Recruitment

Can martial artists fall down?

Impossible. The algorithms that kept a robot's limbs balanced had been under development since ages ago. For a cyborg body, gravitational acceleration of 8 m/s² was simply too small. The "speed of falling" brought by such acceleration was as slow as a natural human walking. As long as the built-in gyroscope had no issues, a martial artist could keep his body steady under any circumstances.

This process could even be automatic—unless a command had already been issued in his mind: "Ignore this loss of balance."

But...

Longkoni did not know how to fight from the ground, did not know Bionic Fist, and did not know any ground techniques—he had no reason to deliberately lie down.

—Why...

Why had he fallen when he landed?

Why had he dropped frames just now?

Why... why... was there static in his head?

—Hot... so hot...

—What is this... my brain...

—So hot... it hurts...

The five senses gradually faded away from Longkoni.

The last thing he heard was Paulus's terrified shout: "Inner Power... This is Inner Power! An Inner Power master!"

Paulus was terrified beyond measure. He began to hate that mayor named Schultz—it was because of that mayor that he had ended up in this situation.

The Witnessing Technique was an attack only powerful masters who had achieved success in Inner Power could unleash.

Inner Power... Inner Power!

Several years ago, an itinerant knight had accidentally exposed his whereabouts. A large group of martial artists in the city had wanted to challenge that outsider to prove their own courage and prowess. Paulus had taken part in that operation as well.

But it was terribly embarrassing to say... he had not even thrown a single punch at that knight.

The knight had merely sat in a service station, quietly enjoying adrenaline.

Yet every martial artist who showed any intention of attacking lost the ability to move. All of them became like puppets controlled by that knight. Some martial artists had spoken too aggressively beforehand, showing disrespect toward the ancestors of martial arts. Those people received special treatment from the knight—they were suddenly smashed to the ground by their companions' iron fists.

Before that, they had only exchanged a glance with the knight.

That was absolutely not a human method.

Such a method should not exist in the human world.

It was only on that day that Paulus heard the knight sigh, "Practice martial arts without practicing Inner Power, and in the end, it is all for nothing..."

"All for nothing"—in the eyes of a true Inner Power master, the glory martial artists like them had earned in the Paralympics and other competitions was all for nothing.

Although he had heard that the knight was captured and executed by the lord not long afterward, the incident had still left him traumatized.

Paulus covered his eyes with his left arm.

Leif was a little surprised. "Huh, you actually know your stuff? Not bad. Much better than those idiots."

The instant he and Longkoni met eyes, his prosthetic eye had already infiltrated the other man's prosthetic eye using an infrared signal. Most martial artists chose to activate the infrared vision function of their prosthetic eyes to guard against enemies lurking in the darkness. Civilian martial artists' infrared receiving ports were almost entirely undefended.

And depending on the prosthetic eye's functions, such signals could be transmitted at speeds ranging from 64 MB per second to 16 TB per second.

Inject commands, prevent warning notifications from appearing, terminate processes, disrupt the opponent's drivers...

For a conventional hacker, that might take several minutes.

Inside the mind of an Inner Power master, the process could be compressed to one-hundredth of a second—it was already a familiar technique.

All he had to do was shut down the martial game process, and the opponent would experience a fleeting moment of "distraction." When "thought" lost the driving force of electrical currents racing through good conductors and could only spread as bioelectric signals, "mind" and "intent" could no longer keep up with the "fist."

The chip would restart the process quickly, of course. But for cyber martial artists, the span of a single thought was enough to be fatal.

Signal transmission, at a maximum of one hundred meters per second and a minimum of one meter per second, was many times slower than the punches thrown by cybernetic bodies.

It was that simple.

As he spoke, the thug used the end of his steel rod to grind down Longkoni's knee joint. The body Leif was currently using was already stronger than Paulus's, and the steel rod was no cheap commodity either. Combined, they produced force comparable to an industrial press. Longkoni's knee rapidly deformed.

"Why..." Paulus was filled with grief and rage. "Why would an ordinary martial artist body attract a master who knows Inner Power?"

Paulus had figured it out as well. All of the opponent's incredible methods could be explained by "Inner Power."

Why did a close-combat martial artist have a better field of vision than Anthony of the Gunfire Way?

Because his Inner Power had spread across the surrounding cameras. Such a method of seeing the heavens and hearing the earth was beyond the imagination of ordinary martial artists like them.

He simply could not understand why a town like this had drawn a powerhouse of such a level.

"Hahaha, Mr. Leif was happy, so he came!" Leif was very pleased with himself. He raised his rod, but after hesitating for a second, he slung it back over his shoulder. "Still, the fact that you made me grip a weapon with my hand is quite an accomplishment for underlings. As a reward, I'll give you a chance. Attack me with all your strength, why don't you? As long as you entertain me, I can spare your life."

Paulus knew that his life was now in his own hands.

