Betting Rules

At noon, in the District B cafeteria.

Under the red warning lights, a rich, overpowering aroma of fat filled the air, nothing like the bland industrial smell of synthetic food in District A.

Jiang Yue carried his specially made alloy bowl to a corner and sat down.

Inside was the Black-Armored Scaled Ox Meat Soup that had cost him everything he had: fifteen points.

The broth was as red as blood, with a thick layer of golden fat floating on its surface.

Despite being called minced meat, every piece had been cut into a neat cube. They bobbed in the scalding broth, giving off a dizzying sense of concentrated energy.

At the nearby tables, several recruits who had pooled their points to try it were sipping cautiously.

After every mouthful, they closed their eyes and paused for a long while. Some even flushed red, clearly struggling to channel their blood and qi to digest nourishment their bodies could barely handle.

Jiang Yue did not hesitate.

He lifted the bowl and tipped back his head, gulping down the scalding soup like strong liquor, hard bone fragments and all.

Gulp.

Heat rushed down his esophagus into his stomach, as though he had swallowed a lump of burning coal.

At the edge of his vision, the long-dormant panel lit up.

[Action: Eating]

[Status: High-energy substance ingested!]

[Current trait: Food Digestion (White)—overloaded.]

[Description: Stomach contraction frequency increased by 300%. Extracting the violent essence from the Black-Armored Scaled Ox's flesh and blood... conversion begun.]

A rumble like muffled thunder rolled through Jiang Yue's abdomen.

An ordinary person who ate like this would probably have suffered stomach bleeding by now.

But under the overwhelming force of [Food Digestion], energy potent enough to burst an ordinary person's blood vessels was crushed and broken down.

Streams of heat so pure they felt almost tangible surged from his stomach like magma, pouring into limbs that had been starved for far too long.

His skin, once sallow from long-term malnutrition, visibly took on a healthy flush. It even seemed to shine.

Ten minutes.

In just ten minutes, Jiang Yue set down the empty bowl. He had even chewed up and swallowed the bits of bone marrow at the bottom.

The [Food Digestion] progress bar had leaped forward.

He stood, feeling as though every pore was breathing out scorching white steam.

The fullness that came after such a long deprivation made him want to throw back his head and roar.

Late that night, at two in the morning.

The lights in the Honeycomb Barracks had long since gone out, and snores rose and fell all around.

Jiang Yue lay inside his capsule with his eyes shut.

[Calm Spirit] was dutifully trying to ease his brain into a deep sleep.

This time, though, his body would not settle.

That bowl of Black-Armored Scaled Ox soup had contained too much energy.

For his still-growing body, it was more nourishment than he could handle.

Scalding blood and qi charged through his vessels. If he did not release it, the pent-up heat would damage his organs instead.

"I can't sleep."

Jiang Yue's eyes flew open, and he sat up.

He quietly opened the capsule, slipped past the patrolling mechanical guards like a nimble cat, and made his way to the edge of the Floating Land.

Five minutes later.

Floating Continent 17, G4 Abandoned Deck Area.

A huge ventilation opening faced the area, letting in howling interstellar winds cold enough to freeze an ordinary person's blood.

But Jiang Yue stood bare-chested before the opening and felt only cool relief.

"Phew..."

He exhaled a long stream of mist.

Jiang Yue took his stance and performed the first form of the Federal Basic Body Tempering Technique: Draw Bow.

Crack!

This time, the meridians that had felt dry and strained seemed soaked in oil.

With ample energy to draw on, [Tough Skin] pulled taut and his muscles drove a punch forward. The air snapped sharply.

That felt good.

Jiang Yue's eyes shone, and he kept moving.

The second form, the third...

He repeated the routine he knew by heart without tiring.

With [Food Digestion] supplying a steady flow of energy, every punch was firm, every exertion precise.

Sweat had barely seeped through his skin before his body heat turned it to mist, shrouding him.

Just as Jiang Yue lost himself in the pleasure of circulating his blood and qi, an out-of-place electronic voice sounded from the darkness.

He stopped at once and spun around, every muscle tensing as he took a defensive stance.

"Who's there?"

Something shifted in the shadows.

A thin figure slowly emerged.

It was a boy wearing heavy tactical goggles. He looked scholarly, even sickly pale.

He held a modified, old-style military data terminal. Its screen lit his face, revealing a hint of feverish excitement.

"Easy, easy."

The boy raised both hands to show he meant no harm, but his eyes stayed fixed on Jiang Yue as though he were looking at a rare treasure. "I was just passing by... and collecting a little data while I was at it."

