The sea breeze blew in his face, carrying a heavy salty and fishy stench. Nguyen Khang Dien's eyelid twitched.
The fishing boat beneath his feet was inching closer to the isolated island, an inconspicuous speck on the map.
He used to be a soldier from Annam, but now he was a mercenary who worked for money.
Why?
Because he was poor.
The reason was just that simple.
No one knew that the reason he had survived until now was because he harbored a secret.
A superpower forced out of him amidst the artillery fire on the battlefield.
He originally thought this ability would let him thrive in this blood-soaked line of work, but only after entering the business did he realize the world was far more lively than he had imagined.
Among those who had made a name for themselves in the circle, who didn't have a hidden trump card?
This time, the employer was the country of Luzon, asking them to assist the Luzon army in investigating this island.
The intel was simple. The path of Typhoon Jebi was supposed to roll right over this place. Let alone a small island, even a block of iron would have been blown away.
But that was the strange part. A typhoon capable of tearing everything to shreds vanished into thin air overnight.
Fishermen from Luzon were the first to notice the anomaly, and the higher-ups immediately caught a whiff of something unusual, which led to this operation.
However, they were riding in broken-down fishing boats, and to avoid the American navy, they had even deliberately taken a massive detour.
Luzon sounded like a sovereign nation, but with nine American military bases planted on its soil, to put it bluntly, they were just someone else's lapdog.
But even dogs want to bite sometimes.
And so, they came.
System: whatcanisay
Meanwhile, on the other side of the island, several gray landing crafts crashed through the waves, aggressively storming the beach.
Treads pressed into the soft, wet sand, making dull thuds as squads of fully armed American soldiers filed out of the cabins, quickly establishing a temporary defensive perimeter on the beach.
"Major Mike, what exactly are we searching for here?"
A lieutenant lit a cigarette, took a deep drag, and the exhaled smoke was quickly scattered by the sea breeze.
He looked at the storm-ravaged jungle before him, his eyes filled with snapped trees and scattered branches, unable to see anything worth mobilizing a full company of troops for.
"Don't ask. If you must know, we're just here to coordinate."
Major Mike slowly pulled an old pipe from his pocket, packed it with tobacco, and lit it with a windproof lighter. He took a couple of puffs, his tone as casual as if he were discussing the weather.
"Coordinate? Coordinate with whom?" The lieutenant was somewhat confused.
Major Mike shot him a glance and said grumpily,
"Coordinate with the big shots who can make a typhoon change its course. Why ask so many questions."
In truth, he was suppressing his own anger. This feeling of being treated like a pawn while knowing absolutely nothing was terrible, but orders were orders, and he could only pinch his nose and accept it.
As for what his men thought, he couldn't care less. Today was just about going through the motions anyway.
Just as he finished speaking, a distinct buzzing sound echoed from the horizon.
Everyone looked up in unison.
A pitch-black Black Hawk helicopter tore through the clouds, rapidly descending like a circling bird of prey.
"There, they're here." Major Mike took the pipe out of his mouth and gestured toward the sky with his chin.
The sandy terrain was entirely unsuitable for landing, but the helicopter showed no intention of looking for a landing spot either.
At a height of over ten meters from the ground, the cabin door slid open, and several dark figures leaped out of the cabin without any hesitation!
Thud! Thud! Thud!
Muffled landing sounds rang out one after another. Those figures landed on their feet, barely bending their knees, and stood firmly on the sand as if they had merely hopped down a single step.
The eyes of the surrounding American soldiers on guard duty almost popped out of their heads.
A rookie soldier dropped his shovel to the ground with a clatter, his mouth open wide enough to fit an egg.
"My God... are they demons?"
The leader had his hair slicked back and shining, wore a pair of oversized black sunglasses, and was dressed in a black tactical suit that was completely out of place among the soldiers. He walked straight up to Major Mike.
He walked straight up to Major Mike and twitched the corners of his mouth.
Taking off his sunglasses, he revealed a pair of eyes filled with a hint of mockery.
"Long time no see, Captain. Oh, wait, look at my memory. I should be calling you Major now."
Major Mike looked at the familiar face before him and tossed his pipe to the side. "Jack Freeman, so it's you, you bastard. I knew it. Whenever you show up, it's never good news."
Though he was cursing verbally, his expression instantly turned serious. He spun around and roared at his subordinates, "What the fuck are you all staring at! Never seen a handsome guy before?"
"From now on, everyone and every action falls under Mr. Jack's command! His word is an order. Anyone who dares to question it, I'll shoot you myself!"
Major Mike knew very well that the appearance of a man like Jack meant that conventional combat rules were now void.
Dissatisfaction showed on some soldiers' faces, but no one dared to utter a word.
"Don't be so tense, Major Mike." Jack put his sunglasses back on and waved his hand lazily. "Have them split into three teams and conduct a fan-shaped sweep. If they find anything, contact me on channel three. If they encounter danger, just evacuate immediately. Don't say I sent your men to die."
He didn't even look the soldiers in the eye, but as the order was given, it carried an unquestionable authority.
Although the soldiers were displeased, under Major Mike's murderous glare, they quickly divided into teams and disappeared into the jungle.
As the men ran, they whispered among themselves.
"They won't even tell us what we're looking for. Isn't this just reckless?"
"Stop talking. Just treat it like a field trip. Focus your attention on the surrounding brush, and watch out for venomous snakes and bugs!"
However, what they didn't know was that another group had already beaten them to the punch.
Nguyen Khang Dien kept his body low, darting through the hot, humid jungle like a wildcat.
The roar of the helicopter made his heart tighten. He turned back and made a hand signal, and the team members behind him immediately understood, making their movements even stealthier.
The group observed these American soldiers from a distance.
The others merely felt tense, assuming it was just a regular army.
But a faint stinging sensation prickled the back of Nguyen Khang Dien's neck. It was his body's instinctual warning, a reaction that only occurred when encountering people with special abilities.
And there was more than one.
This was trouble.
They had to beat these Americans to it and find the secret of how this island made the typhoon disappear.
It would be best if they didn't run into them.
If they did...
Nguyen Khang Dien's eyes showed a hint of cowardice. Then they would just have to run away immediately.
As he was thinking, he suddenly shuddered all over and came to a halt.
"What's wrong?!"
One of the men suddenly asked.
Nguyen Khang Dien raised his head, looking toward the top of the mountain, and took a deep breath.
"Turn around, turn around right now. I can feel a danger at the summit unlike anything I've ever encountered before."

