A Newcomer

Wang Bowen's eyes widened. He sucked in a sharp breath. He got this far on his first try? Could he be someone Master trained in secret?

When Wang Bowen had first joined, his stamina had far surpassed that of the other students. One day of his training equaled two of theirs, yet it had still taken him three months to make force build within his body without dissipating.

"Senior Brother, that force felt incredible just now. It was like stretching after a long rest—it loosened up my whole body from bottom to top. I'm not sure whether I did it right, though."

Chen Yiming lowered his sword and stopped, asking for advice.

Wang Bowen struggled to keep his expression under control. "You did reasonably well. Keep practicing like that, but watch how long you train. Stop when your movements start to lose form, or you might hurt yourself."

Seeing that Chen Yiming wanted to ask more, he quickly cut him off.

"Practice on your own for now. I'm drenched in sweat, so I'll go inside and change."

With that, he darted into the back room, leaving Chen Yiming standing there, bewildered.

Wang Bowen felt a little shaken. If Junior Brother Chen wasn't someone Master had trained elsewhere, his aptitude for martial arts was extraordinary.

He had learned to layer force merely by practicing the free, publicly available basic moves. If he also tempered his body quickly enough, the school might soon have another Core Disciple.

Chen Yiming watched Senior Brother Wang leave and smacked his forehead. I shouldn't bother him with too many questions at once. I need to know when to stop.

He understood that much. They weren't family or close friends, and he was already lucky Wang Bowen had been willing to guide him personally. He couldn't ask too much of him.

He went over what he had learned several more times, then practiced while comparing his movements to the murals on the courtyard wall.

With the help of the little figure in his mind, he soon filled in the missing parts of Mantis Snake Swordsmanship.

Along the way, he made a surprising discovery: Mantis Snake Swordsmanship fell entirely within the range of his level-one swordsmanship talent. He only had to watch it once to master it with ease.

He practiced another three or four times. When the tempering left his body tingling and his muscles began to tremble, he finally stopped to rest.

Chen Yiming knew this was his body's instinctive response to a sudden increase in training intensity. The sensation was addictive. If his body could have handled it, he would have kept going.

Around nine that morning.

The other students arrived in the courtyard one after another. Including the newcomer, Chen Yiming, there were fourteen in all: nine men and five women.

The martial arts school took a hands-off approach to its students, with few mandatory requirements. Students typically trained there for one or two years and paid thirty thousand yuan in tuition each year.

Students with no hope of becoming Core Disciples would leave the school and find work, effectively graduating. Only Core Disciples formed the school's foundation. The school master valued and trained them, and they received free cultivation resources from the school.

"Hello, newcomer. I'm Zhang Youde."

Zhang Youde spotted the unfamiliar face and came over to introduce himself.

He wore a mechanical watch, a white shirt, and jeans instead of the practice clothes issued by the school. It was obvious at a glance that he came from a well-off family.

"Hello. I'm Chen Yiming."

After a brief chat, Chen Yiming learned that Zhang Youde came from a small Martial Arts Family. He had already undergone two Body Metamorphoses, and his family had an expert who had undergone six.

In East Lake City, apart from the top powers backed by martial artists, someone who had undergone six Body Metamorphoses was already considered upper-middle tier—qualified to serve as a senior executive at a large corporation.

Wang Bowen counted the students. Once he confirmed everyone was present, he announced the start of the morning training session.

The morning session ran from nine until noon, three hours in all. During that time, a Core Disciple led the students in group practice.

Since it was Chen Yiming's first day, Wang Bowen told him to watch from the side.

Every newcomer went through this first. The other students had all done the same.

Soon, under Wang Bowen's lead, the students practiced Mantis Snake Swordsmanship from beginning to end.

To Chen Yiming's surprise, only a few performed it correctly. Most made mistake after mistake, doing worse than him even though this was his first day.

It gave him a new sense of the other students' abilities.

Though he had only joined that day, at least among the students of the East City Branch, no one knew Mantis Snake Swordsmanship better than he did.

After a one-hour nap at noon.

Chen Yiming woke to find that his body had recovered remarkably. The soreness from his morning training was completely gone, leaving him amazed.

His level-one swordsmanship talent had not only greatly improved his understanding of swordsmanship; it had also made his body far better suited to training it.

The students lay resting on recliners in the back room.

A morning of training took a heavy toll on the body, and the cool weather made everyone want to sleep a little longer.

Wang Bowen watched the time. At exactly three o'clock, he loudly urged everyone to get up.

The afternoon training session ran from three to six, another three hours like the morning session.

Once the students had formed up, he demonstrated the technique first.

The first move, Emerging from the Cave. The second, Sweeping Shadow... The twenty-fourth, Pulling Back.

Muffled thunder occasionally sounded in the air. Falling leaves struck by the force of his sword shattered into pieces.

The sword in his hand struck as swiftly as a venomous snake. All that could be seen was a blur. His body was light as duckweed, moving freely forward, back, left, and right—a stark contrast to his ox-like build.

After completing the full sequence, Wang Bowen caught his breath and said, "Now it's your turn."

The students were bleary-eyed and unenthusiastic. Many went through the motions, their swords as limp as noodles, relying almost entirely on arm strength.

They saw a demonstration like this every morning and afternoon, sometimes from Second Senior Brother Wang Bowen and sometimes from Seventh Senior Brother Zhang Xingfeng. Anyone who could grasp the technique already had; the rest could only improve through slow, steady practice.

But most people had ordinary talent and soon reached a bottleneck in their training. After that, they made no progress for a long time.

Once the novelty wore off and their cultivation stalled, most students treated their daily training sessions like a job, doing only enough to get by.

Chen Yiming was different. Once his body had fully recovered, he took the initiative and joined the group.

The wooden sword in his hand moved as naturally as his own arm. Each move was almost identical to Wang Bowen's. It lacked some of the power behind Wang Bowen's performance because of their physical differences, but no one could find fault with his technique.

Most importantly, as Chen Yiming practiced, a distinct rhythm appeared in his movements too.

An invisible force pressed against and restrained his body, and every move had to break through it.

That was the sign that he had grasped the essence of Mantis Snake Swordsmanship. Under that rhythm, his body received a thorough tempering.

By the time he finished the full sequence, sweat had soaked his practice clothes. His skin was red all over, and heat rose from his body.

That degree of tempering showed that every part of his body had been worked thoroughly.

The other students' movements were imprecise. Even with repeated practice, they could temper only the easier parts of their bodies. The harder-to-reach areas remained insufficiently tempered.

That was why they stayed trapped at bottlenecks, unable to make further progress in tempering their bodies.

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