BOOM!
Mountain rock shattered under the blow of a three-meter Red Titanium Gorilla's massive fist, and several stalactites fell from the ceiling of the ancient stone grotto. The nimble blue-haired guy's figure easily dodged the strike, slipped under the massive red-furred arm, and slammed the gorilla in the ribs with full force, sending it briefly airborne before it crashed into the wall with full momentum, forcing a furious roar from the beast. The hit wasn't lethal but hurt like hell.
"What are you dawdling like a girl for?! I'm asking you to clash head-on with a simple gorilla, not a True Dragon! We came here to test the real effectiveness of the Thunder Tyrant Calamity technique upgrades, not for you to dance around this punching bag like a ballerina! I don't have all the time in the world!" With a bored face, waving a stack of what looked like research docs, the little girl with piercing blue eyes and blond hair loudly criticized the guy. She looked weird amid the battle, especially with a smoking pipe in her other hand that she puffed on freely. She wore military-style uniform without any insignia. Surprisingly, it suited her perfectly, like she'd lived in it her whole life.
"Tch, annoying! Isn't it obvious from what's happening that we've made progress and improved the technique?!" Dodging the gorilla's lunge again but not countering this time, the guy raised his hands to the ceiling, complaining loudly. The beast posed no real threat given his agility and smaller size. As the little girl said, the gorilla really was just his "punching bag."
"I want direct facts, not indirect proof! What, chickening out? Scared of a little pain? Wonder what your girls would say seeing you like this?" The blonde bared her teeth in a sly grin. She clearly wanted to provoke or at least jab him. Seemed she had some personal grudge she was venting this way.
"Now-now-now, still mad about that little joke with Lu Nian-chan? I was just trying to help! Think about it—you're over forty and still single! I was worried about your future!" Without even glancing at the raging gorilla attacking him, the guy effortlessly dodged her blows while chatting with his companion, grinning slyly at her too. It was like he had eyes in the back of his head, letting him ignore his foe and focus on the talk.
"Shut up and just clash with that damn gorilla already! I don't have time for your nonsense!" The girl seemed to fly into instant rage. Her nostrils flared like a bull's, fists clenched till her knuckles cracked. Clearly, the topic hit her reverse scale like a dragon's.
"Fine-fine, as you wish. Only 'cause you asked so nicely." Clearly pleased with her reaction to his words, the guy grinned happily, spun around, and wound up for a punch at the gorilla—this time with no dodging. In the end, his small fist met the Red Titanium Gorilla's big one dead-on, causing a loud clap.
BOOM!
The whole grotto seemed to shake from the clash. The guy winced, stepped back, and shook his hand. The gorilla just swayed hard but charged again, clearly thrilled to finally tag her slippery hairless little kin. Her eyes burned with battle madness, intent on pounding him to pulp.
But it wasn't to be. As she wound up again, he ducked under, summoned a clearly cursed-looking blade to his hand, and with one strike severed part of her torso, an arm, and her head—jumping back just in time to avoid the ensuing blood spray.
"Satisfied?" He asked the now elephant-happy girl with a slightly dimmed smile, still shaking his hand.
"Quite! Given this Red Titanium Gorilla's size, peak Mid Chief Commander power level, and mass several times yours, I can proudly state from this clash that we've raised your body strength from early Junior Chief Commander to peak Mid. An unprecedented feat in just three months of research! It's a pleasure working with you." The girl's eyes sparkled with delight at the results.
Before, she'd spent decades developing a new element with meager government resource scraps, ending up with something only a handful of mages worldwide could use—and nearly dooming humanity with potential fallout. Now she worked on a project anyone could use! And massive progress in mere three months instead of decades. Yeah, she was pleased! If only not for her current gender ID issue...
End of third-person POV. Start of Mu Bai's first-person POV.
Looking at the little girl's delighted face—with occasional maniac-vivisector grins and madness in her eyes—I could only crookedly smile and involuntarily recall how it all came to this.
A month after we started working with Lu Nian on enhancing the Thunder Tyrant Calamity technique, he finally couldn't hold back. Deciding he'd researched the poison I injected enough, he tried messing with it to expel it from his body. Predictably, he failed against Teacher Gu Daiyu's masterpiece and still changed gender, triggering the poison.
But with his genius, Lu Nian somehow mildly interfered with the drug's action. Otherwise, I can't explain why—instead of just swapping gender—he also changed his hair color, eye color, age, and that gender, becoming a cute loli... a cute loli who swore like a sailor. When he stared at me in shock after I found him like that, I laughed my ass off realizing my personal scientist's new look.
I even bothered taking his blood to Gu Daiyu for analysis, since I couldn't figure what this self-proclaimed poison expert had tinkered with. Teacher's been puzzling over it for two months now too, which somewhat proves Lu Nian's genius. With his one month of side work between our research, he basically stumped history's smartest poison mage for two full months.
As for the rapid progress in body enhancement technique upgrades, it's due to a very mundane reason—the backwardness of ancient times in medical knowledge. As Lu Nian explained, he spat blood when he grasped the technique's principle and its horrific inefficiency by modern standards.
Our ancestors did it all by guesswork, accidentally discovering the method and refining it over centuries by trial-and-error, clueless about the human body's true workings. Lu Nian applied science and experiments.
With ample lightning element resources, Pikachu's help, and my supplies of "research material"—former ordinary criminals whose minds I wiped and implanted with High-level cultivation—my personal scientist quickly found ways to boost the technique's efficiency and functionality.
This test was the final check on our three-month tweak to the lightning element energy circulation path during body evolution. In Xiangxia terms, we raised the technique's rank from Mortal to Earth.
Further efficiency gains will be much harder, since we've fixed the most obvious flaws—which has already somewhat lowered the technique's lethality, even without Pikachu's help in mastering it.
True, we had limited live, sane research subjects for precise stats, since I was too lazy to brainwash criminals on top of implanting cultivation. Wiping minds was easier. And we can tweak lethality reduction for normal practice after maxing efficiency.
Next, Lu Nian wants to try adding element use for strike enhancement. Good thing too—I'm leaving soon for business, and this research won't need many subjects, whose hauling falls on my fragile shoulders.