Monthly Grand Exam

Reshaping his body's instincts came at a far more brutal cost than Jiang Yue had imagined.

By the very next day.

"One! Two! Three! Four!"

The veteran instructors' harsh, vicious shouts rang out as the Recruits began their daily weighted cross-country run.

Not only had the distance increased, but fifty kilograms of Specialized Lead Weights had been crammed into every recruit's pack.

Heavy footsteps rolled along the track like muffled thunder. Sweat struck the ground like rain, only to evaporate instantly from the heat of the track.

At the very back of the enormous formation, Jiang Yue was struggling along the track in a bizarre posture.

There was no other word for it: he was inching forward.

Every time he tried to take a step, his brain issued the most basic commands: lift the thigh, set down the heel, shift his weight forward.

But his body tilted backward beyond his control, his knees turning inward as it tried to lock his center of gravity firmly into his lower body, forcing him into the Ancient Martial Arts combat state of the Roaming Dragon Stance, where motion and stillness worked as one, Holding the Origin and Guarding the One.

On one side was the ordinary physical instinct to walk forward. On the other was the inward-drawing, Mount Tai-steady force of the Ancient Martial Arts Stake Stance.

The two utterly different ways of generating force warred through every part of Jiang Yue's body, tearing against each other.

The result was that the moment Jiang Yue awkwardly stepped out with his left foot, his right knee turned inward on the instinct of the Stake Stance.

It was as if his left foot had tripped his right with perfect precision. His upper body was as stiff as an iron plate, and he stumbled along with his steps in utter disarray.

Thud!

His center of gravity slipped in the struggle. Jiang Yue's legs gave way, and he crashed onto the hard Rubber Track like a felled tree.

The fifty kilograms of Specialized Lead Weights in his pack struck the ground with a heavy boom.

The sudden noise drew startled, puzzled glances from many of the Recruits struggling nearby.

Jiang Yue was no unknown name in the Recruit Camp.

After winning the Thousand-Jin Stake wager against a veteran and breaking into the top five hundred in Alloy Puppet Alley, he had become a familiar face.

To them, he was a tough contender who improved at an astonishing pace.

So what had happened to him?

He couldn't even walk steadily during a run? He was falling over on level ground?

Had he secretly gone back to the Underground Black Market to fight these past few days and taken a blow from some expert that had damaged his spine or nerves?

Plenty of Recruits were eliminated or left broken by the intense training or private fights every day.

Their surprise lasted only a moment. They promptly looked away and kept running through gritted teeth. No one had spare energy to waste on someone who didn't matter to them.

Jiang Yue lay on the scorching track without rushing to get up.

He closed his eyes slightly and turned all his attention inward, carefully tracing how his deep muscles had exerted force at the instant he fell, and the tiny point where his balance had finally collapsed.

The walking commands I'm giving my body are still too deliberate...

Jiang Yue worked it through in his mind. If I have to think about which leg to move first just to walk, I'll never dodge an attack in a real fight.

I have to weave the Roaming Dragon Stance into every step. I can't think about it. I have to let my body remember it on its own, until the stance becomes a new instinct...

With that settled, Jiang Yue braced his hands against the ground. His bones grated together with a teeth-aching sound as he prepared to stand again.

"Get up."

Two strong hands reached in from either side and hauled Jiang Yue up by the arms. They belonged to Li Tai and Xu Bo, his roommates.

Both men were drenched in sweat and gasping for breath. Gritting their teeth, they dragged Jiang Yue's heavy body to its feet.

"Jiang Yue, something's wrong with you. Did your training go awry?"

Li Tai wiped the sweat from his face and asked in a low, worried voice.

"I'm fine. My body's adapting to a new way of exerting force. My coordination's a little off."

"I should be able to get through training."

Jiang Yue offered no further explanation. He patted them both on the shoulders and used their support to steady himself, then stumbled after the formation in that twisted posture until he had finished the entire run.

