The burly man spoke as he moved to stand before a massive wooden stake, thick enough for a person to encircle with their arms. He assumed the same punching stance as the other youths, and with a single punch, the wood split with a crack, accompanied by a faint sound like wind and thunder. The “yellow ironwood,” said to be as hard as ordinary iron, not only broke cleanly in two with one punch, but the half that flew off was instantly reduced to wood dust. No one could fathom what kind of tremendous force was contained in that punch to produce such power.

Witnessing the might of the burly man’s punch, all the youths in the arena were deeply stirred. Their movements, which had been growing sloppy from exhaustion, immediately became precise again.

At that moment, a boy lying atop the outer wall of the training ground opened his eyes wide, staring without blinking. His hands unconsciously mimicked the punching posture the burly man had just demonstrated. Though his form was not as precise as the direct descendants of the The Benson Family, it was certainly not something that could be mastered in a day or two.

“The second stage of the Nine Realms of Martial Refinement is ‘condensing strength like a tiger.’ The key is to focus all your strength into a single point. I’ve trained plenty while chopping wood and carrying water, and though I’ve grown stronger, I’ve never managed to unleash much power with a punch. That’s because I haven’t grasped the secret…”

“It wasn’t until I saw that punch from Mark Benson just now that I finally understood. It seems there’s much to gain from secretly learning from others. If I’d just kept guessing and practicing blindly, I, Evelyn Benson, would never have any hope of escaping servitude and becoming a respected warrior in the clan.”

A month and a half ago, when Evelyn Benson decided to risk everything to secretly learn martial arts, he had already prepared for the worst. Even if he was discovered, at most his legs would be broken and he’d be expelled from the The Benson Family—so what? That was still better than being a servant for life.

In the The Benson Family, there were many children like Evelyn Benson, born into servitude because their fathers were slaves. A rare few, due to exceptional talent, were promoted to the martial training camp. If they could reach the fourth stage of Martial Refinement—the stage of balancing hardness and softness—before the age of eighteen, they could escape servitude and become warriors of the clan.

However, Evelyn Benson was not so lucky. But he was extremely determined by nature; being a servant was something he could not accept, and making a name for himself was his goal. That’s why he was now secretly learning from the outer wall.

Seemingly inspired by the burly man’s punch, over the next half hour, nine more direct descendants of the The Benson Family completed their training tasks.

But they weren’t as lucky as the first to finish, Thomas Benson. Each only received one point, though it was still better than those who finished later, since only the top ten received bonus points in martial training.

Speaking of these “martial training points,” it was a tradition of the The Benson Family to use them to train their youths. Every youth who entered the martial training camp would accumulate points based on their training results.

At the end of each training cycle, the three with the lowest scores would be eliminated, while the top three would receive various rewards—spiritual medicine, weapons, martial techniques, or even the chance to become a registered disciple of a clan elder.

Knowing that no more points could be earned in today’s training, the remaining youths dared not slack off in the slightest. Failing to break the stake within a thousand punches meant no food, but more importantly, the last five would each lose a point—a truly dire consequence.

Time flew by, and the sun was already leaning west. Bathed in the glow of sunset, fewer than ten youths remained punching in the training ground.

“Wow, I did it!”

A boy with thick eyebrows and big eyes seemed to have grasped a hint of the “condensing strength like a tiger” secret. He broke the stake with a punch and, using his last bit of strength, shouted in triumph.

“That was your one thousand and first punch. It doesn’t count. The rest of you don’t need to continue. All seven of you lose a point, and you won’t be eating tonight…” The burly man’s icy voice cut the boy’s cheer short.

The seven boys who failed to complete the training all wore bitter expressions, their spirits hitting rock bottom.

A look of amazement flashed in Evelyn Benson’s eyes as he lay atop the wall. “This Mark Benson looks like a brute, but he remembers exactly how many punches each person has thrown. That’s truly impressive. Even someone like me, who prides himself on his calculation skills, can only keep track of about ten people at once. It seems that martial refinement not only trains the body, but also the mind—there’s real truth to that saying.”

Evelyn Benson’s understanding was not wrong. Once one reached the sixth stage of the Nine Realms of Martial Refinement—“Qi Swallowing the Bull”—one’s mind would be strengthened a hundredfold beyond that of ordinary people. Mark Benson was a master of the seventh stage, so multitasking was no challenge for him.

The training in the arena had come to an end. Evelyn Benson carefully returned to his small wooden hut. Since the age of twelve, he had been responsible for chopping wood.

The The Benson Family was large, with over three thousand people. Even without counting the firewood used for heating in winter, just cooking each day required over a thousand catties of wood. Evelyn Benson was just one of many wood-chopping servants. No one paid much attention to servants like him; as long as he delivered enough firewood each day, he was considered to have done his duty, and he enjoyed a fair amount of freedom.

Of course, due to his lowly status, Evelyn Benson’s activities were limited to the outer residence. Since he could remember, he had never once set foot in the inner residence of the The Benson Family.

Because of his passion for martial arts, Evelyn Benson never missed a chance to train himself. Three years ago, when he was twelve, he worked from dawn till dusk just to barely gather fifty catties of dry wood each day. Every time he finished, he could only collapse and lie flat on the ground.