Black Heart Evil Palm

The training ground's iron gate was violently shoved open by a pair of callused hands, producing a teeth-grating screech of metal. Long Xiuyuan's tall figure strode into the grounds against the noon sunlight, his military boots striking the floor with heavy thuds.

"Fall in!"

The bellow made all thirty-some students of Class Three jolt.

Several students dozing beneath the shade scrambled into formation. One lanky boy even tripped in his panic, his knee slamming heavily into the hard Blue Steel Stone floor.

Situ Xuan stood quietly at the very back of the line. His right hand was wrapped in a bloodstained bandage, while the knuckles of his left still bore bruises from smashing the puppet apart last night. He narrowed his eyes slightly as the morning light fell upon Long Xiuyuan's epaulet, where the East Sea Legion's Shark Tooth Emblem gleamed brightly.

"Today, we'll conduct basic reaction training."

Long Xiuyuan removed a jet-black baton from his waist. Its surface reflected the cold metallic sheen unique to steel beneath the sunlight. "Pairs. Take turns blocking."

At long last, at long last, I've found a promising seedling...

Long Xiuyuan watched the people of Class Three begin their training, a trace of satisfaction appearing on his face.

In the upcoming Class Promotion Tournament, it would not just be the Student Council receiving rewards. As their homeroom teacher, he would also receive a generous bonus!

Ever since leaving the East Sea Legion, Long Xiuyuan had never felt his life brimming with such vitality.

He did not want to waste a talent like Situ Xuan, nor did he want Class Three's laxness to cause trouble during the Class Promotion Tournament.

Exchange Tactics!

Long Xiuyuan thought of one of the most common battle strategies used by Soul Master combat squads in the East Sea Legion.

King against king, general against general!

When both sides had comparable numbers, one had to place complete trust in one's strongest fighter, hold back the other enemies, and wait for the decisive battle between the strongest to end.

The best talent among Class Three's students was only innate soul power rank seven. In theory, such talent should have been placed in Class Two or class one.

However, the Golden Scale Deer Martial Soul was not of the Power Attack System. It leaned toward the auxiliary type, and in the three-on-three battles of the Class Promotion Tournament, it was completely useless without suitable teammates.

Long Xiuyuan did not expect the rest of those misfits to achieve anything worthwhile either. As long as they could create a suitable environment for Situ Xuan—an environment for a one-on-one fight—then no Soul Master of the same age would stand a chance against Situ Xuan.

That way, they could crush the enemy in both numbers and quality.

Having completely abandoned the mindset of a teacher, Long Xiuyuan fixed his gaze solely on Situ Xuan, who was training alone with weights.

In the military, the victor was king and the loser was nothing. The strong naturally possessed more resources.

Even after retiring, Long Xiuyuan had never changed that belief, nor did he think there was any need to.

Not far away, some distance from Class Three's training area, Situ Xuan once again put on the thirty-kilogram belt Long Xiuyuan had given him, along with a total of five kilograms of wrist weights, and trained alone.

Standing apart from the world.

Situ Xuan's place in Class Three was that of an outsider who seemed both distant and near.

Long Xiuyuan had given him the greatest possible freedom. As long as he did not fall behind in his daily coursework, he could freely arrange all the rest of his time.

Only two hours every night were reserved for brutal, fist-to-fist combat training with Long Xiuyuan.

At that moment, the blazing sun shone through the glass skylight above the training ground, baking the thirty-five kilograms of weighted gear until it was scorching hot.

The lead core absorbed the heat, and the portion pressed against his waist had already burned several blisters into his skin.

Situ Xuan was utterly unaware of it. His attention was completely focused on every contraction of his muscle fibers—from the wave-like rippling of his calf muscles when his toes gripped the ground, to the tremors that carried force through his spine like a steel cable.

The five-kilogram Black Iron wrist weights began to deform after three straight hours of punching. Their metal edges curled from repeated impacts, grinding the skin on the insides of Situ Xuan's wrists into a bloody mess.

Yet the boy merely shook his hands, spreading the blood evenly across the inner lining of the wrist weights—it would keep sweat from making them slippery.

