Monthly Grand Exam

The cost of reshaping his body's instincts was far more brutal than Jiang Yue had anticipated.

It was only the second day.

"One! Two! Three! Four!"

Accompanied by the veteran instructor's hoarse, vicious roar, the recruits were undergoing their daily weighted cross-country training.

Beyond the extended distance, each recruit's pack was also stuffed with fifty kilograms of special lead blocks.

The heavy footsteps merged into a continuous rumble on the track, like muffled thunder rolling. Sweat rained down, striking the ground in droplets that instantly evaporated on the scorching surface.

At the very tail of the massive formation, Jiang Yue was moving along the track in an extremely bizarre, difficult manner.

That's right—it could only be called shuffling.

Every time he tried to take a step forward, his cerebral cortex issued the most basic command: lift the thigh, land on the heel, shift the center of gravity forward.

Yet his body would uncontrollably tilt backward, his knees buckling inward, trying to lock his center of gravity firmly into his lower stance, forcibly entering the [Roaming Dragon Stance]—that state of dynamic stillness, of Holding the Origin and Guarding the One, the explosive combat posture of Ancient Martial Arts.

On one side was the conventional physiological inertia of walking forward; on the other was the inward-contracting, mountain-steady Ancient Martial Arts stake stance.

Two completely different logics of force generation clashed wildly within Jiang Yue's limbs, tearing against each other.

The result was that as soon as Jiang Yue's left foot awkwardly stepped out, his right knee would instinctively buckle inward due to the stake stance's reflex.

His entire body seemed to trip over its own feet, his upper body stiff as an iron board, stumbling and staggering in utter chaos.

"Thump!"

Losing control of the gravitational tug-of-war, Jiang Yue's legs gave way, and he fell like a chopped log, crashing heavily onto the hard rubber track.

The fifty-kilogram special lead block in his pack slammed the ground with a dull, heavy boom.

This sudden commotion drew sideways glances from many recruits who were already struggling to hold on, their eyes flickering with surprise and oddity.

The name Jiang Yue wasn't unknown in the Recruit Camp.

Especially after the Thousand-Jin Stake bet victory over the veterans and breaking into the top five hundred in Alloy Puppet Alley, many remembered his face.

In their impression, he was a ruthless character who improved rapidly.

But now, what was this?

Running and unable to even walk steadily, tripping on flat ground?

Could it be that he'd sneaked off to the Underground Black Market for a fight these past few days and taken severe internal damage from some expert, injuring his spinal nerves?

It wasn't uncommon for recruits to be eliminated or crippled from high-intensity training or private brawls.

The others were only startled for a moment before quickly looking away, gritting their teeth and continuing to run forward. No one would waste their limited energy on someone irrelevant.

Jiang Yue lay on the scorching track, not rushing to get up.

He slightly closed his eyes, sinking all his attention into his body, carefully sensing the force-generation path of his deep muscle groups at the moment of the fall, and the tiny node where his center of gravity had ultimately collapsed.

"The walking command from my brain is still too deliberate..."

Jiang Yue silently deduced in his mind. "If I have to think about which leg to step with just to walk, I won't be able to dodge attacks in actual combat. I need to fully integrate the Roaming Dragon Stance into every lift and landing of my feet—no thinking, just letting my body remember on its own, letting this stake stance become a new instinct..."

After finishing his deduction, Jiang Yue pressed his hands against the ground, his bones emitting a grating sound as he prepared to stand again.

"Get up."

Two strong hands reached in from left and right, grabbing Jiang Yue's arms. It was Li Tai and Xu Bo from the same dorm.

Both were drenched in sweat, panting heavily, gritting their teeth as they hauled the heavy Jiang Yue up from the ground.

"Brother Jiang, you're not right. Did you go off the rails with your training?" Li Tai wiped the sweat from his face and asked in a low, worried voice.

"It's nothing. My body is adapting to a new way of generating force—just a bit uncoordinated."

"I should barely be able to hold through training."

Jiang Yue didn't explain further. He just patted both their shoulders in return, using their support to steady himself, and continued following the formation in that twisted, stumbling manner until the run was finished.

Over the next few days, Jiang Yue became a complete outsider in the Recruit Camp.

The painful period of reshaping his force-generation instincts affected all his assessments across the board.

