Martial Artist Realms

Lin Feng tucked away the brocade pouch and pressed deeper into the Wilderness.

The sky hadn't brightened yet—prime time for grinding monsters.

After reaching Martial Disciple Rank 8, his body felt noticeably nimbler; his steps landed lighter. When he stepped on a loose piece of gravel, his toes flicked off it for leverage. Yesterday, that would've twisted his ankle.

He hadn't gone far when movement stirred in a pile of rubble.

Three Rock-Back Toads, F-Class, Martial Disciple Rank 9, crouched in a crevice, exhaling a foul stench.

Lin Feng charged straight in.

His blade swept horizontally. The first toad was cut clean in half—its body still flying forward as its head hit the ground.

He spun and finished the second; its head flew three meters away, tumbling into a crack and vanishing.

The third just started to leap. His blade drove down from above, piercing through its back armor and pinning it into the dirt.

Three toads. Six seconds.

[Killed F-Class Exotic Beast: Rock-Back Toad ×3] [Obtained Martial Path Points ×9]

Lin Feng pulled out his blade, flicked off the slime, and moved on.

The deeper he went, the more there were.

A Poison-Claw Centipede slithered out from a crack in the earth, moving fast.

Lin Feng waited until half of it emerged, then severed its tail with one stroke. He stomped on the middle section and finished it with a thrust through the throat.

[Killed F-Class Exotic Beast: Poison-Claw Centipede ×1] [Obtained Martial Path Points ×3]

Ahead, behind a dead tree, two Shadow Leopards crouched low, their tails swishing back and forth.

Lin Feng casually picked up a stone and tossed it. It struck the ground near one leopard's left ear. Startled, it darted sideways—right into the other.

Lin Feng was already there. One slash to the left, one to the right. Clean.

A third circled from the flank. Lin Feng didn't turn. He sidestepped, reversed his grip, and drove the blade through its throat.

Before and after—less than ten seconds.

[Killed F-Class Exotic Beast: Shadow Leopard ×3] [Obtained Martial Path Points ×9]

Deeper in, he ran into an Armor-Splitting Bear. Thick hide. A head-on fight would wear out his blade.

Lin Feng circled around. The bear was slow to react. Before it could chase him, he was already on its back. The blade slid into the gap between its vertebrae and twisted half a turn. The bear's legs gave out. It crashed forward, kicking up a cloud of dust.

[Killed F-Class Exotic Beast: Armor-Splitting Bear ×1] [Obtained Martial Path Points ×3]

Before the dust settled, the grass on the right rustled violently. Two Iron-Hide Boars burst out—Martial Disciple Rank 9, tusks capable of armor piercing.

Lin Feng stepped left, dodging the first boar's charge. He casually sliced off half its ear. The boar screeched and veered, crashing into the second. The two piled together. Lin Feng finished them with two strikes from above.

[Killed F-Class Exotic Beast: Iron-Hide Boar ×2] [Obtained Martial Path Points ×6]

The system pinged nonstop. Lin Feng roamed the Wilderness for a full two and a half hours, going wherever the path took him, killing whatever he found.

[Current Martial Path Points: 180]

Lin Feng found a sheltered spot against a rock wall and sat down, staring at the points in the system.

Keep the points and not use them? Who'd be that stupid?

Half a second later, he decided to go all in.

[Consumed Martial Path Points ×80] [Realm Ascension: Martial Disciple Rank 8 → Martial Disciple Rank 9]

A surge of heat rushed through him, fiercer than before. Lin Feng braced himself and let it pass.

[Consumed Martial Path Points ×90] [Realm Ascension: Martial Disciple Rank 9 → Martial Disciple Perfection]

This time, it hit harder. His whole body felt like it was burning from the inside out. He clenched his jaw, didn't move a muscle. Half an hour later, the heat finally faded.

Lin Feng glanced at the Body Tempering Pills in the brocade pouch. Ten pills, deep red in color, hot to the touch.

Strike while the iron was hot.

If he could break through to Martial Artist before entering the Rift, his survival odds would increase by more than a little.

He took one pill and tossed it into his mouth.

The next second, a burning sensation traveled down his esophagus. Heat exploded from his dantian into his limbs, seeping into his bones and blood vessels. A dense, crackling sound came from within his skeleton—not breaking, but reshaping.

Every vertebra tightened, the gaps growing denser and denser, as if the original skeleton had been hammered back together, each strike packing it tighter and tighter.

Over three minutes.

The final wave of heat dissipated from the crown of his head.

Lin Feng slowly straightened up.

[Breakthrough Successful!]