As he rose from a squat, Situ Xuan suddenly changed the trajectory of his movement.

The force that should have driven straight upward shifted into a horizontal rotation, making the thirty-five kilograms of weighted gear swing like a meteor hammer.

The metal buckle connecting the belt let out an overloaded creak, while his oblique muscles formed exaggerated spiraling lines.

This sudden variation triggered a chain reaction throughout his body, and dozens of earthworm-like veins bulged across his back.

His training uniform had long since been soaked through with sweat and dried three times over. It now clung to him as stiffly as sun-dried fish skin.

Situ Xuan grabbed his collar and tore it apart in one pull, revealing an upper body covered in purple bruises.

What was astonishing was that those bruises were changing at a visible rate—from deep purple to bluish-yellow, before finally returning to normal skin tone. The entire process took no more than ten minutes.

The perfect combination of the breathing method and his Body Martial Soul had pushed this body's self-healing ability far beyond the limits of ordinary humans.

Extreme pressure and the precisely timed breathing method steadily increased the sluggish efficiency of Soul Power circulation caused by his poor talent.

Situ Xuan's panting echoed through the empty training ground. His chest rose and fell violently, sweat smashing against the floor like a string of broken beads.

The knuckles of his right hand had long been reduced to a bloody mess, while the bruises along his forearm were dark purple-black, like refined iron struck by a heavy hammer. Yet he did not stop to rest or bandage his wounds—the blood seeped into the bandages and formed dark red scabs around his wrist, becoming the best protection instead.

Dragging his heavy body along, he slowly sat cross-legged in the center of the training ground's Blue Steel Stone floor.

The thirty-five-kilogram weighted belt lay limp beside him like a dead snake, its metal buckle polished smooth and bright from repeated high-intensity training.

The five-kilogram Black Iron wrist weights had also been violently flung aside. His wrists were covered in streaks of blood, and sweat seeped into the wounds, bringing bursts of sharp pain.

He slowly placed his hands on his knees, palms facing upward, fingers slightly spread apart. The skin over his knuckles had cracked open, exposing the pale red tendons beneath.

"Exhale—"

He closed his eyes and sharply drew in a breath.

The instant his chest expanded, faint cracking sounds came from where his ribs connected, like a mortise-and-tenon structure being forcibly pried apart.

His breathing rhythm suddenly changed—it was no longer the long, steady breathing required by Fist of the North Star, but a short, near-suffocating pause.

"Inhale—"

"Exhale—" Every breath seemed deliberately cut short, draining the air from his lungs before forcibly compressing fresh airflow into them.

The Black Heart Evil Palm emphasized that "Malevolent Qi is the foundation."

A strange black aura gradually seeped from Situ Xuan's body. It was neither Soul Power nor pure killing intent, but a medium somewhere between energy and matter.

Like flowing ink, it spread along the patterns of his skin, first covering both arms—the bruised blood vessels beneath the black aura seemed to be forcibly suppressed by some power, slowly contracting as they changed from purple-black to blue-gray before finally being completely swallowed by the black mist.

Cold sweat continuously ran down the side of his face, but when those beads of sweat touched the black aura, they were seemingly devoured, vanishing without a sound.

Situ Xuan's breathing grew slower and slower. Eventually, there was almost no visible movement in his chest—he resembled a corpse gradually cooling, with only the faint tremor of his eyeballs proving that he was still alive.

"Drip."

A drop of blood fell from his fingertip and struck the Blue Steel Stone floor. Instead of seeping into the cracks, it hovered like a condensed black pearl. Then, wrapped by a wisp of black aura, it slowly evaporated into nothingness.

"Refine."

Situ Xuan suddenly muttered, his voice hoarse as a blade scraping rusted iron.

His hands suddenly clenched tight, his nails digging deeply into his palms. Blood seeped through the gaps between his fingers, yet it did not fall. Instead, drawn by the black aura, it condensed within his palms into a thumb-sized bead of blood.

The blood bead hovered above his palm, tiny black threads constantly weaving through its surface and writhing like some living creature.