Chapter 40: Physique Exceeds One Hundred, Another Metamorphosis

A group of Northern Barbarian cavalrymen, led by their own commander, was charging furiously toward the enemy with an unstoppable momentum.
With their commander taking the lead, they were bound to succeed; perhaps they could even effortlessly pick up a few enemy heads along the way and claim a reward.
However, a scene unfolded next that left all of them collectively dumbfounded.
Their commander had charged ahead.
And had been cleanly decapitated with a single saber strike!
What should they do now?
Should they still charge?
Almost everyone shared only one thought: turn around and flee.
Anyone who continued to charge now would be a complete fool. A commander at the third grade of the Postnatal realm had been slain with one strike; expecting them to go up and take a few blows was a pipe dream.
Thus, all the remaining Northern Barbarian cavalrymen made the exact same move—pulling back tightly on their reins, they attempted to rein in their horses at the brink of the cliff, seeking to turn back while there was still time.
Yet, they unexpectedly underestimated their own charging speed.
When Li Dao was learning to drive in his past life, he learned one thing: when slamming on the brakes at high speeds, one must always wear a seatbelt.
What if there was no seatbelt?
Then one could simply wait to be flung flying.
And right now, none of these Northern Barbarian cavalrymen were wearing seatbelts, so most of them directly staged a chaotic tumble of horses and riders flipping over.
Li Dao perceived these men's intentions.
But how could he possibly let go of the meat that had already reached his mouth?
Without the slightest hesitation, he picked up his Xuan-iron saber and rushed forward to harvest the lives of the Northern Barbarian cavalrymen.
A single slash flashed past, and blood splattered everywhere.
[Killed four enemies, acquired attribute: 0.75]
Two slashes flashed past, and severed limbs flew about in disorder.
[Killed six enemies, acquired attribute: 1.12]
Three slashes swept past, and heads rolled onto the ground.
[Killed...]
Amidst the slaughter, Li Dao only heard the system's prompt sounds ringing continuously in his ears.
Finally, after the time it took to burn a stick of incense.
The chaotic long street grew quiet.
Corpses littered the ground everywhere, and not a single Northern Barbarian cavalryman managed to escape.
"Save me... I... I don't want to die!"
At this moment, a blood-soaked hand reached out from a pile of corpses, and a Northern Barbarian cavalryman whose legs and one arm had been severed struggled and moaned.
With a sharp slicing sound!
Li Dao showed no mercy as he finished him off with a single stroke of his saber.
When dealing with these people, there was no need to leave any leeway.
Just like that, an entire squad of Northern Barbarian cavalrymen perished entirely at Li Dao's hands.
Dozens of meters around him were strewn with corpses and severed limbs, exceptionally bloody and horrifying.
"Hah."
Li Dao let out a long breath, slowly calming the restless heart in his chest.
This time, he had truly slaughtered to his heart's content—over a hundred people in total, and every single one of them had provided him with at least more than 0.1 in attributes.
"Panel."
[Master: Li Dao]
[Physique: 96.89]
[Available Attributes: 29.14]
Looking at the column of available attributes, Li Dao felt an immense sense of gratification.
This wave had harvested nearly thirty attribute points in one go, which was almost equivalent to one-third of his overall attributes.
More importantly, with this wave of attributes, his physique could finally be pushed to one hundred.
"Young Master."
At this moment, Jiu'er's voice brought Li Dao back to his senses.
Raising his head to look, he realized that Jiu'er had somehow already gotten down from the carriage and arrived by his side, looking at him with a face full of concern.
Glancing at the messy and disgusting corpses all around, Li Dao couldn't help asking, "Aren't you a little girl afraid of this?"
"Afraid of what?"
"These corpses."
Jiu'er lowered her head to glance at the surrounding corpses, then suddenly kicked one of them. There was truly not a shred of fear on her face as she stated bluntly, "I'm not afraid of them at all. I'm much more afraid of Young Master getting hurt."
With that, she couldn't help but start patting and feeling around Li Dao's body.
"Young Master, let me check if you're injured."
"Stop, stop, stop. I'm not hurt."
"I don't believe you. Look at how much blood is on you."
"None of that is mine."
This scene appeared somewhat bizarre, especially since both of them were standing amidst the corpses at the moment.
If the corpses could move, they would probably be very eager right now to crawl up and find another place to lie down, definitely not wanting to lie under the noses of this man and woman.
A few minutes later.
After a thorough inspection confirmed that her young master was completely fine, Jiu'er finally breathed a sigh of relief.
Suddenly, a patter of fragmented footsteps drifted into their ears.
Turning back to look, they saw a group of disheveled women walking over in a group.
Thud!
All the women fell to their knees in unison.
"Thank you, benefactor."
The women kowtowed while speaking.
Just like Jiu'er, they showed not a shred of fear in the face of this field of corpses.
The difference was that Jiu'er felt no fear because her heart held only her young master, allowing her to ignore the dead bodies.
As for these women, their hearts were entirely occupied by hatred; instead of fearing the corpses, they wished they could tear these people apart limb from limb with their bare hands.
