105 Butterflies dance amidst the flowers, their traces impossible to find!

After dinner, Chen Jue went to a small, open convenience store in town to buy a few high-quality nail clippers, intending to trim his fingernails and toenails. They had grown too long, making his shoes feel uncomfortable and cramped.

He strolled back to the W寨 (Wazhai) and took a hot shower, washing away the exhaustion and dust of the day.

Still feeling unsettled by the Dulong girl he had encountered earlier, Chen Jue sat cross-legged on his bed after his shower. He began to circulate his Qi and blood, practicing the Neidan (Internal Alchemy) technique of the macrocosmic and microcosmic orbits. For some reason, he found that practicing these orbits here did not provide the same marvelous sensation he felt at home.

Fortunately, after circulating his energy a few times, his mind grew calm and all distracting thoughts vanished. Though his skill proficiency did not increase, his free attribute points rose by 0.01, confirming that his practice of the internal alchemy technique was on the right track.

He checked the time after finishing his practice; it was past 10:00 PM. Not yet feeling sleepy, he browsed the materials on his phone and found a new finger technique in his martial arts library.

The newly awakened "Golden Needle Iron Fingers" state had not only strengthened his ten fingers but also provided a bonus that accelerated his progress in finger-based martial arts. With the added buffs of "Lu Zu Enlightened" and "Gestapo," Chen Jue decided to learn a Taoist hard-qigong finger technique to test the power of these three stacked buffs.

After looking through the library, he settled on the Wudang Tiger Claw. This technique was one of the thirty-six arts of Wudang, rumored to have been developed by Grandmaster Zhang Sanfeng by imitating the movements of a black tiger. It also came with a matching stance.

Chen Jue took a look and realized it was the "One-Character Hunyuan Stance," a variation of the Hunyuan Stance found in the Tai Chi Thirteen Forms. After practicing it in his room for a few rounds, he threw a claw strike, and the air whistled as if fabric were being torn.

On his interface, the entry "Tiger Claw Lv0 (3/100)" appeared, though the One-Character Hunyuan Stance did not get its own entry.

"It seems that slightly changing a posture isn't enough to form a new skill," Chen Jue analyzed. "The One-Character Hunyuan Stance is already included in the Hunyuan Stance, and since the Thirteen Forms also covers the Hunyuan Stance, it didn't form a separate skill." He figured he should try to practice more complex and versatile techniques in the future, as they could serve multiple purposes and significantly improve his efficiency.

...

Thanks to the speed-boosting effects of his three status buffs, Chen Jue practiced the Tiger Claw as if he had been fueled by gunpowder. By the time he went to bed after 11:00 PM, he had already leveled the new skill to Lv1 (26/200). It took less than an hour—faster than the "Walking on Walls" skill he had just perfected.

After finishing his training, he soaked his fingers in hot water to open his pores and stimulate circulation before heading to bed. Because of his Neidan training, Chen Jue had recently been able to enter a state of embryonic breathing, allowing him to sleep dreamlessly until dawn.

He woke up just past 6:00 AM, washed up, had breakfast in town, and headed back into the mountains with his backpack. Perhaps because he was still harboring a faint hope of meeting the basket-carrying girl again, he did not change his direction and followed the same route as the day before.

Having trampled through the brush the day before, he had essentially carved out a new path. Consequently, it took him only a little over two hours to reach the U-shaped riverbank, though he saw no sign of the girl. In these vast, primeval mountains, meeting a stranger who seemed to possess martial arts skills was a rare stroke of fate.

He had a faint feeling that the girl was extraordinary, so he followed the river upstream. After another two hours, just before noon, the river began to narrow from over twenty meters to just five or six. Seeing large rocks protruding from the water in the middle of the channel, Chen Jue leaped across them, aided by his "Light as a Swallow" buff, and reached the opposite bank.

By noon, hunger set in. Chen Jue found a patch of clean grass, sat down, and ate some compressed biscuits with an energy drink. While eating, he checked the offline map on his phone and realized that his detour had taken him at least ten kilometers off his planned course. He estimated that if he wanted to return to Wazhai, it would definitely be after dark.

"Maybe I'll just spend the night by the river!" he thought. "Training is the same anywhere, and going back only means a hot meal and a shower." Having made significant progress in his cultivation, his courage had grown, and he was no longer afraid of such desolate environments.

