The instant the current passed through the artificial muscle fibers, a string of signals surged along the metal wires into Xiang Shan's spine, decoded by his cerebellum before crashing into his brain.
Xiang Shan almost thought he had grown his legs back.
These artificial muscle fibers could actually simulate touch...
No, that wasn't right. This was hardly new technology. Xiang Shan understood that he had experienced this sensation before.
As he smashed through the main gate and rolled across the falling iron door, he thought of it.
This design had existed long ago. By 1960, sensitive resistors had already entered practical use.
Sensitive resistors were special resistive materials that responded to specific physical conditions. Most of them were particularly sensitive to one physical condition, and their resistance changed whenever that condition changed—for instance, photoresistors had different resistance values under different levels of light, while thermistors displayed different resistance values at different temperatures.
Special resistors such as magnetoresistors were also widely used.
But the type most closely connected to martial artists was the "pressure-sensitive resistor."
As the name implied, it was a resistive material whose resistance varied under different pressures.
In the era Xiang Shan knew, this technology had already taken shape. When people designed prosthetic bodies for martial artists, they mixed pressure-sensitive resistors into certain components.
Whether it was a force of one newton or a pressure of one thousand pascals, components mixed with pressure-sensitive resistors could faithfully register it.
The cost was a certain reduction in component strength and service life. After all, pressure-sensitive resistors could not compare to specialized alloys in durability.
But these components allowed martial artists to control their prosthetics better, even enabling delicate applications of force that martial artists with flesh-and-blood bodies could never achieve.
Ninjas of the twenty-first century claimed they could borrow the "power of the earth." Even older boxing manuals contained similar descriptions: "Force rises from the feet, takes form in the legs, is governed by the waist, driven through the spine, and issued from the hands." Some boxers had even dreamed that if the ankles, knees, joints, waist, spine, shoulders, upper arms, elbows, wrists, and fists exerted force in sequence, a person could throw punches approaching the speed of sound.
But to humans of the old era, that was only imagination. Their sluggish nerves made it nearly impossible to seize the perfect instant. A force of one newton, or pressure of one thousand pascals, produced almost no distinct sensation for them. They could not truly put the power described in theory into practice.
The transmission speed of neural signals had an upper limit.
But cyber martial artists could even feel energy transforming from internal energy into kinetic energy, then from kinetic energy back into internal energy, passing from one component to another... To them, it was like the mystical "inner force" described in novels.
Xiang Shan could control that force.
He had burst through the gate. The iron door offered almost no resistance before tearing free from its frame. Xiang Shan planted both feet hard against the still-falling door, sending the sheet-metal gate crashing toward the ground at an unbelievable speed. It warped rapidly, then slapped flat against the earth.
Xiang Shan accelerated a second time in midair.
—Good legs...
That was the only thought Xiang Shan had time for.
These were not the strongest legs he had ever used—Xiang Shan was certain of that. In the past, when he had possessed a complete power system, he had used even stronger leg prosthetics. But their output... Though he could not remember the exact figure, it definitely could not have been supplied by a battery like this one.
At this level of power, these were the best legs Xiang Shan had ever used. Perhaps it was because the technology of this era still surpassed that of the era he knew...
At the instant he crossed paths with the steel staff, Xiang Shan hooked both hands around it, then kicked both legs toward the giant man's waist and abdomen, using the force to change direction.
If his opponent had been a natural human, that alone would have ended the fight. But cyber martial artists did not have so many fragile internal organs. The shock-absorbing layers in their armor could also absorb some of the impact and prevent damage to vital structures.
Compared to his legs, these arms were far too useless.
Xiang Shan had used scattered components from the canine prosthetic body to reinforce them, but their foundation was simply too poor. The impact dissipated by speed alone nearly tore both arms apart.
A streak of silver spiraled up around the steel staff. Xiang Shan used one hand to secure Youji's still-unmodified head and neck, while his legs kicked off the tip of the staff once again.
The impact from the staff and the recoil from his kick stacked together. Leif's staff technique immediately lost balance, while Xiang Shan accelerated out from the staff's reach.
"Youji, how are you?" Xiang Shan hurriedly set his disciple down. Youji was barely breathing by then. The impact of landing had damaged his legs, and even his internal organs had suffered trauma. There was definitely bleeding within his abdominal cavity.
But Xiang Shan sighed in relief.
Metal-Based Protein could not only greatly slow cellular death, but also offered substantial resistance to mechanical injury and allowed survival for longer in oxygen-deprived environments. That meant humans of this era had greater resistance to "brain damage" and "suffocation."
And with the medical technology of this era, replacing damaged organs with artificial prosthetics was not difficult. They could even become stronger than before.
As long as he was alive, that was enough.
Only then did Xiang Shan look at Leif.
Will's memories flashed through his mind once more.
"You are... Silver Drive Shaft Leif..."
