Chapter 103: Training in a Cozy Cabin
Athena walked over quickly, put down the wood in her hand and went to him with surprise. Suddenly, she seemed to notice the stains on her face and quickly wiped it with her hand. She didn’t expect there was more dust on her hands, so she suddenly looked like a clown.
Chen Rui smiled, took out a mirror and swayed in front of her. Seeing her clown face in the mirror, Athena yelled and hurriedly grabbed it. As she was about to raise her arm to wipe it, the man at the opposite suddenly shouted, “Don’t move!”
Athena’s actions paused for no reason. This moment, she actually had no sense of resistance. In other words, she stopped her actions obediently.
Then, a hand holding a soft towel was carefully wiping off the dirt and sweat for her.
With Athena’s instinctive combat reaction, she should be able to immediately hold the hand and went for a clean shoulder throw or went to his back for a chokehold. However, at that moment, all her combat reaction was ineffective. The action of raising her arm was just stiffed in mid-air.
Feeling the gentleness of the action, Athena’s breathing became cautious; in contrast to her increasingly intense heartbeat.
Chen Rui’s heartbeat was also accelerating. He took a deep breath and suppressed the impulse to hold her into his arms. Now really wasn’t the time to talk about love. After passing the two tests, he’d never let himself and her have any regrets. If their feelings were going to last forever, it didn’t matter if they don’t see each other every day and night.
There was a kind of tacit understanding between a man and woman who had feelings for each other. He believed that she somehow understood in her heart.
“This house is perfect.” Chen Rui took back the towel and shifted the subject to the cabin.
Athena was like she just woke up from a dream and stopped her “stiff” status. She was a little disappointed, but seeing his bright eyes and his genuine compliments, her mood became better again.
“Shit, the cabin must be finished before dark!”
Chen Rui’s words reminded Athena. She couldn’t bother about the heat on her face, and she immediately started getting busy. Chen Rui obviously wouldn’t let her do it alone, so he asked Dodo to help along.
Finally, the cabin’s construction was successfully completed as the night approached.
Initially, Athena’s cabin was single-roomed. With the help of Chen Rui and Dodo, the cabin was expanded into two rooms. Of course, the two rooms were separated in the middle.
At night, there was a bonfire outside the cabin. Chen Rui made barbecues for Athena and Dodo to eat while telling a few interesting stories. Dodo also occasionally performed some spontaneous transformation show. Looking at Athena’s face that was red because of the firelight and her happy smile and the cabin at his back, Chen Rui was even clearer with a feeling in his heart.
That is the feeling of home.
The next day, Chen Rui, who had a good sleep, woke up and felt that his mental and physical state were surprisingly good. After greeted Athena, he entered the Super System. His aura was now close to 400,000. It was absolutely enough. Chen Rui didn’t waste any time. He once again chose 100-fold time and surfy sea rules and entered the training ground.
This time, facing the oncoming high waves, Chen Rui looked calmer. He chose a reef with appropriate height and resisted the impacts of the waves one after another while punching. At the end of the previous training, he had faintly grasped the specific mysterious feeling, but unfortunately, the time was limited. During the battle with Culia, although he could only use it occasionally for the first time in a real battle, its power was significant.
Chen Rui noticed the countless stardust had become more refined in the status bar. Recalling the changes when he was in Alkaid state, he understood something. The Alkaid state refined the body while the Mizar state refined the power. Training in the surfy sea now matched the definition of strength refinement. That was why he could defeat a middle-stage Higher Demon with his newly-promoted Higher Demon’s strength. Of course, he didn’t fully understand it during this “defeat”. He required further training to understand.
When Chen Rui was withstanding the pressure and punching his fist against the huge waves, Athena was guarding the cabin, surrounding by a pile of prey and fruits.
Dodo drooled while staring at Athena, who was washing the red fruits with water and preparing the prey one by one.
“My great mistress, can you give Dodo more fruits?”
Now, Athena had a certain level of immunity to the word “mistress”. She shook her head, “Didn’t you just eat it? This is a very rare glazed fruit. There’s only these few left in the entire green leaf forest. They are kept for your master.”
Dodo was drooling his sparkling saliva and said with flattery, “Mistress, give those glazed fruits to Dodo and Dodo will tell you what happened at the mine that night.”
If that sentence was heard by Chen Rui, he’d definitely beat this gluttonous guy up. He actually betrayed his master for a few fruits! Although Dodo was defecting toward “mistress”, it was still intolerable!
If little loli was present, she’d definitely used more foods to lure the slime to tell more of the truth. However, Athena was different. She frowned, then she shook her head and said, “Chen Rui said he’ll tell me 1 month later. There are still 20 days. I believe in him.”
The sly slime thought about it and started talking by himself. Surely, he was mostly bragging about how he bravely killed the cerberus. In the end, he returned to his old job of posing as a spirit dragon to scare away all the bandits.