It was these people who had slaughtered their families and destroyed their homes.
Looking at these women, a sense of pity arose in Li Dao's heart.
Yet reality was just like this.
This place was located far too close to the eastern border of the Great Qian. Autumn was already well underway, and the weather was turning cold; consequently, friction between the borders of the Great Qian and the Northern Barbarians had been intensifying day by day.
Almost every day, small detachments of the Northern Barbarian dynasty would sneak across the border into Great Qian territory to create chaos and plunder supplies.
This was a friction between nations that ordinary commoners had no power to sway, leaving them with no choice but to accept their fate.
And up to this point, everything he himself had done was precisely to avoid ending up like these people, forced to resign themselves to their fate.
...
In the afternoon, as dusk approached.
Li Dao did not leave immediately; instead, he brought Jiu'er along to stay for the night in this Peach Blossom Village.
On the one hand, it was to check whether there were any remaining Northern Barbarian stragglers.
On the other hand, it was to temporarily provide these innocent women with a sense of security.
With all the men in the village dead, they currently had no choice but to temporarily treat Li Dao as their emotional sustenance.
Outside the entrance of a courtyard, he sat in a chair, watching the remaining women of Peach Blossom Village tidy up their belongings.
At first, he had thought about lending a hand, but the women had refused him.
In their words, the grace of saving their lives and avenging them was already too great to ever be repaid; how could they possibly bear to let their benefactor do manual labor?
Seeing how persistent the women were, Li Dao stopped pressing the matter.
At the same time, he also clearly recognized that the women of this era were different from those in his modern past.
Faced with bloody corpses and severed limbs, they could clear them away without changing their expressions.
Faced with the family tragedies that had just occurred and the agony of losing their loved ones, they could grit their teeth and persevere in living, refusing to give up hope for survival.
In short, while these women appeared fragile on the surface, their inner resilience was frighteningly steadfast.
"Young Master, it's time to eat."
Nearby, Jiu'er suddenly brought over a lavish tray of food.
Li Dao glanced at it; it was indeed sumptuous. "Where did this food come from?"
Jiu'er smiled. "Big Sister Liu made it specially for you to express her gratitude as your beneficiary."
Li Dao shook his head, yet he still accepted it. "Let this be an exception. If there's a next time, it will be deducted from your monthly wages."
Jiu'er's pretty face instantly crumpled into a distressed expression.
Night fell swiftly.
Because of the day's harrowing ordeal, the women specially designated a relatively large courtyard in the village for Li Dao to stay in the master bedroom, while they crowded together into several other guest rooms.
Although they hadn't shown much outward emotion while working during the day, their hearts were still filled with lingering fear.
Staying in the same courtyard as Li Dao, their benefactor, offered them psychological comfort.
After everyone had fallen asleep.
Li Dao suddenly sat up in the dim light.
Glancing at Jiu'er, who was sleeping soundly in another bed, he quietly pushed open the door and stepped outside, entering the courtyard alone.
Confirming that there was no one around, he silently chanted in his heart, "Panel."
[Master: Li Dao]
[Physique: 96.89]
[Available Attributes: 29.14]
After a brief glance, he muttered inwardly again, "Allocate points."
Instantly, all the available attribute points on the panel were poured into his physique.
[Master: Li Dao]
[Physique: 126.03 (Can undergo transformation)]
[Available Attributes: 0]
Seeing the changes on the panel, Li Dao thought the word 'As expected' in his heart.
The transformation he had anticipated earlier appeared once again.
Dozens of breaths later.
As the hot currents of physical reinforcement within his body faded away, Li Dao cast his gaze upon the three words 'Can undergo transformation'.
"I wonder which bodily function will undergo transformation this time."
Driven by this curiosity, Li Dao decisively directed his intent to click on the words 'Can undergo transformation' on the panel.
The next second, a familiar tearing sensation erupted within his body.
However, unlike the previous time—perhaps because he had already endured such agony once before—Li Dao's expression was not nearly as distorted as before.
Moreover, perhaps due to the enhancement of his bodily strength granting him absolute control over his own frame, he detected right from the start that a certain function within his body was beginning to change.
"Could this be... blood?"
In Li Dao's perception, a phenomenon similar to the physical reinforcement occurred within his body.
Yet, during physical reinforcement, an unknown heat current provided by the system surged through him; this time, however, he could distinctly perceive that his very blood was undergoing some sort of transformation within his vessels.
Enduring the intense pain within, he lowered his head and indeed discovered that all the blood vessels beneath his skin had bulged and turned ruddy, with blood circulating through them at a rapid pace.
Furthermore, he noticed that along with the circulation of his blood, some reddish substance was being squeezed out through his pores—much like how his skin had shed a layer during the previous transformation, only this time it was his blood being replaced.
If he guessed correctly, these reddish substances should be the waste blood being weeded out and updated.
As time passed, the amount of reddish substance on Li Dao's body increased, eventually forming a layer of blood scab that solidified firmly over his skin.
Finally, the blood transformation seemed to be complete, and the tearing sensation inside him began to slowly recede.
