The Death Squad Camp's food was rough as could be: all-you-can-eat millet gruel and steamed buns hard enough to kill a man.
Li Jinshui crouched beneath the drafty thatched shelter, struggling to swallow the coarse gruel. His stomach was full, but inside, a fire burned in his hollow heart.
All around him, people just like him swallowed mechanically, their eyes vacant, like a herd of livestock waiting to die.
Three months since he'd transmigrated: he'd hauled corpses to save money, watched his dream of joining a martial arts school shatter, then been sold straight into this meat-grinder of a camp.
He swallowed the last mouthful, which scraped his throat. His stomach felt heavy, but that fire inside him only burned colder.
"Clang—!"
A copper gong boomed. Everyone was driven onto the training ground.
Instructor Zhao, his face crossed by a scar, stood in the snow and mud. His eyes raked over every face like blades. "One month. You'll learn only two things: how to take a beating and how to kill."
He drew a blunt saber with no edge, his movements as brisk as chopping wood.
"Army-Breaking Saber Technique."
The wooden saber cut through the air with a rush of wind. Its movements were simple and direct, every strike aimed at a vital spot.
"Iron Shirt. A hardening skill. When you're being beaten, circulate your energy and tense your muscles. It'll let you take one more blow."
He demonstrated the breathing rhythm and the trick of tensing the muscles, without a single flashy move.
[Martial arts transmission detected... recording...] [Recording successful: Iron Shirt] [Recording successful: Three Army-Breaking Styles]
A panel appeared:
[Martial Arts: Iron Shirt (Uninitiated 0/10), Army-Breaking Saber Technique (Uninitiated 0/10)]
It took ten points to reach the next proficiency level, but the words "Ordinary Person" in the realm section stung like a needle.
Training began.
Each man received a blunt saber and repeatedly hacked at a straw dummy.
Li Jinshui tightened his grip, lowered his shoulder, stepped forward, and swung with all his strength, mimicking the instructor's stance. It felt awkward at first, but gradually his movements smoothed out.
"Sink your weight. Strike fast," Instructor Zhao tossed out as he passed.
Li Jinshui adjusted at once and kept swinging.
Ten strikes, twenty. His arms ached and swelled with pain, and sweat soaked through his thin clothes.
He said nothing, staring at the mark drawn in charcoal on the straw dummy's neck, again and again refining his angle and adjusting his force.
[Army-Breaking Saber Technique proficiency +1] [Current: 1/10]
After a whole morning of practice, his proficiency finally ticked up by one.
After lunch came Iron Shirt training. They paired off and struck one another's chests, stomachs, and backs with wooden poles.
His partner, Hunter Han, had immense strength. One blow landed, and Li Jinshui grunted, his ribs hurting as if they were about to snap.
He clenched his teeth and followed the mantra, guiding his breathing in an attempt to disperse the force. It barely helped.
He took nearly a hundred blows that afternoon, leaving him covered in bruises. By the time he crawled back to the communal sleeping quarters that night, he could barely move.
At least he'd made progress.
[Iron Shirt proficiency +1] [Current: 1/10]
An old soldier tossed him a small dab of cheap salve. It stung like fire when he rubbed it on.
"With your poor constitution, you could train till you die and still get nowhere," the old soldier muttered as he rolled over.
Li Jinshui didn't reply. He silently rubbed the salve over his wounds. The day's training had drained every last bit of strength from him.
Every day after that was the same: rise before dawn, gnaw on a steamed bun, practice the saber, take a beating, then drag his half-broken body back at night and collapse on the kang, out cold the instant he touched it.
Li Jinshui became the quietest person in camp—and the most relentless.
While the others practiced one round and rested, he practiced two. While the others grimaced through their beatings, he tensed his whole body, feeling how the force traveled with each blow and adjusting his breathing.
On the ninth day, the Army-Breaking Saber Technique broke through first.