Silver Drive Shaft Leif Sjelett, the fourth-in-command and assault captain of the medium-sized bandit organization Z Organization, specialized in staff techniques. The steel staff he wielded had been made from the drive shaft of a Pusqu Snake-class assault ship. Combined with the silver-colored outer armor of his usual prosthetics, it earned him the nickname "Silver Drive Shaft." His staff style was called SSC Three Weapons, One Staff. SSC stood for Sword, Spear, and Cudgel, an orthodox martial art of shifting styles, flexible tactics, and strategic contests.
He had originally been an exceptionally gifted martial artist from another territory. But during a fighting event in the Paralympics qualifiers—where most External Power disciplines except firearms could compete—he lost to a boxer from a rival dojo and took the humiliation deeply. After the match, he killed his opponent with his staff technique. His master intended to expel him from the school to show that the style would not shelter anyone without protection, but the enraged Leif Sjelett massacred the entire dojo. Before bounty hunters could gather, Leif Sjelett fled into the wilderness and later joined a bandit organization.
"You're a martial artist too, aren't you?" Xiang Shan was furious. "As a martial artist, don't you feel ashamed to use your strength to bully the weak?"
But those words only left Leif confused. "Since when have martial artists not used strength to bully the weak?"
"Huh?" Xiang Shan was confused again.
—Why did martial artists of this era think it was only natural for the strong to bully the weak?
—The purpose of martial arts was for the weak as individuals to resist the strength of tyranny...
"Ah, ah, I remember now." Leif suddenly slapped his forehead. "Oh, it seems some important figure really did say something like that. Who was it? Among the pioneers of the world... the Martial Ancestor? He did say that the meaning of martial arts was for the weak to fight the strong—you really are a Vagrant, huh? But I heard that even among the people of the Martial World Way, not many still believe that. Just how many years was that head of yours buried for?"
For some reason, Xiang Shan felt as though a piece of him was missing. It was a sensation akin to phantom limb pain.
"No one believes it anymore?"
"Of course. The Martial Ancestor said martial arts were a technology designed to resist violent power, allowing weak prosthetics with limited support to accomplish important tasks and achieve enormous tactical or strategic objectives. But... whenever two people fight in the martial world now, doesn't the stronger side always win?" Leif drew a not-equal sign on the ground with his steel staff. "Even those Vagrants who constantly claim to fight for the weak are 'strong' themselves, aren't they? That goes for the Martial World Way, the Greenwood Road, and even more so for the protectors."
"Even if a master really defeats a powerful prosthetic body using a weak one, that only proves they crushed their opponent in factors other than 'prosthetics'—such as Martial Arts Algorithms, the tuning and optimization of their drivers, intelligence, or the reflexes of their Biological Brain. After all, a prosthetic body is not the entirety of a person. It is still the strong striking down the weak."
There had never truly been "the weak defeating the strong" in this world.
Xiang Shan stared at the not-equal sign on the ground. "Is there only an inequality sign between people? Does everyone in the world think that way?"
"If you think that way, then there are still people in the world who think that way!" Leif continued joking. "Let's not talk about that, sir. We heard you defeated a Bionic Fist Technique boxer with a prosthetic body pieced together from junk. We think you have great potential, so we came to invite you to join us!"
Hearing that, Xiang Shan almost wanted to laugh. "Join you?"
"Join our Z Organization, and join the Greenwood Road while you're at it." Leif slung the steel staff back over his shoulder. "Though you used to run with the Martial World Way, I can tell you didn't do very well there. No matter what, you ended up in this state, and not a single Vagrant came to save you... Tsk, tsk. Clearly, not every Vagrant agrees with your ideas! Why not come develop yourself in the Greenwood Road instead? We in the Greenwood Road are the freest. We have far fewer rules than the Martial World Way, and what we do is more or less the same..."
But Xiang Shan was lost again.
He was certain that he knew nothing at all about the terms "Martial World Way" and "Greenwood Road." The knowledge remaining in his Biological Brain indicated that both terms should have existed only in novels.
And no one should have wanted to make them real.
This was not some fantasy made real alongside cyber martial arts... There was no "Greenwood" in the era he knew! They should have been nothing but fantasies!
In the peaceful era where Vagrants assassinated tyrants and heroes ended ages of chaos, martial arts should have naturally declined, sunk into the internet, lain quietly dormant, and waited for the next tyrant to rise before baring its fangs again.
Or reminded those in power never to impose authoritarian rule upon the people.
Or quietly died away in some unknown corner, leaving only a legend for later generations.
—That was how it should have been.
Xiang Shan himself knew that was merely the most ideal outcome. But there should have been additional thresholds in the underlying design of martial arts—it should have been designed as something "unsuited to using strength to bully the weak."
—Had that underlying design been twisted too?
Suddenly, Xiang Shan laughed.
"Heh... hehehe. Martial World Way? Greenwood Road? Rules of the martial world? Hahahaha... Which generation of which idiot was childish enough to imitate such things?" Xiang Shan lowered his back and pressed both hands to the ground. "I never cared about any Martial World Way or Greenwood Road. I only want to ask you this: in this era, do people always come to invite others to join them with murder on their minds?"