The Disparity of Martial Arts

Blue Star, Qingzhou.

Rong City.

The night was deep. The sky over Rong City tonight was pitch black, with not even a glimmer of starlight to be seen.

The high-speed train pulled slowly into the platform. As the heavy doors slid open, traces of armored reinforcement were still faintly visible throughout the station.

"The train has arrived at Rong City East Station. Passengers, please disembark in an orderly fashion."

Li Changqing dragged his suitcase out of the platform. He wore a washed-out long-sleeved shirt, cotton sweatpants, and a pair of canvas shoes. In the breezy night air of Rong City, the temperature was quite comfortable.

This train was too late, and there were hardly any passengers left. Li Changqing fished the paper ticket out of his pocket and quickly passed through the unmanned security checkpoint.

It was strange; electronic tickets had been popularized back in the twenty-first century, yet here he was, a hundred years later, witnessing a regression.

In this day and age where technology remained locked, the lingering aftereffects of war had yet to be resolved.

Stepping out of the station, the mountain road was deserted, with only lonely streetlights flickering in the dark.

Li Changqing approached the ticket office and knocked on the window. "Hello, are there any shuttle buses down the mountain at this hour?"

"Shuttle bus? There haven't been any for a long time." The staff member shook his head.

"Then, does the station offer transport..." Before Li Changqing could finish, the staff member held up a hand.

"Do you have a Martial Artist ID?"

Li Changqing paused, and the staff member, seeing his expression, understood immediately. He then said with a straight face:

"I'm sorry, sir. The station only provides special transport services for registered Martial Artists. My apologies."

Li Changqing let out a dry laugh. He turned away from the window and found a bench in the lobby to sit on.

He pulled out his generic smartphone, tuned into the taxi radio channel, and began to call out.

"It's so late, I wonder if there are even any taxis left."

At this very moment, he felt an immense envy for the ride-hailing services he had read about in textbooks from the previous century, when the internet was flourishing.

Five minutes passed. Glancing at his phone, which showed no response, Li Changqing stopped counting on a taxi to come to such a remote place as the station.

Reluctantly, he opened the official website of the Chengtian Martial Arts School and found their reception hotline.

"Beep, beep, beep—"

Ten seconds later, the call connected.

"Hello, I am a graduating student from the Psionic Department of Qingzhou Psionic University. I applied for the Martial Arts Academy assessment last week. May I ask if the academy has any vehicles available to come pick me up at the station?"

"Yes, I am at Rong City East Station."

"My university evaluation?"

"...Yes, my psionic evaluation is D-Class. Yes, that's right, I did not pass the academy assessment."

"You'll help me check? Okay, okay, thank you for the trouble."

The other party hung up. Li Changqing looked at his phone, then finally returned to the radio channel to try his luck.

"Sigh, D-Class has no human rights," Li Changqing sighed, tilting his head back.

As a student whose evaluation scores were nearly at the bottom, he had not reached the C-Mid threshold required by the university.

He had no choice but to settle for second best, coming to a private martial arts academy with lower requirements to try and earn a chance to become a Martial Artist.

However, it seemed the Chengtian Martial Arts School did not place much importance on a bottom-feeder like him.

He sat on the bench, leaning against the wall while staring at the station's electronic display.

"Beep beep—"

Suddenly, the sound of car horns startled Li Changqing.

He whipped his head around, only to see a line of black sedans driving onto the mountain road and pulling up outside the station.

What was going on?

Li Changqing's pupils constricted. He felt as though he had been judging a gentleman with the heart of a villain.

Look at that, now that was what you called prestige.

But immediately after, the doors opened, and a crowd poured out, holding a massive banner high above their heads.

Warmly welcome the outstanding graduate of Qingzhou Psionic University, Jiang He, to Rong City.

The sight of the giant banner made Li Changqing, who had just started to stand up, freeze in his tracks.

Jiang He. He certainly remembered that name.

The guy was a classmate from his department, but unlike Li Changqing's D-Class rating, Jiang He was the most talented student in the Psionic Department this year, with a rating of B-Mid.

He was a genius destined to become a Martial Artist, with a high probability of growing from a Martial Artist into a Psionic User within five years!

Li Changqing saw the middle-aged man leading the crowd glance at him a few times, but after taking out a phone to compare, he stopped looking his way.

Not long after.

The main gate swung wide open.

A handsome young man wearing a white T-shirt, brown sweatpants, and a backpack walked out of the waiting hall in a low-key manner.

