I Can See Experience Points

Chapter 3: Chapter 2: [This Art Style Isn’t Right!]

After a busy day, he had finally managed to get some Experience Points through a stroke of luck.

But then he suddenly discovered his useless Golden Finger couldn’t scan this, and it couldn’t scan that.

Was it just messing with him?!

”Sigh!”

Letting out a deep sigh, He Xiaotian sat in his cousin’s study, a look of utter despair on his face.

The most terrible thing in life is when you finally get the Golden Finger you’ve always dreamed of...

...only to realize it’s all for nothing.

He lowered his head and picked up a cup of water from the desk, ready to take a sip to soothe his frustration.

[Ding! A relatively complete martial arts manual has been discovered. Would you like to spend one hundred Experience Points to modify and complete it?]

”???”

He Xiaotian stared in disbelief at the yellowed, ancient book lying quietly next to his water cup.

He had scanned the books on the shelves before, but there was no reaction.

He never would have thought that it wasn’t that books were unscannable, but that he hadn’t scanned the right kind of book.

It was truly a case of ’just when you think there’s no way out, a new hope appears’.

’Does it even need to ask?’

’Of course I’ll use them!’

An invisible force erupted in his mind, sweeping over the Sanskrit manual beside the water cup at incredible speed.

Immediately after, he noticed the text in the upper left corner of his vision had changed.

[Experience Points: 0

Function: Scan

Martial Arts: ”Fire-refined Golden Body” - 0/50 (Uninitiated).]

”Fire-refined Golden Body? Isn’t this the martial arts manual my cousin spent a full one hundred thousand CNY on at a Taobao auction two years ago? So that shop owner wasn’t scamming him after all.”

This is how it happened. Ever since his cousin became obsessed with practicing martial arts,

he would constantly search online for various schools and so-called secret manuals in his spare time.

Then, after clicking on a certain Taobao link, his spending spree began.

It was also from that time that rumors started spreading that his cousin had a screw loose.

After all, no normal person would spend one hundred thousand CNY on a martial arts manual.

What was even more infuriating was that this expensive book was written entirely in Sanskrit!

At the time, even his martial arts-obsessed cousin had a rare look of fury on his face after receiving the package.

There’s insulting someone’s intelligence, and then there’s *this*!

He immediately reported the seller, and after a series of investigations,

the final verdict was that the transaction was legitimate.

Because that martial arts manual was, in fact, worth a hundred thousand.

According to instrument analysis, the ancient book was at least six hundred years old.

For him to have gotten it for a hundred thousand, his cousin had actually gotten a bargain.

But why would a centuries-old book be so cheap?

Heh!

If it hadn’t been written in Sanskrit, and if it hadn’t been about practicing martial arts,

adding another zero to the price would have been no problem at all.

As for the shop owner his cousin had reported, he expressed great understanding of the buyer’s feelings.

Moreover, he had already stated that what he sold was not just a martial art, but also an antique!!

As for why the content was in Sanskrit while the cover was in Chinese characters,

the owner awkwardly explained that some ancient books weren’t in perfect condition when he acquired them.

At that point, they had to be restored.

It’s just that the shop’s restorer was a bit careless.

In the end, he compensated his cousin.

Unsurprisingly, the so-called compensation was not monetary.

Instead, it was a common martial arts manual, ”Iron Sand Palm”, which was listed in the shop for fifty thousand.

After his initial anger, He Xiaotian’s cousin also calmed down.

He reverted to his usual good-guy persona, didn’t ask for a refund, and instead accepted the compensation.

He had specifically said that it wasn’t about the money; he was just angry because he felt like he’d been played.

Since everything was cleared up, there was no need for them to act like mortal enemies.

Besides, a six-hundred-year-old book had some collection value, and it would make a nice decoration in the study.

And that was that.

Back then, He Xiaotian had extremely mixed feelings.

His family and his cousin’s family co-owned a paper mill. Maybe that wasn’t much in a first or second-tier city,

but in Z County, they were definitely considered wealthy.

After his cousin came of age and joined the police force, his aunt didn’t control his spending.

In contrast, his own situation was just tragic!

Other second-generation rich kids drove sports cars, chased after goddesses, and ate lavish meals.

He Xiaotian clutched his monthly allowance of 1,500, silent and teary-eyed with envy.

But in the eyes of some of his classmates from more ordinary families, he was considered one of the rich kids.

This was probably the legendary ”not as good as the best, but better than the rest.”

”Fire-refined Golden Body... for some reason, that name sounds vaguely familiar. I’ll search for it online.”

He Xiaotian opened the browser on his phone and typed in the four words ”Fire-refined Golden Body,” but the result was ”no such book found.”

”What the hell???”

He could have sworn he had definitely heard of the manual ”Fire-refined Golden Body” before.

It seemed to be a martial art from some novel or manga.

How could the search find nothing, ”no such book found”?

Next, he searched for wuxia novels, and a ton of results popped up.

After clicking into them one by one, He Xiaotian slumped into his chair, lost in confusion.

’Where did Jin, Gu, Liang, and Wen go?’

’Where did they go?!’

”DING DONG!”

He Xiaotian stiffly picked up his phone. It was a post from someone he followed on his university’s forum.

