Zhou Ziwei gave a self-deprecating laugh, then started the Audi without hesitation and sped off towards Tengchong, disappearing completely from the mountain road in the blink of an eye...
Volume 2: The Assassin's Nightmare, Chapter 310: The Leveling Up Again
Just after Zhou Ziwei's Audi drove away, Bat King, who had just woken up from his sleep, was startled and hurriedly flapped his wings, flying out of the dense forest and rushing after the Audi.
However, before Bat King had flown very far, a large truck came roaring towards it. Bat King was startled. It instinctively felt that if these people discovered it, it would bring it deadly trouble. So, taking advantage of the fact that the people in the truck might not have noticed it yet, it quickly flew up into the sky and in the blink of an eye, it flew above the clouds.
Bats have poor eyesight, and even the Bat King's eyesight is not much better. Therefore, although the Bat King flies very high, it cannot see targets on the ground as clearly as an eagle.
However, although the Bat King's eyesight wasn't great, it could still faintly sense Zhou Ziwei's aura. The aura it sensed wasn't the scent of Zhou Ziwei's body, but rather the aura of his soul. This was probably because Zhou Ziwei had once used his soul power to heal it, and a little bit of Zhou Ziwei's original soul power seemed to have been fused into its brain. Therefore, it was able to accurately sense Zhou Ziwei's approximate location without even needing to use its eyes.
Moreover, it was precisely because of that bit of soul power belonging to Zhou Ziwei that the Bat King felt a strange sense of dependence on him.
In fact, the Bat King's body was taken over by that human soul shortly after its birth, and for many years, its soul has been in a semi-dormant state under the suppression of that human soul.
During this time, it would often vaguely sense the thoughts of that human soul, and occasionally experience memories of human society with that human soul... Over the decades, perhaps due to the influence of that human soul, the Bat King's soul unknowingly became more and more intelligent, so intelligent that it was somewhat unlike a bat.
However, those decades were like an extremely long nightmare for the Bat King's soul. It was only after the soul that originally belonged to a human and resided in its body was devoured by that terrifying soul entity that it slowly awoke.
Therefore, strictly speaking, Zhou Ziwei was like the first creature it had ever seen after it was born. In addition, with the trace of soul power that Zhou Ziwei left in its mind, how could it not develop a sense of dependence on Zhou Ziwei?
As dawn broke, the number of vehicles on the road increased. Bat King tried several times to fly down from the clouds to find Zhou Ziwei, but upon hearing the roar of cars on the road below, it immediately abandoned the idea. Helpless, it could only hide above the clouds, locking onto Zhou Ziwei's direction from the sky and following him slowly all the way to Tengchong County.
As the Bat King sensed the increasing number of humans below, it grew increasingly fearful and uneasy. Having had its body possessed by that human's soul for many years, it harbored no affection for humans... Of course, Zhou Ziwei was an exception.
Encountering so many annoying fellows made the bat lose interest in going down to search for Zhou Ziwei. It could only circle in the sky helplessly before finding a temporary place to land on a small hill opposite the county town...
Zhou Ziwei returned to the newly built jadeite rough stone exchange and quietly opened the largest room on the fourth floor. He found Liu Xiaofei still sleeping soundly on her side, like a little pig, with a pillow in her arms and a blanket between her two snow-white thighs.
Her beautiful face, even more delicate in her sleep, occasionally revealed a satisfied and happy smile.
With a tender feeling, Zhou Ziwei gently covered Liu Xiaofei's sexy and alluring thighs with another blanket. He checked the time; although it was already late and he still had many things to do today, he had no intention of waking Liu Xiaofei.
After all, Zhou Ziwei knew that he had really worn Liu Xiaofei out yesterday, with all that crazy lovemaking... Zhou Ziwei had a great physique that had been tempered five times by the water of reincarnation, so naturally he wouldn't be tired from doing a little bit of bedroom exercise, but Liu Xiaofei was a different story.
Her tender body couldn't withstand such a brutal assault, but she could tell that Zhou Ziwei was very interested in that matter. Therefore, even though her body felt that it was a little unbearable, she didn't make a sound. She just silently endured it and even cooperated by making some seductive movements and sounds to please Zhou Ziwei.
If Zhou Ziwei hadn't later discovered that Liu Xiaofei's area was red and swollen, and that Liu Xiaofei would often hide a hint of pain beneath her cheerful smile, Zhou Ziwei would have been shocked to realize that Liu Xiaofei was disregarding her own body for his happiness, which moved him deeply once again...
Zhou Ziwei didn't know how much longer Liu Xiaofei would sleep, so he didn't disturb her. He took out a change of clothes from his suitcase and went into the bathroom to shower and change...
