"The nameless fighter of Scrapheap Town, Shan. He was still alive," the secretary said with a slight bow. "On the day the welfare officer left, he clashed with two thugs and successfully killed them."
Apennine waited for a moment, then froze. "That's it?"
"Yes." The secretary nodded.
Apennine gestured twice. "I specifically threw Will's prosthetic body over there to attract more thugs and give that Shan some training. Just one batch? Are our prosthetics not appealing anymore?"
"That was not the case." The secretary shook his head. "The two thugs who invaded on the first day seemed to be rather famous. One was called Leif Sjelett, known in the Greenwood as the Silver Drive Shaft. The other was an Inner Power expert called Jingbao Kui. Though not particularly renowned, he usually partnered with Leif and used Inner Power targeting to launch sneak attacks. Xiang Shan wiped them both out in one stroke, which scared off the weaker thugs."
"Hmm? Silver Drive Shaft?" Apennine closed his eyes. "I remembered that name was not among the one hundred and eight Heavenly Fiend and Earth Fiend generals on the Greenwood Tiger List. Not on the Greenwood Tiger List..."
The secretary shook his head. "There were also those not yet included on the Greenwood Tiger List. Leif Sjelett was the assault captain of the Z Organization and a trusted subordinate of Geliad, the Z Organization's leader known as Chain Missiles. Geliad was the ninety-eighth-ranked Earth Fiend Star on the Tiger List. He had not been very active in recent years, but intelligence indicated that he had been researching drone formation arrays. If that intelligence was true, his ranking might rise several places. As Geliad's confidant, Leif Sjelett should also have the strength to enter the Greenwood Tiger List."
The Greenwood Tiger List, along with the Greenwood Black List, the Martial World Dragon-Phoenix List, and the Martial World Heavenly Ladder List, were all creations of the Civilization Protectors.
Among them, the Greenwood Tiger List and the Martial World Dragon-Phoenix List were regional rankings, cataloging noteworthy martial artists under eighty years old in their respective regions.
Their purpose was to stir infighting among martial artists beyond their control, plunging the entire martial world into a state of endless competition. Martial artists would focus on one-on-one combat techniques rather than studying the martial arts advocated by the First Ancestor of Martial Arts, techniques aimed at autocracy and institutions.
To make those people fight even more fiercely, they released the intelligence they had gathered as well.
This was one of the few free sources of information in this era.
These rankings included every member's techniques, battle records, and even killing moves. This was so that the enemies of those listed could better devise methods to target them.
Yet even knowing this, those martial artists still fought for positions on the rankings. Even in certain internal matters of the martial world, martial artists relied on these lists to determine who had the right to speak.
Once things had reached this point, even powerful figures who had initially been wary of the rankings had no choice but to get drawn in.
Honestly, Apennine understood that feeling all too well. He usually used games from the old era to temper his martial spirit. Those games also ranked players across the entire Solar System. Every time he saw his own ranking, he felt a sense of unfairness.
That "sense of unfairness" was a manifestation of humanity's inferior nature, one of the curses that the Biological Brain had bestowed upon mankind. Countless upheavals had arisen because of it.
In the orthodox martial cultivation of the Civilization Protectors, "extinguishing the sense of unfairness" was an extremely crucial step.
Perhaps Father did not favor him because he could not extinguish that desire to compete—Apennine occasionally thought so.
Apennine was somewhat surprised by this outcome. "A Greenwood thug who might make the Tiger List, and an Inner Power expert?"
"Yes. Among those Greenwood people, the Language Realm counted as an expert." The secretary nodded. "The two of them attacked together and were still killed by Shan."
Apennine raised a hand. "Wait... wait. Let me guess. Shan used the Bionic Fist Technique?"
"The standard Bionic Fist Technique: Beast Mimic Way," the secretary said respectfully.
"Ha... hahaha! Excellent!" Apennine grew excited. "That meant Shan truly had tremendous martial talent! A talent like that deserved honor! Secretary, in another twelve hours, that place will be restored to Father's protection list, right? Then we can go..."
"But Young Master Apennine, there is a very serious problem here." The secretary shook his head. "That 'Shan' may be an expert of the Martial World Way."
"The Martial World Way?" Apennine's expression stiffened. "The Martial World Way? Those lunatics?"
The secretary nodded. "During his confrontation with Jingbao Kui, he displayed formidable Inner Power cultivation. In that regard, he far surpassed Jingbao Kui. Judging by Jingbao Kui's performance as a Language Realm practitioner, he might already be an expert of the Compilation Realm or even the Assembly Realm."
"How was that possible?" Apennine was startled. "This guy... Compilation Realm or Assembly Realm? That was not merely an 'expert in the martial world.' That was a true expert. Would an Inner Power master like that also fall so low as to lose everything?"
