Liu Wei struck first, a classic Tiger Descends the Mountain opener - a leaping overhead strike meant to overwhelm through sheer force.

  The kid barely managed to stumble backward, the wind from Liu Wei's fist ruffling his hair. The power difference was obvious. Body Tempering Stage Two versus Stage One wasn't just a single level difference; it was the gap between a grown man and a teenager at best.

  The second strike came horizontally, a sweeping backhand that caught the kid in the ribs and sent him tumbling across the courtyard stones. The crowd winced collectively. Some began to turn away, having seen enough of these one-sided beatdowns.

  But the kid got up. Blood trickled from his mouth, and he was favoring his left side, but he dropped back into his basic stance with determined eyes.

  Liu Wei laughed, that cruel bark echoing off the courtyard walls.

  "Still want more? Fine!"

  Liu Wei's footwork was actually quite good, I noted. The Tiger style emphasized overwhelming aggression, and he executed it well. Forward step with the right foot while chambering a strike, left foot sliding to maintain balance, then explosive extension.

  The kid tried to block but might as well have tried to stop a sledgehammer with his bare hands. He went down again, harder this time.

  But again, he stood.

  This pattern repeated three more times. Liu Wei would attack with brutal efficiency, the kid would fail to defend, get knocked down, and somehow find the strength to rise again. By the fifth knockdown, even Liu Wei seemed annoyed by the boy's persistence.

  "Stay down, you idiot!" Liu Wei shouted, preparing another strike.

  That's when I saw it.

  At first, I thought it was a trick of the light, maybe sweat evaporating in the afternoon sun. But no, there was definitely something there. A faint luminescence outlining the kid's body, barely visible to the naked eye.

  It wasn't the explosive aura descriptions from the web novels. There was no golden flames or dragon manifestations.

  It was a subtle thing, like looking at someone through heat waves.

  The kid's eyes had changed too.

  The fear and desperation were gone, replaced by something I could only describe as absolute certainty.

  His breathing, which had been ragged, suddenly steadied itself. His stance, which had been shaky, somehow became rock solid.

  Was this what novels called "awakening through adversity"? The protagonist power-up that happened when pushed to the limit? I'd always assumed it was narrative convenience, but here was something that looked remarkably similar. His will, his determination to not give up, seemed to be affecting reality itself. Or was it affecting his qi? Was it drawing out latent potential through sheer necessity?

  Liu Wei charged forward for what he clearly intended to be the finishing blow, pulling back his fist for a full-power Tiger Subdues the Prey strike.

  It was a grand attack that consisted of jumping into the air and swiping downward with a powerful claw-like strike.

  However, the kid didn't so much as bat an eye.

  And something in me, maybe instinct, maybe pattern recognition from all those novels, knew this was about to go very differently than expected.

  "You fool! Can't you see—" The words tore from my throat before I could stop them.

  But it was too late.

  The kid's stance shifted into something I'd never seen before, not in any manual, not in any of the classical forms.

  His feet spread impossibly wide, almost to the point of doing splits, his center of gravity dropping so low he was nearly sitting on air. His hands pulled back to his sides, palms facing forward, fingers spread like he was about to catch something.

  Then he moved.

  No, "moved" wasn't right. One moment he was in that strange low stance ten feet from Liu Wei. The next, he was inside Liu Wei's guard, both palms planted firmly against his stomach. There was no in-between or visible transition.

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  He just... appeared.

  "Coiling Dragon Strike!"

  There was a sickening crack that sounded like the breaking of bamboo. Liu Wei's eyes went wide, blood erupted from his mouth in a crimson spray, and his body flew backward like he'd been hit by a car.

  He tumbled across the courtyard, bouncing off the ground like a skipped stone on water, before finally slamming into a tree at the courtyard's edge with enough force to shake the leaves loose.

  Silence. Complete, absolute silence as everyone tried to process what they'd just witnessed.

  I found myself running through the technique in my mind, trying to understand it.

  The name suggested a spiraling force, similar to the Viper's Whip concept but scaled up dramatically.

  The low stance would have compressed his muscles like a spring, storing potential energy.

  The instant movement could have been a burst step technique, using that stored energy for explosive acceleration.

  The dual palm strike to the dantian region would have sent shockwaves through Liu Wei's qi circulation system.

  But here was the thing that made no sense: there was no qi in that strike. I'd been watching carefully, had seen that faint aura around the kid, but the actual attack had been pure physical force. No spiritual energy enhancement, no qi projection. Just muscle, momentum, and technique.

