4: Chapter 4 The Combat Power of Land Immortals

Ancient martial arts cultivation is divided into:

Houtian Realm: Tempering the physical body, stimulating human potential to reach a "human limit" unattainable by ordinary people. After breaking through, one can easily shatter bricks and stones, or kill a cow with a single punch. Explosive speed far exceeds the visual limits of ordinary people. Muscle density increases, bones become hard, and one can withstand strikes from clubs, but it is still a mortal body unable to resist cutting from cold weapons or gunfire from thermal weapons.

Innate Realm: Drawing Qi into the body, opening the Ren and Du meridians, and forming a circulation of the Heavenly Cycle. The martial artist begins to enter the extraordinary. This is the true watershed between ordinary people and martial artists. One can split boulders with a palm and shatter iron gates with a punch. A hundred-meter sprint in under 3 seconds, easily dodging the siege of multiple Houtian martial artists. Can use True Qi to protect the body; ordinary daggers and machetes cannot penetrate the defense, and pistol bullets can be barely resisted outside of effective range. Can also perform basic "Lightness Skill," leaping over eaves and scaling walls.

Grandmaster Realm: True Qi is vigorous and can be released from the body, forming protective Qi shields and long-range attack methods. In modern society, this belongs to the first tier of military force below "strategic deterrence." Xiantian martial artists continuously compress and purify True Qi, circulating it through the meridians in a Grand Heavenly Cycle, eventually forming a vortex core at the Dantian. Physical strength can easily overturn cars. Movement is so fast that afterimages appear. The protective Qi shield can withstand submachine gun fire head-on and does not fear shrapnel from ordinary grenades. Can establish a sect, hold down a region, and serve as the ultimate trump card enshrined by a family.

Great Grandmaster: The gap between Great Grandmaster and Heaven-Man is too large; this realm is a transitional stage of accumulation, a period of gathering strength before the threshold of Heaven-Man. Spiritual power begins to awaken, enabling initial resonance with heaven and earth, borrowing a trace of the momentum of heaven and earth to bolster oneself. True Qi begins to transform into a higher form of "True Essence." Perceiving the nature of heaven and earth, tempering spiritual will, and preparing for the final transformation. Can dismantle buildings with bare hands and shatter small structures. Combining True Qi with the momentum of heaven and earth, one can withstand the direct impact of rockets and anti-materiel sniper rifles. These are the ancestors behind major forces, and only national-level military force is sufficient to deter them.

Heaven-Man: The level of life undergoes a qualitative leap, completely departing from the category of mortals. Spirit merges with heaven and earth; every action carries the might of heaven and earth. There is a rumor in the ancient martial arts world that "below Heaven-Man, all are ants." Spirit and body are completely fused, opening up an "Inner Heaven and Earth" within the body. A single strike can destroy large buildings. Speed breaks the sound barrier, triggering sonic booms. Conventional missiles can no longer pose a fatal threat. Can also walk on air by relying on resonance with the power of heaven and earth. These are the ultimate national strategic weapons and will not easily take action.

Land Immortal: With every gesture, one can stir up celestial phenomena, with power infinitely close to the legendary immortals and gods. Striking at will, punching force can reach thousands of tons, enough to trigger small earthquakes. Running on land is like shrinking the earth to an inch, far exceeding the speed of sound. The body is almost immortal; the shockwaves and radiation of ordinary nuclear bombs can no longer harm its foundation from a distance. Usually, power is restrained, returning to simplicity, indistinguishable from ordinary martial artists. Once all restrictions are released, invoking the laws of heaven and earth, the destructive power of a full-force strike can cover a city, comparable to a nuclear explosion. Moreover, because it is precise, controllable, and flexible, its strategic deterrence is even greater than that of nuclear weapons.

Qin Yi arrived at the training ground specially built by the Qin Family, which also had an exclusive testing area. He called over a Death Servant to help him test. The entire training ground cost hundreds of billions to build, and the main structure was cast from 120 layers of superalloy and composite ceramics, sufficient to withstand the impact of a megaton-level nuclear explosion.