His prosthetic ears were not particularly high-grade, and their corresponding drivers and auditory signal-processing software were only standard models. He knew that some martial artists could use the natural flow of air to determine the positions, shapes, and even textures of surrounding objects, but he could not do that. Only his eyes had received specialized training. He could not lose his vision. But he did not know what method his opponent had used, nor did he know how to close the port that allowed enemies to invade.

He could only avoid letting his gaze meet the enemy's eyes.

Leif turned sideways and randomly jabbed here and there with his rod as though teasing a child. In his mind, he asked his partner, [Why did you stop me just now?]

Jingbao Kui: [Wasn't our goal to recruit more people? Herding one sheep is herding; herding two sheep is herding.]

Leif: [This guy in front of me?]

Jingbao Kui: ["Main Battle Tank" Paulus. I just looked up his information. He's promising. He's at least close to the first level of Intent Before Force in External Power.]

Leif did not know where Jingbao Kui was hiding. But judging from the uninterrupted radio communication, he should have been somewhere within thirty meters. Jingbao Kui's armor was specialized for concealment, equipped with external optical camouflage and nearly invisible.

Leif's own Inner Power was merely beginner-level Command Realm. It was enough to protect himself and escape the oppression of those in power, but it could not invade an enemy's sensory organs during high-speed combat. If Command Realm Inner Power could accomplish such a thing, then the martial arts movement led by the Father of All Machines would never have caused even the slightest stir.

No, even an Inner Power master of the Language Realm needed time to determine which ports on the opponent's body could be invaded. And during the intrusion, his computing resources would be occupied, weakening the "martial game" carried out by his hands and feet to some extent.

In the split second between lightning and flint, martial artists who knew only Outer-School Martial Arts could still seize the opportunity to land a lethal blow.

Even after being implanted with a virus, Outer-School Martial Arts still had a chance to kill in return before the virus fully erupted.

Therefore...

Leif and Jingbao Kui had always operated as a pair. Leif connected to Jingbao Kui through an encrypted WiFi signal. He opened permission to some of the organs on his body, allowing Jingbao Kui to use those organs to infiltrate other martial artists.

And Jingbao Kui, who was not skilled in Outer-School Martial Arts, could calmly prepare his intrusions.

To cooperate with his teammate, Leif, who was not skilled in Inner Power, had even specifically studied techniques related to "witnessing."

Two second-rate fighters had thus stepped into the realm of first-rate ones.

Of course, without question, Leif was effectively staking his entire life and fortune on Jingbao Kui. Two people who did not trust each other completely would never do this. At this moment, Jingbao Kui only needed to make a tiny adjustment to shut down the cooling equipment for the chips inside Leif's body, then make those chips perform huge quantities of meaningless calculations.

Writing and erasing information both required energy. According to the second law of thermodynamics, any movement caused energy loss, producing useless heat. Once the cooling equipment was shut down, that heat would accumulate until it burned out the chips themselves.

But Leif believed Jingbao Kui would never do that.

Every member of a thug organization trusted one another.

And Jingbao Kui had indeed never violated his companions' privacy. He only issued such commands to enemies.

Just as he had burned out Longkoni's chip.

Those who did not understand Inner Power could not resist it.

The body Leif used when he entered the city to enjoy entertainment services was extremely weak, and sometimes he encountered martial artists whom he could not resist in that state. But it did not matter. Martial artists who did not understand Inner Power had no ability to resist before an Inner Power master.

They were on completely different levels.

After playing around for several minutes, Leif stopped attacking. He asked Paulus, "I have your information, but let's verify it—how old are you this year? How many years have you practiced martial arts? What level of hormone and neurotransmitter adjustment have you received?"

"Twenty-five..." Paulus's face was a mixture of bewilderment and ecstatic relief at having survived. He did not know whether he had passed, and his brain had not even begun to process it before the words slipped out. "Eleven years of martial arts. One Piaget Adjustment..."

Cyber Martial Arts had very low age requirements. After all, cyborgs did not have to worry about their bones and muscles having matured beyond adjustment. Apart from the brain, every organ could be treated as disposable—the only thing truly necessary was the brain.

And one's mental "age" was related not only to experience, but also to hormones. The puberty everyone experienced and the menopause unique to women were both caused by changes in sex hormone secretion, which altered neurotransmitter production and ultimately changed one's personality.

After cyborgs removed most of the glands that secreted hormones, they escaped the prison of their innate nature. They could regulate their psychological age and mental state to a certain extent.

"Oh, you know to keep your creativity at its peak..." Leif praised him. "And after eleven years of martial arts, you managed to derive such a variation from Steel Fist... You have potential. It really would be a shame to kill you. Algorithms are easy to obtain, after all, but a brain that can match martial arts is rare."

"Can I leave now?" Paulus trembled slightly.

"Leave? Who said you could leave?" A sinister smile curled Leif's lips. "Mr. Leif only said he'd spare your life. He never said he'd let you go—because the life I'm offering you is to join us."