Athena listened very carefully. Especially when she heard about Chen Rui’s part, she was particularly serious and her eyes were flashing with a strange brilliance. However, what made Dodo speechless was that after listening to this vivid, thrilling and wonderful story, his mistress still held onto the fruits and didn’t give it to him.
In desperation, Sir Dodo had to continue to drool. It seems that mistress is even more despicable than master. She cheated Dodo to tell the story, but she refused to honor the reward!
Chen Rui in the surfy sea obviously didn’t know the side-story happening outside. At this time, he was still immersed in the bitter training against the stormy waves. Although the speed and intensity of punch now were much better than the last time, the strength of a human couldn’t rival the nature after all. Soon after, he was exhausted again. He had to come down from the reef. He recovered his Star Power in the sea by taking cover from the reef covering, and the process repeated.
Chen Rui had a feeling that these rules in the training ground were not stimulation of nature but a true natural force. Is the Super System that can manifest such power some kind of principle itself? If one day, I can truly understand and surpass these rules, then…
These kind of occasional thoughts came and went when he was resting. His actual energy were all focused on resisting the waves.
“<Aurora Shot>”
The white light ball rushed straight toward the waves, repelling the seawater along the way and splashing countless water. The trajectory was like a dragon in a straight line. However, within the impact of the huge waves, <Aurora Shot> only rushed for a distance before its power gradually dissipated.
“<Aura Blade>”
The power of <Aura Blade> wasn’t only the sharpness that was comparable to a sharp blade but also the invisible qi that killed Culia. It was this “invisible qi” that even Paglio was damaged when he was caught off guard. <Aura Blade> struck on the gentlest water surface. Then, the seawater swayed to two sides with a 1-meter long line in the center. However, it was restored instantly.
Chen Rui had forgotten the time as all of his physical and mental efforts were focused on this kind of training that challenged the limit continuously.
At dinner time, Dodo still didn’t give up on his interest in the glazed fruits after eating barbecue. He continued to please Athena and told her the adventures he had with his master. Yet, since Dodo didn’t follow Chen Rui for a long time, he had been repeating the same three incidents: the fierce battle with cerberus on the first night; encountering the scary Lennon; posing as the spirit dragon the second time.
Athena was still listening with full attention. In the end, Dodo still didn’t get the glazed fruit, so he could only go to sleep while drooling.
The next morning, Chen Rui ended the training at the surfy sea. After eating the food and fruit prepared by Athena, he immediately fell asleep. He didn’t notice Dodo’s miserable eyes. When he woke up, it was almost night time. After eating some food, he continued his cultivation in the training ground.
In the blink of an eye, 4 days had passed at the green leaf forest. Chen Rui didn’t enter the training ground after waking up this time. These days was equal to spending half a year for him. He had close to 400,000 auras at first. In the middle, Chen Rui converted a batch of waste ores and now, he had a total of 600,000 auras which was enough for him to use.
Chen Rui didn’t know how much strength he had currently. He only knew that his Star Power and his body had faintly reached a bottleneck. By continuing to rely on this type of training, his progress wouldn’t be great. However, if he was to face Culia at full health now, he had absolute confidence to kill him.
Walking out of the house, he saw Athena coming back from the forest with prey on her shoulder, then she put the prey and the collected fruit down. These days, Athena had been taking care of him silently without asking any extra questions.
Hunting and preparing food seem like what a man should do. Chen Rui blushed.
Athena seemed to be looking forward and came forward, “Chen Rui, is your inheritance over?” “It’s only a small part.” Chen Rui looked at this exquisite face that he hadn’t been seen for 200 days. He didn’t say polite words like “thank you” or some sort, “From now on, don’t ask me why for everything I do. I will give you an answer when the time comes. Athena, can you promise me?” Athena nodded seriously, “There are 20 days left for your promise.” This girl remembers it quite clearly. Yet, looking at the time, it’s only half a month left before the agreement with Arux.
Chen Rui looked at Athena for a while, and he suddenly smiled, “You should be close to the later-stage of Higher Demon now, right?” “Almost there. Thanks to your Eternal potions. Yesterday, when I was practicing my sword, I felt a strange change in my body’s strength. My power, speed, and other aspects leaped once again as if I drank black potions again. This should be the ‘resonance effect” of the full set of eternal potions that you mentioned.” “It’s hard to believe that when I left the Dark Moon City, I had just advanced to early-stage of Higher Demon. Now, I’m already approaching later-stage.” Athena’s red eyes stared at Chen Rui sentimentally – The precious devil fruit and the complete set of eternal black potions that haven’t appeared for thousands of years are all because of this man’s effort.
“However, this kind of advancement is too fast. The growth of strength that relies on external forces isn’t as firm as the strength from personal training. It requires constant training and actual combat to assimilate and consolidate this strength.”
Athena was still quite experienced in training so she didn’t forget herself and gave him an affirmation.
“Not bad.” Chen Rui nodded, “Bring your sword and come with me.”