"Commander Tang Wen!"
"Commander Tang Wen is here!"
In the wilderness, at the hunting squad's base, the sentry shouted loudly.
Previously, having witnessed Tang Wen single-handedly slay an Earth-Walking Beast, the entire hunting squad regarded him as a living legend.
Captain Liu ran over to greet him, both surprised and delighted: "Commander Tang Wen, what brings you here?"
"Just passing by."
Seeing Captain Liu's puzzled expression, Tang Wen explained: "I plan to venture deeper into the wilderness to hone my martial skills."
Inside the base, craftsmen were rebuilding the stone houses destroyed by the Earth-Walking Beast.
After exchanging a few words, and with the day still young, Tang Wen continued on his way.
In the wilderness, the west wind howled, carrying with it a face full of yellow sand.
Tang Wen was well-prepared. He took out a pair of goggles from the pack on his back and covered his mouth and nose with a scarf. Then, with long strides, he sprinted towards the location marked on his map.
It wasn't until noon that he found the mountain spring marked on the map and finally stopped.
The area around the spring was strewn with jagged rocks. The spring itself was at the top of a massive boulder, with water trickling down through the cracks and pooling into a small pit.
Seeing the nearly dried-up and muddy pit, Tang Wen decisively climbed up the smooth boulder to fetch water from the spring above.
The spring water was refreshingly sweet, without any strange taste.
Thinking that he would need to come here for water in the coming days, Tang Wen brought up a few clean stones from below and stacked them around the spring. He then found a thick stone slab and placed it on top.
This setup would prevent birds and animals from contaminating the water while still allowing it to flow down, so the creatures below could continue to drink from the pit.
He wondered if the spring would dry up completely in the coming months.
If it did, life in the wilderness would become much harder.
After drinking and washing his face, Tang Wen stood on the boulder and surveyed the surroundings. In the vast wilderness, he could only see a few wild goats nibbling on shrubs.
Tang Wen noted their location and then moved to a different spot to practice.
[Flying Stone, Expert (5113/6000)]
A fireball shot up rapidly, crashing into the mountainside!
A warm current surged up from his spine, channeling into his right hand.
Tang Wen's eyes were resolute, his muscles bulging, almost tearing through his clothes.
Whoosh!
The pebble flew out of his hand.
Tang Wen treated it as if he were throwing a knife.
No sonic boom?
Did it fail?
Buzz!
Just as Tang Wen was about to shake his head, a terrifying roar echoed across the wilderness.
The sound grew louder and louder!
As if a jet plane had streaked across the sky!
"Holy crap!"
The Flying Stone tore through the air at incredible speed, distorting the light. With a loud bang, it struck a lone thorn tree, which instantly shattered into pieces. Before the fragments could even hit the ground, they burst into flames, turning to ash within seconds.
This was due to the pebble's extreme heat.
Tang Wen stood there, stunned, and it took him a while to regain his composure.
"This is almost as powerful as a rocket launcher—no, a tank's smoothbore cannon!"
Finally, he had succeeded in applying the Contemplation Method's force to a projectile.
He smiled, picked up another pebble, and leaped high into the air, focusing his mind and exerting his strength.
The pebble roared forward, accelerating to the speed of sound, creating a piercing screech as it broke through the air.
This time, there was no tree to block it.
Through the Thousand-Li Mirror, Tang Wen saw the pebble fly out of sight in the blink of an eye, eventually turning into a black dot and disappearing.
The range was impressive, but he frowned.
Long-range attacks weren't particularly useful to him.
After all, his opponents were either Martial Masters or Superior Exotic Beasts.
Neither of the two would be foolish enough to stand still and wait for the Flying Stone to strike without moving.
After some thought, he approached a massive boulder and stood about ten meters away.
He visualized the Flying Stone slicing through the air like a blade.
Bang!
The boulder trembled violently, and the pebble shattered completely into powder.
Tang Wen stepped forward and gave it a firm push, causing the powdered stone to cascade down.
Looking at the boulder, which was over a meter thick, it was now covered in spiderweb-like cracks.
He gently pressed his palm against it, and with a few cracking sounds, the boulder split into several pieces.
"The power is decent, but it's still not right."
The destructive force of that strike was only equivalent to a third-rank Martial Master unleashing their full power with the Contemplation Method.
Naturally, Tang Wen was not satisfied.
It wasn't much stronger than his pure muscular strength.
He had used the Contemplation Method just now, yet he couldn't break the sound barrier at the moment of release.
So there must be something wrong.
It seemed that treating the pebble like a blade and slashing it out directly couldn't channel 100% of the force into the pebble!
