Chapter 6 - 4: Level Up
On his open palm.
The Mosquito Avatar stood silently, like a tiny black sculpture.
The Mosquito Avatar that now met his eyes was the very picture of mediocrity—utterly unremarkable.
Its entire body was black, its slender frame a mere six millimeters long. Its head was adorned with a pair of massive compound eyes that took up a significant area, with two thin, sensitive antennae extending from the side. The most striking feature was undoubtedly the long, sharp, needle-like proboscis for piercing and sucking located beneath its head.
It looked no different from a common mosquito.
If Lin Yi didn’t already know better, anyone who glimpsed such a mosquito probably wouldn’t give it a second glance, let alone feel any sense of alarm.
This was all perfectly understandable.
After all, the Mosquito Avatar was currently only at the most basic level, LV1. In essence, its quality was no better than that of a common beast.
Lin Yi focused his mind, held his breath, and tried to connect with the Mosquito Avatar.
In that instant.
A strange sensation was born.
His vision split in a peculiar way.
His main field of vision was still the dim living room, the outlines of the coffee table and the shadows in the corners clearly visible.
But in the center of his mind, another tiny yet exceptionally clear image unfolded in sync—
It was the microscopic world as seen through the mosquito’s compound eyes!
The rough lines of his palm looked like intersecting ravines, the texture of his skin like a dry riverbed, and his pores like deep caves.
At this very moment, he *was* the mosquito!
A novel sensation shot through his body like an electric current.
"This is amazing..."
Lin Yi couldn’t help but whisper, his voice sounding somewhat abrupt in the quiet room.
This wasn’t some brain-interfaced robot; it was a genuine second body.
Lin Yi could feel everything the Mosquito Avatar felt: its sight, its hearing, its sense of smell...
He tried to control the Mosquito Avatar and make it move.
Instantly.
The Mosquito Avatar on his palm vibrated its wings slightly, letting out a nearly inaudible buzz, and... crawled forward a short distance at an extremely slow pace.
That’s right, crawled!
The wing vibrations seemed more for balance than for providing any powerful propulsion.
A speed of 1.5 kilometers per hour... it would take 2.4 seconds to fly a single meter. That was much slower than a person’s leisurely stroll.
The corner of Lin Yi’s mouth twitched.
’At this speed, forget sneaking up on people for Blood Sucking and Cultivation. It would take the better part of a day just to fly out of this room!’
"Looks like the base stats of this LV1 avatar are pretty pathetic..."
He gave a helpless, bitter smile.
’It has this heaven-defying feedback ability, but the body itself is the weakest of the weak. It feels like sitting on a mountain of gold without the strength to dig.’
’I have to find a way to level up the Mosquito Avatar as soon as possible,’ Lin Yi thought to himself. ’Otherwise, if it’s so weak that someone just swats it dead, wouldn’t my golden finger be useless?’
As for how to level up the Mosquito Avatar, Lin Yi had already chosen his target: the ferocious Tibetan Mastiff downstairs!
Granny Li was unreasonable. She let her dog block the path, pollute the environment, and even allowed the vicious beast to frighten people.
’Making it pay a little price—isn’t that perfectly reasonable? A righteous act on behalf of heaven?’
’More importantly, that beast was brimming with Qi and Blood and had a massive body. It was a perfect... blood bag!’
With his plan in place, Lin Yi didn’t act immediately.
After all, it was only evening. If the Tibetan Mastiff caused a commotion, it would easily attract attention.
He decided to make his move after nightfall.
Next.
Lin Yi controlled the Mosquito Avatar, flying it around the room. He savored the miraculous feeling of having a second body while trying to adapt to the presence of the second visual feed in his mind.
Suddenly having an avatar and a second field of vision was a change he was still not quite used to. He had to get accustomed to it as soon as possible.
...
Dusk settled in.
Inside the small room, the light and shadows deepened.
Lin Yi split his focus. On one hand, he was controlling his novel Mosquito Avatar, feeling the sensory extensions of that other, tiny world. On the other, his hands deftly prepared a simple dinner.
His dinner was simple: just boiled eggs. He made do with them, considering it a way to supplement his nutrition.
The cold water in the pot came to a boil. Twelve eggs sank into it, their whites quickly solidifying in the bubbling heat.
Practicing martial arts consumed too much energy. He couldn’t afford medicinal supplements, and he didn’t even have much money for nutritional food. He could only make do by eating more eggs.
Peeling the slightly hot shell and looking at the tender white, Lin Yi silently swallowed it down.
His simple dinner ended quickly, leaving a bit of warmth in his stomach.
Lin Yi didn’t rest for a moment. He immediately moved the clutter in his room to clear a small open space.
He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and, following the memory in his mind, assumed the opening stance of the *Seven Steps Stance Technique*.
This Cultivation Technique was a foundational practice refined from the collective wisdom of countless people by the government, established after the wave of Spiritual Energy Revival more than two hundred years ago.
It consisted of seven seemingly simple yet profound stances, which progressed in sequence. The technique was designed to circulate Qi and Blood, stimulate its activity throughout the body, and serve as a cradle for cultivating Inner Breath.
Although he had transmigrated and fused with the original owner’s memories, making the technique’s essentials as clear as if they were branded into his mind, when it came time for this body to actually practice it, a sense of sluggishness and unfamiliarity followed him like a shadow.
His muscles stretched stiffly, his joints made faint cracking sounds, and his center of gravity wavered subtly. Sweat soon beaded on his forehead, trickling down his tense skin.
His movements were far from the fluid perfection he remembered.
His Cultivation was clumsy and halting.
There was nothing to be done about it.
’It’s the first time, after all... It’s natural to be a little rusty, to not find the right positions, to fail to even get started.’