A little demonstration?

Over the next few days, Chen Jue followed his usual routine, practicing martial arts and working out to grind his attributes, then watching an episode of Legend of Martial Arts before bed to broaden his knowledge.

Meanwhile, the new weighted vest, digital scale, and copper rods for practicing the Impact-Conditioning Skill that he had ordered online began arriving one after another.

Once his free attribute points had accumulated to 0.41, Chen Jue forcibly raised his Shaolin Body Conditioning Skill by another level.

Just as before, advancing from Level 1 to Level 2 brought him up against a prerequisite restriction.

Fortunately, the copper rods had arrived. Chen Jue began striking every part of his body he could reach, spending an hour clearing the restriction and successfully raising the Impact-Conditioning Skill to Level 2.

At Level 2, the Impact-Conditioning Skill made Chen Jue's skin, muscles, and fascia even tougher. Whenever he activated the skill and exerted his power, he looked like a dark bronze man from a distance!

Along with the substantial increase in his constitution and strength, Chen Jue privately wondered whether the original Eighteen Bronze Men of the Shaolin Temple mentioned online had been like him now, using a highly accomplished Impact-Conditioning Skill to make their entire bodies as hard as iron and turn their skin bluish.

Rather than looking like their portrayals in movies and television, smeared all over with salad oil and body paint used in bodybuilding competitions to make their bodies gleam gold.

Bronze men were not golden men!

The former was reality; the latter was a gimmick.

After days of practicing martial arts and watching related documentaries, Chen Jue felt that his horizons had broadened considerably. Many questions that had puzzled him before now clicked with the slightest hint.

His martial arts had reached a certain level, and he was beginning to grasp things without a teacher.

Player: Chen Jue

Age: 27

Health index: 99%

Strength: 1.67

Agility: 1.21

Intelligence: 1.23

Constitution: 1.98

Skills mastered: omitted

Free attribute points available: 0.22

Thanks to the arrival of his new exercise equipment and weights, along with taking Mighty Pills, Chen Jue's strength and agility had surged over the past few days.

Of course, his ability to maintain such an intensive workout and martial arts routine owed much to his perfected Child's-Boy Skill.

No matter how exhausted he was after training the day before, Chen Jue woke up the next morning brimming with energy, like the newly risen sun. Without the buff provided by the Child's-Boy Skill, maintaining such rapid progress in so little time would have been difficult.

Early that morning, Chen Jue broke with his usual routine and did not go to the reservoir to train. Instead, he practiced the Twelve Forms of the Muscle-Tendon Change Classic at home for a while, stretching and relaxing his body to keep it in peak condition.

Then he went out to Lin Family Village for breakfast before taking a minivan and transferring to a bus, traveling all the way to Peach Immortal Village.

The event he had arranged with Commissar Yao was scheduled for that day, so Chen Jue headed straight to the XX Regiment's base.

The sentry at the entrance saw Chen Jue in his tracksuit, with his striking bearing, and promptly stopped him to ask a few questions.

After learning that Chen Jue had come to attend the exchange event, the sentry had him register his personal details at the guard booth, then notified someone inside the base.

Before long, a man in camouflage with a crew cut drove over.

"You must be Comrade Chen Jue? My surname is Zou, and I'm the regiment's combat instructor. Commissar Yao is a little busy receiving the crew from the county television station. Come with me to the venue and take a seat first."

The crew-cut man first looked Chen Jue over, feeling that this martial artist from outside the military looked almost absurdly young, even younger than in the video.

Still, he did not dare underestimate Chen Jue and extended his hand in a friendly greeting.

"Hello, Instructor Zou! I look forward to learning from you!" Chen Jue nodded and offered his hand as well. The instant they shook hands, he noticed the extremely thick, rough calluses on the other man's hand. Clearly, he practiced the external martial arts styles discussed on the online forums.

The two climbed into the jeep and drove slowly into the base.

During the ride, Instructor Zou made a point of introducing his family's martial art, Through-the-Back Boxing. It was a northern style with numerous branches, though his own primary practice was Military Hand-to-Hand Combat.

Chen Jue casually introduced the martial arts he practiced too. Upon hearing that he had learned Boat Boxing, Instructor Zou looked startled. "What a coincidence! One of the martial arts experts we invited from the sports bureau today practices Boat Boxing too!"

"Really?" Chen Jue was surprised as well.

He had run into someone from the same martial arts tradition!

He had never expected to encounter such a remarkable coincidence on his very first outing.

In addition, Chen Jue learned from Instructor Zou that the participants included a Taekwondo black belt, a provincial sanda champion, a national martial arts forms competition runner-up, and an inheritor of a boxing style recognized as intangible cultural heritage, among others. Including Chen Jue, eight people had come.

