"Class One."
"Class Three."
"Class Four."
"Go complete the paperwork. Your body is actually in very poor shape—you must know this yourself, don't you? You often feel tightness in your chest, get breathless when exerting yourself, break out in cold sweats, and feel fatigued and weak after even slightly vigorous exercise. You have no appetite, and you have frequent nightmares at night?"
"Ah? How did you know?" The noble youth's face filled with shock. It was incredible—this legendary Instructor Lorist had merely rested three fingers on his arm for a moment and had accurately described his physical condition. He even knew about the nightmares at night, something the youth had never told anyone, not even his family.
"Heh heh, engaging in intimate relations too early when you're too young can easily damage your vitality. As long as you strictly follow the regimen we've set for the next six months, I guarantee you'll be able to awaken your Combat Force. Don't worry about the first failure. Go over there and let the other instructors examine you," Lorist said gently.
The noble youth stood up, bowed to Lorist with an excited expression, then withdrew.
"Next."
"Class One."
"Class One."
"Class Two."
...
In the spacious auditorium, four long tables were lined up on the left. Lorist sat behind the first table, which had a small leather cushion on it. He was having each new student in the long queue place their hand on the cushion so he could take their pulse. If he'd been wearing a white coat, the scene would have looked exactly like a free medical clinic on the street.
Behind the other three tables sat the three instructors—Anfia, Marlin, and Hughes. Lorist frequently had the new students whose pulses he'd already read go to the three instructors for a second check. The three instructors were also learning to take pulses by imitating Lorist. Instructor Anfia was concentrating intently, Instructor Marlin was scratching his head and ears, and Instructor Hughes looked thoughtful.
Behind the four of them stood a dozen or so Silver and
The bell signaling the end of morning classes echoed through the academy. Lorist stretched and said to the students queued before him, "Alright, that's it for the morning. We'll resume at two o'clock this afternoon. Remember your numbers, and don't be late."
The queued students could only disperse reluctantly, grumbling constantly—mostly complaining about how they'd been waiting in line all morning only for time to run out...
"How many are left this afternoon, Instructor Krisha?" Lorist asked the female Black Iron Instructor holding the student roster.
"One hundred and six," she replied.
"Mm, almost done at last. I'm exhausted. This afternoon, we'll push through quickly, and once all the students have been assigned their classes, the instructor group needs to hold a meeting to discuss the handling of each class and the appointment of class instructors," Lorist said, turning to Anfia, Marlin, and Hughes. "What about you three? Any gains these past three days?"
"I can't tell the difference. They all feel the same to me when I touch them," said Instructor Marlin.
"That noble youth just now—his pulse was weak and sluggish, felt rather unsteady, and there was a slight roughness to it. It's not like the pulse of the Class One student you assigned, whose pulse beat was firm and strong. When you pressed down, the arm felt smooth, and you could clearly feel the pulse. That noble youth, he looks very sturdy, but if you press too hard on his pulse, you can barely feel it. You only sense it when you press lightly." Although Instructor Anfia's explanation was somewhat jumbled, Lorist knew that after a year of study and practice, she was beginning to grasp the fundamentals of pulse-reading.
"You're exactly right. That noble youth's body has been depleted by women, and his vitality is damaged. Strong on the outside, hollow within. The pulse reflects precisely what you described. Most of the several dozen students assigned to Class Four this time are noble children, and their physical problems are all similar—they engaged in intimate relations too early in life, without any restraint, and their bodies are all severely weakened. With depleted qi and blood, how could they possibly awaken their Combat Force? That's why their diet and lifestyle need to be strictly controlled," Lorist said, quite appreciative of Instructor Anfia's progress.
"Chief Instructor Lorist, I can already feel that there are differences in the pulse readings of the new students, but I'm not yet able to distinguish them as precisely as Instructor Anfia," said Instructor Hughes.
"It's possible that you'll surpass Instructor Anfia before long," Lorist said with a smile.
"As for the rest of you, anyone interested is welcome to try. If there's anything you don't understand, come ask me. Once you've mastered pulse-reading, you can assess the students' physical condition at any time and know when their qi and blood are at their peak. That's the moment to trigger their Combat Force awakening for a hundred percent success rate. This is why I'm able to help all my students awaken their Combat Force," Lorist addressed the Silver and Black Iron Instructors behind him.
A few instructors looked eager to give it a try, but after some thought, a few others glanced at Instructor Marlin and decided that if even a Gold Instructor like Marlin couldn't get the hang of it after three days, pulse-reading probably wasn't as simple as it sounded. They shook their heads, declining to learn.
Back when Lorist had first been assigned by the academy to teach a Combat Force awakening class, he'd had only seventeen commoner students. The prevailing theory at the time was the bloodline inheritance doctrine, which held that Combat Force awakening was primarily determined by the magical beast factors inherited through one's bloodline. The descendants of those whose ancestors had produced Sword Saints had a greater chance of awakening Combat Force. As a result, the awakening rate among noble children was far higher than among commoners.
Lorist scoffed at this theory, considering it utter nonsense. Based on his own experience cultivating Blazing Combat Force, he believed that since Combat Force cultivation involved the bloodline, the awakening of Combat Force must also be related to qi and blood. If a person's qi and blood were at their peak when the awakening was attempted, the success rate would surely increase dramatically. And whether one's qi and blood were robust depended on one's physical health and nutritional state.
