A Promising Debut

Lei Zhengming wore a smile on his face, but his eyes brimmed with provocation.

Lu Li raised his head and met his gaze sharply, his eyes like blazing flames.

"Zhengming, Lu Li has been at the academy for less than a month. Pick another disciple."

Shen Gangfu spoke up. This was clearly unfair.

He had expectations for Lu Li, and contests between martial artists were contests of spirit. Defeat would inevitably affect one's fighting spirit.

Lu Li calmed down as well, pondering inwardly. If he acted now, he would inevitably expose his strength. That was not what he wanted.

Meanwhile, the hostility in Lei Zhengming's eyes deepened. He understood his master's meaning at a glance.

The more his master favored Lu Li, the more he wanted to prove who truly deserved his master's appreciation.

"Master, perhaps you do not understand. Junior Brother Lu is the most diligent in our outer court. I observe him every day and have found that his stance training and fighting techniques improve daily. You often say that we martial artists would rather advance a thought than let a thought stand still. Retreating at the moment of battle may harm one's fighting spirit."

Lei Zhengming's words were earnest, while his battle intent surged.

Shen Gangfu nodded slightly. "Then stop at the right point."

The disciples discussed it animatedly. None of them understood the gunpowder scent between the two, and all they wondered was whether Lu Li could withstand even one move from Senior Brother Lei.

Sometimes, the tree wished to be still, but the wind would not cease.

With matters having come to this, Lu Li naturally would not evade it. Constantly playing meek and admitting defeat would strike him as cowardice, betraying the original heart with which he had pursued martial arts.

"Lying low" was what he wanted, but speaking his heart freely was also what he wanted. He was searching for the balance between the two.

"Lying low" did not mean yielding in everything.

Especially after Lei Zhengming had repeatedly slighted, humiliated, and provoked him. Only an appropriate counterattack could let the other party know his boundaries and reduce future trouble.

With that thought—

Lu Li rose and clasped his fists toward his master, nodding in thanks.

He then walked to the center of the training ground and stood directly opposite Lei Zhengming, only three steps away.

The two faced off.

"Junior Brother Lu, please."

"Senior Brother Lei, please go first."

This exchange of courtesies instead made Lu Li seem somewhat overly confident.

The hostility in Lei Zhengming's eyes grew ever heavier. He no longer bothered with formalities and struck first, wanting only to end the fight quickly.

Lei Zhengming stepped forward half a pace, rooted himself in a bow stance, and suddenly chopped down with his right palm. The edge of his palm condensed force like an axe as it cleaved downward, straight toward Lu Li's Tanzhong vital point in the center of his chest.

The fist manual said: Strike Tanzhong, and qi and blood would scatter; the organs would crack from the shock, beyond the cure of any medicine.

Lu Li understood in an instant.

This move was fierce and domineering—the killing move of the "Chop" formula among the Eight Bagua Forms, aimed directly at the center of his qi and blood.

He did not take it head-on.

Instead, he abruptly sank his center of gravity, settled his waist and hips, and lowered his entire body by half. At the same time, both palms lifted with warding force, using softness to deflect hardness and forcibly diverting the force of that deadly chopping palm by half a foot.

Surprise immediately flashed through Lei Zhengming's eyes.

On the platform, Shen Gangfu's eyes gleamed. Lu Li's evasion had been perfectly timed, his footwork effortless and unhurried. Calm in the face of danger—he had indeed not misjudged him.

Lin Lanyi, standing nearby, also glanced over, admiration in her eyes.

Lei Zhengming froze for a breath, disbelief filling his gaze.

When his first strike missed, killing intent suddenly rose in his eyes.

The instant his chopping palm fell short, he followed through and closed in. His left arm bent at the elbow, the joint protruding as he launched a "Bagua Hanging Elbow" diagonally upward toward Lu Li's soft ribs.

If the elbow struck the ribs, inch force would penetrate the body and directly shatter the heart. This was Bagua Fist's most vicious close-range killing move.

Lu Li's eyes shifted, and in an instant he saw through Lei Zhengming's intentions.

Lei Zhengming was clearly too eager to make his mark. He had actually forgotten that the key to this move lay in "stepping back to draw force." If he had used the momentum of his forward rush to twist sideways, his speed would have been faster and his power three-tenths fiercer.

Lu Li remained calm and unruffled.

He directly hooked his step and turned, spiraling through a Bagua corner position. While easily sidestepping the attack, his body abruptly coiled tight. He closed in until they were chest to abdomen and likewise unleashed Bagua Fist's close-range killing technique, "Bagua Tucking Palm." The strike burst forth, its force restrained inward, and landed precisely on Lei Zhengming's diaphragm, an inch below his Tanzhong acupoint.