Before the young man could even react, the middle-aged man in the lead quickly stepped forward and grasped his hand while the youth looked on with a dazed expression.

"You must be student Jiang He, truly a dashing figure and a man of great talent!"

As he spoke, he eagerly pulled open the car door.

"Student Jiang He, the hotel has already been arranged, let's head back to the city first."

"Oh, oh." Jiang He nodded repeatedly, looking like someone who had never seen the world.

Just as he was about to sit into the sedan, his peripheral vision caught sight of Li Changqing, who was standing alone in place while holding a suitcase.

"Classmate, were you unable to get a taxi?" Jiang He did not know Li Changqing.

But looking at the other's attire and considering the current time, he pointed toward the numerous sedans on the side.

"Let's go together, you must have just graduated too, right?"

"So it is a schoolmate of student Jiang He, then let's go together." Upon hearing this, the middle-aged man immediately greeted Li Changqing with enthusiasm.

It was as if he hadn't been ignoring Li Changqing just a moment ago.

"It's too late now, I imagine you can't get a taxi, get in."

To this, Li Changqing had no objections. He picked up his suitcase and trotted forward, nodding in thanks as he passed Jiang He.

"Thank you, classmate."

"You're welcome, it's no trouble at all."

The two brushed past each other, and Li Changqing walked toward a small van used for transporting luggage, shoulder to shoulder with a pile of cargo.

He watched as the middle-aged man opened the car door and invited Jiang He into the sedan.

The station was a full dozen kilometers away from the city center.

At a crossroads.

Li Changqing got out of the van with his suitcase, watching the motorcade's grand departure.

"Sure enough, it's great to be a Martial Artist."

On the ride over, he had already learned the situation from the driver; he was only two kilometers away from his booked hotel, and he could just follow the road down.

Li Changqing opened the hidden buckles on both sides of his suitcase, pulled out two straps, and hoisted the suitcase directly onto his back.

Afterward, he began a weighted jog.

To become a Martial Artist, physical constitution is the most important thing, and to go a step further and become a Psionic User, one needs the body to accommodate 100% psionic energy.

And the key to accommodating psionic energy remains the physical constitution.

Li Changqing was an orphan who grew up in a government welfare institution.

Thanks to the fact that the population of Blue Star had yet to recover to pre-war levels, an orphan like him could still attend university on free government support.

A hundred years ago, because Blue Star had frequently sent telegrams into the universe, the planet's coordinates were captured by aliens, and its technology was locked away by the enemy using unknown means.

Such a desperate technological gap left all the governments on Blue Star in despair.

As order collapsed, war broke out.

The population of the entire planet decreased sharply until the end of the war, when the Blue Star United Government was established, leaving only one-third of the population remaining.

But fortunately, during the war, an ancient Alien Ruins hidden underground was discovered by humanity.

Humanity obtained clues to psionic technology from it, and the Psionic Monsoon of the Subspace also blew into this region of space.

Since then, humanity began a century-long Psionic Ascension.

The two-kilometer distance took Li Changqing a full ten minutes to run, even with the modest weight on his back.

Such a result could barely be considered that of a healthy person; it didn't even reach the standard of an ordinary athlete from the old era.

Finally, at the end of the road, an old six-story hotel came into Li Changqing's view.

He swung his arms vigorously to drive his legs, and his already light-headed body crossed the final stretch of the greenway.

Physical Constitution +1

Vitality Concentration: 30%

A warm current flowed through Li Changqing's body, his aching muscles relaxed, and even his previously rapid breathing became steady.

"Hoo—" Li Changqing's chest heaved as he exhaled a thick puff of white air.

His footsteps were steady, and his vitality surged throughout his body, having increased by a small amount out of thin air. Although it was a negligible amount, as the saying goes, "the ocean accepts all rivers," and when his vitality was full to the brim, it would be a world-shaking fusion.

"It worked."

Li Changqing's eyes were bright and spirited.

This was the anomaly he had only discovered in himself yesterday.

Every time he pushed past his limits during exercise, his physical constitution and vitality concentration would increase.

With his physical energy restored, Li Changqing felt he could run another two kilometers.

Looking at the hotel entrance, the corners of Li Changqing's mouth curled up.

It was precisely because he had discovered this anomaly in himself yesterday that he chose to sign up for the Chengtian Martial Arts School test.

In this society where everything serves psionic energy, becoming a Martial Artist is a necessity.