Celestial Sea Prefecture. The training grounds at the residence of the Jili Empire’s commercial affairs council.

Guan Baoliang was a local of Celestial Sea Prefecture who lived on Mingyu Street. He came from a poor background, and after much difficulty, a relative had helped him find work as a servant at the council residence. Though he was only eighteen, he had already been working there for three full years.

Today, thanks to his sturdy build, he had been assigned a new task: go to the training grounds and await orders.

"Gang, I heard the training grounds are filled with the Jili Empire’s top experts. Is that true?"

Guan Baoliang quietly asked a young servant he was close with as they walked to their posts with a group of others.

"Yes. You should have signed a non-disclosure agreement. Remember not to speak carelessly. Be smart, and do what I do. If you piss off the Ghost Elders, you’ll be in deep trouble."

The young man called Gang looked to be twenty-five or twenty-six, with a mature face for his age. Seeing Guan Baoliang tense up at his words, Gang offered a small smile. "Don’t be nervous. The Ghost Elders aren’t going to eat you. You’re just a rookie, so they won’t make you a sparring partner. You’ll just be cleaning the grounds and moving some equipment, that’s all."

"Gang, are these Ghost Elder experts really that amazing? A few days ago, the two great Martial Arts Halls on Mingyu Street set up a Street Arena. I happened to have the day off, so I went to watch. It was incredible! Just a stamp of a foot shook the three-meter-high platform. And when they clashed, the sound of their blows was louder than the firecrackers at New Year’s! The expert from Hengchang Martial Arts Hall fell from over three meters up, and the ground shook, but he got up like nothing happened."

"And then there was Zhao Qi from Xiaolin Martial Arts Hall—he was something else! The expert from Hengchang was huge, like a brown bear, a whole two heads taller than him, but Zhao Qi just threw him right off the platform! I heard he’s even a year younger than me. It’s infuriating to compare yourself to people like that! Are the Ghost Elders’ experts as strong as them?"

Recalling the Street Arena duel he had seen on Mingyu Street, Guan Baoliang’s expression turned animated. What young boy didn’t harbor heroic dreams? He too had fantasized about being like the two on the stage—settling things with his fists before a captivated crowd. How magnificent that would be.

Alas, the dream was grand, but reality was harsh.

"How can a Martial Arts Hall True Inheritance compare to these Ghost Elders? Those guys are all monsters. How else do you think the Qian Dynasty fell? Why do you think the Warlords have to bow to the Ghost Elders? The Ghost Elders are powerful for more than just their guns and cannons," Gang said in a low voice.

"All monsters?"

Guan Baoliang was taken aback.

"We’re here. Time to work. Just watch for yourself in a bit, and remember to be sharp," Gang whispered a final instruction.

The group arrived at an extremely spacious courtyard.

After a while, three tall, white men emerged from the back of the courtyard, each finding an open spot to stand.

One of them, about six-foot-one, was bare-chested and wore a pair of loose-fitting shorts, revealing a body of streamlined, muscular lines.

He held two short daggers and stood to one side of the courtyard.

Immediately, a dozen or so sparring partners armed with high-powered slingshots fanned out and surrounded him.

SNAP! SNAP! SNAP!

WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH!

The twang of slingshots stretched to their limit and the whistle of stones cutting through the air at extreme speeds were constant and unending.

The dozen sparring partners fired continuously and erratically, the flurry of stones a dense swarm that enveloped the man from every angle.

Guan Baoliang couldn’t even see the afterimages of the flying stones. The few that were dodged slammed into the trunk of a large tree behind the man, embedding themselves deeply. A single hit would likely render an ordinary person unable to fight back.

Yet the tall white man’s eyes flickered at high frequency as he brandished his daggers. He parried, blocked, or dodged every single one of the incoming stones. Not a single one managed to touch him.

In another area.

Guan Baoliang saw a blond man, around six-foot-three, holding two weighted training longswords that were visibly much thicker than normal.

THUD!!

His arms swelled with blood, and the muscles connecting his chest and back bulged to an exaggerated degree.

Suddenly, his pupils contracted to pinpoints, the pores on his skin tightened into goosebumps, and his messy, slightly curly blond hair stood on end, making him look like a furious lion. His whole body even seemed to start trembling slightly.

FWOOSH! FWOOSH! FWOOSH!!

The two longswords danced in his hands, creating a fierce wind. Three meters away, the branches and leaves of a tree were whipped about by the powerful gusts, and green leaves fell one by one under the wind’s force.

The dance of the twin blades lasted for nearly a Quarter Hour. The man slowly stopped, the taut pores on his body relaxed, and his hair gradually fell back into its normal, disheveled state. Beads of sweat covered his skin. He simply let go of the weighted longswords, letting them fall straight to the ground.

THUD!!

The ground trembled slightly with a muffled impact.

Gang immediately shot Guan Baoliang a look. Four of them quickly went forward in two pairs to carry the two longswords away.

Just carrying one of the longswords to the storage shed a few dozen meters away left Guan Baoliang panting for breath. It was hard to imagine that the man had just been swinging two of them for a Quarter Hour, creating a wind so strong it stripped leaves from a tree three meters away.

In the final area.

A white man, also around six-foot-three but not particularly muscular, had the strangest training method.

In front of him stood a large water vat, about a meter high, filled to the brim with clear water.

The man slowly bent over and submerged his entire head in the water. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

Suddenly, ripples began to spread across the water’s surface, oscillating back and forth at an ever-increasing speed until droplets were flung into the air by the collisions, a truly bizarre sight.

CRACK!

All at once, a thin fracture appeared on the side of the large water vat. The crack spread rapidly.

Finally.

BAM!!

The entire vat exploded, sending water and shards everywhere.

The man waved his hand with a placid expression, and Gang immediately led Guan Baoliang forward to pick up the fragments and clean up the water.

Guan Baoliang examined a piece of the vat. It was at least two centimeters thick. He probably couldn’t have smashed it even with a brick, not in a short time anyway.

GULP...

Guan Baoliang couldn’t help but swallow, a sense of fear rising in his heart.

’Are these the Ghost Elders’ experts?’

’Just as Gang said, they’re all monsters. Compared to them, the Martial Arts Hall True Inheritance really doesn’t seem like much, does it?’

’Can the Martial Dao of the Divine Land truly not compare to the Ghost Elders’ Secret Medicine?’

After the three white men finished their training, Guan Baoliang and the others cleaned up the training grounds and withdrew, leaving only the three Cross Royal Fighters to talk amongst themselves.

"Did you get the director’s orders? To kill some mere practitioner of a Martial Arts Hall’s True Inheritance, they actually need the three of us to work together?"

The blond, lion-like man who had been wielding the dual longswords spoke, his brow furrowed.