[Army-Breaking Saber Technique proficiency maxed] [Breakthrough: Uninitiated → Initiated]
A rush of heat surged from his arm through his whole body, and the soreness eased sharply. Countless memories and years of saber experience flooded into his mind. Li Jinshui swung a saber, and the blade's whistle through the air turned noticeably fiercer.
Instructor Zhao happened to pass by. He glanced over without breaking stride and tossed out a single remark: "Not bad, but you've got a long way to go."
Iron Shirt, however, progressed much more slowly. His constitution placed too great a limit on hardening skills. No matter how he regulated his breathing or tensed his muscles, he couldn't break through that invisible barrier. When the poles struck him, the pain still bored straight into his bones.
Sometimes Hunter Han stayed up late to train with him. They swung their sabers in the empty ground behind the barracks, beneath the stark white moon.
"Your constitution decides whether you live or die." Hunter Han wiped away his sweat. "I've got an average constitution. Back when I hunted in the mountains, I chased a wolf for three days and three nights. You've got a poor one. You could put in ten times the effort and still not catch up to someone else's one-tenth."
Li Jinshui didn't answer. He didn't understand constitutions. He believed only that the system would help him crush everything in his path.
[Army-Breaking Saber Technique proficiency +1] [Iron Shirt proficiency +1]
The numbers on the panel climbed bit by bit.
On the eleventh day of training, Iron Shirt's proficiency stuck at 9/10 and refused to budge.
Instructor Zhao called them together and addressed them. "Eighteen days left. In eighteen days, you'll go up on the wall."
The crowd fell as silent as the grave. Some began to cry softly. Others stared blankly, their souls seemingly gone.
Li Jinshui looked down at his hands. Thick calluses covered the base of his fingers, and the cracks hadn't healed yet. He brought up the panel:
[Martial Arts: Iron Shirt (9/10), Army-Breaking Saber Technique (Initiated)]
Just one point short.
That night, he found Hunter Han. "Hit me with all you've got."
Hunter Han frowned. "You'll get hurt."
"Hit me."
The wooden pole whooshed through the air and slammed hard into Li Jinshui's back. He neither dodged nor flinched. His whole body's muscles tensed to their absolute limit as his breathing snapped into the rhythm of the Iron Shirt mantra—
"Thump!"
Agony burst through him, and a sickly sweetness surged up his throat. But in that instant, the energy that had been blocked inside him finally smashed through some hidden barrier, surging like floodwaters into every limb!
[Iron Shirt proficiency +1] [Proficiency maxed] [Breakthrough: Uninitiated → Initiated]
A faint metallic sheen flashed across the surface of his skin, then vanished. The pain remained, but somehow... he could take it now.
[Current Realm: Body Forging, First Layer]
He'd done it!
A solid sense of strength surged through his whole body. At last, on this battlefield that devoured men, he had the means to carve out a foothold.
Time flew like a shuttle.
During the final three days of training, the mood changed completely. The instructors stopped shouting and only watched in silence as the recruits practiced. Everyone fought with all they had, as though each extra swing would buy them one more breath atop the city wall.
On the last day, Instructor Zhao gave his final instructions. "Once you're up on the wall, stick close to the person in front of you. The Di People are made of flesh and blood, too. Strike their necks, and they'll die just the same. Every moment you stay alive is another moment the city holds."
He paused, his gaze sweeping across the young faces, the old faces, the numb faces.
"Don't think about staying alive. Think about how to make the Di People die."
That night, no one could sleep.
Li Jinshui lay on the communal kang, listening to the suppressed breaths and quiet sobs all around him. He brought up the panel for one final check:
[Martial Arts: Iron Shirt (First Layer 7/10), Army-Breaking Saber Technique (Initiated 8/10)] [Realm: Body Forging, First Layer] [Points: 0]
Outside the window, distant war drums rolled closer, like muffled thunder.
Dawn was nearly here.
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