At this moment, Qin Yi stood in the center of the testing area.

He was wearing an ordinary black suit, and beneath his feet was a circular field with a diameter of 300 meters, the ground paved with ultra-high-strength alloy over five meters thick. In the surrounding monitoring room, the Death Servant adjusted the equipment.

"Young Master, the test begins." The voice came over the broadcast.

Qin Yi nodded.

First Strength Test: Basic Punching Power

He walked to a hydraulic dynamometer. This machine was specially made and could withstand a maximum peak of ten thousand tons.

Qin Yi did not gather strength, nor did he even strike any pose.

He just casually raised his right arm, clenched his fist, and then—pushed a punch forward.

The moment his fist touched the force-measuring plate, the entire testing ground trembled violently.

In the monitoring room, the numbers on the instrument jumped wildly, eventually settling on—

2723 tons

The Death Servant fell silent.

This was just a casual punch. It did not invoke any power of heaven and earth; it was merely a strike of pure physical strength.

And for a conventional tactical nuclear bomb, the peak pressure at its explosion center is nothing more than this.

Second Strength Test: Blessing of the Power of Heaven and Earth

Qin Yi stepped back three paces and took a deep breath.

On his right arm, a layer of faint golden light vaguely emerged.

This time, he slightly lowered his shoulders and assumed a standard punching posture.

Boom—!!!

The dynamometer emitted a teeth-gritting sound of metal tearing. The numbers on the screen jumped wildly: five thousand, ten thousand, twenty thousand—

In the end, the instrument exploded.

The data froze on the frame transmitted back at the last moment:

Instantaneous peak in the core area: far exceeding ten thousand tons (instrument destroyed)

Qin Yi looked at his fist, then at the smoking wreckage of the dynamometer in front of him: "I didn't expect the power to be this great."

The Death Servant's slightly trembling voice came over the broadcast: "Young Master, we have spares. Next, we will conduct the speed test."

Speed Test: Basic Movement

At the other end of the testing ground, a straight corridor five kilometers long was lit up.

High-speed cameras were installed every 100 meters on both sides of the corridor, and at the end was an alloy buffer wall 20 meters thick.

Qin Yi walked to the starting line and stretched his ankles.

"Begin."

Without any starting movement, he simply—

Took a step.

On the monitoring room screen, the first dot of light flickered: 0.3 seconds, 100 meters passed.

The second dot: 0.6 seconds, 200 meters.

The third, fourth, fifth—the speed became faster and faster, the dots of light almost forming a single line.

Final data:

Time to pass five kilometers: 2.8 seconds

Maximum instantaneous speed: 3000 meters/second

Approximately equal to 9 times the speed of sound

This was still just pure physical speed. He did not walk on air, he did not fly; he was merely running on the ground relying on the explosive power of his legs.

On the corridor paved with superalloy, a series of deep footprints were left behind—those were the depressions stomped into the ground every time he exerted force to push off.

Speed Test: Extreme Evasion

To test reaction speed and direction-changing ability, a laser net array was activated inside the corridor. Dense red light beams intertwined into a three-dimensional net, where the smallest gaps only allowed one person to pass sideways.

"Young Master, the limit for this part is two thousand random transformations per second."

Qin Yi smiled: "Not enough."

He walked into the corridor.

The next second, the Death Servant held his breath.

What he saw was not a person performing evasive maneuvers, but a black bolt of lightning, shuttling back and forth in the laser net. Every change of direction was completed in an instant, every turn was without warning, as if the laws of physics had failed on him.

The transformation speed of the laser net was increased from two thousand times per second to three thousand, four thousand, five thousand—

Until the system overloaded and shut down.

When replaying the footage, the Death Servant discovered that at the highest speed, the time interval for Qin Yi to make continuous changes of direction was—

0.0003 seconds.

In other words, his nervous system's reaction speed had already reached one hundred thousand times the human limit.