Chapter 1 The Specific Strength of Adrenal Gland Stimulation

In the days that followed, Li Ang dedicated himself to testing the intensity of the gland stimulation – specifically, the Adrenal Gland skill.

His baseline physical capabilities were roughly on par with a professional athlete. After injecting adrenaline, his performance could rival a national-level athlete, even pushing for world-class competition.

In other words, using this skill allowed Li Ang to reach the peak of human physical function.

Of course, the side effects were severe: trembling, labored breathing, bloodshot eyes, copious cold sweats, a violently accelerated and erratic heartbeat, intense nausea, and a terrifying headache akin to sticking his head in a water mill.

Fortunately, these side effects were within Li Ang's tolerance. He had studied interrogation manuals, including the CIA's Kubark Interrogation Handbook, and experimented on himself with various torture techniques. Compared to those horrors, the adrenaline's side effects were like a gentle breeze.

Moreover, after the experience of killing the black zombie, Li Ang realized that modern light weapons like assault rifles might not be effective against the monsters in the Killing Game.

He would need anti-material sniper rifles, anti-tank rocket launchers, military flamethrowers, mortars, and mustard gas.

Li Ang did enjoy small-scale projects, but even with his skills, he couldn't possibly craft heavy weaponry in his living room without attracting the attention of official surveillance systems.

"If only I were in Black Africa," he thought. "I could make anything, even an M388 rocket launcher."

The M388 rocket launcher, developed by NATO after World War II to counter the Soviet Union's armored onslaught, was designed to fire not armor-piercing, high-explosive anti-tank, or high-explosive squash head rounds, but miniature, lightweight nuclear warheads with yields up to 250 tons of TNT and a maximum range of four kilometers.

The most ridiculous thing was that the radiation radius of the M388's warhead exceeded its range...

Meaning the user had to be prepared to die on the spot, going down with the enemy.

I kill myself.

Li Ang wasn't bluffing about being able to create a nuclear warhead. The process for making crude nuclear weapons was relatively simple. If customs enforcement weren't so effective, Li Ang would have already ordered a couple of "yellowcake" souvenirs from Black Africa online.

"Damn it, I suffer from a fear of insufficient firepower..."

In any case, lacking a current avenue for purchasing or creating heavy weaponry, Li Ang resigned himself to tinkering with his existing equipment and turned his attention to folk magic artifacts.

---

Jing'an Temple, also known as the Ancient Jing'an Temple, is located in downtown Yanshi. Its history traces back to the Three Kingdoms period, originally named Chongxuan Temple. Renamed Jing'an Temple during the Dazhong Xiangfu era of the Song Dynasty, it is one of the oldest temples in the country.

Through the vicissitudes of time, the ancient temple became a tourist attraction. On this summer weekend, tourists from all over the country formed a long line inside and outside the temple to take photos.

Among the crowd queuing outside the temple, Wang Congshan, wearing a straw hat, a pink shirt, and blue shorts, held an ice cream bar in her hand, her slender, fair legs swinging in front of Li Ang. "Hey, aren't you always disgusted by religion? Why did you ask me to come to Jing'an Temple today?"

"My name isn't 'Hey,' it's Chu Yuxun."

Li Ang delivered the old joke from the last century and casually said, "I do hate religion. I've always thought that bald donkeys are no good."

"Then why are you here?"

"Just bored on the weekend, thought I'd take a stroll."

Li Ang pursed his lips and tossed the ice cream stick onto the roadside. "I originally wanted to ask you to go to the zoo, but Yanshi's zoo is very inhumane.

The animals inside aren't priced, so how are we supposed to bid on them?"

"Bidding, my ass." Wang Congshan rolled her eyes and pointed to the ice cream stick Li Ang threw on the ground. "Littering, how uncivilized. There are foreign friends here."

"Hmm..." Li Ang pondered for a moment, realizing that this behavior was indeed inappropriate. So, he picked up the stick and slapped himself lightly, shouting loudly in Kansai dialect, "すみません!" (Sumimasen!)

