The bluestone didn't just crack. It exploded into a cloud of dust.
For a second, nobody moved. Chief Instructor Di Shitian and his staff just stared, a stunned silence hanging over the training grounds. How in the world were they supposed to score that?
Di Shitian pulled his officers aside. "Okay," he said, his voice deceptively calm. "What's the verdict?"
His staff shuffled their feet. They were all thinking the same thing: Verdict? It's your call, sir. You could give the kid an S-rank, and no one could argue. He obliterated the target, which is more impressive than slicing it with a Force blade. Then again, you could fail him on the spot. This was a test of the Force, and he didn't use an ounce of it. He found a loophole.
Di Shitian knew they were right. He could spin it either way. But for the first time in years, he hesitated. This wasn't about a single test score. It was about potential. Was Xiao Ke a diamond in the rough worth polishing, or was he a dead end? The kid was a Grade 1 Battle Soldier, but his raw strength was off the charts—Di Shitian could see his combat power was easily that of a Grade 5 Battle General.
But that was the problem. Raw strength has a ceiling. Even if this kid was the pinnacle of human power, a living legend of physical force, he'd still only be a match for a Grade 5. A Grade 6 would walk all over him, to say nothing of the true powerhouses—the Battle Commanders and Grand Marshals who could reshape battlefields with the Force.
Giving Xiao Ke an S-rank was a gamble. That was the highest honor, a grade reserved for the legends who graduated at the top of their class and became pillars of the Empire. If he gave that honor to a kid who had already maxed out his physical potential and had zero talent for the Force, he'd become a laughingstock.
That's why he was hesitating.
After a few moments of hushed discussion, one of the instructors leaned in. "Sir," he whispered, "with all due respect, the kid's strength is breathtaking. He's probably at the absolute limit of what a human can do. But that's the issue. If he's already at his physical limit and is still just a Grade 1, it means he has no room left to grow. For a Centurion to be stuck at that rank... it tells us he has no aptitude for the Force. Our assessment? He's impressive now, but he has no future. The real top-tier recruits, the ones like Ling Feng, their Force abilities are about to skyrocket. They're going to leave him in the dust."
Di Shitian was silent for a beat. Then, a cool resolve settled over his features. "I've made my decision."
He walked back to the testing area, his staff trailing behind him, and addressed the assembled cadets. His voice cut through the nervous chatter. "Xiao Ke's score is a D. Failure."
A wave of snickers rippled through the crowd, especially from the cadets who came from minor noble families. Everyone knew only the top 100 recruits would make it into the elite class. An S or A rank for Xiao Ke would have meant one less spot for them. Selfishly, they were thrilled to see him fail. It made their own odds just a little bit better.
Out of a thousand recruits, Xiao Ke was the only one to receive a D. He was officially the joke of the entire incoming class.
The color drained from Xiao Ke's face. He had come to Glory with everything riding on this. He'd left his old unit, the Tiger Whale Battalion, in disgrace—his commander, Qin Bing, demoted to a logistics cook, his comrades Duan Canglong and Luo Hou right there with her. The whole battalion was sidelined. He was supposed to be their hope, the one who would achieve greatness here and pull them all out of that mess.
And now, he hadn't even made it past the front gates without getting knocked flat on his back. A D-rank. No elite class. He'd lost the race before it had even begun.
"Chief Instructor!" Xiao Ke blurted out, a desperate edge to his voice. "I asked you before. I asked if all I had to do was break the stone, and you..."
"Are you questioning my judgment?" Di Shitian's voice was ice. "Or are you questioning my fairness?"
The words hit Xiao Ke like a physical blow. He realized it was over. Pushing it any further wouldn't change his score; it would just get him on the Chief Instructor's bad side for good. That wouldn't just be losing at the starting line—that would be getting disqualified from the race entirely.
He snapped to attention, his back ramrod straight, and locked his eyes forward in a perfect military stance. "No, sir. I would not dare."
"Good," Di Shitian said, his gaze lingering on Xiao Ke for a moment before sweeping over the rest of the cadets. "You know, I'm actually a very reasonable man. If any of you ever feel I've done something wrong, or said something unfair, or that you've been mistreated under my command... You are welcome to let me know. So I can have you expelled."
The cadets stared at each other, the message landing with chilling clarity. For a second, they thought he was being sincere. Now they understood. At Glory Academy, Chief Instructor Di Shitian wasn't just the law. He was God.
The thousand cadets were herded into the school grounds, past the 500 regular students who called this place home. Those were the true elites, mostly illegitimate sons of imperial princes or hand-picked talents groomed from childhood. They were on a five-year track. Xiao Ke and his group were just here for a one-month crash course. They weren't students; they were summer interns.
