Volume 1, Chapter 45 – Test Results

The burly man walked up onto the platform, loosened his joints a bit, sank his stance, bent at the waist, and slowly clenched his fist. Veins bulged along his arm, which was thicker than an ordinary person’s thigh!

“Ha!”

With a shout, the burly man suddenly punched out!

Boom!

With a dull thud, his fist sank into the stone block, barely reaching halfway past his knuckles.

He pulled his fist back, taking two steps back in a daze.

“How is that possible?”

A black-armored soldier beside him took out a measuring stick, checked the depth of the fist imprint, and then announced flatly, “Two point four inches. Not qualified. Next.”

The burly man stumbled down from the platform, utterly dejected, still muttering “impossible” under his breath.

A wave of shocked murmurs rose from the crowd around them. From the looks of him, this man had to have several hundred jin of strength. How had he only left such a shallow imprint?

Shi Lan took everything in, not the least bit surprised. Although that man had a burly frame and decent raw strength, he was, in the end, just a Mortal who knew nothing of the Martial Dao. He couldn’t focus all his strength into a single point. Being able to bring out sixty or seventy percent of his power in that punch was already quite good.

Judging from the man’s build and the force behind his punch, that blow had to have at least over two hundred jin of punching force, comparable to a martial artist at the second stage of the Body Tempering Realm—yet it had only left a little over two inches of fist imprint.

By that calculation, to meet the Demon-Suppressing Army’s standard, one would need at least the strength of someone at the fifth stage of the Body Tempering Realm.

After the burly man stepped down, another middle-aged man with a similar build went up. His punching power was clearly weaker than the first man’s and only left an imprint one point nine inches deep.

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That was obviously below the minimum threshold Nie Yangze had just set.

Before the middle-aged man could open his mouth to argue, two black-armored soldiers stepped forward, pinned him to the ground, fetched a long plank from under the platform, and laid ten heavy strokes across his back.

By the time the ten strokes were over, his back was a bloody mess. He couldn’t move at all and had to be carried down by a few companions.

After that display, much of the greed the gold bricks had ignited in the crowd was doused.

Just as everyone was glancing around at one another, a lean man around twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old walked to the edge of the platform. Without even setting foot on the steps, he took a single stride and leapt straight up onto the nearly-zhang-high platform.

The mortals around them gasped in amazement at the sight. Even the eyes of the few martial artists present narrowed, their expressions turning more serious.

The man walked up to the stone block, sank into his stance, and stretched out his tendons and bones. His skeleton let out a rapid series of pops that sounded like rolling thunder!

“Haah!”

With a long shout, his five fingers tightened into a fist. His fist-shadow flashed, and a sharp whooshing sound tore through the air!

Thud!

The crowd only felt their vision blur for a moment before the lean man’s forearm was already buried deep inside the stone.

He drew his arm back and let out a long breath. A wisp of murky gray air, visible to the naked eye, streamed from his mouth, shooting nearly a foot away before slowly dissipating.

“Seven point five inches. Qualified,” the black-armored soldier announced, then raised his hand to signal the man to head over to the wooden table to register.

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“Name?”

“Yan Shan.”

…

After Yan Shan, more than a dozen martial artists went up in succession, but very few passed. Aside from Yan Shan, the deepest imprint any of the other qualified ones left was only six point two inches.

Several mortals who tried to fish in troubled waters and “just give it a try” without the strength to back it up all, without exception, ended up eating the plank.

Yan Shan and the other martial artists who had passed the test stood with folded arms at the City Lord’s Residence gates, watching the platform from afar. Every time someone went up to be tested, they would quietly discuss it among themselves, exchanging their thoughts.

When she felt the time was about right, Shi Lan squeezed out of the crowd and walked up the steps onto the platform.

Seeing Shi Lan go up, the martial artists all began offering their opinions.

“Those steps are all over the place, no weight in his landing, feet unsteady—obviously a Mortal.”

“Soft tendons and lax movements. Another guy hoping to get lucky.”

“Money moves the heart. Hardly surprising.”

Most of the martial artists only gave her a couple of glances before shaking their heads and losing interest, shifting their gazes away.

Yan Shan, however, quietly studied Shi Lan. Suddenly his brows knit slightly, as though he’d noticed something. His expression grew more solemn.

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Shi Lan walked up to the stone block and came to a stop. After roughly gauging things in her mind, she raised her right arm, tightened her fingers into a fist, and threw out a plain, straightforward straight punch at the stone.

For this punch, Shi Lan held back thirty percent of her strength from the start. The instant her fist made contact with the stone, she felt as if it had sunk into a quagmire, the power in her punch rapidly bleeding away.

Her punching force was completely dissolved in short order. Looking at her forearm, now sunk halfway into the stone, Shi Lan felt a bit uncertain. She didn’t know if she had reached the five-inch requirement.

After a brief thought, Shi Lan added another twenty percent of her strength. Her forearm, which had come to a halt, sank in another segment.

The black-armored soldier who had been about to step forward and measure the imprint stopped at this sight and gave Shi Lan a slightly startled look.

Shi Lan drew her arm back and took two steps back.

The black-armored soldier stepped up, checked the depth of the imprint, and announced, “Seven point nine inches. Qualified.”

The martial artists below the platform looked at one another, all feeling a bit embarrassed.

Yan Shan’s expression turned grave. He had noticed Shi Lan’s movement just now. The force of her punch had already spent itself, and the strength needed to drive her arm deeper that last time was an entirely different concept from simply punching out a seven-point-nine-inch imprint in one go. The power behind the punch of the person on the platform was obvious.

“Name?”

“Shi Lan.”

“Current place of residence?”

…

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After registering her basic information, the black-armored soldier pointed toward the gates of the City Lord’s Residence. “Wait over there. Lord Nie will speak to you all later, and the rewards will be handed out at the same time.”

Shi Lan did as she was told and walked over to stand at the gates. What struck her as odd was that as soon as she came over, that group of martial artists all shuffled a few steps away, putting some distance between themselves and her.

Very soon, fewer and fewer people went up to be tested. In the end, not a single person remained in line. Altogether, including Shi Lan, only twenty-six people passed the test.

Among those twenty-six, the one who left the deepest fist imprint was a black-robed man around forty, with a thick, steady aura about him. His nine-point-seven-inch imprint left everyone else far behind.

Shi Lan ranked second, with Yan Shan following after her. Aside from those three, none of the other martial artists’ imprints exceeded seven inches.

Once they confirmed there was no one else going up, several black-armored soldiers began packing away the items on the platform.

One of the soldiers walked up to the gathered martial artists and said, “Follow me.” Then he turned and pushed open the gates of the City Lord’s Residence.

The martial artists filed in one after another, following the black-armored soldier into the residence.

Shi Lan glanced around at the surroundings. The courtyard walls of the City Lord’s Residence were about as high as those of the Shi Residence, and the layout and general arrangement of the grounds weren’t all that different either.

Following the black-armored soldier along the path, the group soon arrived at a large hall.

The doors of the hall stood wide open. Once inside, they saw Nie Yangze seated on the main seat high above.