It has to be said that in Tengchong, where Gu Dongfeng may lack other things, it still has a lot of influence. With just a little effort, the off-road vehicle issue was basically settled.
Yesterday, Zhou Ziwei said he would find ten cars to go together, but Gu Dongfeng actually found eleven.
The eleventh vehicle, however, was not used to carry raw stones; it was specifically designed to carry gasoline.
You should know that the jade mine that Gu Dongfeng took them to this time was located in a place without even a road. And in a place without a road, can you expect a gas station to be built for you?
Therefore, if you don't want to run out of gas halfway through your journey and be stranded in the mountains, you must bring enough gas for your trip in advance.
Fortunately, all these tedious matters were handled by Grandpa Gu Dongfeng. Otherwise, if Zhou Ziwei had been to deal with these things himself, he probably wouldn't have thought of bringing gasoline with him.
It wasn't until noon that Wu Di finally managed to bring the Yelü brothers and a large group of people, including A Da and A Er, from the training base.
How to recognize these people is really a headache. In the past, when he met the Yelü brothers and A'da and A'er, Zhou Ziwei used different appearances and identities. But now these people are going to be with him. Zhou Ziwei can't use one face when facing the Yelü brothers and then change to another face when he turns to A'da and A'er, can he?
Left with no other choice, Zhou Ziwei had Wu Di take the people to his gym first. Then Zhou Ziwei went there himself, divided them into two groups, and placed them in two different rooms. Zhou Ziwei then recognized them with faces that they were all familiar with before explaining the truth to them and immediately reverting to his original appearance.
Having finally revealed his identity to all of them, Zhou Ziwei brought them all back to the jadeite rough stone exchange, intending to rest there for a day before setting off for Myanmar early the next morning.
When Zhou Ziwei and the others returned to the exchange, Liu Xiaofei had already gotten up and washed up. So they all had a meal together and got to know each other.
When Zhou Ziwei saw that Liu Xiaofei seemed to be in good spirits, but her gait was a bit strange, he immediately realized that he had been too rough with her the day before. He quickly took a moment to bring Liu Xiaofei to their room and apologized in a low voice.
Liu Xiaofei nestled shyly in Zhou Ziwei's arms, her face beaming with happiness, and said, "You don't need to apologize. I am your private property. Whenever you wish, I can... satisfy you!"
Zhou Ziwei was both moved and ashamed upon hearing this, and couldn't help but hug Liu Xiaofei and kiss her affectionately again...
As the faint dawn slowly broke in the east, a convoy of eleven off-road vehicles slowly drove out of Tengchong County and headed towards Myanmar.
Although Zhou Ziwei and his group consisted of twelve people, four of them were children. In addition, Liu Xiaofei and Gu Dongfeng were unable to drive, so Zhou Ziwei temporarily borrowed five people from Wu Di to act as his drivers.
Originally, Li Yifeng and his group felt that this trip wasn't a vacation, and bringing four children would only be a burden and take up space in the car, which was really not worthwhile.
However, Zhou Ziwei didn't care about any of that. The little princess and the other three were the ones he planned to groom as his own protégés. However, they were still young, and he would have to send them to school after returning to Dangyang. So, he considered this as their only chance to gain experience.
The ancients said that reading ten thousand books is not as good as traveling ten thousand miles, and Zhou Ziwei believes that this statement makes a lot of sense.
Experiencing more things always helps people grow faster.
Fortunately, the little princess and her companions had all endured a lot of hardship, and had even killed people before. They were not delicate flowers in a greenhouse. Although they might suffer some hardships on this trip to Myanmar, Zhou Ziwei was not worried that they would really be unable to endure it.
After a slight delay at the border, the group had a delicious lunch with exotic flavors in a small town on the Myanmar side before beginning their long trek...
The journey there went smoothly. Even when they encountered some unscrupulous road bullies or bandits, they knew that Zhou Ziwei's convoy was empty and that these people didn't have much to offer, so no one dared to target them.
Anyone in the know could tell they were on their way to buy jadeite rough. Such large transactions are usually conducted via online banking, so raiding them would only yield a few cars at most. However, the group was quite large, and the young man's bandits probably didn't have the strength to deal with them, while the stronger gangs wouldn't bother with them. This is why Zhou Ziwei and his group were able to proceed smoothly without encountering any trouble.
However, Zhou Ziwei always had a vague feeling that he was being watched in the dark, and this feeling had been there ever since he left Tengchong, which made Zhou Ziwei secretly become more cautious.
