The situation in this settlement was clearly rather strange. They seemed able to partially control the power of the Holy Radiance, yet they didn’t even have books—let alone any complete inheritance of knowledge or skills.

And whatever limited inheritance they did have must have been passed down orally from elders to the younger generation. The efficiency of such transmission was easy to imagine, but the people of the settlement did have a language, and it was a language highly similar to the Imperial tongue.

This didn’t make sense. A complex language system should have a written form, and if there was writing, how could there be no medium for recording it?

Setting that aside, the people in the settlement were physically robust; whether in strength or speed, they far surpassed ordinary citizens of the Empire, comparable even to the Imperial Guards. This was clearly due to the influence of the Holy Radiance.

But aside from being strong and sturdy, the people’s martial skills were extremely crude—barely worthy of being called martial skills at all. They didn’t even possess the most basic techniques, let alone any methods for unlocking potential or gaining special abilities.

During the Empire’s era, martial arts had reached their peak. Even the basic fist techniques, saber forms, and sword skills that every commoner knew were the result of countless years of refinement and summary, having explored the mysteries of the human body to the utmost.

As for the Empire’s elite troops, and even the Imperial Guards, many of them were influenced by the Holy Radiance, possessing physical strength beyond ordinary people. The Imperial Martial Arts Research Institute had even developed specialized combat techniques for them.

As for the best of the best—the Dragon Cavalry Battalion—every member possessed one or even several special abilities. Their martial skills had to be custom-tailored to match their abilities and the series of equipment and weapons developed specifically by the Empire.

At the level of Eleanor Clark, it was already beyond the scope of research; true killing techniques could only be comprehended by himself.

Now, the physical quality of the settlement’s young people had already reached the standard of the Imperial Guards. Alice Clark, though still very young, could already stand shoulder to shoulder with elite Imperial Guard warriors. Given time, once she truly came of age, she might even be qualified to join the Dragon Cavalry Battalion.

Yet, including her, the martial skills of the settlement’s people were utterly abysmal.

Even the so-called warriors only surpassed the hunters because of their innate physical advantages; in terms of technique, they were all about the same. In Eleanor Clark’s eyes, they were only a bit better than street thugs brawling.

Since the settlement didn’t even have books, Eleanor Clark decided to be direct. He drew his hunting knife and handed it to the girl, saying, “Try stabbing that tree with all your strength.”

The tree Eleanor Clark indicated wasn’t particularly tall; its trunk was shaped like a bottle with a big belly and a narrow neck, but its bark was layered like scales.

The girl hesitated a bit. The tree looked strange, and its wood was as hard as iron—one of the hardest species in the forest. She had never tried stabbing it with a hunting knife before, but since Eleanor Clark said so, she decided to give it a try.

She took a few steps back, exhaled, then started running at full speed. Leaping up, she used all her strength to stab the knife into the trunk!

The blade sank in about halfway, but the girl’s face flushed from the shock, and she let go of the handle, staggering back a few steps, still feeling dizzy and lightheaded.

Eleanor Clark shook his head, walked up to the trunk, and casually pulled out the hunting knife. “That’s not the way. Come here.”

The girl obediently walked over and took the hunting knife again. She didn’t understand why she was listening to this man—he was clearly weak, getting dizzy after just a few steps, and his killing of two fierce beasts must have just been luck.

Eleanor Clark pointed to the ground. “Stand here.”

The girl did as told. This spot was only a step away from the trunk—she could hit it with a swing of the knife. But what did Eleanor Clark want her to do? Surely he didn’t want her to stab the tree from this close?

Without a running start, she doubted she could even pierce the bark.

Eleanor Clark nudged her right foot, positioning her feet one in front of the other, then said, “Can you feel the ground beneath your feet? Imagine you’ve become one with it. Start the force from your feet, channel it through here, here, and here, layer by layer, all the way to your hands, and finally to the blade.”

Eleanor Clark reached out, lightly tapping each key spot along her ankle, calf, thigh, hips, waist, back, then from shoulder to hand, ending at her wrist. Suddenly, he barked, “Stab!”

His shout was like a spring thunder, startling the girl so much that her whole body trembled. Suddenly, a surge of heat rose from her soles, following the path Eleanor Clark had tapped, growing ever more powerful as it traveled upward—at first a trickle, then a torrent at her shoulders, and by the time it reached her wrist, it was a raging flood!

She instinctively thrust the knife out. As the blade touched the bark, the torrent in her body found an outlet and instantly surged into the trunk.

With a muffled thud, the hunting knife plunged into the trunk up to the hilt!

The girl covered her mouth with one hand, gripping the knife with the other, almost unable to believe her eyes. When she came to her senses and tried to pull the knife out, it was as if it had been nailed into the trunk, not budging an inch.

She tried again and again, her face turning bright red, using every bit of strength she had, but the knife still wouldn’t move.

Eleanor Clark coughed and said, “That’s not how you pull out a knife. Watch me.”

With that, Eleanor Clark demonstrated a stance, then pointed out a few spots on the girl, saying, “You need to exert force from these points at the same time. Try again.”