Persistent Hard Training

The potted green plants on the balcony were instantly pressed until their stems bent, their leaves flattened against the floor with faint cracking sounds.

The dust in the air stopped drifting and fell straight down, bouncing once on the floor before going still. Even the morning breeze blowing in from the sea twisted direction the instant it entered the boundary of the gravity field, skimming along the floor as it spread out to both sides.

Situ Xuan's knees did not bend.

His back stayed ramrod straight, his two-meter-tall body motionless under twenty times gravity.

The muscles across his shoulders and back bulged slightly, blue veins surfacing beneath his skin like tree roots spreading from his neck to his shoulder blades, then from his shoulder blades down to his waist. His breathing was steady, each inhale carrying a heavy, weighty texture, as though he were moving some massive load.

Then he began to move.

The first movement was a backbend. His hands slowly rose from his sides, palms facing down, as if he were lifting something invisible. The muscle fibers in his arms went taut one by one, from the acromion to the point of the elbow, from the point of the elbow to the wrist bones; every muscle was forced into sharp relief beneath the pressure of gravity. His waist arched backward, his spine bending down vertebra by vertebra, like a bow being slowly drawn. His abdominal muscles tightened beneath his skin, the outline of all six blocks looking as if it had been carved out by a blade, every groove distinct.

His body bent to an angle no normal person could possibly reach—his nape almost touched his heels, and his spine gave off faint cracking sounds at its limit. Yet Situ Xuan's expression did not change at all. It