He guessed that his group's big move must have caught the attention of some bandit gang. Although nothing happened when they came, it probably wouldn't be so easy when they were heading back with ten cartloads of jadeite rough.
Zhou Ziwei regretted not asking Gu Dongfeng or Wu Di to help him get a batch of guns to carry with him. If he only encountered some small groups of bandits on the way back, he naturally wouldn't be afraid. But if it was a large gang, then he would be in big trouble.
Even if Zhou Ziwei had a body that was almost invulnerable to swords and bullets and could not fear the enemy's hail of bullets, the problem was that the only people among these people who were truly capable of fighting were the Yelü brothers and A'da and A'er.
If the gang has more than a hundred members, and Zhou Ziwei is unable to wipe them all out in an instant, then those around him who have little ability to protect themselves, such as Gu Dongfeng and the Little Princess, will be in a dangerous situation.
Fortunately, before leaving, Zhou Ziwei had Wu Di send him ten more handmade new-style cross-shaped darts, which, together with the two he still had, made a total of twelve. On the way, he also took the time to create a brand-new, independent soul within each of these new-style cross-shaped darts.
These twelve new-style cross-shaped darts can be considered Zhou Ziwei's trump card for survival!
During his rest, Zhou Ziwei occasionally scanned his surroundings with his soul power and was surprised to find that the distance his soul power could extend had increased from only twenty meters to more than thirty meters.
As for the soul connection between him and the independent souls he created, it also increased from the original two hundred meters to more than three hundred meters.
The only thing that is not certain now is whether the effective range of the Six-Syllable Mantra has also increased with his improved abilities.
However, considering that the radiation range and soul perception of his soul power have both increased by about half, the Six-Syllable Mantra, as the foundation of his soul abilities, must also have increased in the same way.
Unexpectedly, in order to prevent the bullet from exploding, he had no choice but to absorb so much soul power. After putting it into his body, he had to take a risk and accidentally figured out the trick of combining, compressing and liquefying soul power, which led to another qualitative leap in his soul power.
In the past, the two things that troubled Zhou Ziwei the most were how to quickly replenish his soul power and when the damn upper limit of his soul sea could be expanded so that he wouldn't have to be so hesitant every time he wanted to absorb souls, fearing that he might accidentally let the excessive soul power burst his soul sea.
Now that Zhou Ziwei has mastered the Ghost Gate Path that liquefies soul power, he no longer needs to worry about the upper limit of his Sea of Souls.
In order to improve his strength as quickly as possible, whenever the caravan stopped to rest at night, Zhou Ziwei would once again completely concentrate his soul power into his seemingly narrow yet infinitely vast soul power, and then begin to recite his strangely pronounced six-syllable mantra over and over again.
Slowly, Zhou Ziwei finally figured out a bit of the trick. It seemed that he had to recite the six-syllable mantra a thousand times continuously under a highly concentrated state of soul consciousness in order to barely condense a drop of liquid soul power.
At this moment, Zhou Ziwei's soul power contained only about 1,700 to 1,800 units of gaseous soul power. After condensing one drop of soul power, it would be very difficult for him to condense a second drop of liquefied soul power.
Driven by a sudden urge, Zhou Ziwei finally succumbed to the temptation and once again absorbed a large amount of soul power from the bullet.
Fortunately, Zhou Ziwei was prepared this time. He only managed to absorb about two thousand units of soul power before immediately removing the soul power from the bullet head and stopping the dangerous absorption.
Then, Zhou Ziwei dared not delay for even a second, and immediately condensed all his consciousness and soul power into the sea of souls, beginning a new round of rapid purification.
Only after two more drops of crimson, blood-like liquid soul power formed did Zhou Ziwei breathe a slight sigh of relief.
Looking at the mere seven drops of liquid soul power in the empty sea of souls, Zhou Ziwei couldn't help but sigh again. He wondered when he would be able to level up and transform this sea of souls into a true ocean formed by the convergence of soul power...
The convoy traveled for more than ten days through mountains where there were almost no roads before finally reaching its destination. Along the way, Zhou Ziwei seized every opportunity to condense his soul power, constantly drawing soul power from the bullets and then refining it in the Sea of Souls.
When the liquid soul power in his sea of souls reached ten drops, suddenly, a deep, vibrant orange ripple burst forth from the center of his sea of souls…
Almost instantly, the orange ripples enveloped the entire Sea of Souls in a golden-orange world. Then, both the liquid soul power and the thin, mist-like soul power surrounding the seven drops of liquid soul power also turned into a dazzling orange...
Volume 2 The Killer's Nightmare Chapter 311 Stone Mountain
The power of the soul had turned orange.
