Blood Qi Energy

New Recruit Cafeteria.

Aside from the brutal Gravity Chamber exam earlier that morning, there were no additional drills scheduled for the day—a rare luxury for these recruits who constantly danced on the edge of life and death.

Of course, that was only true if you managed to walk out of the exam in one piece, with injuries light enough to avoid spending the rest of the day writhing in agony inside a medical pod.

The cafeteria was packed, but the atmosphere carried an indescribable strangeness.

Nearly half the recruits in the room were deliberately or inadvertently casting glances toward a table in the corner, watching what could only be described as a suicidal feat.

On that wide metal table, a mountain of food had already piled up high!

All of it was exotic beast meat, radiating intense heat and a thick, bloody scent.

From ordinary black boar meat worth 1 merit point to high-grade iron-armored steak worth 10 points—meat so potent that a single whiff would send blood surging through a normal recruit's veins—everything was there.

A rough estimate put the total cost of that table at seventy or eighty military merit points!

The surrounding recruits stared with reddened eyes, swallowing hard, their envy palpable.

In this military camp, where exotic beast meat was treated as a strategic resource, only those who had broken into the top thousand in today's exam and earned merit rewards could afford such extravagance.

But even so—

Even the top-ranked recruits wouldn't dare eat this much in one sitting!

The body had its limits. With such a massive, violent surge of blood and qi energy crammed into the stomach, even a quasi-martial artist would need a long time to digest and absorb it.

Force-feeding yourself like that only led to one outcome: blood vessels bursting from the pressure, qi and blood running wild, causing internal injury.

Yet, under the baffled and even horrified gazes of the crowd, Jiang Yue sat at the table, devouring food like a starving ghost reincarnated.

Not only the high-grade exotic beast meat, but Jiang Yue also had a dozen free gray nutrient paste tubes piled in front of him.

He was genuinely hungry.

After the Gene Lock was violently blasted open, the upgraded green trait [Gluttony] had turned into an abyssal void, ruthlessly draining his stomach.

"Rip—"

Jiang Yue grabbed a half-roasted iron-armored steak, expressionless, and tore off a chunk, tendons and bones included.

He didn't bother chewing slowly. With a gulp, he swallowed it whole.

The violent energy that would send a normal recruit's blood into a frenzy hit his stomach, but didn't even cause a ripple. [Gluttony]'s brutal digestive power crushed and absorbed it instantly, turning it into pure life essence to fill the newly expanded Gene Lock.

In just over ten minutes, under the horrified stares of everyone, Jiang Yue had cleared that mountain of meat!

And to satisfy the bottomless hunger of the [Gluttony] trait, he ignored the massive blood and qi from the exotic meat, crushed a few nutrient paste tubes, and squeezed the gray paste into his mouth in big gulps.

"Hah..."

Jiang Yue swallowed the last bit of nutrient paste, feeling a faint warmth in his stomach, but his brow still furrowed slightly.

"Not full."

He stood up, strode to the serving window, and used the last of his remaining merit points to swipe another tray of dripping exotic beast meat.

Returning to his seat, Jiang Yue unceremoniously split the meat in half and pushed one portion to Li Tai, who sat across from him.

"Eat." Jiang Yue's words were simple and direct.

On the day he first enlisted, when Jiang Yue stayed late for extra training, Li Tai had offered a rare kindness.

Jiang Yue wasn't cold by nature, but he wasn't particularly sociable either. He didn't form many bonds, but he recognized kindness when he saw it.

After waking up in the medical pod and completing his gene optimization, he'd made a detour to the general ward, dragged Li Tai—who had only suffered minor internal injuries—to the cafeteria.

"Come on, Brother Jiang, Brother Yue! I really can't eat anymore!"

Li Tai looked at the meat pushed in front of him, radiating violent blood and qi, his face more miserable than if he were crying.

Rubbing his calf, still strained from the gravity test and not fully healed, he waved his hands frantically.

"That piece of exotic meat you forced on me earlier is still sitting in my stomach! If I eat more, this frail body of mine is going to start spraying nosebleeds."

Li Tai let out a bitter sigh, then looked Jiang Yue up and down with a gaze that said he was staring at a monster. Lowering his voice, he couldn't help but mutter:

"Jiang Yue, how the hell do you digest all that energy? That's seventy or eighty merit points' worth of high-grade meat! You haven't even broken a sweat? Is your stomach made of alloy furnace or something..."

The recruits eavesdropping nearby were also stunned, their looks at Jiang Yue shifting from initial envy to deep, genuine awe.

Being strong didn't necessarily make you a monster, but someone who could eat like that without changing expression—that was definitely a monster!

Just as the crowd was reeling in shock, the cafeteria's entrance suddenly echoed with the heavy, rhythmic stomp of military boots.

The noisy cafeteria fell silent instantly.

Two soldiers in deep black trench coats, with crossed blood-blade badges on their chests—symbols of life-and-death authority—walked in expressionlessly.

The Supervision Team.

The most feared organization on the Floating Land.

The air seemed to freeze in an instant.

Every recruit instinctively held their breath, not daring to make a sound.

Two members of the Supervision Team swept their gazes across the cafeteria like hawks, finally locking onto Jiang Yue, who sat in a corner with a pile of empty plates in front of him.

One of them stepped forward, and a cold, mechanical synthesized voice cut through the silent mess hall:

"Who is Jiang Yue?"

Jiang Yue paused in wiping the grease from his hands, slowly lifting his head. His eyes, deep and still as an ancient well, held not a single ripple.

"I am."

The Supervision Team member looked him up and down, his voice hard and devoid of any emotion:

"Come with us. The instructor wants to see you."

Jiang Yue rose without a word and followed the two expressionless veterans of the Supervision Team straight out of the noisy cafeteria.

Along the way, passing through heavily guarded armored corridors, Jiang Yue's gaze remained calm, but deep down, he was somewhat puzzled.

The head instructor, One-Eye, wanted to see him alone?

In theory, his rank among the thirty thousand new recruits was indeed in the upper tier, but the 876th spot was only enough to catch the instructors' slight attention—far from outstanding.

The truly dazzling ones were martial arts prodigies like Chu Lin, who ranked in the top ten.

He couldn't fathom why someone would take such an interest in a mid-to-lower-tier recruit.

"Maybe it has to do with my performance during the gene serum injection..."

As he pondered, the veteran stopped before a fully sealed, high-level private training ground, swiped open the airtight door, and gestured for Jiang Yue to enter alone.