After finishing his meal and resting for half an hour, he felt his strength restored and headed downstream. It took him two hours to reach the spot where he had seen the black kite and the girl the day before. He searched the riverbank, found a few faint footprints, and followed the direction where the girl had disappeared into the forest.

Crossing mountains and weaving through the woods, Chen Jue stopped frequently. He found several spots where medicinal herbs had been dug up—clearly the work of the girl. Unfortunately, after crossing a few more mountains to another branch of the Dulong River, the trail vanished. With waist-high grass and chaotic rocky terrain everywhere, Chen Jue had no way to continue his pursuit.

By this time, his "Butterfly-Chasing" movement technique had reached perfection without him even realizing it. The breakthrough didn't cause a massive siphon effect; it just accelerated his metabolism, slightly increased his agility by 0.02, and awakened a new bonus called "Butterflies Playing Among Flowers."

[Butterflies Playing Among Flowers]: Nimble and flexible, unpredictable as a butterfly among flowers!
Bonus Effect: This status significantly enhances the player's physical reaction speed and dynamic visual tracking, providing a great boost to dodging, evasion, and other physical maneuvers.

With this new status, Chen Jue noticed that he became much more agile while moving through the forest. Before, he would occasionally get snagged by grass and thorns; now, he could judge and react in advance. He estimated that when stacked with the "Light as a Swallow" effect from his wall-walking skill, his movement would be even more formidable.

...

By 5:00 PM, Chen Jue decided to set up camp by this new emerald river. He gathered large pebbles from the bank to build a stone stove and collected dry firewood from the nearby forest to warm himself for the night. In this primeval southwestern borderland, temperatures dropped sharply after dark, and he didn't want to freeze. Fortunately, the forest was full of wood, enough to keep a fire burning for a day and a night. It was a shame he hadn't brought fresh ingredients; otherwise, he could have had a wild BBQ.

Glancing at the setting sun, he felt he still had time. He stripped down to his underwear, grabbed a sharpened branch, and went into the river. He had frequently seen fish while walking along the bank. He wouldn't dare hunt protected wildlife, but catching a few fish for a meal was fine.

With his sharpened reflexes, his ability to hold his breath underwater for over thirty minutes, and the acute reactions from his new "Butterflies Playing Among Flowers" state, catching fish was a breeze. It took him only ten minutes to spear two fish, each weighing three or four pounds. His efficiency was far superior to the anglers at the reservoir.

They appeared to be common whitefish, not a protected species, so he felt comfortable cleaning them. He had a lighter and a small fruit knife in his pack. He built a fire, dried himself off, cleaned the fish, and roasted them on branches propped against the stone stove.

By the time he was dry and dressed, the air was filled with the aroma of roasted fish. It was a pity he didn't have any seasoning, or it would have smelled even better.

...

After roasting, the fish had lost much of their weight, and with the bones and heads discarded, there was barely enough meat to satisfy his appetite. However, he still had two blocks of compressed biscuits and some energy drinks, which would tide him over until the next morning.

By the time he finished his rustic meal, the sky had turned completely black, and the mountain wind began to howl. Fortunately, the stone stove sheltered the fire well, and it crackled brightly. The moon rose, casting a silver light on the riverbank, and with the campfire and his acute vision, he could see clearly for hundreds of meters.

Bored with just sitting by the fire, Chen Jue took out his phone to review his materials and practiced the Tiger Claw technique. Every claw strike tore through the air, and when he raked his fingers against the river pebbles, they emitted a grating, piercing sound. With the "Golden Needle Iron Fingers" bonus, his strikes left deep grooves in the stones and sent sparks flying into the night.

After an hour, his Tiger Claw technique reached Lv2. With the three buffs stacked, his efficiency was like having a twenty-fold experience scroll activated!

Next, he let out a tiger's roar, his muscles and skin trembling slightly, and practiced the "Tiger Roar Golden Bell Cover." Even with the howling mountain wind, his roar carried for miles through the silent forest and over the rushing water.

After practicing for a dozen minutes, Chen Jue felt something was wrong. His pores suddenly pricked, and a sense of inexplicable dread washed over him. He stopped and fell silent, listening. Amidst the whistling wind, he heard a low, guttural growl that sounded eerily like the one he had just made.

He looked toward the forest from where the sound originated. In the dark, illuminated by the flickering campfire, a pair of green, bell-sized eyes stared back at him, striking and piercing.