Staring at the three cultivation techniques in his hand, William Carter's thoughts surged. In theory, he should cultivate the best technique, the Yellow Springs Aperture Ascension Art, since it was a D-level technique. But the deal between himself and Miss Lillian meant that she would definitely be on guard against him. William Carter asked himself: if he were in Miss Lillian's place, he would certainly tamper with the technique he gave to the other party.

Chapter 4: First Encounter

After leaving Prison Island, William Carter had been extremely cautious. He knew that if he made even one wrong move, what awaited him would be utter ruin. In a world teeming with the strong and where martial arts were the norm, he constantly reminded himself to be careful at all times.

Besides this, there was another thing that concerned William Carter: although D-level techniques were high-grade, their cultivation speed was far inferior to E-level techniques.

William Carter knew that what he lacked most now was time. For these two reasons, he decided to cultivate an E-level technique, to reach level 3 as quickly as possible and gain some ability to protect himself before considering anything else.

The Internal Ascension Technique was an extremely common cultivation method on the Empress Continent. Its only function was to strengthen the body. It was said that long-term practice could prolong life.

Because it was extremely simple to practice, with no incantations—just nine diagrams of the human body in various poses and some necessary instructions—it was very popular among the people of the Empress Continent.

Following the diagrams, William Carter began to focus on practicing the first pose.

The movement in this diagram was very strange: not only did the arms have to twist behind the back, but the legs also had to coil in a spiral. William Carter spent quite a while before he could barely match the posture in the picture.

But he could only hold it for less than ten seconds before his whole body went limp and he was gasping for breath.

According to the requirements of the Internal Ascension Technique, each pose had to be held for more than 10 minutes to reach minor achievement, and over an hour for major achievement, after which one could move on to the next pose.

After a brief rest, William Carter resolutely assumed the first pose again. After 10 seconds, waves of weakness surged from every muscle in his body. William Carter was determined and endured hardship, knowing that his time was precious and he could not slack off for even a moment.

After 20 seconds, the weakness disappeared. Before William Carter could catch his breath, a sharp pain shot through his chest. With a "pfft," he spat out a mouthful of dark purple blood mist and collapsed to the ground, unconscious.

No one knew how much time passed before William Carter gradually woke up. As soon as he regained consciousness, he cautiously observed his surroundings and, seeing nothing had changed since before he fainted, finally breathed a sigh of relief.

It was already dark outside, so he must have been unconscious for quite a while. William Carter carefully recalled the process of his practice just now and couldn't help but feel puzzled. It was just a single movement—numbness could be explained, since holding a pose for a long time naturally causes that, but why did his chest suddenly hurt so much and why did he cough up blood?

Unable to figure out the problem, William Carter pondered for a while, then assumed the first pose again. After 10 seconds, the pain and numbness returned.

William Carter immediately focused all his attention. After 20 seconds, he clearly felt a pain in his left chest, as if something alive inside was gnawing at him. The moment the sharp pain struck, he immediately relaxed and withdrew from the pose.

At this moment, his face was pale, and with each breath, a strange flush would occasionally appear on his face before fading back to normal.

"Something's wrong!" William Carter's eyes showed a strange look. He pulled open his clothes to reveal his chest and looked down at his left chest, gently placing his hand on it.

Relaxing his whole body, closing his eyes, and gradually steadying his breathing, the surroundings fell silent. He could feel his heartbeat: "thump, thump... thump, thump..."

Wait, something's off. William Carter suddenly opened his eyes. He felt that with every beat of his heart, something inside his left chest would tremble slightly.

William Carter touched the spot with his finger and gave it a hard poke. That thing actually moved! Although it didn't move far, it managed to dodge William Carter's finger.

This... this was actually a living creature! William Carter was shocked, his face dark as water.

It was this creature that was affecting his cultivation. But how had it entered his body? There were two possible answers: either it had already been there on Prison Island, or it was caused by the poison Miss Lillian had given him.

Between these two, he leaned toward the latter.

William Carter looked grave. He picked up a shard of cup from beside the bed and placed it at his feet. He knew that if he didn't solve this problem, he could forget about cultivating again. Gritting his teeth, he took a deep breath and assumed the pose from the diagram once more. After 20 seconds, the moment the sharp pain appeared, William Carter immediately grabbed the cup shard and, without hesitation, stabbed it into the spot where the creature was.

Ignoring the blood that gushed out and enduring the pain, he quickly reached into his chest with his right hand. After a piercing insect screech, William Carter sat weakly on the ground, a half-segment of a black insect corpse, about the size of a soybean, left between his two fingers.

"What a cunning bug." William Carter, his body trembling, took a medicinal herb he had bought from the pharmacy, chewed it up, and smeared it on his chest.

A wave of dizziness swept through his mind, leaving him extremely weak.

"Fortunately, one of these herbs is an excellent hemostatic." After a while, William Carter's pain eased a little, and he wrapped the wound with his clothes.

Just this one movement caused blood to gush from his chest again. William Carter leaned against the bed, closed his eyes, his face bloodless and deathly pale.