Chapter 86: Ability Changes

Chapter 86: Chapter 86: Ability Changes

Seeing the fluctuating aura around Ji Zhixing, Zhou Han, Tie Shan, and Su Qing instantly understood. He was about to break through. Just like them, he was advancing from a Tier One Gene Cultivator to a Tier Two Gene Cultivator.

"What’s going on? He’s breaking through already?" Zhou Han’s eyes widened in utter disbelief.

Tie Shan and Su Qing were equally stunned. After spending the day together, they had learned that Ji Zhixing came from a very ordinary background and relied entirely on his own hard work. Under such circumstances, evolving his genes in a short period was already an incredible feat. Yet, right after they broke through, Ji Zhixing was following suit? Where was the bottleneck? Hadn’t he fused with a Tier Two gene? In this situation, was there really no bottleneck when advancing from Tier One to Tier Two?

"This guy..." Zhou Han shook his head. "He actually broke through after just one battle. And with his level of strength, I feel like he’s the one who fused with a Tier Three gene."

Tie Shan and Su Qing remained silent, but the astonishment in their eyes was unmistakable.

Not far away, Xiao Mingyue blinked. As she watched Ji Zhixing, her own aura fluctuated slightly. "He actually broke through so quickly..." she murmured in her heart, swiftly adjusting the trace of aura she had just revealed.

"EXHALE!"

It wasn’t long before Ji Zhixing let out a long breath, suppressing his surging aura. He opened his eyes, a sharp glint flashing through them. He appeared even more composed and exuded a greater sense of power than before.

"Zhixing, what’s going on? How did you break through so soon?" Zhou Han was the first to approach, looking him up and down.

"Yeah, you gave me a scare," Su Qing chimed in.

Ji Zhixing smiled. "I told you guys before that it wouldn’t take me long to break through."

"Does ’wouldn’t take long’ mean within a single day?" Zhou Han said exasperatedly. "I thought your version of ’wouldn’t take long’ meant at least a month or two."

"Exactly," Su Qing agreed. "I even said earlier that you’d be stuck at a bottleneck for a month or two. You didn’t say a word back then, and now you’ve just broken through. Did you already know and deliberately keep quiet?"

Ji Zhixing merely smiled and said nothing.

"Now that you’ve broken through, our team has four Tier Two Gene Cultivators! Our speed in hunting Blood Beasts will definitely be much faster now!" Zhou Han said with obvious excitement.

Hearing this, Xiao Mingyue’s eyes flickered, but she remained silent. However, compared to when they first arrived at the Underground Blood River, she now wore a bright smile, her mood clearly much better.

"Alright, stop talking for now," Xiao Mingyue interrupted, looking at Ji Zhixing. "Ji Zhixing, since you’ve broken through, hurry up and refine these Single-Horned Blood Crocodiles." She pointed at the corpses of the two Tier Two Single-Horned Blood Crocodiles on the ground, as well as the scattered Tier One carcasses. "The rest of us shouldn’t stay idle either," she added to the others. "It’ll probably take him a lot of time to refine those two, so he likely won’t be able to process many of the Tier One ones. Let’s refine a few ourselves so they don’t go to waste."

Everyone nodded in agreement. Soon after, the group began refining the Single-Horned Blood Crocodile corpses scattered across the ground.

Ji Zhixing didn’t stand on ceremony. He immediately absorbed the largest Tier Two Single-Horned Blood Crocodile—the one he had just pierced through the skull with a thunderous strike—into his gene furnace. He then walked over to the other Tier Two Single-Horned Blood Crocodile and stored it inside as well.

Now that he had advanced to the second tier, the internal space of his gene furnace had expanded significantly. Let alone one elephant, it could easily hold two or three. At the same time, the genetic source power within his body had grown much denser than before. It circulated several times more smoothly, and with every cycle, it carried a profound, heavy weight.

"Refine!" After storing both Tier Two Single-Horned Blood Crocodiles into the gene furnace, he activated it and began the refining process.

Within the furnace, the Eight Trigrams Map rotated, blooming with eight colors of light that intertwined to shroud the corpses of the two Single-Horned Blood Crocodiles. This time, he wasn’t refining them one by one, but processing both simultaneously. The two massive carcasses slowly decomposed within the light; their flesh, bones, and genetic matter were gradually stripped away, purified, and transformed. This was one of the special traits of a Gene Cultivator who had broken through to the second tier—the ability to simultaneously refine two gene beasts.

Time ticked by.

About ten minutes later, Ji Zhixing finished the refinement. His consciousness swept through the gene furnace, and his eyes instantly lit up. He hit the jackpot again!

Aside from the standard four Tier Two Gene Source Stones and four Tier Two Blood Crystals, a battleaxe had also appeared in his gene furnace this time. The axe was blood-red all over with a broad blade. An incredibly lifelike image of a Blood Crocodile was etched onto it, looking as though it might leap off the surface at any moment. Dark red patterns coiled around the handle, bulging slightly like blood vessels.

The moment his consciousness touched the axe, a stream of information flooded his mind.

"Blood Crocodile Axe. Tier Two, Two-Star Genetic Equipment. Upon activation, the user gains the power of the Blood Crocodile, enhancing explosive strength. Striking an enemy delays the healing speed of their wounds."