Zhou Ziwei sensed that as the color of the soul power changed, these mysterious soul energies seemed to have undergone some wonderful changes in quality that he couldn't yet explain.
It seems this is the real upgrade to his soul power! The last time his soul power liquefied, although it improved Zhou Ziwei's abilities in various aspects, the extent of the improvement didn't seem very significant... But this time? It shouldn't be any worse!
Sure enough... after Zhou Ziwei exited the Sea of Souls and casually tested it, he immediately discovered that after this transformation in the color of his soul power, the distance it could radiate had jumped from thirty meters to sixty meters.
The soul connection between Zhou Ziwei and the independent soul entity he created became effective, and the distance between them increased to 600 meters.
This discovery immediately filled Zhou Ziwei with immense joy.
He had been somewhat worried that he hadn't brought a gun this time, fearing that if he encountered a large gang of bandits on the way back, he would be in considerable trouble.
Although he still had twelve new-style cross-shaped darts on him, these things, if used properly, would be far more terrifying than guns.
The biggest problem is that this new type of cross-shaped dart can only be used freely within Zhou Ziwei's soul perception range. Once the new type of cross-shaped dart flies out of Zhou Ziwei's soul perception range, it may go out of control at any time.
Zhou Ziwei's original soul perception range was only two hundred meters, which is not exactly close, but it's not far either.
Modern bandits are not the same as the old-fashioned guerrillas with rifles and cannons. Any bandit with real strength is equipped with weapons that are more advanced and popular than those of the regular army. Generally speaking, bandits that often fight in mountainous areas and jungles are mostly equipped with some high-performance automatic rifles.
The effective range of automatic rifles is generally around 500 to 800 meters. In other words, people can easily stop and start slaughtering them from 500 to 600 meters away. If Zhou Ziwei's original soul perception is still at the 200-meter mark, then his new cross-shaped dart will basically be completely useless.
However, the range of soul perception has now suddenly increased to over 600 meters, which is finally comparable to the effective range of a typical automatic rifle.
The increased radiation range of the soul power also means that Zhou Ziwei's soul bead attack range has expanded from a mere twenty meters to over sixty meters. The terrifying attack power of this soul bead is something that even Zhou Ziwei himself is quite afraid of. To this day, Zhou Ziwei has not found any substance that this ray cannot decompose through the exploding disintegration ray...
If those gang members were just ordinary people with some strength or marksmanship, then Zhou Ziwei wouldn't be so afraid.
With the Soul Bead and the new cross-shaped darts, he could bombard them at close range and fire wildly from afar. He didn't believe anyone could withstand his two terrifying weapons.
However, Zhou Ziwei currently doesn't have many Soul Beads left, and these things require fresh souls to be made. Zhou Ziwei is quite worried about this. Although if he were to be a little ruthless, he could easily accumulate a huge number of Soul Beads by killing a few people, even ordinary people who are powerless.
It's a pity that Zhou Ziwei, while not exactly soft-hearted, wasn't exactly hard-hearted either; at least he wasn't cold-blooded enough to wantonly slaughter innocent people.
Fortunately, Zhou Ziwei still has some high-quality soul beads in reserve. If things get really desperate, he'll have to use these high-quality soul beads like missiles.
It should be noted that very few high-quality soul beads are less than ten soul beads condensed from ten souls. Once such a soul bead explodes, the decomposition rays can reach a diameter of six or seven meters. Throwing out a soul bead... even a grain of sand within a six or seven-meter diameter range will be instantly crushed into dust. This kind of destructive power is far more terrifying than ordinary bombs.
Fortunately, they arrived at their destination safely. By this time, the liquid soul power in Zhou Ziwei's sea of souls had soared to seventeen drops. He was looking forward to seeing if his liquid soul power would increase to twenty drops, meaning his total soul power would rise to twenty thousand. He wondered if his soul power would change color again, meaning it would level up once more.
He has now experienced the benefits of upgrading his soul power. Every time his soul power increases by one level, the control distance of all his methods of using soul power will directly double.
This is quite a terrifying ability... The current soul perception range is already 600 meters. If it doubles again, wouldn't it be 1200 meters? At that time, besides heavy machine guns having a range that exceeds Zhou Ziwei's new cross-shaped darts, what else could Zhou Ziwei possibly worry about?
However, Zhou Ziwei also knew that the possibility of upgrading his soul power again after reaching 20,000 was too small, because he clearly remembered that the first time his soul power was upgraded was when it broke through 1,000 for the first time, while this time the soul power upgrade would have to reach 10,000.
If we follow this pattern, then for terrifying soul power to upgrade again, it would only be possible if his soul power accumulated to 100,000.