Jiang Yue frowned. "Data?"

"Let me introduce myself. Xu Bo, a recruit from Barracks 302."

Xu Bo pushed up his goggles, unable to hide his excitement. "I watched you for half an hour. You threw eight hundred Thrust Punches and three hundred Whip Legs."

He turned the terminal toward Jiang Yue. On the screen, a series of waveforms lay almost perfectly on top of one another.

"See those lines?"

Xu Bo's voice trembled with excitement. "Without any mechanical assistance, you kept the variation in your punch angle, force, and even the timing of your breathing below two percent."

"Even the prodigies from martial arts families lose form as they tire. Their results vary a lot."

"But you're different."

Xu Bo stared at Jiang Yue. "Your variation is as low as a robot's. That kind of consistency is incredibly rare."

Jiang Yue relaxed his stance, though the wariness in his eyes remained.

He knew the reason: the panel gave him absolute control. Once it had recorded an action, his body carried it out faithfully.

"So?" Jiang Yue asked coolly. "What are you getting at?"

"I want to make a deal."

Xu Bo stepped closer, speaking rapidly. "I've got a hundred formulas for improving how force is applied, but this lousy body of mine...

"You can see for yourself. I can't put them into practice. I need a living model who can follow my instructions perfectly and test my theories."

As if afraid Jiang Yue would refuse, Xu Bo immediately offered an incentive:

"In exchange, I can fine-tune your movements. Your form is steady, but some of your angles leave force untapped. They're inefficient.

"Take that last punch. If you'd raised your elbow another three degrees and delayed your breath by 0.1 seconds, your blood-and-qi transmission would have improved by at least five percent."

Jiang Yue's interest stirred.

Five percent better blood-and-qi transmission?

If it was true, his [Body Forging] trait would progress even faster.

"Let's try it," Jiang Yue said.

Following Xu Bo's instructions, he adjusted his elbow and threw another punch.

Crack!

The snap was even cleaner than before.

At the edge of his vision, the [Body Forging] progress bar jumped a little farther than it had previously.

"You know your stuff."

The way Jiang Yue looked at Xu Bo changed. This guy had a real talent for theory.

"Heh. Of course I do."

Xu Bo tucked away his terminal with a smug grin. "But training alone won't be enough. Your blood and qi are surging—you just ate something good, didn't you? Meat from District B?"

Jiang Yue nodded. "Black-Armored Scaled Ox."

"Good stuff. Shame it's so expensive."

Xu Bo sighed and sat down on the deck. "Fifteen points a bowl. We recruits only get a fixed monthly allowance. If you want meat every day, you'll starve before you earn enough from training rewards."

That struck a nerve.

Jiang Yue's pockets were empty. Those fifteen points had become heat in his stomach.

Tomorrow and the day after, he would be back to eating that damned gray paste.

"You know a way to earn points?" Jiang Yue asked.

"I wouldn't call it a way, but I know where you can get some."

Xu Bo pointed toward the center of the Floating Land, where lights blazed and faint noise carried through the night.

That was where the Supervision Team and instructors were stationed. It was also the only area of the Floating Land where veterans were allowed to gather.

"The military bans private fights, but that rule's for us new recruits."

Xu Bo lowered his voice, a mix of longing and fear in it. "For veterans who've crawled out of piles of corpses, training us is boring. They need entertainment."

"Entertainment?"

"Yeah. Wagers."

Xu Bo explained, "They don't fight to the death in a ring. Too easy for something to go wrong. The veterans bet on Quality Stakes instead.

"Things like who can do more weighted squats, who can endure a high-voltage current longer, or who can take more hits."

"They set odds and sometimes compete themselves. If you've got a knack for something and you're willing to risk your life, you can win their points."

Xu Bo looked Jiang Yue up and down, his eyes gleaming.

"You're not the strongest, but that machine-like endurance and consistency of yours...

"You're made for Endurance Stakes. Those veterans will misjudge you. They'll think you're an easy mark who can do nothing but hang on."

"How high are the odds?" Jiang Yue asked, getting straight to the point.

"Scary high. To the veterans, we recruits are all weaklings."

Xu Bo pushed up his glasses. "Well? Want to take a look? You don't have any points to wager right now, but it wouldn't hurt to learn the way there and find out the rules."

Jiang Yue was silent for two seconds.

He touched his stomach, which had finally begun to settle.

The strength the meat had given him was fading, replaced by a longing for his next meal.

"Let's go."

Jiang Yue grabbed his shirt from where it hung nearby and draped it over his shoulders, concealing his lean, powerful muscles.

"Lead the way."