Chapter 118: Pioneer

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation  Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

To the southeast of the martial arts course was a corner hidden away by a tree that was dozens of meters tall.

There, a seven-floor building made of reinforced concrete and as thick as a fortress was covered by mutated Boston ivies. Some vines came out of a window, which made the place look desolate.

It was once the main lecture building for the martial arts course.

There were seven floors above ground and three floors underground, which served as the martial arts course’s research labs.

Later on, Agricultural University grew to power and became the Monster University. It obtained monetary and resource support, and it built more lecture buildings and research labs that were bigger and more lavish. This place was slowly emptied out and turned into the refresher course student’s dorms and classrooms.

Gu Jianbo made the students from society settle down before he brought Meng Chao to the deeper parts of the lecture hall. He opened a door that was covered in rust and creaked when opened. Then, through a winding staircase, they reached a dark and humid area underground.

“Big Brother Bo, you have a secret spot like this?”

It was the first time Ma Hong and the other students in society had saw it, and they made a fuss, saying that they wanted to go down to take a look.

Gu Jianbo could not win against them. He made Ma Hong the representative, who was the only one allowed to go down together with them.

The underground third floor was as cold as a morgue.

When they sucked in a deep breath, the air they inhaled was as cold as ice.

Dark lights lit up on both sides of the long and narrow corridor. There were tubes containing blood vessels and nervous systems that had been perfectly removed and immersed in preservatives on the walls. Everything could be seen in detail, and there were so many of them that anyone’s skin would crawl upon sighting them.

Gu Jianbo brought Meng Chao and Ma Hong into a research lab that required a password to be opened.

It had all sorts of cultivation machines that looked like torture tools.

At the center was a machine that looked like an electric chair for executing criminals.

Gu Jianbo brought out two huge stacks of experiment notes and drafts from a safe in the corner, along with two really huge case folders.

In the case folders was a stack of really thick medical records, all sorts of physiological parameters from examinations, and scans performed at various levels of the body.

There was also a yellowing picture.

It had a handsome and cool Gu Jianbo from ten years ago. He was holding hands with the beautiful and charming Li Yingzi.

They stood together with another young man who was full of high spirits. They looked in the direction where the red sun shone, as if they saw a bright future there, and smiled happily.

“That’s Zong Ye. He was the most brilliant student in our batch, and he was far stronger than me.”

Gu Jianbo touched the edge of the picture gently and mumbled, “In truth, he was the leading force behind Project 1024. I was just dragged into it by him.”

Meng Chao nodded. “He was the author of the first published articles.”

“Yeah. Now, many people say that more than a decade ago, Agricultural University’s martial arts course was the strongest due Ms. Li and I, the ‘dual stars’, displaying our might and suppressing the monster controller course. In truth, there was no such thing as ‘dual stars’. At most, we were just two satellites who reflected the light from Zong Ye, the supernova.”

Gu Jianbo smiled and said, “Zong Ye was Dean Zong’s youngest son, and he was the most outstanding person. While being a junior, he already reached Heaven Realm and became a four-star superhuman.”

“What?!” Meng Chao was shocked.

When it came to supernatural realms, the third stage of each realm was a huge step.

During their time in the undergraduate courses, many of the talented prodigies reached three stars before their graduation and hit the peak of Earth Realm.

But if someone wanted to go from Earth Realm to Heaven Realm, it was not as simple as accumulating their spirit energy points, clearing more main meridians, and strengthening a few more organs.

They had to gain a deep understanding toward their vitality magnetic fields, the energy of their souls, minds, and will. Then, they had to push their state of an intelligent carbon-based lifeform to a brand new level.

It was impossible for someone to reach Heaven Realm while being a junior.

“Zong Ye’s talent and skills were much greater than mine, and his rebelliousness and ambitions were like a volcano that could erupt at any moment. He brought terror to others, but was also highly attractive,” Gu Jianbo said. “Zong Ye considered himself really highly, and he believed that only Li Yingzi and I alone in all of Agricultural University’s martial arts course could understand his thoughts. We usually came together to talk about the foremost martial arts ideals.

“In the eyes of others, we formed the ‘iron triangle’ that was constantly together and were about the same in terms of strength, but only Li Yingzi and I knew that we were completely shocked by Zong Ye’s ideals and decided to follow him.

“Soon after he reached Heaven Realm, on a night that poured with rain, he suddenly came to me and Li Yingzi and said that he went down the wrong path.

“We were naturally shocked.

“At that time, he had already defeated the monster controller course by fighting one against ten and had renewed many of the records formed over the years by the martial arts course. Even the universities in the area and Dragon City University, which is far to the west of the city, had heard of his name.

“If even he had walked down the wrong path, who was walking the correct path in all of Agricultural University’s martial arts course?

“But without another word, he brought out a notebook filled with almost illegible handwriting. Written in it was a brand new fighting concept. Look, it’s this book.”

Gu Jianbo lifted a notebook with a peeled-off cover made of monster hide. He carefully flipped the book to the title page.

A row of large letters was written there in a handwriting full of life. [Only death is ultimate in life!]

The words were written so fiercely that the strokes had sunk into the paper. It was as if the words had been embedded into the paper itself.

“Zong Ye spoke at length about this, sharing his revelation for an entire night with us. In the beginning, we didn’t agree with his thoughts.” Gu Jianbo sighed and said, “Cultivating branch meridians to fight sounds like a brilliant idea, but if you think about it carefully, it’s impossible. The branch meridians are really thin and weak. How could you cultivate them like main meridians? You can’t clear them with a crude and rough method.

