In the three connected barracks, a dense crowd of prodigy Martial Artists lay on simple stretchers. Yu Fei roughly estimated there were nearly two hundred people.

The thing was, this group of prodigies looked absolutely miserable. Bruised noses and swollen faces were just minor injuries; almost every single one had at least one broken limb. Most had been beaten unconscious, while a small few just stared numbly at the ceiling.

Occasionally, a nurse would come by with medicine, applying it to the injured to reduce the swelling.

’Did they really beat them half to death?’

Yu Fei couldn’t help but swallow. If he were discovered, he figured his fate would be even worse than theirs.

’This won’t do. I have to copy these talents and get out of here, fast!’

In his Reversing Destiny Vision, more than half of the talents above the heads of the injured were red; orange ones were much rarer.

Yu Fei had observed back on the training grounds that most of the prodigies with orange talents were at the second realm. Even more had already been dealt with back at Yellow Sand River.

Yu Fei wasn’t picky. They all had red gems floating above their heads, and who knew what traits they might hold.

He carefully moved next to a prodigy with a red gem. The kid was in a terrible state, with two black eyes, a left arm hanging limply at his side, and a mouth full of bloody froth.

Yu Fei carefully marked him, then reached out and gently gripped the prodigy’s throat. A flash of red light lit up his mental space, and a new red talent appeared within it.

He repeated the process, picking out suitable targets one by one.

After striking three more times, Yu Fei obtained another three red talents. With no time to inspect them, he continued to search for his next target.

’Huh! It’s Cha Qizhe!’

The talkative classmate’s lips were swollen like sausages. He was completely still.

Yu Fei marked him and copied his talent.

An orange light flashed within his mental space.

’It happened again. This chatterbox actually has multiple talents!’

Yu Fei felt a pang of helplessness. There was nothing to be done; he could only see a person’s highest-quality talent, not how many they possessed. ’It’s not like I can just silence this guy for good,’ he thought.

Shaking his head, Yu Fei switched to another target. His luck was better this time—it was a red talent.

He had one use left, besides the two he had already expended on the owl.

Yu Fei had now obtained eight talents: five red, one orange, one purple, and one blue.

’I’m about to take off!’

He was thrilled. All that time saving up his copy uses had paid off in one huge windfall! The situation didn’t allow him to inspect the traits of his new talents. With one use remaining, Yu Fei chose a girl.

She was a fair-skinned girl, though her current state was tragic. A large footprint was stamped on her face, and the tracks of her tears were clearly visible.

Yu Fei slowly closed his hand around her neck. The last layer of blue light on the Reversing Destiny Pearl vanished, and a new streak of blue light appeared in his collection.

’Dammit! Another one with multiple talents!’

All of a sudden, the girl on the stretcher began to struggle. Her eyes flew open in terror as her hands shot up to her neck.

Yu Fei jumped in fright. He instantly yanked his hand away from her neck and hurried toward the exit.

"Aah!..."

Shao Qi shot upright in a panic, aggravating the wound on her broken leg. She immediately burst into pained tears.

"What’s the matter?"

A nurse rushed over. Part of their job, besides preventing the prodigies’ injuries from worsening, was to calm them down.

Shao Qi sobbed, clutching the nurse’s arm and refusing to let go.

"Someone... someone was trying to kill me... *sob*..."

The nurse quickly soothed her. "That’s not possible. You’re safe now. No one is going to hurt you. The second round is over."

"Someone was squeezing my neck! I felt it, and then he ran off!"

"You were just having a nightmare. Everything’s alright! There, there. Try to get some rest."

After settling Shao Qi’s emotions, the nurse went to the doorway and waved over the Warrior on duty. She whispered something to him, and the Warrior departed at once. A short while later, Luu Yuxin arrived in person.

After hearing the nurse’s description of Shao Qi’s state, she personally inspected the area. Then, she declared with conviction, "Someone snuck in here!"

A cyan light flashed in Luu Yuxin’s eyes as she activated some kind of Pupil Skill. She could see an extra set of footprints on the ground. When she traced them back, however, she found that they vanished just outside the barracks.

Yu Fei’s heart pounded in terror as he fled the scene. ’That was too intense,’ he thought. ’Who would’ve guessed that girl would wake up at the last second? Or was she never even asleep?’

He paid no mind to the consumption of his Qi Blood as he sprinted through the darkness. Eventually, he found a hidden mountain pass and settled down to calm the fluctuations in his Qi Blood.

Only when he had completely calmed down did he begin to carefully examine his haul for the night.

Excluding the owl, his adventure tonight had yielded seven talents: five red, one orange, and one blue.

In both quantity and quality, these new talents already surpassed the ones he currently possessed.

Yu Fei examined them one by one.