Classes were assigned immediately based on the trial scores. The top 100, including Ling Feng, were ushered into Elite Class 01. Xiao Ke, to absolutely no one's surprise, was dumped into Class 10—the bottom of the barrel.
The difference was stark. The elite dorms were practically luxurious, with spacious five-person suites and every modern convenience.
Class 10 was assigned to a derelict barracks that looked like it had recently been used as a machine shop. A hundred cadets were crammed into one cavernous room that reeked of engine oil. Grimy stains dotted the concrete floor, and a thick layer of dust coated the walls and windows.
At Glory, strength was everything. The best got the best. The worst got the scraps. And all the dirty, back-breaking work? That was for the failures, too. Xiao Ke had learned that the moment he'd arrived in Kirin City, when he and a handful of others were driven to the academy while everyone else was forced to run.
After they dropped their gear, the rest of Class 10 was summoned to the opening ceremony. But not Xiao Ke. He and nine others were ordered to stay behind and clean their new "home" until it was spotless.
Scrubbing oil stains from concrete and wiping years of grime off windows was brutal, thankless work. At first, they all dug in. But soon, the other nine started slacking. No one had assigned them specific sections, so it was easy to let someone else pick up the slack.
They leaned on their mops and started complaining, convinced they were hidden gems the instructors were too blind to see.
"It's hopeless," one sighed dramatically. "We were already behind by not making the elite class. Now we're in the official trash heap. There's no coming back from this. Fate is cruel."
But Xiao Ke just worked. He had learned one thing above all else in the military: when an officer gives an order, you follow it. No complaints, no excuses. The instructor had said spotless, and he was going to make this place shine. He worked with a quiet, methodical patience that was both efficient and unnervingly focused.
None of them knew that, hidden in a dark corner of the room, a pinhole camera was streaming a live feed.
Miles away, Di Shitian watched the monitor, his arms crossed.
"I threw these ten into the worst possible situation on purpose," he said to the other instructors gathered around him. "I wanted to see how they'd handle adversity. As you can see, only one of them has passed the test." He nodded toward the screen, where Xiao Ke was meticulously scrubbing a patch of floor the others had ignored. "The other nine... they really are trash."
The other instructors nodded, a grim understanding on their faces. "At Glory," one of them murmured, "we never miss a true talent. And we never misjudge a failure."
A week at Glory felt like a month.
On the surface, the schedule for the regular and elite classes was the same: brutal physical training by day, indoctrination classes on Imperial loyalty by night. The real difference was in the details. The regular classes, especially Class 10, were saddled with every menial chore on campus, from cleaning the latrines to hauling supplies.
But it was more than that. Xiao Ke could feel it. The instructors were just going through the motions with them. The training was tough, but it lacked the sharp, demanding edge he saw being applied to the elite class. Their evening lectures were lazy and uninspired.
Meanwhile, the elite class was being forged in fire. Chief Instructor Di Shitian pushed them to their absolute breaking point every single day with live-combat sparring. Their evening lectures weren't about dusty old doctrines; they were taught by Jiang Youwei, the Eldest Princess of the Imperial Family herself.
Not only were their instructors better, but the rewards were in a different universe. Each week, the top ten elite cadets were showered with rare alchemical potions. And among them was the ultimate prize, a single Marrow Cleansing Pill.
The pill was the stuff of legends. For anyone below the rank of Battle Commander, it was a golden ticket—a guaranteed, instantaneous level-up. It could only be used once, but that one time was a game-changer. It was the kind of reward reserved for war heroes on the battlefield, so priceless it couldn't be bought. The few that trickled onto the black market sold for a king's ransom.
The rumor mill churned with the news: the first pill had gone to Ling Feng. He'd gone from a Grade 5 to a Grade 6 Battle General overnight. At this rate, he'd be a Battle Commander by the time the month was over.
Xiao Ke felt a familiar pang of envy, but he pushed it down. It was pointless. He was in the trash class. What could he do?
When luck isn't on your side, you work harder.
It was an old habit from the Tiger Whale Battalion. He'd never needed much sleep. Back then, he'd used the dead of night to train in secret. After a couple of quiet days spent getting the lay of the land at Glory, he started again. Watching the elite class being driven to greatness lit a fire under him. He couldn't let them leave him behind.
The academy's back mountain was landscaped like a park, a peaceful retreat for students during the day. But at night, it was deserted. This was a military academy, not a college campus; no couples were sneaking off for late-night dates. After a full day of training and classes, everyone was exhausted. Everyone but Xiao Ke.
