Long Tian was seated atop a tree. He was resting after 8 hours of fighting against sacred blood beasts using only primitive sword beast souls.
At the start, it was extremely difficult, with his swords breaking all the time.
But after starting to truly understand the martial art in his memory, Long Tian rapidly improved.
Long Rue had been silently observing everything and was a bit confused as to why he was not using the Long Clan martial arts in the first place, but she truly could not understand even after thinking about it.
So she didn't, making Long Tian go through sacred blood beasts until he could kill them without breaking the sword.
He had absorbed the gene points from each sacred blood beast using the refinement art. It only took 5 minutes per beast, so it was not a huge problem.
They had already eaten. Long Tian had killed a boar before Long Rue told him to rest, so he made some boar meat barbecue, and they had both eaten.
After sitting down and resting for some time, Long Rue stood up and said.
"Okay, time to start your training for real."
Long Tian also stood up.
"First of all, and the most important part."
"Planning."
Long Tian looked a bit confused, but she ignored him.
"Before doing anything, you must plan as much as you can. It is impossible to perfectly follow a plan when doing things, but it is impossible to do anything without one."
"So, for starters, you will wake up every day at 3:30. I want you outside that room by 4:00 sharp."
"Before you start to complain, you have at least 40 fitness from what I can see. You don't need to sleep more than 3 hours to completely recover. And after you reach 50, you will be sleeping 2 hours at most each night."
"After leaving the shelter, you will come to the first ring and from here we will start any activities for the day. There is no one from the clan observing inside the ten rings, so we will not have to concern ourselves with being seen."
"Now, most important of all. We need to define an objective. Give suggestions, what will be your first objective with this training?"
Long Tian, feeling a bit vexed about waking up at three in the morning, immediately knew what he wanted.
"I want to enter top 10 in the next tournament."
Long Rue thought about it for a second and nodded.
"Alright, although I think you could pass to the third phase if you put in some effort, we can start with this objective. The-"
Just as she was about to continue, Long Tian clarified.
"No, not top 10 in the inter-shelter phase, top 10 overall."
After hearing that, Long Rue just stood there looking at him for some time. Apparently that was her habit whenever she heard someone say something absurd.
She finally sighed and shook her head.
"I would think that the young master of the Long Clan would know more about the world."
She shook her head once more before lecturing him.
"Do you know how strong the people that can enter the top 10 of the entire sanctuary are?"
"They are all in the Golden List if they are young enough, those that are older than that are also extremely strong. They each have maximum fitness, the strongest martial arts possible and more experience than you, how do you think you are going to win against any of those people?"
She said, feeling that she would have to curb some arrogance out of him before he ended up killing himself.
"Look, I know that they are strong, much stronger than I am currently, but this is my objective. If I don't reach it, it means that I am not training hard enough, that's all."
She looked deeply at him after hearing that answer. But then, a small smile appeared on her face. But that smile sent shivers down his spine.
"Alright, if you want to suffer that much, I will not stop you, but you will have to train ten times as harder if you want to have a chance."
"The tournament is less than three months away. So we have 80 days to transform you from someone who can barely fight at their level to someone that can win against stronger opponents."
"First, forget waking up at 3:30, I will want you out of your room at 3:00 sharp. If you are late, you will be punished, and we will finish later that day to compensate."
"Second, we will have to divide your time much more precisely. I don't know why you want to kill beasts but if you want to have a chance at that tournament, you will have to stop at least until then."
"We will spar, train in the Dragon Foundation Art as much as possible and I will also impart as much knowledge about fighting humans as you can absorb."
She said all that before speaking again, this time in a lower tone.
"It will not be easy, and many times your body and mind will implore you to stop. But if you truly accomplish this, just know that your future will be more promising than you can imagine."
She truly meant it. Reaching top 10 in the tournament less than 4 months since entering the first sanctuary was something that never happened after things stabilized in the alliance.
It would be something unprecedented, capable of catching the entire alliance's attention.
"Well, but if you can accomplish that will depend on you. Let's start, we need to get you used to the martial arts essentials as if it was your second nature."
So they started the training, something that would ultimately change Long Tian profoundly, giving a glimpse of what he would become in this new world.
…
In a spacious office, a man was sitting on a chair in front of a desk with a hologram projection on it.
The man had short black hair and was jacked with muscles. His eyes were yellow and were ignoring the hologram that he put aside at that moment.
He was, instead, looking at the other person in his office.
It was Qin Ling, who bowed a little in front of the man.
"Second Lieutenant Qin, I take full responsibility for what happened. As the report said, there were three super beasts in the nest, which caused the almost wipe-out of the entire Company. Had it not been for a fortunate coincidence, there would be no one left."
