Double 11 shopping festival recently, so the shipping was incredibly fast; most things arrived the next day.

Chen Jue planned to use the 50kg power twister to train his upper body Strength.

To grab that gold brick, he not only needed sufficient grip strength but also had to lift it and hold it suspended for 25 seconds. This placed a very high demand on his arm’s muscular endurance.

Power twister training primarily targeted the forearm muscles, rotator cuffs, pecs, and deltoids.

He looped the black safety straps at both ends of the power twister around his wrists. This was to prevent it from springing back and hitting him during training.

The power twister was essentially a large spring. When bent, it would snap back with 50 kg of force. If that hit you in the face, it would definitely break your teeth.

"One... two... three..."

Chen Jue grabbed the power twister and gave it a few tries. The 50 kg resistance was just right for him.

However, since he had just finished Rock Climbing in the afternoon, his arms were exhausted. He did a few reps before putting the bar down.

’Not bad! I can bring this to class to train with later. I’ll just have to bend it downwards so the professor doesn’t see,’ Chen Jue mused.

...

As the sky outside grew dark, Chen Jue rested in his room for a moment before hopping the wall into Jiang University to get dinner.

He found that an afternoon of Rock Climbing had deepened his understanding of the [Climbing] Skill. He was able to eliminate a few useless movements while scaling the wall, making his climb over the 2.5-meter-high barrier even faster than before.

He went back to his room, grabbed his tripod selfie stick, and used his phone to record a video of himself scaling the wall. Looking at the timestamp, he saw it only took him 2.78 seconds to get over this time.

’If I keep this up, I’ll be walking on walls and leaping over rooftops. Isn’t this basically Qinggong?’ Chen Jue mused as he watched the video.

Feeling that the wall was no longer a challenge, he found a roadside tree and tried Climbing it.

The trees lining the road outside the Jiang University campus were likely quite old. Any one of them was seven or eight meters tall, with a thick trunk and dense branches.

Chen Jue ran his hand over the bark. The rough texture offered even more friction than the holds on a Rock Climbing wall.

He kicked off the ground and scrambled up the tree. Using both his hands and feet, Chen Jue gripped the dry bark and shot up to the main fork of the tree in just a few seconds.

Unexpectedly, a notification popped up on his panel:

——————

[Ding~]

[Completed one session of practical night-time tree Climbing. Your understanding of Climbing has slightly increased. You have had close contact with the surface structure of a plant, and your speed in finding attachment points has weakly increased.]

[Climbing Skill Level +50]

——————

"Such a huge Skill Level boost!"

Chen Jue stared at the panel, momentarily stunned.

When he was practicing Rock Climbing in the afternoon, his [Climbing] Skill Level had increased very slowly.

He basically had to grab a hold and climb two or three meters for a "+1" Skill Level notification to pop up. The progress was as slow as a snail.

He never expected that casually climbing a tree would yield such a huge reward!

’Practical application... real combat...’ Chen Jue thought, squatting on the branch. He recalled the time he’d shot at mice with Nails while out in the fields.

When he first started grinding [Hidden Weapon Throwing], he just threw Darts at a target, and the Skill Level increased just as slowly.

Only by applying his learned Skills to real-world situations, putting them into practice, did the Skill Level shoot up as if he’d used a double-XP scroll.

Thinking back to climbing the tree, there was no safety rope, and visibility was low at night. He had been on high alert the entire time, his Spirit stretched taut. It was far more stimulating than the protected Rock Climbing he did in the afternoon.

Even while squatting on a branch over five meters up, with dense foliage around to break a fall, Chen Jue could still feel his heart pounding. THUMP, THUMP, THUMP. Even his breathing had grown heavy.

’So you only get high returns when you put a Skill into practice?’ Chen Jue’s eyes lit up. It was as if he had discovered one of the rules for the panel’s notifications.

He stood up and climbed down, slowly making his way down the tree’s main trunk.

He paced around the area for a bit before finding an even taller roadside tree.

He kicked off, got onto the tree, and reached out for suitable handholds. It took him over twenty seconds to once again reach the main fork.

This particular tree was ten meters tall, and it was in a more secluded, darker spot where no light from the streetlamps could reach.

The main fork, where he could comfortably perch, was already seven or eight meters off the ground—as high as a three-story building.

And after he climbed up to the fork, the panel gave him a +60 Skill Level notification.

Seeing the high Skill Level reward from the panel, Chen Jue became even more certain of his theory about its reward system.

’Isn’t this just pushing me to challenge even higher targets?’

’So it’s true, the only way to build courage is to act like you have a death wish!’ Chen Jue grumbled internally as he carefully climbed down from the tall tree.

When he reached a distant streetlight, Chen Jue took a moment to inspect his stinging palms.

Compared to the safety of organized Rock Climbing, climbing wild trees was far more dangerous.

