Level Up in Martial World

"Why do you think the Young master has invited us for?" Lu Zhi said as he awkwardly broke the silence between them.

He looked at the quiet and cold girl who stood like a stone.

"Sigh, why did that bastard Lu Zhen bring me here with the assassin girl…" he thought bitterly when they went out of the city to look for the abandoned children. They barely found a group of ten children with their father and mother; aside from them, they weren't able to find anyone.

However, the reason he was so awkward was because of this girl, who basically only acted when they were in life-threatening conditions. Except for that, she hadn't helped them whatsoever, and because she was there, the two twins felt quite awkward.

"Lu Zhen, you bastard, come already," Lu Zhi thought with rage.

Suddenly, he heard a footstep.

"Has he come already?" Lu Zhi thought with some impatience.

The door was opened, revealing Lu Zhen in his classical black robe and his muscular body.

"Young master." Lu Zhi quickly stood up and bowed to Lu Zhen.

Lu Zhen simply nodded his head as he closed the door and locked it.

Seeing this, Lu Zhi frowned as he suddenly felt a bad feeling.

Lu Zhen put on his classical smile as he looked at Li Nan.

"Young master, why did you lock the door?" He questioned with a perplexed expression.

Lu Zhen's classical smile grew as he looked at Li Nan silently.

Lu Zhi frowned when he heard no reply from Lu Zhen, as he ignored him completely and focused on Li Nan.

Suddenly, he felt a terrifying pressure being emitted. Before he could even react, he felt his head being hit by something that knocked him unconscious. He fell to the cold, hard floor with a "thud," as Lu Zhen stood behind him.

"How interesting," Lu Zhen calmly remarked as he gracefully sidestepped, evading countless tiny, nearly imperceptible knives that whizzed through the air towards him.

Emerging from the shadows, Li Nan questioned him, "How did you know?"

"I had a hunch right from the start…" Lu Zhen chuckled softly as he unleashed a casual, yet powerful punch.

Boom!

An explosive rush of wind pressure followed the trajectory of his punch, homing in on Li Nan.

Her eyes widened, registering the immense force of Lu Zhen's seemingly effortless strike. However, the moment his fist should have connected with her...

She disintegrated into shadows.

Lu Zhen's expression shifted to one of amusement as he watched her dissolve before him.

Suddenly, with a swift motion, Lu Zhen turned and delivered a casual kick, seemingly into thin air.

The instant he did, Li Nan was flung into the air, crashing forcefully into the wall. Oddly, she wore a strange expression, as if she believed she had triumphed.

In a swift manoeuvre, Lu Zhen appeared behind Li Nan, preventing her from being pushed any further.

"How interesting," Lu Zhen's eyes gleamed with curiosity as he sensed Li Nan's heartbeat growing faster and faster.

She opened her mouth suddenly, as if trying to bite something, but Lu Zhen acted swiftly, catching her by her jaws.

"So you were a spy planted by my dad, huh?" Lu Zhen said as he tightly held onto the flailing girl who was trying to escape with all her might but couldn't, as Lu Zhen overpowered her completely.

Seeing the struggle of the girl as she remained silent, Lu Zhen frowned.

"Are you going to talk or not?"

"Mph…"

"Oh right." Lu Zhen let go of the girl; however, the moment he did, the girl almost bit something in her mouth.

"This troublesome woman." Lu Zhen sighed as he caught her mouth again, tightly gripping her jaw, making it impossible for her to move her mouth.

"I have the perfect solution for you," he said as he took out a tape from his pouch and some ropes.

He first put the tape on the flailing figure of Li Nan before tightly binding her with the rope.

"This way you shouldn't be able to do much." Lu Zhen could see the stare of Li Nan, who was looking at him with a peculiar glint in her eyes. However, she stopped flailing around and remained silent.

"So, you're not going to talk, huh…" Lu Zhen frowned, a sly smirk curling at the corner of his lips.

"That's probably for the better," he mumbled to himself, rolling up his right sleeve and fixating his gaze on his butterfly tattoo.

