Robert Harris threw his punch, and immediately the numbers on the screen began to light up one after another. When the number 7 lit up, everything went still.

This time, Robert Harris didn’t use Thunder Fist, relying solely on pure strength. He was already quite satisfied with the value of 7.

A strength value of 7, for an average high school student, was undoubtedly top-tier.

Chapter 6: Inch Fist

Robert Harris’s strength of 7 points made William Carter slightly surprised.

The values on the strength tester differed a bit from the strength values in mobile games, but not by much; they could basically be considered the same unit.

Before William Carter got the mysterious phone, he himself only had seven points of strength.

“Your turn.” Robert Harris stepped aside and looked at William Carter as he spoke.

William Carter walked up to the strength tester, and the eyes of Robert Harris and the other two all fell on him. They all wanted to know just how much raw power this former number one genius of Guide High School still possessed.

Inside the Vitality Pod, James White was also curious. After more than a month of decadence, how much strength did William Carter have left?

Although strength doesn’t deteriorate as quickly as combat reflexes, having strength is one thing, being able to unleash it is another.

The skill of exerting force requires long-term practice to perfectly unleash one’s strength. If you go too long without practice, your technique gets rusty—even if your body’s strength remains, it’s hard to bring out its full potential.

William Carter stood in front of the pressure plate and assumed the stance for the inch fist. The inch fist isn’t a Vitality Skill, but rather a common martial arts technique, one of the standard lessons at school.

However, the inch fist is easy to learn but hard to master. To unleash maximum power at the shortest distance requires a lot of hard training to achieve any real results. Plus, the inch fist’s short striking distance doesn’t look flashy or cool, so most students prefer to practice those quick-result, more impressive-looking fist techniques.

Of course, even more students choose to practice weapon techniques, since in actual combat, weapons are far more lethal than fists or kicks.

Seeing William Carter’s fist almost touching the pressure plate, the three—Grace Bennett and the others—realized that William Carter was about to use the inch fist.

Robert Harris curled his lips and said, “The explosive power of the inch fist is indeed strong, but the technique is hard to master. Without years of hard training, it’s difficult to become proficient. I hope William Carter doesn’t end up shooting himself in the foot.”

Although Robert Harris’s words sounded harsh, James White somewhat agreed. The inch fist is tough to master, and William Carter didn’t seem to have practiced it much before. After more than a month of slacking off and being addicted to games, using the inch fist for a strength test now might actually make his results worse.

Bang!

While the four of them were still thinking, they saw William Carter’s fist tremble at an incredible speed. The punch was so fast that, if not for the explosive sound from the pressure plate, they would have thought they were seeing things—it seemed as if William Carter’s fist hadn’t moved at all.

All four pairs of eyes darted to the screen. They wanted to know just how much strength William Carter could unleash with this punch.

“The distance was too short!” Robert Harris, Grace Bennett, and David Thompson all had the same thought at the same time.

“The distance he punched from just now was really too short. Although the point of the inch fist is to unleash maximum power from the shortest distance, if the distance is too short, it’s hard to generate force. It’s like how you have to squat down to jump higher, or pull your arm back to punch harder. The inch fist does the opposite—only a true master can unleash full power from such a short distance…” James White thought even further.

But when they saw the number on the screen, their eyes widened in shock.

The numbers lit up rapidly, one after another, and in the blink of an eye, it reached 10. William Carter’s inch fist had actually produced a strength value of 10.

“10! It’s actually 10! How is this possible?” James White was both shocked and delighted.

Having taught for many years, James White knew very well how terrifying it was for a high school student to hit a strength value of 10 without using a Vitality Skill.

Even if ordinary students had strength crystals to use, it was still very difficult to reach such heights in high school. That’s because regular strength crystals only provide limited boosts. Once your strength exceeds seven, using ordinary strength crystals is almost useless.

Only crystals of extremely high quality can push strength further. Otherwise, you can only keep practicing Vitality Arts to temper your body and slowly grow stronger.

But that’s extremely difficult. For most humans, before evolving to the Legendary level, it’s very hard to reach 10 points of strength. Most people only have seven or eight points before advancing to Legendary.

William Carter was clearly still at the Mortal level, yet he could hit 10 points of strength with just his physical body. That was a rarity even in the entire Alliance—one in a million, no exaggeration.