The instant his foot landed on the track, the heavy weights strapped to his body forced his muscles to tense violently to support the load. The sudden increase in gravity threatened to buckle his knees, but Situ Xuan adjusted his breathing immediately. He inhaled deeply through his nose, letting the unique respiration rhythm of the Big Dipper Divine Fist technique flow through his body like a cooling stream.
The track was paved with crushed black volcanic rock, the grains sparkling faintly under the harsh glare of the sun. When Situ Xuan finally started to move, the gravel under his heavy military boots crackled softly, a rhythmic crunching sound that marked his slow but steady progress.
The first lap felt deceptively easy. His stamina was full, and his spirit was high. However, the reality of the thirty-five-kilogram load quickly set in. By the third lap, sweat was already dripping freely from his brow, sliding down his face to splash onto the ground, leaving dark, wet circles on the volcanic track.
Students who were sparring on the sidelines stopped their practice, glancing over in amazement. They saw the tall new student moving like a tireless machine. He wasn't using Spirit Power to lighten his body; he was purely relying on physical grunt work. Every step he took sank a clear, heavy footprint into the ground under the burden he carried.
By the eighth lap, Situ Xuan's breathing had turned heavy and ragged.
Sweat completely soaked his black tank top, plastering the cloth to the solid, shifting muscles of his back. It looked as if he had just crawled out of a river. Yet, despite the exhaustion, a faint smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. This sensation of approaching his physical limit was familiar. It was the training tempo he knew best, the only way he knew how to improve.
On the fifteenth lap, the world began to blur. The edges of his vision started to blacken, swaying dangerously.
His heart pounded wildly against his ribs, like a trapped bird trying to escape. Blood roared in his ears, drowning out the sound of the seagulls and the ocean wind. His lungs burned as if he were inhaling fire. Just as his body was about to rebel and collapse, a sudden change occurred. A warm current rose from his Dantian, the energy center in his lower abdomen. It rushed along his Meridians, flooding into every exhausted limb.
It was the body-tempering secret of the Big Dipper Divine Fist. The closer one came to their absolute limit, the more potential the technique awakened within the body. It was a method that required flirting with collapse to find strength.
Situ Xuan's gaze cleared instantly. The black spots in his vision vanished. He steadied his stride, his form correcting itself, and he finished the remaining laps at the same unvarying, machine-like pace. When the final lap ended, the setting sun had already dipped low toward the horizon, stretching his shadow long across the training field.
On the way back to the equipment room, Situ Xuan steamed like a beast fresh from the forge. Heat radiated from his skin in visible waves. He pushed open the half-closed door of the equipment room and walked in.
Inside, Long Xiuyuan was standing by a workbench, maintaining a strangely shaped dagger. The weapon was menacing; its serrated edge glinted with a cold blue light under the fluorescent lamps. He moved an oil cloth along the blade with practiced care.
"Done running?" Long Xiuyuan asked without looking up, his attention fixed on the weapon.
"Mm."
Situ Xuan didn't waste breath on long answers. He unbuckled the weight belt at his waist and let it drop. The heavy metal thudded dully on the floor, the sound echoing in the small room. Relieved of the burden, his body felt light, but his legs trembled faintly from the exertion. Despite the fatigue, his eyes remained as sharp as knives.
Long Xiuyuan finally lifted his head. His grey-blue eyes were startlingly bright in the dim room, assessing the boy's condition. "Eight tonight. Training Room C7."
With a casual flick of his wrist, the dagger vanished into a storage spirit tool. "Don't be late."
With that, the young man—who seemed more like a ruthless drill instructor than a homeroom teacher—strode into the inner office. His heavy army boots rang out crisply against the floor tiles. Yet, before the door closed completely, he paused and spoke over his shoulder.
"Bring a change of clothes."
The door clicked shut.
"Running alone won't turn your potential into reality!"
Situ Xuan stood alone in the equipment room, his pupils contracting as he processed the teacher's final words. He caught the subtext immediately. Tonight's training would be far more than a simple spar or a lecture. It was going to be brutal.
As he walked back to the dorms to shower, his mind drifted to the history of this world. Ever since the Sun Moon Empire had completely conquered the Douluo Continent ten millennia ago, driving the Star Luo Empire and the Dou Spirit Empire off the land and across the seas, everything had changed. The founding of the Sun Moon Federation had brought with it a wholesale military reform.
The most significant change was the reorganization of the army by cardinal directions—the North, South, East, and West Legions.
Across those ten thousand years, the union of Spirit Masters and Soul Tools—technology powered by spirit power—had grown ever tighter. Armies no longer hurled soldiers into hand-to-hand slaughter as they once had in the ancient era. Modern warfare was about long-range destruction and energy shields.
Reduced casualties hinged on the mastery of Spirit Tools and on training Spirit Masters to match them. Consequently, the individual soldier's close-combat skills had declined by stages. Why learn to punch when you could fire a soul cannon from a mile away?