This was the core through which qi and blood circulated.

Bang!

Lei Zhengming's entire body suddenly stiffened. The qi in his chest abruptly flowed backward, his breathing instantly stagnated, darkness rolling across his vision. All the strength in his body collapsed at once, leaving him unable to resist as he fell to the ground.

The entire venue fell silent.

Lei Zhengming lay frozen on the ground, his mind buzzing. "Impossible. Absolutely impossible. How could I lose?"

Early Force Fusion against peak Sinking Force—Lu Li won!

And he won with astonishing ease.

Lu Li stood with his hands behind his back. "Senior Brother Lei, thank you for letting me win."

Lei Zhengming had underestimated him too greatly and possessed little actual combat experience. He believed himself far stronger than Lu Li, yet the truth was precisely the opposite.

Lu Li had not even truly made a move before he had fallen.

Exchanging fists was not children playing house. In a life-and-death fight, there was no room for mistakes.

"Good!"

At this sight, no one knew which disciple on either side shouted first, but cheers immediately rose one after another.

The wealthy patrons on the platform applauded and cheered as well.

"Excellent, excellent, excellent! Such fine gold and beautiful jade, such a youth of extraordinary insight—I, Wu's Weapon Forge, am willing to offer six thousand coins, along with a pair of cold forged-iron blades."

"My Tonghe Hall Pharmacy is likewise willing to offer six taels of silver. From now on, Junior Lu Li's medicinal baths and dietary supplements may be charged to my pharmacy."

"My Zhou family is willing to offer eight thousand coins each month, adding luster to Lu Li's martial path."

"My Zhang family..."

"My Liu family..."

Of the more than twenty wealthy patrons present, over a dozen were willing to accept Lu Li's protection token. The minimum cash offered by each was six taels of silver.

The various households also had their own different additional gifts.

These days, gangs in Blackwater City were growing increasingly rampant. These wealthy people running legitimate businesses all needed martial artists' protection tokens to avoid harassment. The gangs' protection fees had no rules at all, rising as they pleased. They had suffered under the gangs for far too long, yet had no solution and could only seek martial artists' protection tokens.

Throughout Blackwater City's outer district, only the Golden Gate Martial Academy, backed by the inner city's Heji Escort Agency, could temporarily keep them safe.

Moreover, investing in Lu Li now would allow them to forge a good connection. If Lu Li broke through the barrier in the future, it would be no different from buying insurance in advance.

What Lu Li wanted most was naturally Wu's forged-iron cold blades. His blade techniques had reached mastery, and he was badly in need of a good blade.

As for how to choose without inviting trouble, he planned to ask his master or Fourth Senior Brother after giving it some thought.

When Lu Li returned to his seat—

The disciples' eyes were full of envy. They called him Senior Brother Lu, and even those who had entered the martial academy and acknowledged a master before Lu Li called him "Senior Brother Lu" as well.

On the martial path, the accomplished were honored.

Even Lei Zhengming, faintly regarded as the outer court's number one, had been no match for Lu Li in two exchanges.

That was enough to prove everything.

On the platform, Shen Gangfu's gaze flickered without end.

He had already thought highly of Lu Li, yet he had never expected Lu Li to possess the strength to defeat Lei Zhengming.

And to win so easily.

Even more astonishing was that, at some unknown point, Lu Li's fist techniques had clearly already reached mastery!

Was that even possible?

Lu Li had practiced martial arts for less than a full month. Shen Gangfu still remembered when Lu Li had first come to the academy to acknowledge him as master: his body had been weak to the extreme, his qi and blood utterly frail.

In other words—

Not only had Lu Li filled his qi and blood to the peak within a month, he had also trained his fist techniques to mastery.

What kind of comprehension was that?

The crucial point was that his natural physique was still of the lowest grade. The more Shen Gangfu thought about it, the more inconceivable it seemed.

"Could it be that even my high estimation of him was still far too low?"

Very soon, Shen Gangfu gradually calmed himself. Since suffering his hidden injury and retiring to teach fist techniques at the Golden Gate Martial Academy nearly ten years ago, this was the first disciple he had encountered with such formidable comprehension.

It suddenly made Shen Gangfu think of those gifted martial students in the Martial Lecture Hall. Lu Li might not be inferior to them by much.

For all these years, Shen Gangfu had agonized over the lack of good prospects. Judging from Lu Li's performance now, the Martial Lecture Hall quota could be considered for him.

After a long silence, Lin Lanyi asked, "Uncle Shen, has this youth named Lu Li truly been at the martial academy for only one month?"