Chapter 4: Picking Up a Blue Trait! With a Cheat Like This, Who Would Still Cultivate Properly?

Not far away, Xiao Xuan raised a brow at the sight. The trait that had dropped was the [Decent Talent] trait.

“You... you dared to hit me? I’m a Blue-trait awakener! And you actually dared to hit me!”

“Hmph. You had better pray those people are all right. Otherwise, even as a Blue-trait awakener, you’ll still spend a few years in prison!”

That was reality. Geniuses enjoyed privileges. Even if one killed ten people, it would only amount to a few years in prison.

And even in prison, their treatment was different. They might even continue receiving training while serving their sentences. That was the world they lived in.

Of course, that only applied if it was accidental. If someone killed out of malice, it was another matter entirely. Even a genius could be executed.

After all, if someone was already that vicious before gaining real strength, then once he became powerful, would he not slaughter even more of his own kind?

“Enough! All of you, shut it! I’m going to inform the hall master first. Every last one of you had better behave yourselves!”

Zhao Kuang barked that out, then strode out of the training ground in a foul mood.

“Hmph!!”

Old Wang said nothing more. He quickly went over to the badly injured trainees and began checking their wounds.

As he watched Old Wang’s back, Liu Yun’s eyes filled with venom.

Suddenly, he sprang to his feet and threw a punch at Old Wang.

“Instructor Wang, watch out!!”

At the same instant, savage blue lightning shot toward Old Wang like a streak of light.

Hearing the warning, Old Wang turned at once, and his expression changed. He immediately tried to dodge, but how could his speed possibly rival lightning?

BOOM!!!

The blue lightning struck him head-on.

Yet Old Wang was only driven back a few steps. His chest was scorched black, but he had suffered no serious injury.

“This... this is impossible!”

Liu Yun was dumbfounded.

“Damn it! You’re a brat who only just reached the Advanced Apprentice level, and you dare attack me? Is there nothing but shit in that skull of yours?”

Old Wang roared in fury.

At that moment, Xiao Xuan saw a new trait appear above his head.

[Enraged! Green]

In the next instant, Old Wang turned into a dark blur and rushed straight in front of Liu Yun.

BAM BAM BAM BAM!!!

What followed was a savage beating.

“Ah! Stop hitting me, stop hitting me! I was wrong, I was wrong!”

“I won’t dare do it again! Never again! Please stop hitting me!”

...

For a time, Liu Yun’s screams echoed throughout the entire training ground.

“Instructor, calm down, calm down! Be careful, you’ll kill him!”

Seeing this, Xiao Xuan hurried over to pull them apart.

Old Wang might usually be fierce, but he was still a decent man.

Otherwise, he would never have laid hands on a genius like Liu Yun for the sake of his own students.

Of course, while dragging Old Wang back, Xiao Xuan also took the opportunity to drive a few kicks into Liu Yun’s groin amid the confusion.

It was not as though that thing was of any use anymore anyway.

“Right, right, Instructor. If you beat him to death, it’ll be trouble!”

“Exactly! It wouldn’t be worth it!”

...

Seeing that, all the other students hurried over to pull Old Wang away as well.

Naturally, like Xiao Xuan, they also took the chance to give Liu Yun a few kicks in the chaos.

Though still furious, Old Wang gradually regained his senses.

After a cold snort, he stepped back.

Meanwhile, Liu Yun curled up on the ground, trembling violently.

A White [Severely Wounded] trait dropped from his body as well.

BZZZZ!!!!

But at that moment, a blue radiance rose from Liu Yun’s body.

In the next instant, an azure trait orb rolled across the ground.

“Damn! A Blue trait!!”

Xiao Xuan’s breathing quickened at once. Without hesitation, he strode over and picked up both the Green aptitude trait and the azure trait.

Of course, “picking them up” only meant touching them with his foot.

Otherwise, crouching down to grab empty air would probably make people think he was insane.

【Ding... You picked up the trash 【Decent Talent! Green】. It can be recycled! Eco Points: 35】

【Ding... You picked up the trash 【Lightning Control! Blue】. It can be recycled! Eco Points: 3280】

...

The instant he saw the recycle value of the Blue trait, Xiao Xuan’s eyes widened.

More than three thousand!

If he poured all of that into Vitality, it would be enough to turn him into a Vitality Realm expert.

At the same time, it also confirmed how extraordinarily valuable the Blue [Lightning Control] trait was.

Liu Yun’s Vitality had only been a mere 0.7, yet when he unleashed his full power, he had still managed to injure Old Wang, whose Vitality was over 6.

That alone showed how terrifying this trait was.

Without hesitation, Xiao Xuan chose to fuse both traits.