However, the military eventually realized a flaw in this thinking. Only those Spirit Masters whose awakened Spirits were naturally suited to high-intensity battle were given unified, rigorous physical training. Every legion was required to keep a special unit that could still dominate the battlefield without relying entirely on Spirit Tools—a unit for when the batteries died and the cannons broke.
"Over ten millennia, the methods have turned from blind effort to science," Long Xiuyuan said later that evening.
It was 8:00 PM sharply. Long Xiuyuan stood at one side of Training Room C7. The room was sterile and cold, filled with intimidating equipment. Only Situ Xuan stood before him. The dynamic between them looked less like teacher and student and more like a veteran commander addressing a raw recruit.
"Weight training, reaction training, and impact training. These are the three main regimes currently used in the East Sea Legion," Long Xiuyuan explained, his voice echoing off the metal walls. "They correspond respectively to the specialized training of Attack System Spirit Masters, Agility Attack System Spirit Masters, and the newly added Defense System Spirit Masters."
He paced slowly back and forth. "Usually, a soldier chooses one regime as their core focus, and uses the other two as auxiliaries to supplement their weakness."
His fingers drummed on a metal table nearby. The rhythmic beat sounded like some ancient war drum calling troops to assemble. The cold blue-white lights overhead cast long, razor-sharp shadows of the two figures on the floor.
"But your case is special."
Long Xiuyuan unfastened a dark-red belt from his waist and tossed it onto the table. The metal buckle clinked loudly. "Your Spirit is your Original Body. This means you cannot specialize. You must be all-round."
He turned to face Situ Xuan directly. "You forgo every element. You have no fire, no ice, no lightning. You forgo every variation of spirit power projection. You don't even have conventional Spirit Abilities that shoot beams or create shields. Therefore, what you need is a Physique that crushes the opponent. You need Battle Skills beyond their ability to withstand. You need to secure victory in the instant before they can even move."
Long Xiuyuan's voice was stern. He stood with his arms folded, his back to Situ Xuan, his eyes roaming over the chains, blunted blades, and custom wooden dummies hanging on the walls. These were tools for forging the human body to its absolute utmost.
"Your Spirit is your Original Body," he repeated, emphasizing the words. He turned back and rapped the table hard with his knuckles. "Put plainly, your body is your Spirit. For you, Spirit Rings are merely catalysts to boost its biological functions. They are fuel, not the engine."
Situ Xuan nodded silently. His gaze slid to the row of metal dummies on the left side of the room. Their joints were polished mirror-bright, worn smooth by countless strikes over the years.
"But—"
Long Xiuyuan's voice suddenly cracked like thunder, breaking Situ Xuan's concentration. "Do you think raw muscle alone can take you to the top?"
Situ Xuan's eyelids dropped for a moment, masking his thoughts. Then, they lifted again. A spark of intense Battle Intent ignited in his dark eyes. He didn't hesitate.
"Yes."
A single word. It was sharp as a blade leaving its sheath, filled with absolute confidence.
Long Xiuyuan gave a cold, harsh laugh. He finally shed all pretense of being an educator. He closed the distance between them in three strides. Each footfall was heavy, making the floor tremble. On the third step, his fingers hooked like claws and shot straight for Situ Xuan's throat.
Situ Xuan reacted instantly. He retreated half a step to create space, his right arm snapping up to block. His muscles were hard as iron, prepared to take the grab head-on and shatter the teacher's grip.
But Long Xiuyuan's move was never that simple.
Just as their arms connected, Long Xiuyuan didn't grab. Instead, he snapped his knuckles against a specific nerve cluster on Situ Xuan's forearm.
A jolt of electric pain shot through Situ Xuan's arm, bypassing his muscular defense entirely. His arm went numb, and his defense crumbled. Long Xiuyuan followed through with a shove that forced him back two stumbling steps.
"See your reaction?"
Long Xiuyuan withdrew his hand and stood tall, his eyes cold. "Your speed and strength far outclass your peers. Against a child, you are a god. Yet, in real combat, muscle is worth less than tactical wit if you don't know how to use it."
Situ Xuan shook his numb arm, trying to get the blood flowing again. The pain was sharp, but instead of being discouraged, a cold grin tugged at his mouth. He realized the gap between them, and it excited him.
"Again," Situ Xuan challenged.
"Hmph."
Long Xiuyuan did not press the attack. He had made his point. Instead, he turned and walked to the center of the room. He pressed a large, industrial switch on the wall.
A soft click sounded, followed by the grinding of gears.
The metal floor in the center of the room split open. A platform rose slowly into view, carrying a strange metal device.
It was a "bare-hand combat training armor."
The device was humanoid in shape and pitch-black. Its joints glowed with a faint, ominous red light. Embedded in its chest was a Spirit Tool core, pulsing rhythmically with oppressive spirit power. It stood there like a silent gladiator, waiting to be activated.