The higher awakening rate among noble children was most likely due to their living conditions. They consumed better nutrition, so their bodies were healthier and their qi and blood more vigorous, leading to a higher success rate. Through his own observations and the information he'd gathered, Lorist found that the noble children who failed to awaken Combat Force didn't actually have thin bloodlines—their problem was a decadent, undisciplined lifestyle. Every last one of them was a debauchee. This only strengthened Lorist's conviction.
As for why commoners had a low awakening rate, it was also likely because of poor nutrition. They had scrimped and saved just to afford tuition, so their physical condition was subpar. Without adequate nutrition, their qi and blood naturally weren't vigorous enough to awaken Combat Force. Lorist made a bold hypothesis and wanted to see if his theory held up, so he used the seventeen commoner students in his first class as test subjects.
But how could he assess these students' physical conditions? Lorist thought of the traditional Chinese medicine from his previous life. As a child, he hadn't properly studied medicine under his grandfather, but he'd been exposed to it enough to at least take a pulse. He couldn't identify internal injuries or hidden ailments, but he could tell whether a person was healthy and whether their qi and blood were vigorous. That was enough for Lorist's purposes.
Just as Lorist had suspected, the pulse readings revealed that most of the seventeen commoner students were malnourished. That was easy enough to address. Lorist recalled the military basic training from his previous life—after three months, those sickly city boys had all become vigorous and full of life. But there was one problem: how to provide these students with adequate nutrition. These commoner students couldn't possibly afford extra fees for nutritional supplements.
Work-study it was then. Although these commoner students hadn't awakened Combat Force, they could still handle menial tasks like sweeping, hauling garbage, doing laundry, running errands, watering flowers, and tending fish. Lorist haggled with the academy's administrative office for half a day, securing a large batch of long-term odd jobs to assign to the commoner students. He pooled all the earnings and planned to use the money for nutritional supplementation through diet.
In Galentea, doctors were alchemists, and their specialty was brewing potions to cure all manner of illnesses. While many potions used herbs, the majority of alchemical ingredients actually came from magical beasts themselves. Although Lorist had memorized several nourishing formulas from his previous life, in Galentea he couldn't find the required medicinal ingredients. He could only draw on his knowledge of magical beasts and alchemy, combined with the formulas from his previous life, to piece together a nutritious meal plan for three meals a day.
After more than three months of physical training and nutritional supplementation, all seventeen commoner students awakened their Combat Force, shocking the academy. The following year, when the new semester began, Lorist was once again assigned to teach a Combat Force awakening class. This time it was more normal—thirty-one students who hadn't been pre-selected by other instructors, varying in age, family background, and social status. Lorist once again deployed his secret weapon of pulse-reading, applying different training regimens based on each student's physical condition. Within a single semester, all thirty-one students awakened their Combat Force. Another perfect score.
The academy wasn't just shocked this time—they began to suspect that Lorist had uncovered some secret to Combat Force awakening. So in the third year, the academy assigned Lorist a class of fifty-nine students, including over a dozen noble children who had come specifically because of his reputation, as well as three students who had previously failed to awaken their Combat Force. To this end, the academy sent five instructors led by Instructor Anfia to serve as Lorist's assistants, hoping to figure out the reason for his success.
These fifty-nine students presented a more complex situation than the previous two groups, especially the noble children—half of them were physically weakened. Those three students who had failed to awaken Combat Force before were in even worse shape. They could barely manage two laps around the training grounds without looking like they were about to collapse. Lorist genuinely admired their courage in even attempting the awakening.
He had the alchemists brew qi-and-blood-nourishing vitality-enhancing potions for those weakened noble students to take daily, supplemented by physical training. By regularly taking their pulses, he monitored their conditions and triggered the Combat Force awakening only when their qi and blood were at their peak. Sure enough, it succeeded in one attempt.
Throughout this process, Lorist didn't keep pulse-reading a secret. He openly demonstrated it before instructors like Anfia, even explaining in detail that the reason he could assess students' physical conditions was through pulse-reading. He even enthusiastically taught everyone how to do it.
Lorist didn't believe these instructors could learn pulse-reading overnight. It looked simple, but in his previous life, those who studied traditional Chinese medicine had spent years at their master's side, learning through word and example, before they could take a pulse for diagnosis. Even the doctors trained at medical schools, however well they understood the principle—could they actually take a patient's pulse? Without mentorship and hands-on practice, it was impossible to learn. As for the foreigners in his previous life who had studied Chinese medicine—what Westerner had ever been able to take a pulse and diagnose patients?
Lorist had grown up alongside his grandfather, an old Chinese medicine practitioner, in his previous life. After more than a decade of martial arts and medical study, he considered himself to have grasped only the bare fundamentals of pulse-reading. He didn't believe for a moment that his own half-baked skills could make these instructors truly understand what pulse-reading was. And so it proved—the other four instructors quickly gave up, including Lorist's friend Instructor
Instructor Anfia, however, persevered. She believed what Lorist had said: with enough practice, one would naturally come to understand the differences between pulse patterns. Rumor had it that after the semester ended, she continued practicing pulse-reading at home on her husband, Instructor Kruder, as well as on herself and their two children. In the end, the moment she wanted to take their pulse, her family would scatter and flee.
The students in the third Combat Force awakening class, naturally, all awakened their Combat Force as well. This result earned Lorist the Gold Instructor badge for Combat Force, and combined with his Gold Instructor badge for swordsmanship, he became
Last year, Lorist had signed up for the expedition to the Ruins Archipelago and hadn't taught the new semester's Combat Force awakening class. This was his fourth time teaching one. The total number of students was eight hundred and seventy-nine, all drawn by Lorist's reputation as a Combat Force Gold Instructor—even paying double tuition to attend.
...