If I Don't Hurry, I'll Break Through

"Carry him to the Military Infirmary. Once he wakes up, don't forget to make him run twenty kilometers with a weighted pack."

Li Yibing gave the order, and the medics waiting nearby immediately stepped forward to carry Niu Ben away on a stretcher.

Li Yibing then looked at Lu Chong and nodded. "Not bad. I admit I underestimated you."

"How about it? Want to take a break before continuing?"

Lu Chong nodded, pulled out a Nutrition Bar, took a bite, and said, "Let's continue. I'm fine."

Li Yibing glanced at Lu Chong again, wondering why this kid was in such a hurry.

Lu Chong, meanwhile, was thinking that it wasn't that he was impatient, but that if he didn't hurry, he would break through to the Martial Artist realm.

Forget ten days; based on Lu Chong's calculations, he was on track to reach the Martial Artist realm in just four or five more days.

Therefore, he had to complete his agreement to defeat the Special Warfare Class before then to secure the Martial Skill reward.

"Squad leader, let me."

A lean, wiry soldier stood up and stepped forward, volunteering himself.

"Good man, Old Zhu." The surrounding soldiers cheered again.

Li Yibing warned, "Zhu Changfeng, don't be careless. If you lose, you'll be doing extra training with Niu Ben."

A true expert shows his worth the moment he moves.

After the previous bout, Li Yibing no longer looked down on Lu Chong.

Zhu Changfeng responded solemnly, leaped into the center of the field, and cupped his fists at Lu Chong. "Zhu Changfeng, please enlighten me."

"Lu Chong, please." Lu Chong returned the gesture.

Without waiting for further words, Zhu Changfeng charged forward, this time using a Martial Skill Lu Chong was familiar with.

It was a mid-grade Seven-Step Killing Fist, and it had clearly reached the Great Completion stage.

Lu Chong didn't wait in place; he pushed off the ground and unleashed the Seven-Step Killing Fist he had only recently begun practicing.

Bang!

Their fists collided and separated instantly.

Immediately after, both men lunged forward with consecutive punches, the force behind them even greater than the first.

The second strike was another head-on collision, resulting in a stalemate.

But by the third and fourth strikes, Lu Chong's movements were faster than Zhu Changfeng's, and his transitions were more fluid and natural.

By the time the fourth strike landed, the rhythm of Zhu Changfeng's Seven-Step Killing Fist had been completely disrupted, leaving him unable to continue the sequence.

The essence of the Seven-Step Killing Fist lay in its continuity and stacking power; once forcibly interrupted, its effectiveness plummeted, becoming even worse than a low-grade Martial Skill.

Lu Chong, conversely, landed his fifth strike right on schedule, its power now three times that of the first.

At the Martial Disciple level, almost no one could withstand a blow of this magnitude.

In the critical moment, the soldier shifted his stance from offense to defense, retreating rapidly while using his hands to deflect the force, breaking down Lu Chong's momentum through a series of brief contacts.

The surrounding soldiers cheered at the sight.

It was a purely defensive Martial Skill; Lu Chong hadn't practiced it, but he could tell it had reached the mid-grade level.

He didn't stop his Seven-Step Killing Fist, but as he threw the faster, heavier sixth strike, he augmented his speed with the Gale Step.

When the speed of the Gale Step combined with the force of the sixth strike, the soldier's expression changed; he had nowhere left to dodge and could no longer fully deflect the power through his own technique.

Bang!

Lu Chong's sixth strike slammed into Zhu Changfeng's chest, sending him flying five or six meters back as he coughed up a mist of blood.

The soldier tried to rise for a counterattack, but Lu Chong followed up instantly, his hand moving like a blade to stop an inch from his throat.

"I concede."

Lu Chong didn't knock the soldier out; in the current situation, there was no need to strike with lethal force.

Zhu Changfeng was about to retort, but Li Yibing called a halt. "Come back. If this were a real battlefield, you'd already be dead."

"Next." Lu Chong stood his ground, not resting, and scanned the remaining soldiers.

"My turn."

"I'll go!"

The soldiers knew no fear; faced with Lu Chong's challenge, they were all eager to try their luck.

Li Yibing, however, could see that Lu Chong had mastered the Seven-Step Killing Fist and Gale Step to the Microscopic level, and he realized this student was truly not to be trifled with.

Most importantly, he discovered that Lu Chong's combat experience was growing rapidly; he was already skilled at adapting on the fly and utilizing combination Martial Skills.

Superb comprehension, excellent combat intuition, rapid progress, and decisive strikes. If only he were one of my men.

He realized that it was unlikely anyone in his Special Warfare Class could defeat this high school senior one-on-one.

No wonder the kid wanted to challenge the entire class; he truly had the potential to back it up.

Next, the remaining eight soldiers of the Special Warfare Class took turns stepping onto the field to challenge Lu Chong one-on-one.

These soldiers possessed vastly different combat styles; some were fierce and aggressive, some balanced hardness with softness, some excelled in speed, and others in defense, but without exception, every one of them was fearless in the face of death.

However, Lu Chong's foundation in cultivation and his grasp of Martial Skills were simply too profound, and he was constantly adapting to the combat rhythm of the soldiers.

In the end, not a single soldier could last more than ten moves against Lu Chong.

In fact, the further they went, the more effortlessly Lu Chong secured his victories.

The soldiers failed to gauge Lu Chong's true strength, while Lu Chong, with his solid foundation, saw through them with perfect clarity.

In less than two hours, half of the ten Martial Apprentice Stage 9 soldiers from the Special Warfare Class had been sent by Lu Chong to the Military Infirmary.

The soldiers from the surrounding classes did not glare at Lu Chong in anger; instead, they offered nothing but praise and cheered him on repeatedly.

Li Yibing's expression, conversely, looked better than it had at the start.

As long as someone wasn't just an empty-headed braggart, he was willing to give them the respect they deserved.

"Student Lu Chong, let's continue once they've recovered tomorrow."

"For now, you can spar with the soldiers from the other classes and offer them some pointers on their Martial Skills while you're at it," Li Yibing said sincerely as he approached Lu Chong.

Although there was an agreement between them, Li Yibing didn't want to waste time waiting; he realized that the platoon leader hadn't sent him a troublemaker, but a treasure capable of training soldiers with high efficiency.

"Understood, I will spare no effort."

Lu Chong had a very good impression of the soldiers, and even without that agreement, he would have been willing to do his small part for these endearing men.

Of course, he would not give up on the High-Grade Martial Skill he needed.

The Military Infirmary was even livelier than usual that day.

The students participating in the special training, lying in their hospital beds, discovered that soldier after soldier, all bruised and swollen, were being brought in—they were no better off than the students themselves.

"Brother soldier, what happened? Did a fight break out outside the Fortress?" a student couldn't help but ask, curious about the soldier who shared his plight.

The young soldier chuckled and gave a thumbs-up, "There's a student named Lu in your batch who is truly badass; he beat up every one of us veterans."

The students were stunned, only then realizing what Lu Chong, who had gone missing during the training camp, had been up to.