Lin Hao stood in the vast, echoing darkness of his new warehouse. He was dripping, the freezing, iron-scented water from the rusted tap evaporating from his skin, which was no longer cold. His purified, [Level 6: Marrow Cleansed] body was a self-sustaining furnace, and the icy water had felt refreshing.
He was clean. He was light. And he was acutely, dangerously, powerful.
He looked at his new, pristine skin. He thought of Elder Chen, the Level 4 Grandmaster, the "protector" of humanity. A man who had trained his entire life to forge his bones.
Lin Hao had surpassed him in less than 48 hours. He wasn't just a step ahead; he was in a different league. He was playing a different game.
And that meant he had to be a ghost.
His new power was a secret. A secret that would, as Old Man Feng had warned, attract wolves. Not the pathetic, mortal kind he'd just dealt with, but real wolves. The BSA, the other "hidden families", they would all be desperate to know his methods, to steal his power. If they found out a no-name student had surpassed their strongest ancestor in a single day, they wouldn't try to recruit him; they would try to dissect him.
He was standing in a 12,000-square-foot concrete box. It was isolated, which was good. But it was not hidden.
Any "Awakened" with new senses, any government agent with a thermal-imaging drone, any nosy explorer could find this place. A simple, mortal padlock on the door was a joke. He needed a real defense.
He checked his status.
[Upgrade Points (UP): 540]
Wait, no. He re-checked his internal log.
590 UP (Start of Night 2)
Spent 50 UP (Level 6 Upgrade)
Current UP: 540 UP
He re-checked his mental log, forcing the System to clarify the numbers. The numbers in his head had been... fuzzy. He focused, and the real log, the one he had been tracking, snapped into place.
Day 1 (Ch 4): +100 UP.
Spent 10 (Lvl 1), 10 (Knife), 10 (World). 70 UP left.
Spent 70 (Lvl 2-5). 0 UP left.
Day 2 (Ch 18): +200 UP.
Spent 20 (World), 50 (Lvl 6). 130 UP left.
Yes, that was it. His memory of the 590 was a miscalculation. He had 130 UP remaining. It was his working capital. His seed money for this new base.
He needed a formation. He didn't know the first thing about runes or array theory. But he didn't need to. He was an upgrader, not a scholar. He just needed raw materials.
He scanned the vast, empty warehouse. His new, Level 6 "crystal-clean" vision pierced the darkness. In the far corner, he saw it.
A pile of junk. Rubble left over from the building's long-dead construction. Broken cinder blocks, a few lengths of bent, rusted rebar, a pallet of half-used, hardened cement bags.
It was trash. It was worthless.
It was perfect.
He walked over, the sound of his bare feet on the concrete echoing in the huge space. He placed his clean, unmarked hand on the dusty, broken pile of bricks.
"System," he commanded in his mind. "Open $Object Upgrade$."
The blue screen flared to life, analyzing the worthless junk.
[Object: Pile of Scrap Masonry & Rebar (Junk)] [Details: Broken concrete, rusted steel, dust, and gravel. Worthless.]
And then, the option. The solution.
[Upgrade: Low-Grade Spirit Rank Concealment Formation (Flags)]? (Cost: 50 UP)
Lin Hao's heart gave a single, steady, satisfied thump.
"Spirit Rank." This was the real deal. The first tier of magical, cultivator-level formations. "Concealment." Exactly what he needed. Not a wall, not a trap, but invisibility.
He would be a ghost.
The cost was 50 UP. A steep price, but it was the cost of absolute security. It was the most important investment he could make. He had 130 UP. He could afford it.
"Confirm."
[Deducting 50 UP. 80 UP Remaining.]
[Upgrading Object: Pile of Scrap...]
The transformation was not an explosion. It was an implosion.
Crrrunch...
The pile of junk didn't glow. It collapsed. The rusted rebar began to hiss, curling in on itself as if melted by an invisible forge. The cinder blocks and broken bricks crumbled, not into pieces, but into a fine, gray, swirling dust.
The dust cloud hung in the air for a second, a small, localized vortex. Then, it compressed.
The System was using the raw, base materials. The dust, the melted steel, the minerals, it was all being re-forged at a molecular level. The gray dust swirled faster and faster, forming five small, dense, cone-like shapes.
In ten seconds, it was over.
The dust cloud vanished.
Where the pile of rubble had been, there now sat five small, triangular "flags."
They weren't made of cloth. They were forged from a new, smooth, dense, gray-black material that looked like polished slate. They were about the size of his hand, and each one was impossibly heavy.
He picked one up. It was cool to the touch.
And across its perfectly smooth surface, a series of complex, geometric runes were etched, glowing with the same faint, steady, blue-white light as his Qi-Guiding Blade.
He could feel the power thrumming inside it. It was a dense, sleeping energy, waiting for a command.
He had done it. He had created his first set of formation flags.
He now had the tools to make his base completely invisible to the outside world.
He thought of the "mysterious masked expert" from his outline, the one who would, in the future, shock the world. That expert needed a lair. A hidden base.
Lin Hao looked at the five flags in his hand, and he smiled, a cold, satisfied smile in the dark.
He had just laid the foundation.
He looked at his new status. [Upgrade Points (UP): 80].
He would save it. It was his emergency fund. He was hungry, and he was covered in grime again, albeit a different kind.
It was time to get some food, some new clothes, and properly begin his new, hidden life.