Ultimate Tempering

After a brief rest, the ragged panting in the formation had yet to die down when One-Eye spoke again from the platform.

The instructor's voice was not loud, but carried by his powerful blood and vitality, it became an almost tangible wave of sound.

It pierced every eardrum, setting their blood and vitality resonating and bringing with it a heart-stopping pressure.

"Yesterday, I taught you the eighteen stances of the Federal Basic Body Tempering Technique."

The instructor looked down at them, his gaze cold. "You practiced in the barracks and on the training ground. You worked up a sweat and thought you'd already reached the threshold of martial arts?"

He scoffed. The old scar slashing across his mouth twisted, making him look even more ferocious.

"Fools."

"Martial arts are for killing. The techniques the human Federation pried from alien corpses during the Great Crusade Era aren't something you can master by shutting yourselves away and practicing!"

The instructor stepped forward, his heavy military boot striking the metal platform. Blood and vitality surged around him. He looked like a crouching beast, a sight that hit them with visceral force.

"The key to Skin Tempering isn't strength. It's taking blows!"

"If your blood and vitality are too weak to scour your skin, then you must use outside force! Let it shake you! Let heavy blows drive you forward! Fist against flesh—hammer that stagnant blood and vitality deep into your skin until you shed your mortal frailty!"

The instructor pointed straight at the formation below and issued an order.

"Today, you won't practice alone."

"All of you, pair up. No protective gear. Spar for real."

"Use your fists to pound each other's bones. Anyone who holds back will be considered to have avoided combat and expelled on the spot!"

At his words, the entire steel formation fell briefly silent.

Then a wave of pent-up unrest erupted.

Everyone knew what sparring without protective gear meant.

This was more than high-pressure training. It was a chance to beat someone bloody and vent their anger with official permission.

The grueling training and strict rations had already bred deep resentment among many of them.

The simmering anger over resources finally had a legitimate outlet.

"Pair up. Begin!"

Along the edge of the square, hundreds of Supervision Team soldiers racked their Explosive Rifles in unison. The cold mechanical sound snuffed out the recruits' last hesitation.

The crowd quickly shifted, breaking apart the once-neat formation.

Recruits who got along and were evenly matched paired up at once, hoping to avoid being badly hurt by outsiders.

But the well-born recruits with powerful blood and vitality made no effort to hide their aggression.

They turned their eyes toward the commoner recruits around them, looking them over with condescension and amusement.

To them, these commoners with no one backing them were perfect punching bags.

Amid the scramble to find partners, Jiang Yue stood quietly in place.

He was slight, and his gray training uniform hung a little loose. His gaze remained calm as he kept to his usual breathing rhythm, making no rush to find a suitable opponent.

But time ticked by.

The people around him quickly paired off and took their stances.

No one stood beside Jiang Yue.

No one wanted to pair with him.

The reason was simple.

In the military camp, practicality came first.

Jiang Yue's earlier demonstration of the Body Forging Technique had been far too mediocre. His movements were precise but wooden, like a puppet on strings, without a spark of life.

When others practiced their punches, their blood and vitality surged.

When he practiced, his blood and vitality showed no sign of movement, and his bones and sinews made no sound.

Sparring with someone like him was worthless. He could neither provide enough force for an opponent to use against him and hone their own blood and vitality, nor offer any sense of danger or pressure with his stiff counterattacks.

In this war machine built for efficiency, Jiang Yue was like the poorest piece of rotten wood cast aside by the road.

He was not even fit to serve as a whetstone.

At that moment, someone on the other side of the formation stood alone as well.

He was tall and lean, his gray training uniform washed almost white. His hair was disheveled, and his eyes were like those of a lone wolf in the wild, filled with pure martial fervor and a cold disregard for life and death.

The recruits around him drew back in fear, leaving an empty circle around him.

Not far away, Li Tai, who had just found a partner, lowered his voice and warned urgently, "Jiang Yue, don't look at him... That's Shen Qing. He's a madman."

Li Tai swallowed, still shaken. "He's the heir to a fallen martial family. He had a fearsome reputation even before he enlisted..."

Before he could finish, a Supervision Team soldier strode over. His cold gaze swept between Jiang Yue and Shen Qing.