"Perhaps it was some form of internal punishment among martial world people? If those martial world people could not accept becoming like this themselves, then their enemies would want even more to turn them into this." The secretary speculated. "I had indeed heard that some martial world organizations punished disciples who violated their code by 'abolishing their martial arts.'"
Self-mutilation punishments like "three cuts and six holes" held no deterrence for cybernetic humans. It merely meant replacing a prosthetic body—unless the blade was driven into the Biological Brain.
But if a blade went into the Biological Brain, that meant death.
Thus, martial world people had punishments of their own.
"Abolishing one's martial arts" was among the more severe ones.
And abolishing martial arts came with different particulars. In some cases, a sect or organization merely believed someone's character was improper and wished to reclaim the martial arts taught internally. They simply removed the chips and software. In such cases, an expelled disciple still had a chance to find open-source techniques online and become a martial world person again.
In another kind of case, neural surgery was used to destroy both memories and foundations together.
"These... rotten rules of the martial world..." Apennine hesitated. "Wasn't that a little too roundabout?"
"I do not know. Martial world people had their own logic." The secretary said, "And what is even more inconceivable is that Shan seemed not to have forgotten his Inner Power. In these days, he had even cultivated it anew. A Vagrant with Inner Power could not be subdued."
Apennine nodded. Greenwood thugs could use a frenzied collective memory to brainwash a Vagrant into becoming a thug. But the Civilization Protectors could not use that method. They did not possess such a "shared memory," nor did they advocate any "single torrent of emotion." Besides, Greenwood-style brainwashing could only assimilate someone into the Greenwood; it could not make someone fight for a particular person.
There were even records of people who had been implanted with Greenwood memories but did not settle down at the place where they were indoctrinated. Instead, they slaughtered everyone in that mountain stronghold before going elsewhere to commit evil.
The Greenwood was still part of the martial world, after all, and its ideals did not clash too sharply with that particular kind of freedom of the martial world.
But the stance of the Civilization Protectors was completely opposed to that of martial world people and even Greenwood people.
Apennine sighed. "Looks like there will be no new subordinate after all. Fine, at least I can still harvest a set of high-quality brain lobes..."
At that moment, a voice suddenly sounded from a nearby loudspeaker.
"Then, Young Master, could you leave that 'Shan' to this old man?"
A trace of displeasure appeared on Apennine's face. "Uncle Alster?"
The secretary's face lacked the mechanism for expressions. Yet he too showed displeasure.
The newcomer's Inner Power was slightly stronger than his. Such blatant intrusion was extremely rude. In the martial world, those thugs might even kill over such a thing.
The door opened without a sound. A black hunting dog as tall as a person walked in.
Alster Grand Daug, a master of the Bionic Fist Technique known as the Mad Hound, was skilled in both internal and external cultivation. Though he was merely a dog, he was also one of Apennine's father's most valued subordinates. He used a lightweight beast-type prosthetic body, but its output was already no weaker than that of some heavy prosthetic bodies. He excelled at close-quarters killing and hand-to-hand combat. Unless he encountered a martial artist skilled in reconnaissance and Gunlock at long range, he could defeat lower-ranked members of the Greenwood Tiger List in a one-on-one fight.
"Uncle Alster wanted to avenge Will?" Apennine found this strange. Alster was no loving father. That martial artist prosthetic body of his absurdly retained natural reproductive organs, and he had even undergone several reverse-aging treatments to preserve the activity of his reproductive system. It was his hobby. Alster Grand Daug had dozens of children. He ignored most of them, while those with martial talent were taught the Bionic Fist Technique and then made to swear loyalty to the lord.
Will had been one of the unfavored ones.
Otherwise, Will would not have followed the lord's equally unfavored son.
Avenge a son or disciple? That was not something Alster would do.
"No, of course not." The black hound's mouth opened like a mask, revealing the wrinkled face behind it. "Those who practiced martial arts killed people or were killed by people. Nothing could be more normal. Will was inferior in skill, so he deserved to die."
"Then..."
"My Bionic Fist Technique was actually broken by a Vagrant who didn't use algorithms. I couldn't accept that," Alster said. "I wanted to beat him to death. It was that simple."
Apennine's expression turned grave. "I have already claimed his brain lobes..."
"I do not want the brain lobes. If you want them, Young Master, I will help you preserve them." Alster said. "But I must kill him."
Apennine clenched his fist, then slowly released it.
"Fine, I can accept that.
Although he was the lord's son, just as Alster Grand Daug did not care about Will, his father might not care about a son like him either.
At least, I cannot defy him before my Myriad-Faced Heroes Compendium is complete...
"Then I will depart during the third hour after the welfare officer sets out." Alster revealed a gloomy smile.
After the dog left, Apennine smashed the sofa with one punch.