The surrounding crowd turned their attention to them. Wang Congshan, long accustomed to Li Ang's antics, just twitched her lips, pretending not to know him.

After a long wait, Wang Congshan and Li Ang finally entered the temple. The former took out her phone to take various photos, while the latter secretly observed the temple's structure, examining the possible magic artifacts within.

Jing'an Temple was, after all, one of the oldest temples in the country. If any ancient supernatural items had survived, this would be the most likely place to find them.

Last time, he killed a possessed ghost with a willow branch, entirely as an emergency measure after reading some folk books (such as *Yigui Lu, Mingshang Ji, Shenyi Ji, Youyang Zazu*).

That the willow branch worked was purely coincidental. What if he encountered a more resentful ghost, and the willow branch was useless?

Even if this place had been searched again and again by official organizations, it wouldn't hurt to secretly examine folk items, or scope out any bald donkeys with supernatural knowledge.

The two visited the Dharma Hall, the Mountain Gate, the Hall of Heavenly Kings, the Bell Tower, the Guanyin Hall, and the Mani Hall, taking many pictures of the architecture along the way. They saw many Buddhist artifacts such as Buddha niches, prayer mats, vases, incense burners, wooden fish, and prayer beads.

Li Ang even took the risk of putting on sunglasses and activating his Spirit Vision but still found no traces of supernatural power.

The monks in the temple were all ordinary people with no psychic reactions. It was a waste, Li Ang had even considered buying some blessed artifacts for himself and Wang Congshan.

Just as the two were walking out of the Great Hero Hall, they saw a group of people in firefighter uniforms rushing into Jing'an Temple, sealing off the entrances and exits, and evacuating the tourists inside.

"There is a natural gas leak in the underground pipeline. Please leave in an orderly manner under the arrangement of the staff."

A firefighter, holding a loudspeaker, shouted from a fire truck that had driven into Jing'an Temple.

The tourists who had come from all over the country were naturally quite dissatisfied, but their lives were the most important thing, so they could only evacuate Jing'an Temple in an orderly manner under the guidance of the staff.

Li Ang, vaguely aware that something was wrong, deliberately walked at the end. He saw seven monks in gray robes, with shaved heads, being surrounded by "firefighters," carrying a stretcher hurriedly in from the side door of the square.

The stretcher was covered with a white cloth, obscuring what was underneath. Based on the monks' stumbling gait, it could be judged that the object on the stretcher was extremely heavy.

Crack!

A sound of wood breaking was heard, and the stretcher toppled, falling on one of the monks.

The monk who was crushed to the ground by the stretcher turned purple, his limbs twitching, unable to speak, as if he had been crushed by a heavy iron ball from a construction crane.

Before the surrounding "firefighters" could come forward to rescue him, another monk had already grasped the stretcher with both hands.

The young monk was as delicate as a girl, with a face like white jade. While his features were delicate, a tear mole at the corner of his eye added a touch of "fox-like charm."

The fox-like monk grasped the stretcher with both hands, shouted softly, and his thin body suddenly swelled, growing taller. Muscles coiled into blocks that stretched the monk's robe high, comparable to a muscle monster-level gladiator in WWE.

"Lift!"

The muscular beauty gritted his teeth and lifted the stretcher as if he were a weightlifter, allowing others to drag the monk from under the stretcher.

Bang! The stretcher slammed to the ground, cracking the marble floor tiles.

A breeze blew past. The muscular beauty, panting heavily, straightened his body, adjusted his monk's robe, and made eye contact with Li Ang, who was watching from a distance.

The handsome monk with muscles all over his body blushed, lowered his chin slightly, his face like a peach blossom. Just looking at his face, he could be described as naturally charming.

Li Ang felt a chill, both because of the monk and because of the stretcher that had been blown open by the wind – on it lay a black, shiny, strange-looking lower half of a corpse.