Invitation from the Zhao Clan

Invitation from the Zhao Clan

Zhou Leng ran forward, Xu Kang'an's bodily details while running appearing in his mind.

He was completely different from those classmates who had forced their way into the Blood Circulation Stage by relying on pills.

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

Most crucially, beneath the skin around 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.

At the Early Blood Circulation Stage, the skin was faintly purple.

Qi Nourishing Stage was judged by breathing; Blood Circulation Stage was judged by skin color.

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

In next Monday's Top-16 Combat assessment, even if his Total True Qi and physical strength were slightly weaker, he would not be at a disadvantage against other Blood Circulation Stage fighters.

Xu Kang'an was different.

His realm was solid, his strength was solid, and more importantly, he frequently entered Demon City. His family had a Martial Path background, so they had surely found him sparring partners for practical combat. His combat experience might be ten times his own.

Still, Zhou Leng had never held much hope for the combat assessment.

His goal was first place in the monthly exam.

After running for a while, Zhou Leng accelerated for the second time. Only when he noticed his true qi being consumed too quickly did he slow down a little.

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

With no distractions in his heart, Zhou Leng ran with his head down all the way. When the navigation system 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, three crooked characters carved into it.

Run back.

"Beasts..."

Zhou Leng finally understood why Something Was Wrong earlier.

Twenty kilometers one way.

What about the return trip?

There was not even a car here.

This was practically a full-distance marathon in full gear with a heavy load.

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

He did not have much true qi left.

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

As they approached, 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 group had taken supplements yesterday and were all at the Blood Circulation Stage, they were so furious that they cursed under their breaths.

Zhou Leng kept running back, continually encountering students from every class along the way. Their reactions went from confusion to shock to cursing, exactly the same every time.

Before long, Zhou Leng encountered the instructors driving by.

Deng Zhijue, seated in the car, threw 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 didn't squeeze them dry enough."

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

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

When Zhou Leng approached, they were confused at first. Then their faces turned as dark as if someone had smeared soy sauce over them, 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. Their outrage boiled over, and curses filled the air.

"Beast instructors! Beast martial arts hall!"

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."

"Let's rebel!" Wei Hong shouted.

"Mount Liang is eight hundred kilometers from here."

"Forget it, then."

Zhou Leng ran back to the Martial Arts Hall alone and checked in.

First place.

He received Pill Vouchers on the spot.

Zhou Leng showered first, then dragged himself weakly to the cafeteria to eat.

Zhou Leng got one serving of food, then another after finishing it. When he went for a third serving, the cafeteria auntie could not even be bothered to shake her hand anymore, ladling him heaping spoonful after heaping spoonful of honest-to-goodness braised beef.

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

Comfortable.

Free meal vouchers were truly wonderful.

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

Zhou Leng sat down and scrolled through his phone for a while, opening the video Uncle Li had posted on his social feed yesterday.

In the video, the camera panned around. At the dining table, Uncle Li and several uncles around his age ate grilled meat and sang 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, swaying his head to the rhythm.

A man in sparring-partner attire wore a black eye patch over his left eye and tapped the rim of his cup with his chopsticks.

A man dressed as an escort kept his mouth closed, smiling as he nodded gently.

These people were all comrades of Father and Uncle Li. They had all sent gifts.

The digital photo album and rice cooker had both been gifts from them.

Every so often, they went to Demon City to hunt demons, giving 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 seller chop it into pieces, 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 pots and utensils, then headed straight for the Frost Giant Tree.

After cultivating beneath the tree, he tossed the meat chunks into the pot to stew. When they were nearly cooked, he peeled apart the cabbage, threw away the outer leaves, tore up the clean inner leaves and tossed them in. Just before taking it off the heat, he poured in the rice and sprinkled in seasonings. Once it was done, he devoured it in great mouthfuls.

It would do.

Big Yellow drooled so hard beside him that he looked ready to cry.

After Zhou Leng finished eating, he petted Big Yellow for a while, then spread his hands and said, "Big Yellow, you're already a grown 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 bowl with dog food, rubbed his 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, the family had kept a single-story house in the village. Zhou Leng went there occasionally to clean it, but almost never stayed there.

Big Yellow sat beside the dog food, gazing into the distance with both eyes as he pondered the life of a dog.

Zhou Leng continued cultivating. At dawn, he returned to the old house to wash the kitchenware, then did his morning training and headed to the Martial Arts Hall for the second day of military training.

When the time came, the figure of Class 01's Chief Instructor, Deng Zhijue, appeared once more.