BOOM!!!

In an instant, a powerful current of lightning surged out from the depths of Xiao Xuan’s body.

That strand of blue lightning coursed wildly through his body before finally gathering within the sea of consciousness behind his brow.

Within that sea of consciousness, a blue crystal core crackling with lightning slowly took shape.

The crystal core was profoundly mysterious and radiated wave after wave of terrifying power.

Xiao Xuan could feel that if he unleashed the power within that ability core, his strength would rise enormously.

He could probably take Old Wang down in a single strike.

This was an ability core, the core all ability users condensed to store their powers.

At the same time, Xiao Xuan could also feel that his aptitude had improved significantly.

His comprehension of the tempering art and his fist technique had both deepened considerably.

【Ding... Congratulations, you have awakened the trait 【Decent Talent! Green】 (Aptitude ×35)】

【Ding... Congratulations, you have awakened the trait 【Lightning Control! Blue】(You can control the power of lightning! Lightning-type attack power bonus ×650%!)】

Once the fusion ended, a cold prompt sounded.

In this world, that prompt was known as the Supreme Will.

After all, aside from the loftiest Supreme Gods, no one could think of anything else that might have granted humanity traits.

Of course, an ordinary person would hear a prompt like this only once in their lifetime, when their talent first awakened.

But Xiao Xuan had somehow turned it into something like a system.

“These aptitude-type traits do not just increase cultivation speed. They also increase the rate at which cultivation methods are mastered. Later on, they are supposedly able to improve other forms of comprehension as well. Still, for me, aptitude-type traits do not seem all that useful!”

Xiao Xuan fell into thought.

Thirty-five times sounded impressive, but in truth it was not all that frightening.

The weakest White [Average Aptitude] trait merely gave a person the ability to cultivate.

At best, it allowed someone to reach the first or second layer of Body Tempering before progress became nearly impossible.

But stronger versions of [Average Aptitude] could raise cultivation speed by two, three, or even seven or eight times.

With that, one could cultivate to the eighth or ninth layer of Body Tempering, and perhaps even reach the Vitality Realm.

If cultivation speed reached tenfold, then it counted as a Green aptitude-type trait.

Even so, a Green aptitude trait with only tenfold cultivation speed would at most allow someone to reach the first or second layer of the Vitality Realm.

The strongest Green aptitudes could increase cultivation speed by ninety-nine times.

With those, reaching the Innate Realm was possible.

But Blue aptitude-type traits ranged from one hundred times to ten thousand times cultivation speed.

That was why even the weakest Blue aptitude could reach the Innate Realm, while the strongest could rise all the way to the peak of the Grandmaster Realm.

That spanned two entire major realms.

So when people spoke of cultivation aptitude being multiplied by some amount, that multiplier was calculated against the weakest aptitude possible, the kind that could only reach the first layer of Body Tempering.

It was not based on a person’s original talent.

For someone like him, who could assign points directly, aptitude-type traits truly were of limited use.

Using Eco Points to upgrade them would only be a waste.

“Supreme Will, assign points!”

Xiao Xuan spoke in his mind.

BOOM!!!

A terrifying force instantly surged into his body.

At that moment, Xiao Xuan could clearly feel the strength of his body rising frantically.

[Lightning Control] was driven by Vitality, so the stronger his body became, the more his combat power would soar.

【Ding... Point allocation complete! Vitality has increased to: 1.85】

Looking at his traits, Xiao Xuan realized something.

If he directly recycled a trait, the Eco Points he received seemed to be exactly the same as the amount needed to upgrade another trait to that same grade.

In other words, recycling one Blue trait would allow him to upgrade another type of trait into a Blue trait!

“Now this is a fine trait. There is not even a middleman taking a cut.”

Xiao Xuan raised a brow.

This was far better than those ridiculous novel systems that always skimmed off part of the energy for themselves.

“The number of traits I have is still too small. Since [Lightning Control] can be dropped by severely injuring someone, then can other traits also be forced out by seriously wounding people?”

At that thought, Xiao Xuan raised a brow again.

There were simply too many traits in this world that could increase strength.

If it was inconvenient to make humans drop them, then he could just make ferocious beasts drop them instead. That was no problem at all.

What this world lacked least was ferocious beasts.

And killing ferocious beasts also earned money.

It was truly killing several birds with one stone.

“Looks like it is time to say goodbye to Frenzied Blade Martial Hall. With a cheat like this, who would still stay here and practice martial arts obediently?”

At that thought, Xiao Xuan smiled.

By then, the medical team had also arrived, and the ten martial apprentices and Liu Yun were carried away one after another.

Old Wang directly announced an early dismissal as well. After what had happened, he was in no mood to continue.