"A piece of Tier Two Genetic Equipment," Ji Zhixing thought with delight. This piece of Tier Two Genetic Equipment could only be considered average, but reaching the second tier meant it could sell for at least five hundred thousand gene coins. "Five hundred thousand..." He suppressed his rising excitement and opened his eyes.

"How did it go?" Seeing that he had finished refining, Xiao Mingyue quickly leaned in and asked with great interest.

Ji Zhixing cast her a surprised look, sensing that her mood had improved significantly compared to before. "She was so gloomy earlier. Why is she suddenly so energetic now?" he wondered, though he refrained from asking. After a moment of thought, instead of pulling out just a single Blood Crystal, he willed it and retrieved a Tier Two Blood Crystal along with the newly acquired Blood Crocodile Axe.

Since he had already revealed that he was different from the norm, he didn’t mind showing a little more. Besides, after refining so many Blood Beasts, it made sense that he would occasionally produce a piece of Genetic Equipment.

"I was quite lucky this time. I got a piece of Genetic Equipment," he announced.

Xiao Mingyue froze, her eyes widening. Those beautiful eyes of hers instantly lit up. The others also cast their gazes over, all of them locking onto the Blood Crocodile Axe in his hand.

"Quick, let me see!" Xiao Mingyue snatched the Blood Crocodile Axe right out of Ji Zhixing’s grasp. The Blood Crocodile Axe was quite heavy. She clearly wasn’t a Power Gene Cultivator; holding it in her hands, she felt its immense weight and nearly dropped it.

"You actually got Genetic Equipment?" Zhou Han moved closer, his eyes gleaming.

"What are the attributes of this axe?" Tie Shan also gathered around and asked curiously. As a Power Gene Cultivator himself, he felt a natural affinity toward such heavy weapons.

"It’s a Tier Two, Two-Star Genetic Equipment. It can activate the power of the Blood Crocodile to enhance explosive strength, and it can also delay wound healing," Ji Zhixing explained briefly.

"Badass!" Zhou Han looked envious.

"A Tier Two, Two-Star item should be worth at least five hundred thousand, right?" Su Qing marveled. Gene Cultivators made money quickly, especially the powerful ones, but Ji Zhixing’s speed of earning still made her feel like she could only look up to him in awe.

Xiao Mingyue held the axe and glanced at Ji Zhixing, her eyes holding a somewhat complex emotion. "Your luck is truly unmatched."

The others continued to shower him with praise. Tie Shan lamented that despite refining so many Blood Beasts, he had never even seen a one-star piece of equipment. Zhou Han bemoaned the unfairness of the heavens, declaring that he would refine more gene beasts next time to test his luck.

"Put it away, and don’t let me see it again. If I see it again, it’s mine." Xiao Mingyue handed the Blood Crocodile Axe back to Ji Zhixing, looking rather reluctant to part with it.

Ji Zhixing gave her an amused look and stored the Blood Crocodile Axe back into his gene furnace.

"There are still a few Single-Horned Blood Crocodiles left. You should refine those too." Seeing Ji Zhixing put away the axe, Zhou Han pointed at the remaining Tier One Single-Horned Blood Crocodile corpses on the ground. The carcasses lay haphazardly; a rough count revealed there were still seven or eight left.

"Alright." Ji Zhixing nodded and began refining the other Single-Horned Blood Crocodiles.

Once again, he processed them two at a time. However, even when refining two simultaneously, the time required for the Single-Horned Blood Crocodiles remained the same as before. It only took him three or four minutes to complete a refinement cycle. This was yet another special benefit of his cultivation base breaking through to the second tier.

"Looks like my good luck has run out." After the refinements were complete, Ji Zhixing glanced at the gene furnace and shook his head. These last few cycles had yielded only Genetic Source Stones and Blood Crystals. Nothing else dropped.

"Time to see how my genes have changed after my breakthrough." Ji Zhixing didn’t do anything else. Instead, with a thought, he nervously delved into his gene aperture to sense the changes in his Staff Soldier Stone Monkey gene.

When a Gene Cultivator achieved a breakthrough, the fused genes within their body generally underwent changes. Some people might gain new genetic abilities, while others might see an increase in the quality of their existing abilities. However, for most people, the quality of one or more of their abilities would drop after a breakthrough. For example, when a Gene Cultivator who had obtained a two-star wolf claw ability at Tier One broke through to Tier Two, more often than not, their original Tier One, two-star wolf claw would degrade into a Tier Two, one-star ability.

"Thank goodness!" Ji Zhixing breathed a sigh of relief after sensing his status.

None of his abilities had dropped in quality. On the contrary, following his breakthrough, his originally two-star Stone Heart ability had evolved into a three-star ability.

"Not bad." Feeling this change, joy appeared on Ji Zhixing’s face. Before this breakthrough, he had been somewhat anxious, worried that the quality of his abilities would degrade. Fortunately, that hadn’t happened.

"With Stone Heart evolving from two-star to three-star, its resistance to mental interference has grown significantly stronger," he thought silently. "I’ll be much more confident facing opponents who specialize in mental attacks in the future.

"Besides that, developing it into the Unmoving Stone Heart ability will be much easier now, saving me a lot of resources.

"And on top of all that, I actually gained a brand-new ability from this breakthrough!"