"Today, we also have only one military training item."

None of the students reacted. Their gazes were hollow.

"Climb the winding road at Rugao Mountain Park ten times back and forth."

Rugao Mountain was over three hundred meters tall. Ten trips back and forth was roughly equivalent to climbing Mount Tai twice in a single day.

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

The gazes of all the students rippled violently, the ripples vaguely forming two words.

Beasts.

"Today's top ten will receive five Great Replenishing Pills. First place gets another five, along with an additional meal of Meat Medicinal Cuisine."

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

Their hearts were already dead.

Under the merciless squeezing of the beastly instructors, the Martial Arts Hall freshmen continued their nightmare military training.

One day, two days, three days...

Friday night.

The new capital of Dragon Country, Xiong City.

Yunhua Martial University and many other institutions had relocated here from the Old Capital. The campus had been rebuilt as an exact one-to-one replica of its former site, while enormous Martial Path arenas had been constructed around it, surrounding the entire university.

Inside the Martial Arts Hall for first-year freshmen.

Zhang Xinglie squatted low, carrying a five-hundred-kilogram Demonic Barbell. He slowly rose, straightened his body, and carefully lowered the barbell 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, letting out a heavy breath.

Five hundred kilogram raw squat without true qi, four sets of twenty reps each. Challenge completed.

His personal record for raw 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 at the eight-hundred-kilogram level, charging toward routine one-thousand-kilogram weighted training.

The other half, like him, were still striving to reach routine five-hundred-kilogram weighted training.

There was no difference in talent.

No difference in effort.

No difference in focus.

No difference in intelligence.

No difference in physique.

Wealth was the only difference.

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

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 were actually worth more than three million.

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

"To enter Yunhua's first echelon, I can only join the Elite Training Camp. There are still Several Months left. I must get in!"

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

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

Zhang Xinglie smiled in return. "Zhao Le."

Besides Martial Path Students, Yunhua Martial University also enrolled students in literature, science, arts, and other fields. Most literature and science students would pursue Martial Path research.

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

"Let's talk while we run," Zhao Le said.

"Sure."

Zhao Le followed behind Zhang Xinglie. As they ran, he said, "Have you secured a spot in the Elite Training Camp?"

Zhang Xinglie shook his head. "For this kind of top-tier training camp, half the spots have already been decided. Of the other half, only a very small number of people can get in. I can only be considered a candidate. If I want a spot, 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 Grandmaster Realm guidance. Otherwise, you'd get a spot with ease."

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

"But it will ultimately slow your path."

"Some things cannot be rushed." Zhang Xinglie glanced at Zhao Le.

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

"Which Third Young Master Zhao?"

"In this age, there is only one Zhao Family that can be called the Zhao Family."

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

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

Zhang Xinglie Sighed. "The Zhao Clan—a truly top-tier Martial Clan. Back then, Zhou Leng, I, and a group of little companions used a handful of earth as incense and worshipped the Three Sages of Mount Tai."

Wu Duanxiong, Wan Yumin, Zhao Dongjun.

"Among the Human Race's older generation of Martial Saints, some have fallen, some have been grievously wounded, and their great clans have declined. But Zhao Saint has cultivated in seclusion for many years, and the Zhao Clan's prestige still remains. The current Zhao Family head has already reached the peak of the Grandmaster Realm and is said to be able to ascend to Martial Saint before long."

Zhang Xinglie said, "During my month and more in Xiong City, I have repeatedly heard of the Zhao Family's prestige."

"Through my recommendation, the Third Young Master Zhao learned that your strength is extraordinary and that you yearn for the Extreme Martial Path. He has developed an appreciation for talent. He said that a talent like you should rightfully receive a Training Camp spot."

Zhang Xinglie fell silent.

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

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 the Third Young Master Zhao?"

"My brother's business."

"You truly value loyalty and friendship. But can that loyalty truly outweigh an invitation from the Third Young Master Zhao?"

Zhang Xinglie smiled but did not answer.

Zhao Le said, "After all, you aren't from Xiong City. You know little about Martial Clans and the Zhao Family's power. That Elite Training Camp spot is only a matter of a single sentence to the 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 Essays. Our reverence for Zhao Saint is beyond what ordinary people can imagine."

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

"How should I put it? Perhaps because I revere Zhao Saint too much, this all feels a little 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 offer the Third Young Master Zhao my apologies. Tell him I have urgent business and must return to Ru City. If I can abandon my brother for the Third Young Master Zhao, then I can also abandon the Third Young Master Zhao for someone else. Don't you think?"