Zhao Clan Invitation

Zhou Leng ran forward, details of Xu Kang'an's running form surfacing in his mind.

He was completely different from those classmates who had forced their way into the Blood-Circulating Stage by taking medicine.

Xu Kang'an's body was remarkably steady, with almost no unnecessary swaying.

Most importantly, beneath the skin of Xu Kang'an's calves, faint purple lines appeared along the paths of his blood vessels.

That was the sign of true qi merging into the blood and circulating naturally.

In the Early Blood-Circulating Stage, the skin turned faintly purple.

Qi-Nourishing was judged by breathing; Blood-Circulating was judged by skin color.

Zhou Leng made a rough estimate. His palm techniques and footwork were both first-rate.

In next Monday's Round of Sixteen Practical Combat Test, even if his total true qi and physical strength were somewhat weaker, he would not be at a disadvantage against other Blood-Circulating Stage fighters.

Xu Kang'an was different.

His realm was genuine, his strength was genuine, and most crucially, he frequently entered and left Demon City. His family had a Martial Dao background, so they had surely found practical sparring partners for him. His combat experience might be ten times Zhou Leng's.

Still, Zhou Leng had never expected much from the Practical Combat Test.

His goal was first place in the monthly exam.

After running for a while, Zhou Leng accelerated for the second time. When he noticed his true qi being depleted too quickly, he slowed down slightly.

The mountain path was rugged, and he was carrying a load. Zhou Leng was drenched in sweat and drank water from time to time to replenish himself.

Zhou Leng focused wholeheartedly and ran with his head down. When his navigation finally announced that he had reached the destination, he looked around.

A desolate wilderness at the foot of green mountains.

Ahead stood a brand-new wooden sign, with three crookedly carved words on it.

Run Back.

"Beasts..."

Zhou Leng finally understood why something had felt wrong earlier.

Twenty kilometers one way.

What about the way back?

There was not even a vehicle here.

This was practically a full marathon in full gear and under full load.

Zhou Leng shook his head, turned around, and ran back, his speed plummeting.

He did not have much true qi left.

Zhou Leng looked up. Far in the distance, more than twenty people from the Second Tier were running this way.

As they drew near, Lu Juncai waved at Zhou Leng and shouted, "What's going on? We have to run back too?"

Zhou Leng nodded.

Even though everyone in the Second Tier had taken supplements yesterday and reached the Blood-Circulating Stage, they were furious enough to curse under their breath.

Zhou Leng kept running back, continuously meeting students from different classes along the way. Their reactions were exactly the same: confusion, then shock, then cursing.

Before long, Zhou Leng encountered the instructors driving cars.

Deng Zhijue, in one of the cars, tossed out two bottles of purified water in succession. Zhou Leng caught them.

"Thank you, Instructor," Zhou Leng said.

As they passed each other, Deng Zhijue looked ahead and said slowly, "Still haven't squeezed them dry enough."

Before long, Zhou Leng met the main group led by Feng Wenhao and Wei Hong. There were more than a hundred people, accounting for over half of four classes.

They were still jogging at an unhurried pace, chatting and laughing.

When Zhou Leng approached, they were first puzzled. Then their faces darkened as if smeared with soy sauce, each darker than the last.

Wei Hong shouted, "Zhou Leng, what's going on? Wasn't it twenty kilometers?"

"Yes. Twenty kilometers there, twenty kilometers back," Zhou Leng said.

More than a hundred people understood in an instant. The uproar boiled over, and curses filled the air.

"Beastly instructors! Beastly martial academy!"

Feng Wenhao said with a mournful face, "No wonder they gave us Marching Pills. It wasn't kindness—they were afraid we'd die of exhaustion on the road."

"Revolt!" Wei Hong shouted.

"Mount Liang is eight hundred kilometers from here."

"Forget it, then."

Zhou Leng ran back to the martial academy alone and checked in.

First place.

He received a pill voucher on the spot.

Zhou Leng first took a shower, then dragged himself to the cafeteria to eat.

Zhou Leng got one serving of food, finished it, then got another. When he went for a third serving, the cafeteria auntie could not even be bothered to shake the ladle anymore. She spooned him hearty ladlefuls of braised beef.

After eating the equivalent of seven lunches, Zhou Leng let out a relieved breath.

Comfortable.

Free meal vouchers really were amazing.

Next month, he definitely had to keep fighting for free meal vouchers.

Zhou Leng sat around scrolling on his phone for a while, then opened the video Uncle Li had posted on his social feed yesterday.

In the video, the camera panned around. Uncle Li and several middle-aged men of similar age sat around a dining table, eating grilled meat and singing bold, heroic songs, all of them red-faced.