[This is bad! Our college was suddenly locked down by the army, and the school administration has officially announced that the start of the semester is delayed. For how many days is currently unknown; we’re waiting for notice. Although we don’t know the specifics of what happened, every single soldier is on guard with live ammunition.

No one is allowed to get close; it’s strictly forbidden. Just now, a few of our school’s well-known troublemakers were immediately detained by the police for disturbing the peace just for saying a few aggressive words.]

Scion of the Li Clan: ”Pics or it didn’t happen! You’re full of shit!!”

Beibeidedede: ”Didn’t get the first comment, but snagging the second is fine too. Just sayin’.”

Alpha: ”A while ago I had a fight with my little brother and used my size advantage to beat him up. Lately, he’s been binge-watching ”Detective Conan”, he’s already on episode 400-something, and the way he looks at me is getting weirder and weirder. I wanted to ask, is it too late to apologize to him now?”

He Xiaotian watched the thread grow longer and longer, getting a headache.

’These guys are either telling jokes or just spamming for post count, not being serious at all.’

Soon, he scrolled to the latest reply.

A few blurry pictures came into view.

The background was the Shanghai University Medical College, with a dozen or so meticulous soldiers standing guard, holding rifles.

A police cordon had been set up around the area, and the atmosphere was very tense.

The remaining pictures showed a few fashionably dressed young men being pinned to the ground by police, their arms twisted behind them.

It seemed these were the troublemakers the original poster mentioned.

’Why are there so many reckless fools these days who aren’t afraid of anything?’

’They’re on lockdown with live ammunition, and you still dare to go and provoke them?’

’Do you really think those soldiers will coddle you like your parents do?!’

’Did I transmigrate? No way. Transmigrating just by taking a nap is too unscientific.’ He Xiaotian didn’t stop to think that in a world where a legendary Golden Finger had appeared, what was there to say about science anymore?

However, the ”no such person found” from his browser search was a stark reminder that this was definitely not the world he was familiar with.

’Come on, all I did before bed was complain that life was boring. You didn’t have to transmigrate me just to spice things up, did you?’

But there was one thing he was grateful for. Even if this really wasn’t his original world,

his family and relatives hadn’t disappeared or been replaced by other people.

From his earlier searches, apart from the various wuxia novels having vanished, everything else seemed normal.

Of course, that was ignoring the strange disappearance cases that had suddenly popped up in Z County, and the university lockdown mentioned on the forum.

’Whatever, I’ll ignore it for now.’

He Xiaotian couldn’t figure it out, so he decided not to overthink it.

’What’s the use of thinking about it so much?’

’It’s not like I can fight back, can I?’

As for the vanished wuxia masters, it was even more impossible to bring them back.

Someone else in his shoes might have been very excited.

With Jin, Gu, Liang, and Wen gone, couldn’t he just plagiarize their novels to his heart’s content?

He might even become a huge success, a famous novelist envied by all.

But the idea was beautiful, while reality was harsh.

Putting aside the fact that He Xiaotian couldn’t remember the details of those novels, even if he knew the general plot, what he wrote wouldn’t necessarily become popular.

Besides, although his family wasn’t fabulously wealthy, they still had assets worth over ten million.

Living a life free from worries about food and clothing wouldn’t be a problem.

Rather than slaving away writing novels, it would be much easier to just be a salted fish.

Anyway, he still had three years of university life waiting for him!

He Xiaotian sat in his chair, staring at the three lines of text in the upper left corner of his vision, and fell into thought again.

[Experience Points: 0

Function: Scan

Martial Arts: ”Fire-refined Golden Body” - 0/50 (Uninitiated).]

From the name, he could tell this was likely a Body Refining technique.

The ”0/50” at the end should be the Experience Points needed to advance to the next stage.

Unfortunately, he was completely broke right now, and the ”0” in the Experience Points column was very glaring.

He wondered, besides using Experience Points, how else could he improve it?

After a moment of contemplation, he reached out, picked up the ancient book next to his water cup, and decided to read through it.

He wanted to see if he could reach the beginner level by practicing on his own.

The system had prompted him before, saying it had discovered a ”relatively complete” martial arts manual.

That meant it could actually be practiced!

’Worst comes to worst, I can just use my phone to translate it character by character.’

He didn’t know until he opened it, but when he did, he was shocked.

His cousin was really diligent!

The entire ancient book was filled with dense annotations in Chinese characters.

No wonder the guy hadn’t asked for a refund; it seemed his passion for martial arts had never died.

Although the book wasn’t thick, only about a hundred pages,

one had to remember it was entirely in Sanskrit.

Even searching and annotating it word by word using the internet would take a very long time!

Not to mention, to He Xiaotian, most of the Sanskrit characters looked more or less alike.

No matter what others thought, to He Xiaotian,

the Sanskrit characters all looked more or less alike.

He read through it carefully, then closed the ancient book and took a deep breath.

’This thing is a little dangerous!’

It explained in detail that the practitioner must be in the company of fire all day long.

Only when one’s external skill reached the point where fire could not harm the flesh, and one’s Inner Power cultivated an indestructible pure-yang True Essence, would it be considered a minor accomplishment.

At that point, one’s breath would be like flames, and one’s Inner Strength like fire. In combat, they would be unstoppable.

No wonder his cousin hadn’t practiced it. One misstep and you’d be burned to ashes. Only a ghost would practice a manual like this!!