Rules-related weird stories: 4016.

Chapter 597 Two Methods for Rapid Improvement
"The principal's office is actually an unstable space, like a wooden boat moored to the shore. It will change position with the wind and waves, but overall, it moves within a certain range."

"The observatory is indeed an area where the principal's office might be located."

"However, you'll need to find a way to get close to the painting 'Starry Night.' If the 'Principal's Office' is moored there at this time, then the path lies within 'Starry Night.'"

"As for whether there's a notebook in the principal's office... you'll find out when you get there."

"Since you firmly believe there's a notebook over there, perhaps there really is a notebook waiting for you?"

At the end, her expression was mysterious and intriguing, as if she had a premonition of something.

Lin Yi said in a deep voice, "So, boss... do you have any way to help me improve, preferably the kind of 'squeezing out' improvement, to squeeze out all my potential?"

Upon hearing the words "squeeze dry," Li Huiyuan's eyes lit up, but she immediately shrank back.

She knew it was the training department that was squeezing her dry.

The leader slowly began, "I have two ways to help you improve..."

"The first type is to keep beating you up until you look like you just now."

"Through our last and this encounter, I've discovered that you seem to have a rather unique characteristic: every time you recover from near death, your physical attributes are greatly enhanced."

"As long as I keep turning you into the same way you were before, your overall quality will improve immediately, just like making rice cakes."

"But this method also has drawbacks, and these drawbacks are reflected in you and me respectively."

"On the one hand, if I keep increasing the power I'm putting on you, to the point that I can't even control it properly, I might overdo it and actually kill you."

"On the other hand, as you repeatedly turn into mud and then recover, your perception of your own existence will become blurred. During the training process, you will be closer to a supernatural being than ever before."

“The boundaries of ‘humanity’ will become extremely blurred in you, and your layers will also become very blurred.”

"You should have known the location of the stadium when you were repairing the city walls. The Black Sea is right here. Therefore, when your own cognitive boundaries become blurred, you will be more likely than ever to receive the call from the depths of the Black Sea..."

"Your 'Dream Boundary' trait is highly likely to become a pathway for the mysterious creatures in the Black Sea to sense your location. When that happens, if you show any threat, I will not hesitate to eliminate you."

Having lost their humanity and become mere intermediaries between layers of information, they are essentially traitors in reality and deserve to be killed.

But if it were me, it would be a little hard to accept.

"Besides, if it's just about improving your physical body, you might be able to hold your own against a security guard, but it's not enough to face the Night Watchmen," the old man said.

Lin Yi remained silent for a moment, then said, "Then, what about the other method?"

The old man said, "Another method is called 'boiling a frog in lukewarm water'."

“I’m definitely suited for this!” Lin Yi’s eyes lit up, and he said without hesitation.

It wasn't that he was being abrupt, but rather that this "boiling frog in lukewarm water" analogy seemed tailor-made for his "adaptive" nature.

The eldest brother glanced at him and continued, "As the name suggests, this method is much gentler."

"I'll throw you into the pool, you can swim slowly."

After saying that, the boss didn't say anything more.

Lin Yi was taken aback: "Uh...it's that simple?"

As soon as he spoke, he noticed that his boss was calmly looking at him.

He suddenly realized the problem!

The fewer the words, the bigger the problem!

It's broken and sloppy!

The old man said, "It seems you've chosen the second option."

"Alright, but we can try the first method for a while first."

"As long as I can still control my strength, let's focus on improving your physical body first."

Lin Yi did not object upon hearing this.

If he's here for grueling training, then as long as it's effective, he doesn't care how much he improves.

Moreover, the closer the training is to death, the more likely it is to achieve the effect of "quickly mastering Ryuo in three batons".

"Okay." Lin Yi nodded solemnly.

Just then, Xia Lian walked over from not far away, frowning and looking suspicious.

Have you seen that kid Wei Liang?

Upon meeting, she immediately inquired about Wei Liang's whereabouts.

Lin Yi was slightly taken aback. Yes, where is Liangzi?

