Body Repair

Drip—

"Unit 074 individual medical pod, bone healing at 62%, minimum training standard met. Waking from hibernation, forced ejection."

The cold mechanical synthesized voice echoed through the medical district on the bottom level of Floating Continent 17.

Inside the massive sterile chamber, hundreds of cylindrical medical pods were arranged in neat rows.

The recruits who had suffered broken bones and internal injuries during yesterday's unarmed combat drills were all submerged within.

The air was thick with the acrid smell of high-concentration basic repair fluid.

In the Federation barracks, medical resources were never meant to fully heal anyone.

As long as bone healing reached sixty percent—enough to move and run—the mainframe would deem it sufficient and forcibly eject the wounded from the pod.

"Drip—Unit 112, healing at 60%, forced ejection."

"Drip—Unit 209, healing at 65%, forced ejection."

With a continuous series of pressure-release hisses, the doors of over a hundred medical pods slid open. A third of the wounded were roughly shoved onto the cold alloy floor by mechanical arms.

Muffled grunts and sharp intakes of breath rose and fell in waves.

These hundred-plus recruits dragged themselves upright, their incompletely healed broken bones and aching internal organs protesting every movement.

Behind them, the remaining two-thirds of the severely injured would continue to waste the most precious time before the assessment, trapped inside their pods.

A scanning beam swept across the ceiling of the chamber, finally stopping at pod 330 in the corner.

The mainframe's operation indicator light flickered twice—a rare occurrence—and emitted a short electronic tone.

"Drip—Pod 330, healing at 75%, waking from hibernation, forced ejection."

Hibernation released.

Jiang Yue opened his eyes.

He pulled the breathing tube from his mouth and nose, pushed open the pod door, and stepped out bare-chested.

Several nearby recruits, who were wincing as they pulled on their uniforms over broken ribs, instinctively turned their heads. Their gazes swept over Jiang Yue's pod and froze.

The basic repair fluid in their own pods had only faded from deep green to a lighter shade after a full night's absorption.

But the fluid in Jiang Yue's pod had already turned completely clear, like pure water.

Not a trace of medicinal potency remained. Every last bit of repair essence had been wrung dry.

Last night, with [Calm Spirit] locking his brainwaves into deep hibernation and [Smooth Breath] steadily circulating his internal energy, the newly acquired [Tough Skin] trait had played a terrifying role in intercepting and converting damage.

The added absorption rate had locked the medicinal effects that would otherwise have been wasted deep into his flesh, bones, and skin.

Jiang Yue glanced down at his right shoulder.

The spot that had been shattered into fragments yesterday, nearly collapsed inward, was now full and firm with muscle.

Aside from a faint white mark left on the surface of his skin, there was no trace of injury at all.

Expressionless, he grabbed the neatly folded new training uniform from the mechanical table beside him, pulled it on, and strode toward the elevator.

Early morning, Steel Plaza.

Over twenty thousand recruits were assembling. The atmosphere was heavy and oppressive.

After yesterday's live combat drills, everyone carried some degree of bruising—purple and black patches scattered across their bodies.

Jiang Yue stepped out of the elevator, entered the formation, and calmly returned to his position.

To his left, Li Tai was grimacing as he rubbed the bruised eye socket someone had blackened last night.

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed someone appear beside him. Li Tai turned his head—and froze, as if struck by lightning.

"Jiang... Jiang Yue?"

Li Tai looked like he'd seen a ghost, his voice even cracking. "Weren't you the one Shen Qing broke the right shoulder of yesterday?!"

He instinctively reached out and grabbed Jiang Yue's right shoulder.

His hand met a hard sensation—clearly solid muscle.

Li Tai yanked his hand back, his eyes nearly popping out of their sockets. He knew the rules of the medical district. Basic repair fluid could never fully heal a shattered bone overnight.

Jiang Yue ignored Li Tai's shock, his gaze fixed straight ahead as he maintained the breathing rhythm of [Smooth Breath].

