7: Chapter 7 Testing Combat Strength

Su Chen wore a baggy black hoodie, pulling the hood down low, and strode through the pitch-black alleyway.

The D District at midnight was not peaceful; a few gangsters holding steel pipes were gathered at a street corner smoking, occasionally sweeping their flashlights across the shadows passing by.

Su Chen did not take a detour.

With a flicker of his mind, his eyes instantly turned scarlet.

Single Tomoe Sharingan, activate.

The pitch-black night, where one could not even see their own fingers, instantly became as bright as day in Su Chen's field of vision. Not only that, every turn of the head and every lift of the hand of those gangsters at the street corner was slowed down and deconstructed in his eyes.

Su Chen was like a silent, nimble cat, stepping through the blind spots of their vision without even splashing a drop of water, passing directly from ten meters behind them.

"Was there a gust of wind just now?" a gangster shivered, waving his flashlight around wildly.

"Are you seeing ghosts? There's no one there."

Ten minutes later.

Su Chen stopped in his tracks.

Before him stood an abandoned steel mill, the area around the factory overgrown with waist-high weeds. Power had been cut off here long ago, and even homeless people didn't want to come here; it was an excellent hiding place.

Su Chen climbed into the factory through a broken window.

Relying on the Sharingan's night vision, he walked straight toward the center of the factory. There, a massive machine stood.

This was a "Heavy-Duty Qi-Blood Strength Testing Pillar" phased out by the military in the old era.

Although the machine's casing was peeling and rusted, the thirty-centimeter-thick refined steel sensor target at its core was intact. Gang leaders from around the slums would occasionally sneak in here to test their Qi-Blood progress.

Su Chen walked up to the machine and knocked on the target surface, producing a dull metallic echo.

"Crafted from refined steel, it can withstand a limit punch force of three thousand kilograms. That is the threshold for a standard Tier 1 Martial Artist's full-power burst."

Su Chen pulled his hand back, took a half-step back, and stood firm.

The rental apartment was too small, and the water pipes were too fragile. He now needed to know exactly what level of combat power Armament Haki could correspond to in this high-martial arts world.

He closed his eyes and adjusted his breathing.

In this world, whether it was an ordinary Martial Apprentice or a high-level Martial Artist, the core logic of exerting power was the same: drive the spiritual energy within the body, ignite the Qi-Blood, and let the power of Qi-Blood wrap around the fists and feet, thereby unleashing destructive power far exceeding that of an ordinary person.

But Su Chen chose not to do that.

"Suppress Qi-Blood."

He deliberately controlled his muscles, locking all of the 150-plus points of Qi-Blood that originally belonged to a High-level Martial Apprentice deep within his Dantian.

Not a single trace of spiritual energy leaked out.

At this moment, in the eyes of others, he was a weakling inferior even to an ordinary person.

"Armament Haki: Hardening!"

Su Chen gave a low shout and opened his eyes abruptly, the scarlet Single Tomoe Sharingan cutting a strange red glow through the darkness.

At the same time, his right arm jerked backward.

There was no surge of Qi-Blood, but a violent will originating from the depths of his Soul materialized instantly, following his intent.

Starting from his knuckles, a dark, metallic luster rapidly spread backward, covering his entire fist in the blink of an eye, and extended upward, stopping only at the middle of his forearm.

The air seemed to become heavy due to the materialization of this high-density will.

Su Chen's spine pulled back like a fully drawn bow, his bones emitting a series of crisp, popping sounds.

With force exerted from his waist, the power surged through his spine and into his right arm.

A most basic straight punch, devoid of any technique, was ferociously unleashed!

"BOOM—!!!"

The moment the fist was thrown, a sharp sonic boom actually erupted within the factory.

The dark-colored fist, without any flashy light effects, carried only the purest, most extreme physical destructive power, slamming solidly into the thirty-centimeter-thick refined steel sensor target.

"CRACK!"

There was no stalemate, no dispersion of force.

That military-grade refined steel target, which was said to be able to withstand the full strike of a Martial Artist, was like a fragile shortbread cookie the moment it made contact with the Armament Haki.

Starting from the point of impact of Su Chen's fist, the refined steel target surface collapsed with a roar. Immediately after, a harsh sound of metal tearing rang out, and spiderweb-like cracks spread wildly in all directions.

Su Chen's fist, like a hot knife through butter, punched straight through the entire refined steel target surface!

The force of the punch did not diminish, even piercing through the thick steel casing at the back of the machine.

"Beep... beep... BEEP!!!"

The electronic screen behind the strength testing pillar lit up instantly, bright red numbers jumping wildly, soaring directly to the limit value of "9999" before completely turning into a pile of garbled code.

"BANG!"

The overwhelmed motherboard emitted a muffled sound, exploding with a cluster of blue electrical sparks and emitting a plume of black smoke, completely scrapped.