  How could a Body Tempering Stage One cultivator generate that much force without qi? And that aura, what was it if not qi? Some kind of mental state that enhanced physical capabilities? A different energy system entirely?

  I glanced at Liu Wei's crumpled form and felt relief when I saw his chest rising and falling. Unconscious, definitely injured, but alive. Good. Not because I particularly cared about his wellbeing, but because I desperately wanted to ask him what that technique had felt like from the receiving end. The medical data alone would be invaluable.

  The crowd erupted into chaos. People shouting, arguing about what they'd seen, some claiming the kid must have cheated somehow. His two friends, the stocky boy and the girl from earlier, rushed to his side. They were praising him, slapping his back, the girl began checking him for injuries.

  This was too interesting to let pass. I needed to know more about this person who'd just demonstrated something that shouldn't be possible. I pushed through the crowd, ignoring the whispers that followed my movement. The reputation of Cao Chang, even diminished as it was, still created a bubble of space around me.

  Time to get some answers.

  Lu Ming's entire body felt like it had been put through a grain mill. His arms hung limp at his sides, completely numb from fingertips to shoulders. His hands wouldn't stop shaking, the muscles spasming randomly as they tried to process what he'd just forced them to do.

  Every breath felt like swallowing glass, his lungs burning from the sudden expenditure of energy that had left him completely spent.

  The Coiling Dragon Strike was a Qi Condensation technique meant for cultivators a full realm above him. He'd only managed to execute it at maybe thirty percent effectiveness, if that, and only because he'd stripped away all the qi components and relied purely on the physical movements. Even so, the backlash was destroying him from the inside. He could feel micro-tears in his muscles, stress fractures in the bones of his hands, burst capillaries painting bruises under his skin that wouldn't show for hours.

  But he'd won. He'd actually won.

  "Lu Ming, that was incredible!" Chen Bo, his stocky friend, was practically bouncing with excitement. "Where did you learn that technique? I've never seen anything like it!"

  "Your stance was so low I thought you were going to fall over," added Yao Mei, her healer instincts kicking in as she carefully examined his hands. "These are going to swell badly. We need to get you to the medical hall."

  "In a moment," Lu Ming managed to say, his voice hoarse. The crowd's excited chatter died suddenly, and he looked up to see why.

  Cao Chang was approaching.

  The other bully, the one from the Cao Clan who'd deemed him too useless to even serve as a servant. Lu Ming remembered that moment of humiliation clearly, the casual dismissal that somehow hurt worse than Liu Wei's direct cruelty.

  At least Liu Wei acknowledged his existence enough to torment him. Cao Chang had looked at him like he was furniture.

  But the expression on the Cao heir’s face now was different.

  It was the look of someone who'd found something unexpectedly valuable, like a scholar discovering a rare text. His eyes held a sharpness that made Lu Ming unconsciously straighten despite his exhaustion.

  The crowd pulled back as the Cao heir stopped directly in front of him.

  Lu Ming felt the weight of facing someone from the Five Great Clans. He had the authority that came with that name, the knowledge that this person could destroy his life with a few words to the right people.

  "What's your name?" He asked. His tone was neutral, giving nothing away.

  Lu Ming swallowed, tasting copper. "Lu Ming."

  The Cao heir’s eyes flickered with interest, and he nodded slowly as if filing the information away.

  "Lu Ming," he repeated, seeming to test the name. "I'll be watching you."

  The words should have sounded like a threat, but somehow they didn't. They sounded like... acknowledgment? Recognition? Lu Ming couldn't quite place it.

  Despite every instinct telling him to stay quiet and hope Cao Chang would leave, Lu Ming found himself standing straighter, meeting those sharp eyes directly.

  "You've never properly introduced yourself to me.”

  He had already started walking away but paused at the question. He turned back slightly, just enough to make eye contact again.

  "Cao Chang."

  Then he was gone, moving through the crowd that parted for him like water around a stone.

  Lu Ming watched him go, an odd feeling settling in his chest.

  The casual authority in how he moved, the way people unconsciously gave him space, the intensity of his observation during the fight, it all added up to something Lu Ming couldn't quite define.

  But one thing was crystal clear as he watched Cao Chang's retreating back:

  that wasn't someone he could face.

  Not yet.

  For whatever reason, Lu Ming had just become interesting to Cao Chang of the Five Great Clans.