Once that tearing sensation vanished entirely, Li Dao tested a movement.
With a crisp crack!
Following the sharp sound, fine cracks appeared across the blood scabs on his body.
Li Dao casually brushed his hand across them, and the blood scabs in his palm instantly turned to dust and fell to the ground.
With a slight shake of his body under his deliberate control, all the remaining blood scabs shed and dropped to the earth, looking just like a cicada shedding its shell—extraordinarily miraculous.
"I wonder what effects this blood transformation will bring."
His skin transformation had already been freakishly potent, allowing him to shrug off numerous injuries; given how vital blood is to a person, it surely ought to grant him some pleasant surprises.
First things first, he needed to procure some of his own blood to test.
Yet this presented a rather tricky problem for Li Dao. His transformed skin had been continuously fortified alongside his physique.
With his physique now breaking past one hundred, he even doubted whether those Xiantian martial artists who had fought him previously could still pierce his skin if they crossed paths again.
He picked up the Xuan-iron saber he had casually brought along and placed it against his finger.
One part of his strength... not enough.
Three parts of his strength... still not enough.
Five parts of his strength...
Finally, utilizing roughly half of his full power, he managed to make the sharp edge of the Xuan-iron saber sink into his skin.
Although it was only a shallow cut, it should be enough to squeeze out some blood.
Simultaneously.
Li Dao's acute sense of smell caught a whiff of a peculiar fragrance.
His gaze locked directly onto the blood seeping out from beneath his skin. If his olfactory senses weren't playing tricks on him, this fragrance was emanating entirely from the blood on his finger.
Could it be that this blood transformation had evolved his blood into some kind of high-grade perfume?
Li Dao immediately shook that thought out of his head; apart from this, his blood must certainly possess other properties.
Right now, however, he had no clear idea how to test the specific efficacy of his transformed blood.
"Squeak."
At this moment, a sound caught Li Dao's attention.
Lowering his head, he saw a large black rat taking advantage of the night to come out for mischief, sniffing around everywhere beneath his feet.
Suddenly, the large black rat seemed to catch a scent.
Even through the darkness, Li Dao could see the rat's eyes light up.
The creature immediately attempted to climb up his leg, prompting him to instinctively step on its tail to stop it.
While he wasn't afraid of rats, having such a creature crawl all over his body was mildly repulsive to human nature.
"Squeak! Squeak!"
Normally, given a rat's instinct, encountering a situation where its tail was stepped on would most likely trigger a frantic struggle to escape.
Yet the rat under Li Dao's foot showed no panic; instead, it kept trying to find a way to climb onto him, as if there was something on Li Dao that it desperately craved.
Li Dao quickly noticed this peculiar behavior in the rat.
Could it be...
He looked down at the droplet of fragrant blood on his fingertip.
Presently, the only thing on him that could possibly attract this rat was this single drop of blood.
Surely the rat hadn't crossed species boundaries to fall in love with him.
"Shall I test it?"
Coincidentally, he wanted to test what effects his blood possessed after transformation, and right at this moment, a 'guinea pig' had delivered itself right to his doorstep—even if this 'guinea pig' looked a bit filthy.
Discarding any squeamishness about the large black rat's lack of hygiene, Li Dao simply picked it up with his hand.
After all, the environment in the death row camps had been far filthier than this little creature.
If this thing had appeared back then, people would have fought over it, considering it a slab of meat; no one would have cared about cleanliness.
Without the system back then, he hadn't had the capability to catch rats; otherwise, given his condition at the time, he probably would have eaten it raw.
Holding the rat in his hand, he tentatively extended the blood-stained finger toward it.
Perhaps sensing something, the rat twitched its nose and suddenly began to struggle frantically in his hand, stretching its neck and craning desperately toward the blood-stained finger.
Had Li Dao not held it down tightly with his grip, it would have flown out long ago.
Applying a trace of force with his fingers, Li Dao pried the rat's mouth open.
He brought the bleeding fingertip right over the rat's mouth and squeezed gently, letting the drop of blood slip straight inside.
Immediately afterward, he released the rat and placed it down onto the stone table nearby.
Once set down, the rat didn't scurry away in panic; instead, it quietly huddled in place.
After waiting a moment, Li Dao slightly furrowed his brow.
Could it be that his transformed blood really only smelled nice without possessing any actual utility?
Just as this thought crossed Li Dao's mind, he suddenly noticed movement from the rat.
"Squeak!"
A sharp cry broke from the rat's mouth, and it suddenly began to thrash and roll across the stone table, twitching convulsively from time to time, looking as though it were in excruciating pain.
Li Dao's brows furrowed deeper as he kept his eyes fixed on the creature.
Ten-odd breaths later, his gaze sharpened.
The rat had abruptly ceased its struggling, and a miraculous scene unfolded.
The rat's body began to swell visibly, its limbs and tail growing thicker and sturdier, as though it were undergoing some bizarre mutation.
Even more astonishingly, Li Dao suddenly sensed an inexplicable, intimate connection forming between himself and the rat.