"I should have sent scouts first but became overconfident in my abilities and my soldiers ended up paying the price for it."
She finished and bowed again.
The man looked at her for some more seconds before speaking.
"It is truly unfortunate what happened in the sanctuary. But soldiers must always be prepared to die. The compensation that we send to their families is for that exact purpose."
"Now, losing almost 100 soldiers, even if in the sanctuary, will not look good on your resume, so we will have to do something about it Qin Ling."
The man, obviously from the same family as Qin Ling, said while pointing at the report that Jiang Xue had sent him.
Qin Ling immediately grasped his meaning.
"You can rest easy sir; I will talk with Sergeant First Class Jiang Xue so that she will fix the inconsistencies in her report."
Seeing that, the man finally smiled.
"Good. Qin Ling, you are an investment from the family, we can't have you ruining your career because some subordinate decided to be inconvenient in their report. Make sure that this Jiang Xue understands, or we will have to see what can be done."
Qin Ling only nodded, her expression not betraying anything.
The man continued smiling and then asked.
"Now, what about this mysterious man in white armor? For him to deal with so many Super Beasts, even one almost ascending, he should be already full in super points."
"I searched for everything related to LT, but didn't find anything. Make sure your people keep an eye open for him. Such an asset would be invaluable for our operations in the sanctuaries."
Qin Ling once again nodded, replying.
"Yes, sir!"
The man then nodded and said.
"Dismissed."
She bowed again and left the office.
Outside the office, there was a corridor with multiple other doors. She calmly walked towards the stairs in the end of it.
On the wall to the side of the stairs, there was a window. Outside it, bellow she could see a giant star with a dozen planets orbiting around it. In front, she could see over 100 giant spaceships similar to the one she was in.
She had seen this sight so many times that it did not even faze her.
She descended the stairs and passed through hundreds of meters of corridors and halls, greeting her equals and inferiors in rank along the way.
Finally, she reached a hall that had a teleporter in the middle.
She walked up to it, registered her entry and got in.
She walked out of a teleporter in the building that she had occupied with her soldiers. She registered her entry with the sergeant guarding the teleporter and continued walking.
She occupied this building after the Long Clan had taken over the entire region in the first sanctuary.
She was extremely shocked when that happened.
The person that took over the shelter was someone that was already registered in the military archives of the shelter as someone weak, and that person had stayed in the sanctuary for over 20 years.
Who knew that he was actually stronger than her. An agent of the Long Clan who was planted here, like a sleeping cell until he was called upon.
And she also heard that among the original shelter owners of the region, she was lucky, as some who did not have any background were directly killed, no questions asked.
After she reported it, her superior, a member of her clan, immediately contacted the higher ups, and she heard that it involved even generals, but it did result in anything.
The headquarters issued an order, and no action was taken against the Long Clan.
So she had relocated the military base in the shelter to this building.
It did not have any private apartments but was extremely large and had a teleporter, so it was enough for them.
She walked out of the teleporter and went to a deeper part of the building, the soldiers and sergeants along the way saluting her.
There were 2000 military personnel under her command in this base. She was not the only captain but due to the influence of her family and her strength, she was put in charge.
This obviously did not make the other captains happy.
She reached a room with a closed door and knocked.
Opening the door, Jiang Xue rapidly greeted her and let her in.
"Captain, is everything alright? If I caused trouble then I am very sorry, the other captains pressed me into telling them the story. They want to use this opportunity to take over."
She rapidly said, fearful of being misunderstood by Qin Ling.
The captain just sighed and smiled a little.
"It's alright Jiang Xue, you will just have to alter the report a little bit. Just say that you remembered more things and put the blame into one of the sergeants."
Jiang Xue did not even bat an eye and nodded.
"Biao Fei was clearly not loyal, I will say he disobeyed orders and did not send the scouts you ordered. This should be enough right?"
Qin Ling nodded.
"Yes, as long as the report gives some leeway, we will be fine."
Jiang Xue nodded and literally deflated. She had been extremely worried and had barely slept. She just protected Qin Ling and then stayed in her room to not give any captain a chance to confront her more than they already did.
"Come here."
Qin Ling said, smiling.
Jiang Xue approached and was embraced.
They stayed like that for a while, just enjoying each other's company.
Finally, Qin Ling pushed away and said.
"Now, thanks to LT, I am only 1 point away from full Super Points. I will have to train harder to push my gene art to the max once again, and then we will set off to hunt once things calm down."
Jiang Xue looked a bit disappointed at the end of the hug but nodded.
"Also, Jiang Xue."
Qin Ling said, making Jiang Xue look at her.
"Thank you."
And both smiled.