“Even if you do manage to clear them, the runoff volume of branch meridians is really small, so it’s impossible for them to deliver powerful enough spirit energy. You can’t release a single skill like that, so how could you fight against elites who practice Beast Soul Style and Overkill Style? Those people can launch killing moves all over the place.

“If someone else had brought up such a ridiculous thing, Li Yingzi and I would have thrown it into the trash immediately. But it came from Zong Ye, a brilliant martial arts genius.

“Once again, we were convinced by his fantastical thoughts and eloquent arguments. Then, we were dragged into a high-speed train and charged forward at light speed to an unknown territory. That was Project 1024.”

Meng Chao was entranced. “What happened later?”

“Later , he died,” Gu Jianbo said calmly.

Meng Chao was shocked. “What?!”

“The cultivation method the superhumans have developed over the decades in Dragon City rely on eating secret medicine with rich spirit energy. Then, through meditation, stances, and fighting, they refine that spirit energy.

“Universities and other mega corporations provide cultivation cabins for their superhumans. These things use bioelectricity to stimulate the cultivators’ nerves and blood vessels in order to increase the circulation of spirit energy to stimulate and strengthen their spirit meridians. But this method is only suitable for the main meridians.”

Gu Jianbo sighed. “Zong Ye was filled with fantastic dreams. He changed the formula for the medicine and the structure for the cultivation cabins. He lowered the density of the medicine and the strength of the bioelectricity drastically in hopes that he could clear and strengthen the 1,024 branch meridians.

“But he grossly underestimated the complexity and fragility of the branch meridians. He also underestimated the insane pain of clearing the branch meridians. It was strong enough to affect a person’s mental strength index.

“In the end, before our graduation, his spirit energy deviated during an experiment. His body exploded, and he died. The only thing he left behind is a half-written graduation dissertation, and a whole bunch of medical and research reports.

“It’s only when we looked at the medical reports that we learned that the extreme experiments had long since severely damaged his body. Fine internal injuries had covered his blood vessels and various passages in his body. He might have seemed healthy, but he was just madly draining his life away, to the point that he burned himself out, even though he might have been able to live to one hundred years old otherwise!

“He knew very clearly that he would soon die.

“In a letter he wrote to us, he stated that he knew just what sort of devastating price he would have to pay if he pushed Project 1024 forward.

“But he optimistically estimated that he still had a few years left in him, and that it would be enough for him to last until Project 1024 was completed. The brand new martial arts ideal would shine with glory then. At that time, even if his body was crushed to bits as an offering for this project, it would be worth it.”

Meng Chao took the medical report Gu Jianbo handed to him with trembling hands, and read through it in shock.

The terrifying data and images showed just how a talented and peerless martial arts genius ruthlessly destroyed his own body and walked to his own destruction step by step.

Each experiment made him jump into a meat grinder on his own so that he could dissect himself and remove every organ and nerve.

It was only when he did this that he could get firsthand data that would guide him on how to change the density of the gene medicine, on how to adjust the minute strength of the bioelectricity and change a cultivation machine that was suited only to clear main meridians into one that was suitable for cultivating branch meridians!

“Honestly, I didn’t believe that Project 1024 would succeed. From the first day itself, I was highly skeptical of it, and I often complained about it to Zong Ye.” Gu Jianbo smiled. “But when I saw the bloody mess every time he came out of the cultivation cabin, I thought that I had to inherit his will. I couldn’t let Project 1024 come to an end just like that. Otherwise, Zong Ye would have died in vain.

“As for Li Yingzi, she was filled with great distress by Zong Ye’s death. She believed that Project 1024 was the reason his spirit energy deviated and that we were accomplices in harming him. She was filled with deep regret, and from then on, she moved to beast soul fusion technology and refused to look at Project 1024 again.

“By that time, Dean Zong Yue had already become in charge of the martial arts and life science department. His heart was naturally crushed by his youngest son’s death, but he had lived through an age of war, and people like that don’t place a great importance on the matters of life and death. He did not completely reject Project 0124.

“Since I was willing to continue Zong Ye’s research, he did not object to it. Instead, he brought quite a lot of resources to support me. If the project succeeded, Zong Ye might be able to smile in peace in heaven, right?”

When Meng Chao heard this, he asked curiously, “If that’s the case, why has the project come to a halt?”

“Because I don’t have the talent for it,” Gu Jianbo said with a vacant look in his eyes. “After Zong Ye died, many people shifted the praises and honor they lavished on him to me. I also swore that I would bear his will and complete the task he did not manage to complete.

“But in my heart, I knew very clearly that Zong Ye and I were too different.

“A ‘talented student’ like me could only walk down the path someone else has already planned for them. I could only get full marks in tests that had just one correct answer, and I could only only win when I had perfectly understood all the rules of a game.

“But if I had no test papers, no rules, and only a blank piece of canvas, I couldn’t do anything.

“For the next few years after that, I sloppily pushed Project 1024 forward. I might have seemed to come up with a lot of formulae for medicine, modify some cultivation machines, even cure some patients whose spirit meridians had shriveled up as well as help them clear up to five main meridians, and published some articles to make up the number of articles I had to publish, this way obtaining a lot of glory and praises, but all of that was superficial.

“I’m not Zong Ye. I can’t touch the spirit of Project 1024. I can’t launch a revolution that will change the current fighting model!

“I became impatient, and my spirit was tormented. When I slept at night, I dreamt of Zong Ye looking at me with expectation, and I even became jealous of him. We were both known as genii and both were pathfinders for Project 1024, so why was there such a huge difference between us? The real genii died, while I got to continue living. I had nothing, yet I was being showered in undeserved fame!

“I got entangled in evil thoughts and became impatient for results. My research direction gradually turned extreme, and in the end, I made a huge mistake.”

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