[Martial Disciple Perfection → Martial Artist Rank 1]

He clenched his fist, casually picked up a stone, and squeezed. Gravel trickled through his fingers.

Good. This was exactly the effect he wanted.

Just as he was about to stand, the system chimed again, this time louder than before.

[Detected host entering Martial Artist realm for the first time. Hidden reward triggered.]

[Talent Unlocked: Steel of the Blade (SS-Rank)]

SS-Rank.

Lin Feng stared at the line of text, stunned.

Talents were innate, not something you could grind out.

Out of the thousands in the garrison, nine out of ten would never even touch the edge of one. Triggering a B-Rank was already enough to make others envious. An A-Rank was even rarer—if the higher-ups caught wind, they could transfer you anytime, and everyone would fight to have you.

S-Rank was vanishingly rare!

SS-Rank was unheard of!

Before enlisting, Lin Feng had flipped through old archives. From the opening of the Rift in the Northern Territory to now, a full fifty years, there were only two documented S-Rank talent holders.

One was the legion's strongest combatant.

The other died in a deep Rift accident two years ago.

Two.

Fifty years.

The entire Northern Territory.

Just those two.

He looked down at the blade in his hand, then back at the System Panel.

[Steel of the Blade: Activates while wielding a blade. Each Exotic Beast killed stacks infinitely. Maximum 500 stacks.]

[Current Stacks: 0/500]

[50 Stacks: Attack speed increased by 100%. Armor Piercing effect applied.]

[150 Stacks: Each strike ignores 100% of the target's defense.]

[300 Stacks: Blade Momentum Penetration. Penetration power does not decay.]

[500 Stacks: Every strike is a critical hit. Damage equivalent to a peak Martial Master's full-force blow, one major realm higher. No cooldown.]

Lin Feng stared at the System Panel for a full five seconds.

He read it from top to bottom, then from bottom to top.

Looked down, then back at the blade in his hand.

Fifty stacks doubled attack speed. One-fifty, true damage on every hit.

Five hundred stacks, every strike a crit, no cooldown, damage equal to a peak Martial Master one realm higher—translated, that meant as a Martial Artist, with full stacks, each slash could hit at Martial Master level.

Every single slash. No cooldown.

This was way too broken!

Thinking it over, Lin Feng accepted it calmly. Maybe he just had good talent.

With that thought, his heart began to stir restlessly.

Just how satisfying would it feel to land critical hits on every strike? The mere thought was exhilarating.

The prerequisite—stacking—wasn't hard either. Just take a few more trips into the Rift and rack them up quickly.

After a moment's deliberation, Lin Feng sheathed his blade, brushed the dust off his pant legs, and headed back toward the camp.

The sky was already turning pale.

The sound of him vaulting over the wall still startled Wang Tie, who was on shift change.

Wang Tie had been dozing against the wall. At the noise, he jerked his head up and saw Lin Feng standing five paces away.

Martial Disciple Rank 9's perception was enough.

Lin Feng stood there doing nothing, but an inexplicable chill ran down Wang Tie's spine. His aura felt like a completely different person from last night—hard to pinpoint exactly what had changed, but it was enough to send a shiver through him.

"You... broke through again?"

"Gained a bit after sleeping."

Wang Tie stared at him, his voice dry. "Rank 8?"

"Rank 1."

"??? How did you regress?"

"Martial Artist Rank 1."

"..."

Wang Tie thought he hadn't heard correctly.

"Last night, when you went in, you were Martial Disciple Rank 7."

"Right."

"This morning, you come out as Martial Artist Rank 1."

"Right."

Wang Tie was silent for a long time.

He knew better than anyone how wide that gap was—it wasn't something you could brute-force through. It was a qualitative change, the threshold that had stumped the toughest veteran he'd ever seen for three years.

Lin Feng had crossed it in one night.

He took two steps back, clearing the way, and forced out a sentence:

"You're not actually cheating, are you?"

Lin Feng walked past without looking back. "Maybe. Cover my shift today. I'm going to sleep."

After a night of desperate, life-or-death combat, Lin Feng was utterly exhausted. Crawling into bed for a good sleep was the only thing on his mind.

Wang Tie stood there, watching that retreating figure grow distant, then looked down at his own calloused hands. For a moment, he felt like all these years of training had been a lie.

He sighed and leaned back against the wall.

Forget it. Don't think about it.

Comparing yourself to others will only drive you crazy!

(PS: Realms: Martial Disciple, Martial Artist, Martial Master, Martial Ancestor, Martial King, Martial Venerable, Martial Saint, Martial Emperor, Martial God)