One man had a crutch leaning against his chair. He slapped the edge of the table with both hands, shaking his head and swaying to the rhythm.

A man wearing a sparring partner's uniform had a black eyepatch covering his left eye and tapped the rim of his cup with his chopsticks.

A man in an escort uniform kept his mouth closed, smiling faintly as he nodded gently.

These people had all been comrades of his father and Uncle Li. They had all sent gifts.

The electronic photo album and rice cooker had both been sent by them.

Every so often, they went to Demon City to hunt demons, then gave more than half their earnings to the families of fallen comrades.

Zhou Leng was one of the beneficiaries.

Zhou Leng gave the video a like, then left school. He bought some meat and had the vendor chop it into chunks, then bought a head of napa cabbage and four boxes of cooked rice. He first went to the old house in the village to collect the washed cookware, then headed straight for the Frost Giant Tree.

After cultivating beneath the tree, he threw the chunks of meat into the pot to stew. When they were nearly done, he peeled apart the cabbage, threw away the outer leaves, tore up the clean inner leaves and tossed them in. Just before serving, he poured in the rice, sprinkled in seasonings, and then wolfed it down once it was out of the pot.

It would do.

Big Yellow was drooling so hard it nearly cried.

After Zhou Leng finished eating, he petted Big Yellow for a while, spread his hands, and said, "Big Yellow, you're already a big dog. You need to learn to earn money and buy your own meat."

Big Yellow looked at Zhou Leng blankly.

Zhou Leng filled Big Yellow's dog bowl with dog food, rubbed its head, and packed up the pots, bowls, and kitchen utensils.

Zhou Leng looked around. Unfortunately, there was no water here, so he could only return to the old house in the village to wash them.

Back then, his family had kept a single-story house in the village. Zhou Leng occasionally went there to clean it, but rarely stayed there.

Big Yellow sat beside its dog food, gazing into the distance with both eyes as it contemplated the life of a dog.

Zhou Leng continued cultivating. At dawn, he returned to the old house to wash the cookware, then completed his morning training and headed to the martial academy for the second day of military training.

When the time came, Deng Zhijue, Class 01's chief instructor, appeared once again.

"Today, our military training has only one item as well."

None of the students reacted. Their gazes were hollow.

"Climb the winding road of Ruge Mountain Park ten times round trip."

Ruge Mountain was more than three hundred meters high. Ten round trips were roughly equivalent to climbing Mount Tai twice in a single day.

Mount Tai was good at cultivating one kind of person: experts at talking tough on the way up, experts at shaky legs on the way down.

All the students' eyes rippled violently, the ripples faintly forming two words.

Beasts.

"Today, the top ten will receive five Great Supplement Pills. First place gets an additional five, plus one Meat Medicinal Diet."

Other than Zhou Leng, not a single student was moved.

Their hearts were already dead.

Under the merciless squeezing of the beastly instructors, the martial academy freshmen continued their nightmare military training.

One day, two days, three days...

Friday night.

Xiong City, the new capital of Dragon Nation.

Yunhua Martial University and many other institutions had moved here from Old Capital. They had been rebuilt in exact imitation of their former sites, while enormous Martial Dao arenas had been erected all around them, encircling the entire university.

Inside the martial arts hall for first-year students.

Zhang Xinglie squatted beneath a 500-kilogram Demonized Barbell, carrying it on his shoulders as he slowly rose to his feet. Once he stood straight, he slowly placed the barbell back onto the squat rack.

He panted heavily.

He looked at his bulging muscles, then turned to glance at the words "500 kilograms" on the barbell and exhaled heavily.

Four sets of twenty repetitions each, 500-kilogram squats without true qi. Challenge complete.

His personal record for squats without true qi or knee wraps exceeded one thousand kilograms.

But for ordinary squat training, five hundred kilograms was already his limit.

Zhang Xinglie looked toward the other students.

Of the twenty students in his class, half were doing weighted training in the eight-hundred-kilogram range, charging toward one-thousand-kilogram daily weighted training.

The other half, like him, were still striving to break through the five-hundred-kilogram level of daily weighted training.

There was no gap in talent.

There was no gap in effort.

There was no gap in focus.

There was no gap in intelligence.

There was no gap in physique.

Wealth was the only gap.

Only after arriving at Yunhua did Zhang Xinglie learn that half of the Yunhua students were not weaker than him in any respect, and consumed pills worth tens of millions or even hundreds of millions every year.

Zhang Xinglie himself came from an ordinary family. From elementary school through high school, every pill and every bit of extra income had been earned through his own talent and strength.

Especially during his three years of high school, through various awards, scholarships, and subsidies, the pills he consumed each year had actually been worth more than three million.