Tang Wen stood there, lost in thought for a long time, but couldn't come up with a good solution.
Could it be that he needed to find a "Hidden Weapon Visualization Method"?
But saying it was easy—where could he find one?
And even if he found it, why would anyone let him learn it?
With a thought, he opened his Experience Panel—[Flying Stone, Expert (5113→…→5613/6000)]
The experience points were skyrocketing.
He immediately launched several more strikes, and the Flying Stone reached a bottleneck.
[Flying Stone, Expert (6000/6000)]
"It's supposed to be an Experience Panel, yet the level can still get stuck—how absurd!"
After the experience bar was full, Tang Wen felt even more clearly that once the Flying Stone leveled up, the Experience Panel would inevitably undergo some kind of change.
This was unavoidable, and he could only hope it would be a good thing.
"Buzz buzz buzz"
"Boom boom boom"
Tang Wen spared no effort, unleashing a burst of visualization.
In the wilderness, beasts fled, and Mutated Beasts hid, as if encountering an earthquake or flood, all scrambling to escape.
"Hmm, now it seems that with the Contemplation Method, the Flying Stone can accelerate to the speed of sound within twenty meters, and within a hundred meters, it can break through two to three times the speed of sound..."
If it could reach the speed of sound upon release, the latter half of its trajectory would be even more powerful.
Over a dozen bursts had taken a significant toll.
If it were an ordinary second-rank Martial Master, they probably wouldn't even be able to lift their arms by now.
But Tang Wen was only slightly fatigued.
Even if a first-rank Martial Master showed up now, he could still fight them.
From noon until evening, Tang Wen stayed here, experimenting with different force application techniques.
Clip-clop, clip-clop.
The sound of hooves approached.
Huh?
"Who's there?"
Tang Wen turned his head and shouted.
"It's me! Commander Tang Wen! It's us, don't attack, don't attack!"
Two mounted guards raised their spears and called out.
They were extremely nervous, afraid that Tang Wen might casually wave his hand and take them out.
They were from the wilderness hunting outpost under Captain Liu.
"It's you. Is there something going on at the hunting outpost?"
The two wiped the sweat from their foreheads, dismounted, and cautiously said, "There was a lot of commotion here earlier, and our captain was worried about you, so he sent us to check."
"I'm fine. The commotion earlier was just from my training. No need to worry."
"Yes, yes. On our way here, we saw a Black Rock Sheep, but unfortunately, our horses couldn't catch up."
"A low-rank Mutated Beast, the Black Rock Sheep?" Tang Wen's interest was piqued.
"And it was a ram."
As everyone knew, rams were more valuable.
"Tell me the direction, I'll go take a look. You two head back. If I catch a Black Rock Sheep, you'll get your share of meat!"
"We wouldn't dare, we wouldn't dare!" The two of them grinned from ear to ear.
They were merely Martial Apprentices, and being able to establish a connection with the young Commander Tang Wen was already a great joy for them.
As for sharing the meat, they didn't even dare to think about it.
For Tang Wen, his reason for coming to the wilderness to train was to hunt and stockpile provisions.
Finding prey on his own was a challenge, and the efficiency was too slow. Collaborating with these hunting squad soldiers was the best option.
By the time the two of them returned to the hunting camp's base, it was already midnight.
Unusually, a large bonfire was lit at the base.
"Could it be?"
Before the two could approach, Tang Wen called out, "You're too slow, come and eat some mutton."
"Come on! You two are lucky," Captain Liu also beckoned.
"Commander Tang is truly swift!"
Tang Wen's speed far surpassed that of a galloping horse, and catching a low-level Mutated Beast like the Black Rock Sheep was as easy as reaching into a bag.
Under his care, each of the two received a twenty-pound front leg.
This caused a wave of envy among the crowd.
Mutated Beast Meat was filling; an ordinary person could eat half a pound and work outside all day in heavy snow without feeling hungry.
In the face of the drought, twenty pounds of Mutated Beast Meat could not only be exchanged for a considerable amount of grain but also dried for personal consumption. Paired with a bit of foxtail millet, it could provide enough rations for a month.
And Tang Wen wanted them to know that cooperating with him meant having meat to eat.
After resting at the base for a night, many soldiers came to Tang Wen, offering him clues.
They were familiar with the area, and while they couldn't claim to know every Mutated Beast's location, they could at least point out the general direction.
The next day, Tang Wen took the sheep's leg and hide, leaving the rest of the meat for the hunting squad.
He took a long spear and ventured back into the wilderness.
He had a premonition that his Experience Panel was about to change!
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