...

As for Xiao Xuan, he did not leave the Frenzied Blade Martial Hall building right away.

Instead, he went straight to the second floor.

The second floor was where the Body-Tempering experts trained.

It was filled with exercise equipment.

There were dumbbells weighing dozens of tons and high-speed treadmills capable of reaching one hundred meters per second.

Body-Tempering martial artists were sweating profusely everywhere.

Of course, there were also quite a few martial apprentices doing odd jobs and running errands here.

So Xiao Xuan did not stand out.

Sure enough, quite a few [Weak] traits had fallen onto the floor here.

They were still White, but their white glow was noticeably brighter, making it obvious that their recycle value was higher.

Without hesitation, Xiao Xuan began darting through the vast training hall.

【Ding... You picked up the trash 【Weak! White】. It can be recycled! Eco Points: 3】

【Ding... You picked up the trash 【Fatigued! White】. It can be recycled! Eco Points: 5】

【Ding... You picked up the trash 【Exhausted! White】. It can be recycled! Eco Points: 9】

...

A flood of prompts rang out in succession.

Looking at those prompts, Xiao Xuan smiled.

These people truly trained hard, so the drop rate was not low.

He wandered back and forth for several hours.

Only when evening came, and the time felt about right, did Xiao Xuan finally stop.

And during all that wandering, he had indeed picked up a few rather good traits.

...

【Strength Enhancement! White】 (Can increase one’s strength by 150%)

【Defense Enhancement! White】 (Can increase one’s defense by 170%)

...

Both of those traits directly increased combat power.

Xiao Xuan chose to fuse them immediately.

BOOM!!!

In an instant, Xiao Xuan felt his strength begin to rise rapidly.

His original strength of a little over 1,600 kilograms quickly surpassed 2,000, then reached 2,500 before finally stopping.

At this point, he could easily fight an ordinary second-layer Body-Tempering martial artist.

【Ding... Congratulations, you have awakened the trait 【Strength Enhancement! White】 (Can increase one’s strength by 150%! 5/10)【Defense Enhancement! White】 (Can increase one’s defense by 170%! 7/10)】

...

Both of those traits could be upgraded directly, and the cost was extremely low.

Together, they would only require seven Eco Points.

“Supreme Will, recycle all the remaining traits for me!”

Xiao Xuan directly issued the command in his mind. He had also realized by now that he could control the panel through thought alone and did not need to drag things one by one.

【Ding... Congratulations, you have recycled a large number of trash traits! Eco Points obtained: 354】

A prompt sounded immediately afterward.

More than three hundred. That was already quite good.

After some thought, Xiao Xuan decided that since [Strength Enhancement] directly boosted combat power, he would upgrade it to Green first and see what happened. If it could be pushed to Blue, so much the better.

He immediately began assigning points to [Strength Enhancement].

In an instant, his strength began to soar once more.

【Ding... Trait 【Strength Enhancement! White】 has been upgraded to: Green! Strength ×200%, Eco Points consumed: 5】

【Ding... Trait 【Strength Enhancement! Green】 has been upgraded to: Blue! Strength ×500%, Eco Points consumed: 100】

Very soon, two prompts sounded in succession.

The total cost was only a little over one hundred points.

And at this moment, Xiao Xuan’s strength had already exceeded 8,000 kilograms!

However, when Xiao Xuan checked the cost to upgrade it to Purple, it was far too much.

He would need at least 10,000 Eco Points.

“A Blue trait is enough for now.

Any one of these traits, if I reveal it, would make me one of Blackwater City’s top geniuses.”

That was what Xiao Xuan concluded.

After all, the strongest person in Blackwater City was only at the Grandmaster Realm.

Afterward, he raised his Vitality all the way to 3 points.

With the remainder, he also upgraded [Defense Enhancement] to Blue and increased its bonus considerably.

...

Name: Xiao Xuan

Race: Human

Level: Body-Tempering Third Layer

Vitality: 3 (1 Vitality = 1000 kg)

Soul: 0.2

Cultivation Method: Basic Body-Tempering Art (Proficient, First Rank, Lower Grade, 0/30)

Martial Skill: Basic Fist Technique (Mastered, First Rank, Lower Grade, 0/5)

Traits: [Scavenger! Unique] (Can collect trash! Can recycle trash!)

[Decent Talent! Green] (35/100! Aptitude ×35)

[Lightning Control! Blue] (Lightning-type attacks ×650%! 3280/10,000)

[Strength Enhancement! Blue] (Strength ×500%! 0/10,000)

[Defense Enhancement! Blue] (Defense ×502%! 40/10,000)

Eco Points: 0

...