Not only did he have several bleeding scratches on his hands from the bark and branches, but even his thin seasonal tracksuit was ripped with several large tears.

This just went to show that Chen Jue’s [Climbing] Skill wasn’t high enough yet, and his Night Vision Ability wasn’t strong enough to avoid the dangers hidden in the dark.

’High risk, high reward, just as I thought.’

’The principles of finance apply perfectly to exercise, too!’ Chen Jue thought, touching the scrapes on his hands. They were only bleeding slightly, and the stinging sensation was more like an insistent itch. They would stop bleeding soon and wouldn’t really affect his daily life.

However, the tallest trees near his apartment, including those on the Jiang University campus, were only about ten meters high.

To find even bigger trees, he’d probably have to head out to the suburbs of Hang City or deep into some old-growth forest.

As for the nearby Xixi Wetland Park, it was a protected wetland. The trees there were very tall, some even reaching 50 meters, but there were professional rangers on patrol. Chen Jue couldn’t just go there and risk his neck climbing trees.

’Things were easier back home. Trees everywhere, covering the mountains and fields,’ Chen Jue mused, recalling his childhood in the countryside of Wen City.

All the adults had gone to the cities to work, but his diligent grandparents had planted groves of loquat and wax myrtle trees. When the fruit ripened, a group of kids who ran wild in the fields would get together to climb the trees and pick them.

Although those fruit trees weren’t as tall as these roadside trees, at least you got to taste sweet, fresh fruit after climbing them. That was a lot more fun than just grinding Skill Level by climbing boring street trees.

Just as he was wondering where he could find taller trees to grind more Attributes and Skill Level...

An idea suddenly struck Chen Jue as he stared at his shadow on the ground. He looked up, estimating the height of the towering lamppost beside him. It was nearly 20 meters tall, almost reaching the roof of the adjacent seven-story apartment building. He opened his mouth and whispered, "If I could climb this thing bare-handed, would the Skill Level reward be even bigger?"

...

Ever since getting the panel, Chen Jue had started transforming from a timid, hesitant person into a straightforward man of action.

Seeing how tall the lamppost was, his first instinct was to reach out and touch it, to feel the texture of its surface.

It wasn’t as rough as the bark on the trees, but the pole was coated in a thick layer of anti-slip paint, likely for maintenance purposes. He could still get a firm grip on it.

’It’s possible!’ Chen Jue’s eyes lit up. He reached up high, his ten fingers locking onto the pole. He pushed off with his legs, his body forming a ">" shape. With his back arched and his hands hooked, he began to inch his way up.

This was clearly much harder than climbing the two trees he’d conquered earlier!

And much more strenuous!

The higher he climbed, the more Chen Jue could feel his palms sweating. They started to slip on the painted surface of the pole, and his grip began to fail.

’This isn’t working!’

’I’ll never make it to the top like this!’

Chen Jue glanced down. He was already ten meters off the ground. If he slipped, forgetting broken bones, if he landed wrong and hit his head first, his life would be over. He’d be off to see King Yama.

For the first time, Chen Jue truly understood the kind of danger faced by athletes who free soloed without any safety gear out in the wild.

But strangely, the more perilous the situation became, the more Chen Jue felt his mind empty and his heart grow calm.

Gradually, the sound of the night wind and the noise from the street below faded away.

In the stillness of the city night, his own heart pounded in his chest—THUMP, THUMP, THUMP. The only sound he could hear was his own heavy breathing, as if the entire world had fallen into a strange, wonderful silence.

’Change position!’

In this strange state of tranquility, his Lv. 3 [Climbing] Skill finally began to show its power.

As if guided by an unseen hand, Chen Jue bent his knees. Instead of pushing off the pole, he tucked his legs in. With a final inward shift, he clamped his legs around the pole, his body now hanging from above like a monkey, supported by the friction from his thighs.

"Woohoo~"

’What a rush!’

Chen Jue’s heart swelled with a sense of accomplishment, as if he had just conquered his own fear.

He regulated his breathing and looked up. There were only about ten meters left to the top. Relying on his new hugging-climb posture, Chen Jue began to inch his way upward.

He would pull himself up with his arms, then rhythmically loosen and re-clamp his legs.

In less than two minutes, Chen Jue had climbed all the way to the top of the 20-meter-plus lamppost.

The blinding glare from the lamp made him instinctively shut his eyes. At that moment, a series of notifications popped up on his panel:

——————

[Ding~]

[Completed one session of high-difficulty practical night Climbing. Your Adrenaline secretion has increased. Your metabolism is accelerating, your heart rate is increasing, blood oxygen capacity has risen, and your courage has slightly increased.]

[In a dangerous, high-altitude environment, your focus has become sharper than usual, your reflexes have quickened, and your mind has become more active.]

[Constitution Attribute +0.01]

[Spirit Attribute +0.01]