Jiang Yue had broken down this profound Living Stance of Ancient Martial Arts and woven it seamlessly into his everyday instincts for walking and breathing.
He looked unremarkable, yet this killing art, balancing motion and stillness, was already etched into his bones.
Jiang Yue raised his head toward the massive alloy gate at the end of the passage, beyond which lay the main examination arena. A long-dormant edge flashed in his eyes.
But Shen Qing, who happened to be approaching from the other end of the passage, saw Jiang Yue and felt his pupils contract to pinpoints.
Shen Qing stared at Jiang Yue's steps.
To anyone else, Jiang Yue walked casually, normally.
But as an inheritor of Ancient Martial Arts, Shen Qing was stunned to see that every seemingly casual step Jiang Yue took appeared to root his feet in the alloy floor.
There was not a trace of wasted movement in his waist or hips, yet his spine maintained an incredibly subtle, continuous undulation as he walked.
He was like an enraged dragon lurking at the bottom of an abyss. Its fangs remained hidden, but that terrifying sense of power held in reserve, of motion balanced with stillness, had permeated his every movement!
He no longer needed to deliberately assume the All-Rounder Stance, or even think about how to walk.
As long as he breathed and walked, his body maintained the [Roaming Dragon Stance] at every moment!
"This guy..." Shen Qing swallowed and forced down his shock. He did not dare imagine what terrifying power Jiang Yue was holding back within his body.
Jiang Yue passed Shen Qing, gave him a calm nod, and said nothing.
The Roaming Dragon Stance had not yet become an instinct as effortless as breathing. At times, an extreme shift in force still felt a little awkward.
But it was enough for the battles ahead.
A full month of hellish recruit training had finally reached its brutal conclusion.
With a deafening mechanical roar, four hundred-meter-high gates of Special Alloy surrounding the main plaza slowly rose.
Twenty thousand recruits in dark gray Training Uniforms poured into the plaza from four directions like a silent, oppressive black tide, swiftly forming square formations.
The restlessness and fear of their first days were gone. In their place was a hardened ferocity forged by blood and crushing pressure.
When the recruitment began, thirty thousand people had stood here.
Now, barely over twenty thousand remained.
Of the ten thousand who had vanished, some had suffered shattered bones in the Gravity Well, others had been crippled in Alloy Puppet Alley, and still others had broken under the relentless daily marches and been sent to the sunless logistics mines.
After a month of life-and-death trials, the twenty thousand recruits who survived had been transformed.
Inside the elevated Main Control Room.
Chief Examiner Iron Wrist studied the wide-area holographic scan projected by the Smart Brain. His dark red Mechanical Prosthetic tapped lightly against the table, and a satisfied, savage grin spread across his rugged face.
"Not bad. That month of hard training wasn't wasted."
On the holographic scan, the vast majority of the twenty thousand recruits below glowed a rich, blazing crimson in the thermal image.
It meant their normal baseline strength had passed the five-hundred-kilogram threshold. They had officially reached the level of [Quasi-Martial Artist]!
Powerful Blood Energy surged through their bodies. Unable to control it perfectly, they let it spill outward, gathering into a stifling heat wave above the plaza.
"Quasi-Martial Artists are everywhere, but only a few of them deserve to be called monsters..."
Iron Wrist swept his fingers across the screen, zooming in on several areas at the front of the formations.
Chu Lin, Zhan Feng, and several other prodigies from top Aristocratic Families stood there.
What was chilling was that, while the ordinary recruits around them radiated Blood Energy and bulged with muscle, not the slightest fluctuation of Blood Energy could be sensed from Chu Lin and the others.
They stood quietly, their skin its normal color, without any of the sheen produced by intense Body Forging.
Chief Instructor One-Eye fixed his mechanical eye, glowing with cold red light, on them. His lips curled in cruel approval. "Their auras are contained, their skin membranes without a sheen."
"The pores and subcutaneous fascia throughout their bodies have closed perfectly. They've reached a flawless state in which no Blood Energy leaks out."
One-Eye spoke coldly. "These little monsters have crossed the limits of ordinary humans and entered the true [Skin Tempering Realm]. They're genuine Martial Artists now."
Crossing from Quasi-Martial Artist to true Martial Artist in just one month was astonishing. Even with the combined support of family wealth and military resources, that speed proved how terrifying their talent was.
"Wait..."
Iron Wrist suddenly frowned. His gaze swept across a corner of the holographic display, and he pulled up a data report from the edge of the plaza.
"One-Eye, that civilian kid you thought so highly of—Jiang Yue. What's going on with his data?"
Iron Wrist pointed at Jiang Yue's vital-sign thermal image on the screen.
Among the Quasi-Martial Artists glowing deep crimson with Blood Energy, Jiang Yue's thermal image was a faint, ghostly blue!
His Blood Energy fluctuations were almost imperceptible. He looked like a candle guttering in the wind, not just beside true Martial Artists like Chu Lin, but even beside ordinary Quasi-Martial Artists who had only just crossed the five-hundred-kilogram threshold.
"According to the Smart Brain's scan, the Blood Energy in his body seems to have declined."
Iron Wrist's rugged face was full of confusion and disappointment. "What has that kid been doing these past ten days? Did his training go wrong a few days ago and damage his internal organs?"
Iron Wrist had also noticed Jiang Yue's strange tendency to stumble on level ground over the past few days.
Seeing these dismal numbers, he all but wrote Jiang Yue off.
At that, Instructor One-Eye strode up to the screen.
A sharp gleam flashed in his remaining natural eye as he stared at Jiang Yue, who stood in a corner with his gaze lowered, looking like an ordinary recruit lost in the crowd.
One-Eye watched for a full half minute. Far from looking disappointed, his chest heaved sharply, and he let out a low, spine-chilling laugh.
"Declining Blood Energy?"
One-Eye whipped around and stared at Iron Wrist. "Iron Wrist, it's time you replaced that prosthetic eye. Look again at the way he's standing!"
Iron Wrist froze, then enlarged the image.
On the screen, Jiang Yue appeared to be standing casually, his shoulders relaxed.
But Iron Wrist's keen eye caught the minute inward angle of Jiang Yue's knees. It was nothing like a natural standing posture.
"Wh-what kind of bizarre center of gravity is that?" Iron Wrist sucked in a cold breath.
"He must be practicing some special technique."
One-Eye's mechanical eye flashed rapidly, and his voice brimmed with excitement. "His Blood Energy is drawn inward instead of leaking out. It seems his control over his body has improved considerably."
"How much he's improved, I can't say. We'll see how he performs next."
He strode onto the open-air platform outside the Main Control Room and looked down at the twenty thousand recruits below.
"Now it's time to see what these wolf cubs are made of."
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