He's already been broken and rebuilt once, why hasn't Liangzi arrived yet?
Even if changing clothes takes time, it shouldn't take this long, right?
But speaking of slow... Xia Lian seems to be quite slow too, and... she seems to have a faint fragrance about her. Could it be that she took a good bath?
Emmm...

Lin Yi, keeping his eyes down and his mind focused, said, "Liangzi... he might have gone to the toilet."

"Okay, but now that you've met up with the boss, there's nothing more for me to do. I'm going to find that Wei Liang guy. He dared to stand me up, he's dead meat!" Xia Lian sneered repeatedly, pressing her knuckles together as she walked away with a "clack-clack" sound.

The leader glanced at Lin Yi: "Go stand to the side, get yourself into the best state, and then we'll begin."

"Okay." Lin Yi naturally obeyed.

After Lin Yi walked away, the boss looked at Li Huiyuan and a strange expression appeared on his lips: "Huiyuan, you actually had the urge to attack me just now."

Li Huiyuan, who was already hesitant, immediately tensed up upon hearing her boss's words.

"I...I...Boss, I..." Li Huiyuan lowered her head, her eyes darting around, stammering and unsure of what to say.

The eldest brother said calmly, "I don't blame you... You've been consumed by Lin Yi's ashes, and I can understand your instinctive impulses many times."

"However, if you have such an impulse again next time, you'd better think it over before you act, otherwise... the consequences will be very serious."

"I can't guarantee that I'll have the energy to hold back against you while taking care of Lin Yi."

"Lin Yi can recover from his injuries, but if you are accidentally injured by the aftershocks, the consequences could be unpredictable."

"Then...should I move further away?" Li Huiyuan wanted to ask if she should leave, but with Lin Yi here, she couldn't bring herself to say it. She hadn't seen Lin Yi for a long time and wanted to spend more time with him.

Whether she was shrouded in mist and chased by light, or an Apostle of Ashes, it didn't matter. What mattered most was that she truly understood her own feelings.

She was different from the other Mist Chasers; others might be chasing the light through the mist, but before she even began, her heart was already pounding...

The eldest brother shook his head slightly: "Just watch from the side."

"When Lin Yi was shattered by me, he released a large amount of his unique aura. This aura can cause serious 'pollution' to people of lower rank than him. But there is no one here who can experience this, and everyone else has stayed away from here, so we don't need to worry about anything."

"I will suppress these auras, causing them to dissipate into primal pollution within a very limited range, while you... absorb as much of Lin Yi's aura as possible."

"Those who pierce through the mist and chase the light will advance faster the closer they get to the 'source'."

"You are very lucky. With Lin Yi around, you can improve yourself faster than other students. You could even say that you can improve without lifting a finger."

Li Huiyuan pursed her lips and nodded seriously: "Indeed... I also feel that my luck is very good."

"Okay, go ahead and carefully observe Lin Yi's transformation. His current form is the ultimate you can achieve," the leader said.

If Lin Yi is the sun, then Li Huiyuan is now a solar power plant; she can truly accumulate solar energy!
Following the leader's instructions, Li Huiyuan arrived at a certain boundary and quietly watched the training her leader was giving Lin Yi.

It's really a dream come true. She was clearly a sports student, but Lin Yi surpassed her in the blink of an eye.

Saying someone else's rapid improvement is like riding a rocket, but Lin Yi has truly taken a rocket to the sky. Thinking back to the last time Lin Yi came to the gymnasium, she was carrying sandbags and doing various training sessions with him. After just one day apart, they are now worlds apart.

Really, clouds and mud.

Just as she was thinking about something, a terrifying sound effect, as heavy as a tank crashing into a wall, exploded right in front of her.

"Bang—!!!"

She quickly came to her senses and saw that not far away, the boss had already begun "training" Lin Yi.

In just a second, Lin Yi exploded again, his skeletal golden body falling straight to the ground, blood and flesh splattering everywhere, like a lump of mud.