"You two, step out. Pair up."

An order was an order.

Li Tai instantly fell silent, despair and sympathy flashing in his eyes. Faced with a martial arts fanatic like Shen Qing, Jiang Yue—a frail commoner of mediocre aptitude—was already doomed.

Jiang Yue's expression did not change.

Without responding to Li Tai, he walked straight out of the formation and stopped three paces in front of Shen Qing.

Shen Qing looked at him. After a single glance, he frowned slightly, undisguised disappointment crossing his eyes.

"Your steps are unsteady. Your blood and vitality are stagnant."

Shen Qing's voice was hoarse and hard, without a trace of emotion. "You've turned the Basic Body Forging Technique into a set of lifeless poses. However precise your movements are, without blood and vitality flowing through them, you're just a puppet on strings."

He shook his head slightly. "You can't take my punch. Admit defeat and take your punishment from the Supervision Team. It's better than broken bones."

This was not mockery, but an objective judgment born of Shen Qing's martial instincts. Jiang Yue was too weak to be of any value as a sparring partner.

Jiang Yue said nothing.

He sank slightly at the knees, his bones giving a soft crack, and took the third stance of the Basic Body Forging Technique: Gate Sealing. He crossed his arms before his chest and curved his spine slightly. The pose was rigid, but accurate down to the smallest detail.

"Come," Jiang Yue said.

A vicious glint flared in Shen Qing's eyes. In the world of a martial arts fanatic, there was no room for mercy—only the pursuit of power and the crushing of the weak.

"You asked for it."

As the words fell, he moved.

There was no needless flourish. His right foot slammed onto the alloy deck with a dull boom, and he shot forward like a leopard loosed from a bowstring.

A third of his strength.

Shen Qing drew on only a third of his blood and vitality. His fist tore through the air with a sharp whistle.

It rose from below, aimed straight at the centerline between Jiang Yue's crossed arms. It carried the essence of the legendary Ancient Martial Arts technique Drill Fist, its power held tight within to break through hard defenses.

Bang!

Fist met arm.

Jiang Yue felt as though a thousand-pound hammer had struck both his arms. His textbook Gate Sealing, the stance he had been so proud of, crumpled like brittle paper beneath the force of Shen Qing's blood-charged punch.

The force drove through his bones. His guard broke open.

Shen Qing's punch did not stop. The force left in it slammed into Jiang Yue's chest.

Pfft—

Jiang Yue's chest shuddered violently, and his blood and vitality fell into chaos. He flew backward, slid several meters across the alloy deck, and barely came to a stop. A mouthful of bloody froth mixed with bits of damaged tissue burst from his lips.

One move.

A single blow delivered with only a third of Shen Qing's strength had crushed him utterly.

In the distance, Li Tai turned his head, unable to watch. A few cold snorts sounded nearby.

In the military camp, the strong preyed on the weak. Watching someone at the bottom take a beating was just entertainment.

Shen Qing lowered his fist and stood still, his eyes indifferent. He did not pursue.

The sparring match was over. A frail body taking that punch head-on would have suffered damage to the internal organs. Jiang Yue could not possibly stand again.

And yet...

Lying on the cold deck, Jiang Yue was not focused on the tearing pain in his chest.

His eyes were fixed on the edge of his vision.

There, the progress bar that had sat stagnant like dead water because of his weak blood and vitality was blazing with light!

[Activity: Body Forging]

[Status: Intense pressure! External force has entered the body and is being driven through it!]

[Current progress: +++]

Jiang Yue's pupils contracted.

Since yesterday, he had practiced tirelessly, yet he had never managed to unlock the [Body Forging] entry. The reason was clear: his foundation was too weak.

Even with the [Food Digestion] entry extracting vital essence from his nutrient paste, his control over his body was too poor to guide that essence into his skin.

It had pooled in his organs like stagnant sludge, unable to temper his body in the slightest.

But just now!

Shen Qing's ferocious punch had shattered his defense and badly injured his organs. Yet the destructive force that drove into his body had become a forging hammer!

With that single strike, the vital essence pooled in his organs had been shaken loose and hammered deep into the skin of his chest!

The pain was real.

The internal injuries were real.

But so was the ultimate tempering his skin had undergone in that instant between life and death!