Every night, he would slip out of the hundred-man dorm—an easy feat, since the only toilets were outside—and head for the silent mountain. There, under the moon, he would practice. Combat forms, slaughter techniques, and the difficult cultivation of his Tiger Ben Art. He would train until the first hint of dawn, then slip back into his bunk, unnoticed.
Or so he thought.
On his eighth night, as he moved through his drills, the sound of his black military blade slicing through the air was a near-silent whisper.
But someone heard it.
In her quarters, Jiang Youwei, the Eldest Princess and honorary principal, was preparing her lecture for the next evening. A faint, almost imperceptible sound carried on the wind caught her ear—the whistle of a weapon. Fighting? In the middle of the night? A flicker of concern crossed her face. An intruder?
Without a second thought, she moved. Still dressed in her crisp instructor's uniform and military boots, she didn't bother with the door. She vaulted from her third-story window, landing on the grass below with the impossible silence of a cat.
She pinpointed the source—the back mountain—and flowed into the shadows, a ghost moving through the night.
Within moments, she was there, concealed in the darkness, her eyes wide with surprise. She saw a lone cadet, practicing slaughter techniques with a ferocious intensity. She recognized him. Xiao Ke. The failure. The D-rank.
She could sense his power level: a mere Grade 1 Battle Soldier. And yet... There was something else. A raw, bloody-minded sharpness to his movements that spoke of real battle. Maybe it was his sheer physical power, or maybe it was the vicious-looking black blade in his hands, but she knew with certainty: an ordinary Grade 5 Battle General wouldn't stand a chance against him.
Xiao Ke, lost in his training, felt nothing. He had no idea the Princess herself was watching him from the shadows. He finished a two-hour set, his muscles burning, and was about to stop to meditate when a sudden, violent cramp seized his stomach.
Oh no.
His eyes darted around frantically, landing on the public restroom block a short jog away. He broke into a desperate sprint. The spicy food. The damn spicy food of Kirin City. He was from the south; his stomach just wasn't built for the fire they served in the mess hall.
He burst into the men's room, dove into a stall, and unleashed hell.
Seriously, why do they have to put chili oil on everything? He thought miserably. Do they enjoy this feeling?
After what felt like an eternity, the storm passed. And then came a new, more horrifying realization.
He had no paper.
No. No, no, no.
Just as panic set in, he heard it—a faint snap from outside. A dry twig breaking underfoot. It was quiet, but in the dead silence of the night, it was unmistakable. Someone was there.
A lifeline!
He didn't care who it was. Another cadet, a night patrol, anyone. Getting disciplined for being out after curfew was a million times better than being trapped in here.
"Hey!" he called out, his voice a loud whisper. "Who's out there? I'm Xiao Ke, from Class 10. I'm... uh... stuck in here. I don't have any paper. Can you help a brother out? I'll owe you one. Big time."
Outside, Jiang Youwei froze. When Xiao Ke had suddenly bolted, she'd thought he'd spotted her and instinctively gave chase. When she realized where he was going, a deep blush had crept up her neck. She'd been about to slip away when her boot came down on that stupid twig.
And now he was asking for... that. She was completely flustered.
"Hey, buddy, come on!" his voice came again, more desperate this time. "It's an emergency! I'm begging you. Just this once. I swear I'll do anything to repay you!"
Jiang Youwei hesitated, then sighed. She walked into the restroom, pulled two folded sheets of tissue from her pocket, and deepened her voice. "Open the door," she commanded in a low murmur. "Just a crack."
"Man, you're shy, huh? Wait a second..."
Xiao Ke trailed off. Even though the voice was intentionally low and gravelly, he could tell. It wasn't a man's voice. It was a woman.
He immediately shut his mouth, terrified of scaring her off. He couldn't afford that right now. He slowly, carefully, opened the door just wide enough for a hand to pass through.
A small, pale hand appeared, holding two squares of tissue. He snatched them and slammed the door shut.
He hadn't seen her face, but he'd seen two things. The cuff of her sleeve was the dark, formal fabric of an instructor's uniform. And on her wrist was an elegant, finely crafted watch. At Glory, only instructors wore watches.
His heart began to hammer against his ribs. A female instructor? It couldn't be... could it be the Princess?
He shook his head. No way. I can't be that unlucky.
Then his eyes fell to the tissue in his hand. It was thick, high-quality stock. And embossed in the corner, almost invisible, was the faint, unmistakable insignia of the Imperial Royal Family.
In that instant, Xiao Ke felt like he'd been struck by lightning. He just sat there, completely and utterly frozen.