His scores in all physical tests, obstacle courses, and even basic military combat sparring plummeted like a cliff.

In combat sparring, he couldn't even dodge the most ordinary straight punch, let alone counterattack.

But even when beaten black and blue, he absolutely refused to use any brute force to fight back.

Because he knew that once he resorted to brute force, the essence of the Roaming Dragon Stance would instantly be scattered by the instincts of his old, crude methods.

Camp cafeteria.

Xu Bo sat down across from Jiang Yue with his tray, looking at the bruises from sparring on Jiang Yue's body, and couldn't help but sigh.

"Brother Jiang, the Butcher had someone pass me a message today."

Xu Bo hesitated for a moment before speaking. "He said that if you're willing to step onto the ring one more time—win or lose, even if you go up and just forfeit—he'll give you fifty points as an appearance fee. They want to use your name to stir up some hype."

"I won't be going these next few days."

Jiang Yue didn't even lift his eyelids, sending piece after piece of steak into his mouth.

"But look at your state right now—the monthly exam is coming up soon. If you get pushed out of the top five hundred, everything you've worked for will be wasted! Why not just grab those fifty points and trade for some healing medicine..." Xu Bo's voice carried a note of urgency.

"I said I'm not going, so I'm not going." Jiang Yue's tone was calm, but it carried an unyielding finality.

He knew exactly what stage he was in right now.

This was the most fragile yet most critical period of pain before breaking through the cocoon and becoming a butterfly.

Fighting in the underground ring could earn quick cash, but on that bloody stage where every blow landed flesh against bone, he would inevitably find it harder to control himself.

If he faced a life-threatening crisis, his body's survival instinct would absolutely overwhelm his reason in an instant, forcing him to abandon the unstable prototype of the [Roaming Dragon Stance] he had just established and regress to his original crude, wild fighting instincts.

Then all the suffering he'd endured these past few days, the hundreds of falls he'd taken, would have been for nothing.

Although Jiang Yue's current surface-level results and external condition could be described as abysmal—he could barely even walk—only he himself understood the terrifying internal transformation he was undergoing.

There was one thing that was completely different from before.

Though he had deliberately suppressed his progress these past few days, and his qi, blood, and strength values hadn't improved much, his neural reaction speed and the coordination of his deep muscle groups were skyrocketing at a rate that defied biological common sense!

This was rebirth after destruction.

The residual energy from the [High-Energy Radiation Fluid] his body had absorbed earlier, along with the progress from his stake stance training.

These energies hadn't gone to strengthen his superficial muscle mass; instead, they were all being used to repair and reshape the microscopic nerves torn from practicing the Living Stance.

One day, two days, three days...

Time slipped away quietly amid the wails and extreme, painful transformations of these new recruits.

On the fourth day, during the thirty-kilometer cross-country run, Jiang Yue's number of falls dropped from a hundred to ten.

On the fifth day, during combat sparring, he was no longer a punching bag. His erratic footwork occasionally allowed him to dodge his opponent's fists, though it still looked extremely awkward.

In the training that followed, Jiang Yue's performance remained unremarkable, but he was no longer the bottom-dweller everyone could bully.

He precisely controlled his results, hovering right at the edge of the passing line—not enough to draw attention, but not enough to be eliminated outright.

Until the eve of the life-or-death [Thirty-Day Monthly Exam].

The morning mist had yet to fully dissipate.

Jiang Yue carried his backpack and walked calmly through the alloy corridors of the camp.

A few passing recruits casually glanced at him, then looked away, continuing their discussion of the upcoming exam.

In their eyes, Jiang Yue's twisted, comical gait from his "hidden injuries" seemed to have completely returned to normal. He no longer tripped over his own feet like in the past few days, no longer stumbled.

His steps were steady, his shoulders relaxed.

There was no violent eruption of qi and blood from his body, no exaggerated bulging of muscles to be seen. He carried no sense of pressure.

He looked like just another ordinary recruit whose edges had been ground smooth by intense training, completely indistinguishable from the crowd.

With every seemingly normal step Jiang Yue took, his spine was making adjustments.

With every seemingly casual landing of his foot, his center of gravity was perfectly mobilized.

The Roaming Dragon Stance was complete.