[Profound Heart Wisdom Light]

Quality: Red

Description: A mysterious heart, bathed in the light of wisdom.

Effect: Unparalleled comprehension, capable of grasping the profound in a single thought.

[Profound Mansion Celestial Body]

Quality: Red

Description: The Profound Mansion conceals the spirit; a celestial palace for its cosmic orbit.

Effect: Internal organs contain Innate Qi; all meridians are exceptionally resilient.

[Divine Que Longevity Body]

Quality: Red

Description: The Divine Que secures one’s fate; life force flows unceasingly.

Effect: Increases natural lifespan by fifty percent and greatly enhances cellular activity.

[Chixiao Battle Body]

Quality: Red

Description: Crimson blood surges to the heavens; Divine Power without equal.

Effect 1, Crimson Blood: Qi Blood and root bone foundation are enhanced to 5 times that of others in the same realm.

Effect 2, Divine Power: Born with divine strength; fierce and unparalleled.

[Pure Yin Ghost Body]

Quality: Red

Description: Pure Yin from the Nine Hells, a profound evil that extinguishes Yang.

Effect 1, Pure Yin: A pure Yin constitution. The absolute best physique for practicing Yin-attribute Cultivation Techniques, bar none.

Effect 2, Solitary Yin Cannot Last: Prone to cultivation deviation, easily depletes Innate vitality, leads to a short life.

After reading through the five red talents, the excitement Yu Fei had just managed to suppress surged once more. He wanted all of them, except for the last one.

These talents were incredibly powerful. The third one, [Divine Que Longevity Body], could even extend his lifespan! ’I have to max that one out someday,’ he resolved.

The first talent, [Profound Heart Wisdom Light], was functionally the same as Jiang Yifan’s [Extraordinary Comprehension]—both increased one’s comprehension. But the gulf between a red-grade and a blue-grade talent was immeasurable.

[Profound Mansion Celestial Body] was the foundational talent Yu Fei desired most. It could compensate for his weak foundation and increase his cultivation speed.

[Chixiao Battle Body] was somewhat similar to his own [Void Martial Body], but it was more focused on enhancing raw combat power. His Void Martial Body only tripled his Qi Blood, whereas the Chixiao Battle Body increased it fivefold and provided a pure strength boost on top of that.

Suppressing his excitement, Yu Fei continued to read.

[Illusory Cicada Star Pupil]

Quality: Orange

Description: Myriad transformations; nothing can hide.

Effect 1, Hyper-Vision: Increases long-range sight tenfold.

Effect 2, Illusory Cicada: Allows the user to "see" faint vibrational trails.

[Fast Hands]

Quality: Blue

Description: Speed brings joy.

Effect: Triples hand speed.

The orange talent was from Cha Qizhe, he remembered that clearly. ’I didn’t expect that guy to have an eye-related talent,’ he thought. He understood the first effect—it just let you see farther—but what did being able to see faint vibrational trails even mean?

’I’ll have to equip this one and give it a try.’

As for the blue talent, it came from the girl who had suddenly woken up.

He found it a little hard to take the talent’s description seriously. ’What the hell does "Speed brings joy" even mean?’

’What kind of joy can you get from fast hands? Scrambling eggs faster?’

Shaking off these random thoughts, Yu Fei figured this talent would pair nicely with his Super Speed Reaction. Joy aside, it would undoubtedly be a huge help in a fight.

With the "blind box" opening complete, it was time to break a talent down for stardust. Without a second thought, Yu Fei targeted the red talent, [Pure Yin Ghost Body]. According to its description, for someone practicing a Yin-attribute Cultivation Technique, it would be comparable to a gold-grade talent. However, its abilities were too narrow, and it even shortened one’s lifespan. It was useless to him.

He had only used the Reversing Destiny Pearl’s ability to dismantle talent gems once before. Back then, he had broken down Jiang Yifan’s blue talent, [Extraordinary Comprehension], and received 8 motes of stardust. Those 8 motes were still swirling in his mental space.

Later, when he had tried to dismantle another talent for stardust, he had accidentally activated the gem fusion function instead. That was how he had obtained the red talent [Void Martial Body] and joined the ranks of the prodigies. After that, he hadn’t wanted to waste any more copy opportunities, especially since back in his home county, there were no powerful figures besides the orange-grade Ye Feng.

He had scoured the entire county—elementary schools, middle schools, kindergartens, even hospitals—and found only the orange-grade Ye Feng and the purple-grade Dongfang Yebai.

Beyond them, even blue-grade talents were rare.

There weren’t even a hundred in the entire county combined.

With a single thought, [Pure Yin Ghost Body] instantly transformed into a shower of brilliant stardust. The Reversing Destiny Pearl captured it, and the dust began to swirl around it like an hourglass stream.

Yu Fei patiently counted the motes.