ing gift was a patch of barren land, and disciples were all picked up along the way. He spent fifty years diligently building three "ramshackle little sects," thinking he could finally live a carefree life relying on his disciples. But right at the fifty-year mark, he was suddenly swept away by a spatial rift and exiled to the Chaos Desolation, the Disorderly Ruins. There was no spiritual energy there, only slaughter. Relying on the cultivation feedback from his disciples, Gu Changyuan hacked his way through a sea of blood for eleven hundred years. When the system finally fished him back out, he discovered the ramshackle little sects he'd built back then had developed a rather... unusual style. Hold on... I vanished for a thousand years, so how did my ramshackle little sects become holy lands?!

transmigrates into the world as the sect master of the Heavenly Yan Sect, which is on the verge of being wiped out. He binds a system that grants him cultivation power based on the number of disciples he has: for each disciple, he automatically gains a year's worth of cultivation every single day! Take one disciple: every day he gains 1 year of cultivation power. While others struggle through a year of bitter training, he gets the same just by sleeping through a single night. Take ten disciples: every day he gains 10 years of cultivation power. Foundation Establishment, Core Formation, Nascent Soul—he breezes through all bottlenecks without lifting a finger. Take one hundred disciples: every day he gains 100 years of cultivation power. Even a Soul Transformation Venerable before him can’t survive a single blow. Take ten thousand disciples: every day he gains 10,000 years of cultivation power! With a wave of his hand, he topples empires. With a single step, he crushes the sacred grounds of the universe. ... While others fight tooth and nail for secret techniques, Lin Yan casually hands out Nascent Soul-level cultivation manuals as beginner textbooks. While others strain to find talented recruits, Lin Yan opens his doors to anyone—so long as they’re human. In just three short years, the Heavenly Yan Sect went from a backwater sect made up of three crumbling huts to a sacred land that every cultivator under heaven would kill to enter. ... One day, otherworldly demon gods invade, with a million demon soldiers pressing down upon the realm. Lin Yan, yawning, rises from his lounge chair and glances at the system panel: [Current Disciples: 1.28 million] [Daily Cultivation Increase: 1.28 million years] He waves his hand casually, and the countless demon soldiers are reduced to ashes in an instant. “So noisy… interrupting my fishing.”

ine. During your journey, you save an abandoned baby girl and become her elder brother】 【You rely on each other, becoming each other's support】 【At the end of the simulation, you shield the now-grown girl with your life, sacrificing yourself to block numerous demonic cultivators. You die, and the light in the girl's eyes fades】 …… 【Second Simulation: You are transported to a world where steam and magic coexist】 【You immerse yourself in the study of magic, obsessed with its research. One day, while out, you encounter a half-blooded demon girl wandering the streets. You take her in as your student】 【You teach the demoness what it means to be human, show her the beauty of the world, and nurture her into a miracle that surpasses even the gods】 【At the end of the simulation, you die of old age in front of the nearly immortal demoness due to your mortal lifespan】 …… One simulation after another, one encounter after another. Xu Xi suddenly felt something was off: "Wait, you said you're coming to the real world to find me?"

ut it can buy an entire year of absolutely perfect training results! Su Yu stared at his empty wallet and decisively opened up various online loan platforms. “Borrow a thousand bucks! Recharge my vitality!” Boom! His vitality broke a hundred points, shattering the limits of the human body! “Borrow ten thousand bucks! Recharge my combat skills!” Boom! A basic punching technique so common it was everywhere instantly maxed out, revealing the ultimate assassination technique of Five Elements Unity—Inner Force! When a rich kid hired assassins for a midnight ambush, aiming to break both of his legs, they instead ran headfirst into a monster—a human-shaped tyrannosaur, brimming with dragon-like vitality. With just two fingers, Su Yu snapped a steel staff reinforced with alloy. Staring at the killer’s stash of stolen cash—a staggering quarter-million dollars—he showed a corporate-sincere smile: “Thanks for the pre-exam gift pack, Mr. Zhao! I’m gonna go re-invest this!” Three days later, at the National Martial Arts College Entrance Exam, while everyone else struggled just to reach the passing line, Su Yu threw a single punch—and more than a thousand vitality points literally detonated the entire arena!