In the huge factory, only the faint "buzzing" sound of the machine short-circuiting remained.

Su Chen stood in place, maintaining his punching posture.

He slowly withdrew his right arm from the hole in the machine.

With a thought, the dark luster covering his forearm gradually faded, revealing his original skin tone once again.

He looked down at his fist.

Not only was there no bleeding, but there wasn't even a single reddish mark left behind.

Armament Haki, absolute defense.

"My base Qi-Blood value can only be considered a High-level Martial Apprentice in this world," Su Chen said, looking at the shocking transparent hole in the machine, his voice echoing in the empty factory. "But with Armament Haki, the power of this punch has far exceeded the limit of three thousand kilograms."

He quickly made a combat power assessment in his mind.

A Martial Artist's spiritual energy shield is essentially just a layer of energy film formed by the external projection of Qi-Blood.

"With my current destructive power, even if a real Tier 1 Martial Artist stood in front of me, I could punch through his spiritual energy shield and blow up his internal organs."

Killing enemies across a major Realm!

And this was without using any Martial Skill, relying purely on basic physical attacks. If he were to cooperate with the Sharingan's dynamic vision to find the enemy's flaws...

A sharp light flashed in Su Chen's eyes.

That so-called S-Rank Genius, Zhao Kuang, really wasn't even a joke in front of him.

But this was not enough.

Su Chen knew very well that the high-martial arts world was vast and boundless; above Martial Artists were Martial Masters and Grandmasters. In the abyss, there were even terrifying beasts of King-level and Emperor-level.

To truly stand above this world and trample those high-and-mighty conglomerates under his feet, he had to raise the level of his cheat as quickly as possible.

"System, open the panel."

Su Chen thought silently in his mind.

A dark red holographic panel unfolded instantly before his eyes.

[Host: Su Chen]

[Realm: High-level Martial Apprentice (Qi-Blood Value 158 points)]

[Talent 1: Sharingan (Single Tomoe). Next stage: Two-Tomoe Sharingan. origin points required for upgrade: 500.]

[Talent 2: Armament Haki (Elementary Hardening). Next stage: Intermediate Entanglement. origin points required for upgrade: 1000.]

[Current origin points balance: 100]

Su Chen clicked on the System mall next to it.

Among the dazzling array of goods, he immediately locked onto the thing he needed most urgently right now.

The Sharingan gave him insight, and Armament Haki gave him offense and defense. But his biggest shortcoming right now was speed. The basic Physical Body of a High-level Martial Apprentice could not fully exert the full advantage of the Sharingan.

[Marine Six Styles: Shave: In an instant, continuously stomp the ground dozens of times to generate explosive reaction force for high-speed movement. origin points required for redemption: 500.]

"The Two-Tomoe Sharingan needs 500 points, and Soru also needs 500 points."

Su Chen rubbed his chin and quickly calculated.

"The gap is 900 origin points. Plus, I also need one million star coins in cash to buy that Tier 2 top-grade ice heart jade marrow pill to save Jiang Feng's life."

There were less than three days left.

To obtain origin points, the rule given by the System was: kill beasts carrying abyss energy, or collect treasures containing high-dimensional energy.

Go to the wilderness area outside the base city to hunt beasts?

Too late. He didn't even have a permit to leave the city right now. Even if he snuck out, spending three days searching for high-level beasts in the vast wilderness, the efficiency was too low; he couldn't save up enough money and points at all.

"There is only one place in the entire Jiangnan City that can satisfy both 'making money' and 'getting abyss items'."

Su Chen looked up, looking toward the deeper darkness outside the abandoned steel mill.

The Underground Black Market, also known as the Ghost Market.

That was the lawless land of Jiangnan City. Many mercenaries and Martial Artists who didn't value their lives for money would bring various Materials, Ores, and broken weapons that they brought out from the Star Gate cracks—which official instruments could not identify—to the Ghost Market for underground transactions.

It was a mixed bag of people, with no rules to speak of, and killing for goods was a common occurrence.

For an ordinary high school student, that place was Hell.

But for Su Chen, who possessed the Sharingan, it was a novice village paved with gold and dropping origin points everywhere. Abyss items that others could not identify had nowhere to hide under his eyes.

Most importantly, in the Ghost Market, if you rob the robbers, no one would come to hold you accountable.

"Time is running out."

Su Chen pulled the zipper of his hoodie to the very top and shoved his hands into his baggy pockets.

The shadow of the hood completely covered the upper half of his face, revealing only a piece of his cold, hard chin.

Without lingering any longer, Su Chen's figure flashed, activating his fastest speed currently, like a true nocturnal beast, and without hesitation, he disappeared into the darkness, heading straight for the underground air-raid shelter in the deepest part of the D District.