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

The painful process of rebuilding his instincts affected every part of his performance.

His results in every fitness test, obstacle course, and basic military combat sparring match plummeted.

In sparring, he could barely dodge even the most ordinary straight punch, let alone counterattack.

Yet even when he was beaten black and blue, he refused to strike back with so much as a trace of brute force.

He knew that the moment he relied on brute force, the essence of the Roaming Dragon Stance would be swept away by his old, rough-and-ready instincts.

In the camp cafeteria.

Xu Bo sat down opposite Jiang Yue with his tray. Seeing the bruises Jiang Yue had picked up in sparring, he couldn't help sighing.

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

Xu Bo hesitated, then said, "He says if you'll step into the ring one more time, he'll pay you fifty Points just for showing up. Win or lose—even if you surrender as soon as you get up there. They want to use your name to draw a crowd."

"I'm not going back for the next few days."

Jiang Yue did not even look up as he ate one cut of meat after another.

"But with the state you're in, the Monthly Grand Exam is almost here. If you fall out of the top five hundred, everything you've done will be for nothing! Why not take the fifty Points and get some medicine for your injuries..." Xu Bo sounded anxious.

"I said I'm not going, and that's final." Jiang Yue's voice was calm, but his resolve was unmistakable.

He knew exactly what stage he was in.

This was the most fragile and most critical part of breaking out of the cocoon.

Underground fights could earn him quick Points, but in a bloody ring where every punch landed, controlling himself would be much harder.

If his life came under threat, his body's survival instinct would overwhelm reason. It would cast aside the still-unstable foundations of the Roaming Dragon Stance he had only just built and fall back on his old, brutal, undisciplined fighting instincts.

Then all the suffering of the past few days, all the hundreds of times he had fallen, would have been for nothing.

On paper, Jiang Yue's results were dismal, and outwardly he was in such poor shape that even walking was difficult. But only he knew how profound a Metamorphosis was taking place inside him.

One thing was entirely different from before.

Though he had deliberately held back these past few days, so his Blood Energy and strength had barely improved, his reaction speed and the coordination of his deep muscles were soaring at a rate that defied biology!

It was rebirth after destruction.

His body still held residual energy from the High-Energy Radiation Fluid it had absorbed, as well as the gains brought by the Stake Stance.

None of that energy went toward building up his surface muscles. All of it was being used to repair and reshape the microscopic nerves torn by his Living Stance practice.

One day, two days, three days...

Time slipped by amid the Recruits' cries of misery and the excruciating process of their transformation.

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

On the fifth day, he was no longer merely taking blows in sparring. His strange footwork occasionally let him slip past an opponent's punch, though it still looked awkward.

In the training that followed, Jiang Yue remained unremarkable, but he was no longer helpless at the bottom of the pack.

He controlled his results precisely, keeping them on the edge of a passing grade—never drawing attention, but never doing badly enough to be eliminated.

Then came the eve of the Thirty-Day Monthly Exam that would decide their fates.

The morning mist had yet to lift.

Carrying his pack, Jiang Yue walked calmly through the camp's Alloy Corridor.

A few passing Recruits gave him a casual glance, then looked away and went on discussing the approaching exam.

To them, the twisted, comical gait caused by Jiang Yue's supposed "hidden injury" seemed to have returned to normal. He no longer tripped over his own feet or stumbled along.

His steps were steady, his shoulders relaxed.

No violent Blood Energy leaked from him, and his body showed no exaggerated bulging muscles. He gave off no sense of pressure.

He looked like an ordinary recruit whose edges had been worn smooth by relentless training, someone who had faded completely into the crowd.

But if Shen Qing had been there and watched Jiang Yue's steps closely through the eyes of an Ancient Martial Arts practitioner, he would have discovered something terrifying—

With every seemingly normal step Jiang Yue took, his spine made minute adjustments.

Each footfall looked casual, yet his entire body's center of gravity shifted in perfect coordination.

The Roaming Dragon Stance was complete.