Not far away, at the other end of the formation.

Shen Qing, who had been resting with his eyes closed, seemed to sense something. He whipped his head around.

Those perpetually cold, lone-wolf eyes locked onto Jiang Yue and contracted violently.

Shen Qing knew all too well the destructive power of the "Armor-Piercing Awl" he had used yesterday.

It was a killing strike that had drained half his qi and blood. Even if it had landed on someone who had been soaking in medicinal baths since childhood, taking that punch would have meant lying in bed for half a month.

But now, Jiang Yue stood perfectly straight, his body not the slightest bit hunched, and even the rise and fall of his breathing was as steady as still water.

Shen Qing's hands clenched tightly inside his sleeves, his knuckles turning white.

He looked at Jiang Yue, and for the first time, a sense of absurdity arose in his heart—a feeling that some fundamental truth had been utterly overturned.

That youth, whom he had treated as a punching bag and beaten one-sidedly yesterday, was not only unbroken but had instead taken on a more restrained edge, like steel that had been tempered.

"All troops, attention!"

The supervisor team's explosive rifle fired a warning shot into the sky.

"Thirty kilometers, start running!"

The order came down, and the dull thud of military boots once again converged into a thunderous roar. Tens of thousands of people, enduring one and a half times the gravity, began their unyielding daily extreme training.

Jiang Yue leaned forward and took his first step.

This was his first high-intensity exercise since acquiring the [Tough Skin] trait.

Soon, he sensed a stark difference at the microscopic level of his flesh.

In the past, running under this one-and-a-half-fold gravity, every step caused a subtle tearing sensation in his muscle fibers, and when his qi and blood struck his skin membrane, it felt like being cut by knives.

But today, that stinging pain was greatly reduced.

As his qi and blood churned and clashed violently during the intense movement, instead of a hard, damaging collision against the inner side of his skin membrane, they were gently repelled by a layer of tough, invisible "inner armor."

While bearing the force, the skin membrane smoothly converted these impacts into power that nourished his body.

Jiang Yue adjusted his stride frequency.

Three steps to breathe in, three steps to breathe out.

Ten kilometers.

Twenty kilometers.

As his physical stamina sharply declined, the formation began to fall into chaos.

Especially the hundred-plus new recruits who had just been kicked out of the medical pods and forced to train while injured—they staggered along, their faces pale as paper, with people constantly falling behind and collapsing.

Even Li Tai, who had been keeping pace beside Jiang Yue, now felt his legs weighed down by lead, his lungs burning like fire, gasping for air.

Only Jiang Yue.

From the first second of the run to the moment he crossed the twenty-five-kilometer mark, his stride frequency, his breathing rhythm, and even the amplitude of his arm swings had not changed by a single fraction.

On the high platform.

The one-eyed instructor pressed both hands against the metal railing, his single eye looking down at the dragon-like column of troops below.

In his left hand, he held a military data pad. On the screen, a report from the lower medical area, sent just a few minutes ago, was clearly displayed:

[Injury ID: Jiang Yue.] [Assessment: 100% repair fluid absorption rate. No drug rejection. Rapid bone restructuring.]

The instructor's gaze shifted from the data pad and precisely locked onto the steady gray figure in the ranks.

He saw it clearly: Jiang Yue's movements were still not fast, lacking the explosive vigor of those more talented youths when their qi and blood surged.

But he was too steady—so steady that he didn't seem like a recruit who had just enlisted a few days ago, let alone a casualty whose shoulder had been shattered just last night.

The instructor's face, weathered and scarred, twitched slightly as he rare pulled out a dangerously ominous smile.

He was certain he hadn't misjudged yesterday.

This commoner, with no background, no talent, and mediocre comprehension, had relied solely on a ruthless disregard for his own body and the resilience forged through being beaten, to pry open a crack of evolution in this meat grinder.

The thirty-kilometer finish line drew closer ahead.

"This kid..."

"Maybe he can make it through?"