Arena Wager

Seven days passed in the blink of an eye.

On the vast meat grinder that was Military Floating Land, seven days were enough to shatter a recruit's mind. They were also enough to forge a rough lump of iron into the beginnings of a deadly weapon.

Late at night, in the training room beside the barracks.

Jiang Yue stood bare-chested, hammering through rapid squats and Thrust Punches with savage intensity!

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Every punch that struck the high-density alloy sandbag erupted with a dull report like a solid cannonball bursting.

The shock-absorbing floor of the entire Extra Training Room trembled faintly with his movements.

But the true force behind his near-total transformation over the past seven days was his upgraded ability, [Gluttony]!

During those seven days, Jiang Yue had spent nearly all the 100 Points awarded by the military and the additional 100 Points bestowed by Instructor One-Eye.

A full two hundred military merit Points!

For any other recruit, that fortune would have lasted months with careful budgeting.

Jiang Yue, however, had traded it all for Exotic Beast meat brimming with violent Blood Energy in just seven days.

Black Scale Leopard loin, Iron-Armored Ox marrow, and even a small, extravagant portion of mildly venomous Venom-Sting Python meat.

An ordinary Quasi-Martial Artist who ate like that would have burst apart and died long ago.

But the upgraded [Gluttony] displayed an almost tyrannical power of digestion.

No matter how violent or difficult to digest the energy was, once it entered his stomach, it was instantly crushed, stripped of impurities, and converted completely into the purest life force!

The immense energy his body could not absorb right away was locked inside his stomach by [Gluttony]. It was the reserve that let him push his body so brutally in the Gravity Chamber now!

"Phew—"

Jiang Yue stopped abruptly and breathed out a long stream of hot white vapor.

In the cold air of the Gravity Chamber, it shot more than three feet like a straight arrow before slowly dissipating.

He walked to the Combat Power Tester, bent his knees slightly, and settled his stance.

He needed no elaborate windup. Jiang Yue's right arm drew back like a fully bent bow. His spine crackled like popping beans, and his fist tore through the air with a piercing sonic boom before slamming into the Force Measurement Target!

The target let out a tortured mechanical whine. Red numbers raced across the screen before stopping on a figure that made his scalp prickle:

[Instantaneous Punching Force: 718 KG!]

Jiang Yue stared at the scarlet number, withdrew his fist, and wiped the sweat from his brow. A sharp gleam flashed in his dark eyes.

"718 kilograms..."

Seven days ago, when he had just emerged from the Medical Pod after completing Gene Optimization, his strength had barely passed the 500-kilogram threshold for a Quasi-Martial Artist.

After only seven days and nights of frenzied eating and Body Forging under crushing pressure, his strength had risen by more than two hundred kilograms!

If word of that progress spread, it would send a chill through the entire Recruit Camp.

In his first ten days at the camp, he had climbed from a bottom-ranked 285 kilograms to nearly 500. That had already been astonishing.

And martial arts cultivation only grew harder with every step!

Crossing from 500 to 700 kilograms was several times harder than what had come before!

Even with Gene Enhancement Serum, an ordinary recruit would need at least two or three months of steady work to build up enough Blood Energy to cross that 200-kilogram gap.

But Jiang Yue had done it.

The expanded Gene Lock, combined with [Gluttony] absorbing everything without developing tolerance... Together, they're forcing my evolution at a terrifying rate.

Jiang Yue looked down at his hands.

Despite his explosive growth over the past seven days, his body felt anything but unstable.

If anything, it had grown frighteningly dense.

Jiang Yue squeezed his forearm.

His skin, once marked only by a dull blue-black sheen, now had a faintly rough texture, like old oxhide woven with metal fibers.

When he pressed a finger into it, he felt powerful resistance spring back, as though a dense layer of polymer armor lay beneath the skin.

That was the core of the first stage of martial arts—the [Skin Membrane]!

Without a Skin Membrane tough enough to contain the violent force of over 700 kilograms, the recoil from that last punch would have shattered his finger bones and torn his arm muscles before it ever struck the target.

"At this rate, it won't be long before I reach the 1,000-kilogram threshold. Once my Skin Membrane fully forms and I can channel that power through my entire body, I'll truly enter the Skin Tempering Realm!"

Jiang Yue walked to the side, unscrewed his water bottle, and took a long drink of salt water.

Only thirteen days remained until the Monthly Grand Exam set by Instructor One-Eye.

Breaking into the top five hundred in an exam with an even harsher elimination rate would be no small feat.

I still don't have enough resources...

Jiang Yue looked at the single-digit balance of military merit Points on his terminal and frowned slightly.

He had consumed every last Point the instructor had given him. If he wanted to keep advancing over the next thirteen days, he needed more resources.

For now, he had no better plan. Jiang Yue picked up the black training jacket draped over a bench, pulled it on, and left the Gravity Chamber.

The corridor's motion-activated lights were dim at this hour. Jiang Yue's steps were steady and silent.

His high-intensity extra training had finally ended late that night.

With his powerful body still faintly burning, Jiang Yue wore his black training jacket and walked through the cold moonlight toward the barracks to rest.

He was still wondering where he could find enough Points to feed the bottomless pit that was [Gluttony].

Just then, a figure stepped out from around a metal corner ahead.

"Jiang! Just finished your extra training?"

It was Xu Bo.

The kid had barely managed a lower-middle ranking in the previous Gravity Exam and had not qualified for Gene Enhancement Serum. But his keen nose for information and easy way with people had made him right at home in the Recruit Camp. He had become its resident know-it-all.

"Mm." Jiang Yue stopped and gave him a brief look.

Xu Bo glanced around, leaned in conspiratorially, and lowered his voice. "Jiang, something big is happening tonight in the Grey Zone by the Veteran Barracks Area!"

At that, a flicker of interest stirred in Jiang Yue's otherwise calm eyes.

He had not taken part in any wagers these past few days. Entering cost something, and while he was improving so quickly, he had no reason to spend his time and energy gambling.

"What kind of big thing?" Jiang Yue asked, intrigued.

"Lately, there's been a recruit practically living in the veterans' Gambling Arena like a man possessed."

Xu Bo swallowed, his voice tinged with alarm and excitement. "He's won several rounds straight on the Thousand-Jin Stake and Extreme Endurance Training wagers! He's nearly cleaned out a few veterans and made a fortune."

"Veterans don't have much to spare as it is. Having some fresh-faced recruit fleece them like that has made everyone furious."

"Some of the veterans are especially angry. They feel like a recruit has humiliated them right to their faces."

"So a few tough veterans took the lead and issued a challenge tonight. No more endurance or pressure tests. They're settling it with a match in the arena!"