Chapter 374: Training
Lu Jianheng was performing frantic, incredibly precise acrobatic leaps, using his flimsy bamboo stick to perfectly parry diving wasps, his aristocratic face covered in sweat and bug-ichor.
Wen Shiru was sprinting back and forth with the heavy yoke, his breath coming in ragged, wheezing gasps, his glasses completely fogged over. Fairy Xue and the maidens were crying softly as their thighs burned with the fire of a thousand suns, executing perfect, torturous lunges through the valley.
And Lin Ji’an?
Ji’an was sitting comfortably cross-legged on her floating palm-leaf yacht, which was currently being gently towed by Shen Zechuan, who was happily holding the tow-rope with one hand while whistling a jaunty tune.
She was sipping a cup of chilled jasmine tea, entirely unbothered by the humidity.
"It’s called physical equity, Elder," Ji’an smirked, taking a sip of her tea. "You have to break the foundation to pour new concrete. They’ll thank me later."
***
To ensure absolute compliance, Ji’an had not just relied on yelling. She had delegated enforcement duties to the two anomalies who were completely immune to her training regimen.
Xie Wangchen was acting as the climate control, but Ji’an had forbidden him from cooling the disciples.
"Let them sweat, Wangchen!" Ji’an ordered. "If you drop the ambient temperature around them, their pores will close, and they won’t be able to purge the toxins! Keep the cold radius strictly localized to the yacht!"
Wangchen, completely content to lounge on his ice platform next to her palm leaf, nodded obediently. "As you wish, Chef. They shall boil in their own inadequacy."
But it was Shen Zechuan who truly embraced his role as the motivational hazard.
Ji’an had given the abyssal airhead an entertaining set of instructions.
"Zechuan," Ji’an had whispered conspiratorially before they set off. "Your job is to make sure nobody stops moving. If you see someone slowing down, or trying to take a break... I want you to spawn a tiny, microscopic void-portal directly behind them. Just enough to make a scary, sucking noise. Don’t hurt them. Just spook them."
Zechuan had nodded enthusiastically, absolutely delighted to be given a task.
And he was executing it flawlessly.
Gu Zhiwei, who had been assigned the role of "Aggro-Bait", forced to run laps around the entire caravan, shouting loudly to attract the attention of the mutated beasts so the others could focus on their specific tasks, was beginning to flag.
The Golden Retriever was panting heavily, his holy light flickering as he jogged his thirtieth lap around the sleds.
"Brother Lin..." Zhiwei gasped, bending over to rest his hands on his knees. "Just... thirty seconds... my lungs are burning..."
He didn’t get thirty seconds.
FWOOMP!!!
A tiny, terrifying, pitch-black tear in the fabric of space-time opened exactly two inches behind Zhiwei’s golden tailbone. The horrifying, abyssal sucking sound of the Void-Devouring Mantra echoed in the mist.
Zhiwei yelped, a high-pitched sound of absolute terror, leaping three feet into the air.
He turned around. Zechuan was standing thirty yards away, waving happily at him with one hand while effortlessly towing the yacht with the other.
"Keep moving, Zhiwei!" Zechuan called out cheerfully. "The void is very hungry today!"
Zhiwei didn’t stop to argue.
Driven by pure, unadulterated primal terror, the Holy Son found a completely new, untapped reserve of stamina and sprinted away, his legs blurring as he resumed his laps.
For six grueling, agonizing, soul-crushing hours, the Vanguard Tour dragged itself through the Labyrinth of the Beasts.
They didn’t encounter any major bosses, mostly because the ambient, terrifying auras of Xie Wangchen and Shen Zechuan kept the true apex predators at bay, but the environment itself was torture enough.
By the time the sickly green sun reached its zenith, the disciples were at their absolute breaking points.
Hu Yanlie collapsed onto his knees in the mud, unable to drag the heavy sled another inch. His bare, scarred back was slick with sweat, his massive chest heaving, his muscles trembling violently.
Lu Jianheng dropped his bamboo stick, his hands blistered and bleeding, exhausted from the relentless, hyper-focused mental strain of parrying hundreds of wasps with a brittle twig.
Wen Shiru dropped the water yoke, falling flat onto his back on the moss, staring up at the foggy canopy, completely devoid of his mercantile elegance.
Even the Azure Crane maidens had collapsed, the bowls of water tumbling from their heads, their legs burning so fiercely they couldn’t even stand.
Ji’an stood up on her yacht.
She looked down at the miserable, groaning, broken pile of prodigies scattered across the clearing.
They looked pathetic and entirely defeated.
"Get up," Ji’an ordered, her voice completely devoid of sympathy.
"We cannot, Martial Uncle," Jianheng rasped, his voice barely a whisper. "Our Qi is entirely depleted. Our muscles are torn. We have nothing left. You have broken us."
"Good," Ji’an whispered softly, dropping her megaphone.
She jumped down from the yacht, landing lightly on the moss. She walked into the center of the groaning group.
"You think your Qi is depleted," Ji’an lectured, her voice quiet, intense, and carrying a heavy, undeniable martial truth. "It isn’t. You have simply emptied the shallow well of your Golden Core."
She pointed to Yanlie’s heaving chest and Jianheng’s trembling hands.
"The Yang energy from the Rank 7 bear meat is still inside you. It has been sitting in your deepest, most foundational meridians. By pushing your physical bodies to the absolute brink of systemic failure... you have forced that dense, heavy energy to expand. You have created a vacuum in your core."
Ji’an crossed her arms.
"Don’t lie in the mud and feel sorry for yourselves," Ji’an commanded, her silver-flecked eyes flashing with brilliant, unyielding light. "Close your eyes. Assume the lotus position, and pull the ambient Qi of the valley into the vacuum you just created. Condense the bear’s energy. Do it now."
Gu Zhiwei, possessing the purest instincts of the group, was the first to obey.
With trembling, exhausted limbs, the Holy Son pushed himself into a seated position. He closed his eyes.