Yet that was not even a fraction of what over half his classmates spent.

"To enter Yunhua's First Tier, I can only get into the Elite Training Camp. There are still a few months left. I have to secure it!"

After resting briefly, Zhang Xinglie slowly walked out, preparing for a night run.

At that moment, a classmate walked over and greeted him with a smile. "Zhang Xinglie."

Zhang Xinglie smiled in response. "Zhao Le."

Besides recruiting Martial Dao students, Yunhua Martial University also recruited liberal arts and science students, art students, and others. Most liberal arts and science students would go into Martial Dao research.

Zhao Le was a liberal arts and science student at Yunhua, from the Divine Script Academy, and lived in the dorm room next to Zhang Xinglie's.

"We can talk while we run," Zhao Le said.

"Alright."

Zhao Le followed behind Zhang Xinglie, running as he spoke. "Have you secured a spot in the Elite Training Camp?"

Zhang Xinglie shook his head. "For a top-tier training camp like that, half the slots have already been decided. Of the remaining half, only a very small number of people can get in. I'm only a candidate. If I want a slot, I still need to keep working hard."

Zhao Le sighed and said, "Your talent is top-tier even at Yunhua. It's a pity your cultivation resources haven't kept up. No pills, no guidance from a grandmaster. Otherwise, you'd get a slot easily."

"It doesn't matter. Even if I can't get a slot, I can still keep cultivating," Zhang Xinglie said without the slightest regret in his voice.

"But in the end, it'll still slow your path."

"Some things can't be rushed." Zhang Xinglie glanced at Zhao Le.

Zhao Le smiled. "Then I won't beat around the bush. Tomorrow, Third Young Master Zhao is holding a banquet specifically to invite the outstanding young talents of Xiong City. Would you honor us with your presence?"

"Which Third Young Master Zhao?"

"In this day and age, only one Zhao family can be called the Zhao family."

"The Zhao Clan?" Zhang Xinglie's gaze trembled.

"Naturally. There is only one person who can be called Third Young Master Zhao—the third son of the current head of the Zhao family, Zhao Tong."

Zhang Xinglie said with feeling, "The Zhao Clan, a truly top-tier martial clan. Back then, Zhou Leng, I, and a group of little friends gathered dirt as incense and worshipped the Three Saints of Mount Tai."

Wu Duanxiong, Wan Yumin, Zhao Dongjun.

"Among the older generation of Human Martial Saints, some have fallen and some have been severely injured, their clans declining. But Zhao Sheng has cultivated in seclusion for many years, and the Zhao Clan's prestige remains. The current Zhao family head has already reached the peak of Grandmaster and is said to be on the verge of ascending to Martial Saint."

Zhang Xinglie said, "In the month or so I've spent in Xiong City, I've heard the Zhao family's great name time and again."

"Through my recommendation, Third Young Master Zhao learned that you possess extraordinary strength and admire Extreme Martial Arts. He has developed an appreciation for talent. He said that someone as talented as you ought to receive a training camp slot."

Zhang Xinglie fell silent.

Zhao Le struck while the iron was hot. "You won't be the only one attending this banquet. Zhuang Wenhua, seventh on the National Freshman Ranking; Qi Daosheng, thirty-fourth; Yue Weiguo, forty-second. As for other outstanding talents, they are countless."

Zhang Xinglie sighed. "Unfortunately, I have something very important to do tomorrow. I need to return to Ru City, so I won't make it to the banquet in time."

"Ru City? What could be more important than Third Young Master Zhao?"

"My brother's matter."

"You truly are a man who values loyalty, but can that loyalty really outweigh Third Young Master Zhao's invitation?"

Zhang Xinglie smiled but did not answer.

Zhao Le said, "You aren't from Xiong City, after all, so you don't know much about martial clans or the Zhao family's power. That Elite Training Camp slot is only a matter of a word from Third Young Master Zhao."

Zhang Xinglie said, "I may not know much about other martial clans, but the Zhao Clan is different. I grew up reading Zhao Dongjun's Collected Works. Our reverence for Zhao Sheng is beyond what ordinary people can imagine."

"Since you revere Zhao Sheng so much, why refuse Third Young Master Zhao's banquet invitation?"

"How should I put it? Perhaps because I revere Zhao Sheng too much, it all feels somewhat unreal."

"Now, this opportunity is right before your eyes. Today's choice will determine how far you can go in the future."

Zhang Xinglie said, "Please apologize to Third Young Master Zhao on my behalf. Tell him I have an urgent matter to attend to in Ru City. If I can abandon my brother for Third Young Master Zhao, then I can abandon Third Young Master Zhao for someone else. Don't you agree?"