Of those eight, Chen Jue was the only one without a title to his name. If Commissar Yao had not specifically chosen him, he probably would not even have qualified to attend.

The jeep arrived at the venue, a large covered sports ground packed with soldiers. At least a thousand of them had come.

A television crew was filming inside as well, making the atmosphere especially lively.

Instructor Zou gave Chen Jue a lanyard badge for the event, then invited him to take his assigned seat.

Since he had not arrived particularly early, the seats near the ring were already filled. Some people wore Taekwondo uniforms, others traditional martial arts training outfits, and others sanda gear. Chen Jue alone wore a casual tracksuit.

The people seated beside him glanced his way. Although the young man had an impressive bearing, his face was completely unfamiliar. He probably did not belong to their local martial arts exchange circles.

After all, Wenzhou's martial arts and combat sports community was very small, and most of those present had exchanged techniques privately before.

Compared with them, Chen Jue was a genuine independent martial artist.

What Chen Jue had not expected, however, was to spot Master Li from the Boat Boxing instructional video among them!

When learning from that video, Chen Jue had specifically found Master Li's contact information in its description, intending to make time to visit him.

He had never imagined he would run into him ahead of schedule at this martial arts exchange. What a coincidence.

However, Master Li looked a few years older than he had in the video. Clearly, it had been uploaded quite some time ago.

Could he be the Boat Boxing expert from the sports bureau that Instructor Zou mentioned?

The thought flashed through Chen Jue's mind as he studied Master Li closely. The man did indeed have the air of someone accustomed to a comfortable life, presumably because he worked within the government system.

The exchange event had a planned schedule. Everyone would not simply swarm onto the stage to fight; that would be a street brawl, not a formal event.

An unknown nobody, Chen Jue sat at the very end of the eight civilian experts without speaking to the others, simply watching the television crew weave busily about as they set up their equipment.

When the scheduled time arrived, the event officially began. First, a regimental leader took the stage to speak and introduce the eight experts present.

Chen Jue took the opportunity to see what Commissar Yao looked like: a square face, a tall, six-foot frame, bronze-tanned skin, and an air of masculine integrity.

After the leaders had taken turns giving their speeches, the civilian experts and the regiment's three combat instructors were invited onto the stage to demonstrate a martial arts routine or a series of fighting moves.

This was the exchange's first demonstration segment. Before coming, Chen Jue had received the program from Commissar Yao. Everyone invited had to go up and show what they could do.

Of course, in terms of visual appeal, the Taekwondo black belt's demonstration was naturally the most pleasing to watch.

The black belt's surname was Xie, and he was in his early forties. Taking two students onto the stage, he first demonstrated a sequence of broad, sweeping Taekwondo kicks, then worked with them to perform an aerial cartwheel kick, shattering two thick wooden boards with a single strike. The highly difficult move drew cheers from the soldiers seated around the venue.

Chen Jue could not help nodding as well. He felt he should be able to perform such sharp kicks himself, and could even attempt something more difficult.

After the Taekwondo black belt finished, the other civilian experts took the stage one by one. Some performed imposing boxing routines, while others used a partner as a target to demonstrate their styles' fighting techniques, earning considerable applause from the soldiers.

Master Li also went up to demonstrate Boat Boxing and the Eight Immortals Stance. His movements were powerful and vigorous, more fluidly integrated than in the instructional video. Clearly, he had not let his skills lapse.

When Chen Jue, the last of the eight, took the stage, over a thousand pairs of eyes turned toward him.

After all, compared with the appearance of the previous civilian experts, Chen Jue's utterly ordinary casual tracksuit hardly gave the audience much to look at.

Facing those expectant gazes, Chen Jue did not demonstrate his specialty, Boat Boxing. Instead, he asked the staff below the stage to help bring up a freestanding punching bag.

He reached out to feel the bag's firmness and estimated its weight. Then, in front of everyone, he cupped his fist in salute and said politely, "My skills are still lacking, so I'll just give a little demonstration. Please offer me your guidance!"

Everyone assumed he would demonstrate a sanda routine similar to the sanda champion's earlier performance, so they did not think much of it.

But then Chen Jue gave a short shout and settled into the Eight Immortals Stance. His fair, rosy skin suddenly took on an eerie dark bluish hue!

Then the man onstage stamped his foot. The ring shook with a heavy thud as he lunged forward and threw a punch.

Boom!

It sounded as though a grenade had gone off in the venue!

The punching bag's outer skin burst apart!

The sand inside erupted instantly, spraying dust everywhere!

And the freestanding bag, weighing some two to three hundred jin, flew six or seven meters off the ring before crashing heavily to the ground.

"Holy... shit!!!"