"I wonder if it will work or not," Lu Zhen contemplated aloud as he slowly withdrew the aura he had been channeling into the tattoo.

The moment he did, an inexplicable connection seemed to form between him and the tattoo.

"Looks like the mark has been successfully refined, and its owner has changed," Lu Zhen noted. After severing the connection between the mark and its previous owner and infusing it with his aura, he began to sense that his aura was refining the mark further. As time passed, the amount of aura he needed to supply to the mark lessened.

Lu Zhen had continued this process for days until he finally decided to cut off the supply altogether. The result left him satisfied; he had successfully taken control of whatever this mysterious mark was.

His eyes abruptly turned a striking shade of gold as he meticulously examined the mark.

[Mark of Gu]

[Grade: Intert item]

[Remark: A parasite which can be refined and uses the user's aura to function.######. Its features are:

1. Can enslave others by connecting the owner's aura to the other person and creating a baby gu.

???

???

???

]

As Lu Zhen read this, he frowned.

"My Appraisal level is still not enough," he thought to himself with a touch of frustration. Nevertheless, the first feature intrigued him enough.

Lu Zhen willed the mark, and a crimson light flashed as he directed it toward Li Nan, who glared at him with intense hatred for reasons known only to her.

When he activated the mark, the light resonated oddly with Li Nan's aura and merged into her body. Quickly, Lu Zhen pried open her mouth, removing the tape, and retrieved an object from the mark, which he promptly shoved down her throat.

He grasped her throat firmly to ensure she swallowed the mysterious object and waited patiently.

Li Nan's eyes widened as she felt an unfamiliar object being inserted into her throat.

Buzz!

A buzzing noise, reminiscent of a bee, filled her ears, causing her eyes to widen even further in astonishment. She could do nothing but helplessly swallow it as it slid down her throat.

The moment the peculiar object entered her body, she sensed an unusual connection forming. Although she couldn't see it, Lu Zhen could feel a thread-like aura linking him to Li Nan.

He let go of her as she fell to the floor with a thud.

"Hmm..." Lu Zhen slightly pulled the string, and Li Nan, who was on the floor tied up, screamed loudly.

Ah!

She screamed from the bottom of her soul, which echoed as it resounded in the room.

Lu Zhen was stunned by the reaction of Li Nan as he hurriedly let go of the string. The moment he did, Huang Li's scream stopped.

She laid down on the ground with lifeless eyes.

Lu Zhen was shocked to see her state.

"The pain is enough to make a seasoned assassin feel so much pain." Lu Zhen could see the small tears of Li Nan falling down on her mask.

He carefully looked at the string and could feel that it was a little different from the one that Lu Zhen had from the previously connected string of his mark.

The aura-like string that Lu Zhen previously cut with his saber was more profound and dense; however, this one was totally different from it.

The one that was connected to Lu Zhen's mark was weak, only being able to sap his strength at most, and it was carefully hidden so that the person wouldn't notice.

The one Lu Zhen directly connected to Li Nan was strong, as it directly affected her as it could give her enough pain to make a third-stage martial artist cry in pain.

"Sigh. You forced me, you little girl." Lu Zhen said to the crying Li Nan.

"Now will you kill yourself?" He asked with an expressionless face.

"Life is a precious thing, little girl; learn to appreciate it," Lu Zhen told Li Nan, but she remained silent, unresponsive.

"Forget it," he muttered, shaking his head. His attention shifted to Lu Zhi, who was peacefully sleeping without a care in the world.

Lu Zhen's mark emitted a red light and enveloped Lu Zhi, just like it had done with Li Nan.

From the mark, he extracted a grotesque-looking bug. It had 16 legs and a worm-like body with a bone structure reminiscent of a bee's stinger but white as bone in one-side. Its skin colour made it appear utterly repulsive.

Li Nan's eyes widened in horror as she gazed at the repugnant creature, feeling a wave of nausea wash over her.

She stammered, "This thing...is inside me?"