Chapter 81: Cultivation Talent Equipped

This was one of the many reasons martial artists with special talents were called cheaters.

Adam looked down at the water.

The soft blue glow was gone.

The soul pearls, every single one of them, had completely dissolved, their essence fully absorbed. Adam let out a slow exhale.

“Let’s see if it actually worked.”

He could feel it, his soul felt fuller, denser, reinforced in a way that was difficult to describe. But feeling alone wasn’t enough.

There was only one way to know for sure.

Adam focused his thoughts.

In the next moment, his panel surfaced before his eyes.

╭───────────╮

〖Name: Adam〗

〖Rank: None〗

〖Cultivation Talent: G〗

〖Special Talent: Equip ❖ Connect〗

〖SLOT〗

↳ SOUL (4): Rapid E ❖ Poison F

↳ BODY (6): Empty

╰───────────╯

Star Power: 14+

Adam froze.

Not physically, his body was still half-submerged in the bathtub, but mentally, as if his thoughts had slammed into an invisible wall.

His eyes moved slowly over the panel, once… twice… then a third time.

“Four?”

He wasn’t imagining it.

The Soul slots now read four.

Adam had expected one extra slot at best. That alone would have been worth the risk, the paranoia, the overdose of soul pearls. But instead he got two.

Two extra soul slots.

It didn’t look like much on paper, just a number quietly sitting in brackets, but to Adam it was massive.

Each soul slot wasn’t just space, it was possibility. Flexibility. Growth. A wider foundation to build on.

The feeling that came with it was even better.

The kind of feeling where you brace yourself for something average… only to be rewarded beyond expectation.

Adam leaned his head back against the edge of the tub and let out a short laugh.

“So my pounding really was that good, huh.”

He was referring, very shamelessly, to the brutal beating he’d given the siren in the illusion.

If luck existed, then maybe he had punched it straight in the face.

After the joke faded, Adam didn’t immediately get out of the bathtub.

His expression slowly shifted from amused to focused.

This wasn’t over yet.

Extra slots meant nothing if he didn’t fill them properly. Adam stared at the panel again, his mind already moving ahead.

The real work was about to begin.

Adam stayed in the bathtub, his body relaxed, his breathing steady, acting as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

This wasn’t caution born of fear.

The sector’s mission hall had surveillance everywhere. Even if they were lenient with him, even if Vanessa herself chose to look the other way, Adam wasn’t naïve enough to assume privacy where none was guaranteed.

What he was about to do couldn’t be witnessed by anyone. And no, this wasn’t about equipping talents.

It was about bringing out the corpse.

Adam knew, rationally, that even if Vanessa saw him in possession of a human corpse, she likely wouldn’t say anything.

She had long since lost the luxury of moral absolutism, especially where he was involved. But Adam wasn’t worried about official consequences, he was worried about rumors.

Rumors didn’t need evidence.

Rumors didn’t care about context.

If word leaked that he possessed human corpses and did something with them, people wouldn’t ask questions. They would draw conclusions.

Evil technique.

Demonic practitioner.

That’s where his strength comes from.

And Adam wasn’t strong enough yet to silence that kind of noise.

More importantly, he didn’t trust this sector to protect a secret, not when they couldn’t even protect themselves. Barriers, mutant rifts, hidden generators… the Sector was already a mess.

Adding his own secret into that chaos was asking for trouble.

Adam let out a slow exhale, his decision firm.

He rose from the bathtub, water sliding off his body, and dried himself carefully. No rush or tension. Just another martial artist finishing a bath.

He wrapped himself in a robe, stepped out of the bathroom, and closed the door behind him.

Adam already knew how to equip the cultivation talent without drawing suspicion.

And now, it was time to do exactly that.

Adam had changed into a black sleeveless tank top that clung lightly to his frame and a faded grey cotton knicker that had clearly seen better days. After changing, he picked up the room phone and calmly called room service.

Despite the sector being under a state of emergency, it didn’t take long before there was a knock at his door.

The staff were still diligent, trained well enough to understand that panic was contagious, and routine was one of the few things that kept people sane.

What Adam had requested was… unusual.

A small stove.

A pot.

Several ingredients, salt, oil, spices, vegetables.

And a stack of plastic plates.

The staff didn’t ask questions. They never did.

Once the door closed again, Adam locked it, double-checked the curtains, and set everything up with methodical precision.

The stove was placed near the table, the pot set on top, ingredients arranged neatly to the side.

Only then did he bring out one of the corpses.

Not the entire corpse, but rather pieces of a fraction of it.

Adam had cut them up before storing them in his storage ring, mostly removing the charred parts. Consequently, what now lay on the table was a segmented human corpse, reduced to portions no different in size from butchered meat.

He felt nothing looking at them.

Adam had already learned that a corpse didn’t need to be whole for him to equip a talent. Damage didn’t matter. Integrity didn’t matter. As long as the soul imprint remained, that was enough.

Adam activated [Connect], as his vision shifted instantly.

The world dulled at the edges as a strange state overtook him, half awake, half asleep. Reality felt distant, like he was observing it through water. And then he saw it.

The soul orb.

A dim orb embedded within the corpse.

Adam nodded.

He then turned back to the stove and began prepping the sliced corpse as if it was nothing more than raw ingredients. Oil heated. Vegetables chopped. Meat portions seasoned. His hands moved with steady familiarity, no hesitation or disgust.

As he worked, he confirmed the notification for [Equip], extracting the D-rank Cultivation Talent from the sliced remains.

The moment it happened, there was no explosion or dramatic flare.

Just a quiet, decisive transfer.

Adam continued cooking as if nothing had changed.

To anyone watching, it would look mundane. Almost domestic.

And that was exactly the point.

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