At the same time, Li Huiyuan keenly noticed a rich fragrance!

The smell, combined with the sound just now, was just like popping popcorn in a pressure cooker. In no time, Li Huiyuan's nostrils were filled with the aroma!

She immediately began to suck greedily, wishing she could absorb all the fragrance into her body.

However, before she could properly absorb it, the energy quickly dissipated.

At the same time, Lin Yi's body began to recover.

Once Lin Yi had fully recovered, the boss dealt him another heavy blow, kicking him to pieces once again.

This cycle repeated itself for a while. Lin Yi went from being kicked to recovering, then being kicked again and recovering again, going through this process no less than ten times. He became more and more mellow, like a bottle of wine, and the aura he emitted made Li Huiyuan's face turn rosy after absorbing it, as if she were drunk.

Throughout the process, Lin Yi could clearly feel the improvement in the purity of his physical body after each recovery. What shocked him was that, just as she had said, his boss could always kick him to pieces with a single kick. It seemed that she had never used her full strength.

On the other side, Li Huiyuan continuously absorbed the "pollution" emitted by Lin Yi, and subtle changes began to occur within her. The golden light in her eyes became increasingly pure and intense...

Suddenly, as if sensing something, she slowly looked down at Lin Yi's left arm...

During Lin Yi's recovery from being kicked by the boss, there seemed to be something unusual about his left arm, and Li Huiyuan keenly sensed this abnormality...

Her eyes began to dart around uncontrollably, and in a daze, she saw the golden tattoo that the little girl had branded on Lin Yi's left arm...

“That is…” Li Huiyuan was slightly taken aback. Then, she froze on the spot as if she had lost her soul, and her neck tilted to the side like a pendulum.

Suddenly, as if each of her five fingers possessed its own consciousness, they began to move like spider legs, and then slowly moved to her left arm...

Gradually, her right hand, as if it didn't belong to her, began to slowly caress her left arm.

As she was being stroked, her mouth began to murmur incessantly, as if she was trying to make a sound, but it was indistinct and she ultimately made no sound at all.

Gradually, her eyes turned cold and resentful, as if she were possessed by another will. On her left arm, a pattern that was exactly the same as the golden secret pattern on Lin Yi's left arm gradually appeared!

"elder brother……"

"You're so bad..."

"Laughing at my sister..."

"The saw is dull..."

"...I put..."

"Brother...let's separate..."

"hang……"

"Little friend... playing hide-and-seek..."

She murmured softly, as if humming a dark nursery rhyme, and every now and then greedily inhaled the pure aura emanating from Lin Yi's body, then took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and revealed a strange look of pleasure.

On the other side, Lin Yi finally sensed something unusual when he put his foot on the ground for the thirteenth time...

"Click..."

In his daze, he seemed to hear the sound of something cracking.

The eldest brother's expression changed slightly. He quickly withdrew his strength, pulled back his feet, twisted himself, and did a backflip on the spot to dissipate all his strength.

"boom--"

As the leader released his strength, a shockwave exploded outwards, as if someone else had unleashed their power, and Li Huiyuan was almost knocked over.

This time, Lin Yi wasn't kicked to pieces. He just staggered back a few steps after taking a kick from the boss, and then sat down on the ground with a thud.

"That voice, could it be the boss...?" Lin Yi looked at the boss's feet with concern, afraid that he had injured the boss's feet by going too far.

But as soon as he exerted his strength, he heard what sounded like that faint "crack" sound coming from his chest again...

He sensed the situation within his body and his expression changed drastically—that sound wasn't from the boss being injured at all; it was clearly from his own golden body being kicked and cracked by the boss!

The crack healed itself shortly after it appeared, and it was as if it had never existed in his perception. But Lin Yi truly understood this time that even a skeletal golden body could be shattered. The reason it hadn't been broken before was simply because it hadn't encountered anything stronger.

He looked at his boss's legs with a complicated expression. Every time he felt he had made some remarkable progress, his boss's legs would ruthlessly tear his confidence to shreds.

(End of this chapter)