The family breakfast remained as warm as a dream, but the moment he stepped outside, the reality of war hit him like a physical blow. Lam Minh and his sister walked among the bustling crowds. They were all too familiar with the sight of patrolling soldiers, with war announcements blaring from loudspeakers, with life inside the giant safety cage known as the ASEAN Great Wall.
"Big bro," Lam An grumbled as she walked, "we have a Hostile Biology test today. The topic is 'Analysis of the Musculature of the Qi Refining Realm.' It's deadly hard."
Hearing this, Lam Minh scoffed inwardly. Musculature analysis? What a naive and flawed approach from humanity. The strength of the Madakaros didn't come from their muscles. A scrawny, early-stage Qi Refining cultivator could still tear a North American grizzly bear apart with their bare hands—a feat that would make a human with a gun break a sweat. It was an absolute difference in the fundamental nature of their power.
"Just say their muscle fibers have a density ten times greater than a normal human's, with the ability to instantly contract and release explosive energy. Just wing it," Lam Minh suggested offhandedly.
"Whoa, that sounds so professional!" Lam An's eyes lit up, and she quickly committed it to memory.
Lam Minh just shook his head and smiled. Those theories were mere conjecture. Humanity still didn't understand that what flowed through the veins of those three-eyed freaks wasn't adrenaline, but "qi."
Parting ways with his sister at the school gate, Lam Minh entered class 10A1. Hung 'fat' immediately sidled up to him, whispering, "Brother Minh, I heard Teacher Hoang 'Iron Hand' is subbing for Tactics today. That teacher is notoriously difficult, be careful or he'll give you hell."
Teacher Hoang 'Iron Hand' was a veteran who had lost his entire left arm in battle and now used a prosthesis made of alloy. He was famous for his strictness and his brutally practical lectures.
Lam Minh just shrugged and walked to his seat behind To Quyen. She was still engrossed in a thick binder, the cover of which read "Analytical Report on the Defensive Capabilities of Foundation Establishment-level Madakaros."
Lam Minh glanced at it and couldn't help but sigh in admiration. Foundation Establishment Realm? At this point in time, wherever a Foundation Establishment cultivator appeared on the battlefield, that place was pretty much guaranteed to be annihilated. Those things could circulate the "qi" in their dantian to envelop their bodies, making conventional bullets feel like a mere tickle. A single Foundation Establishment cultivator could easily slaughter an entire company of Qi Refining soldiers. And the Golden Core Realm? They could fly, and a single punch could level an entire city block. As for the Nascent Soul Realm, they were walking nuclear weapons, to the point where humanity had to resort to atomic bombs just to hope to injure them.
The disparity was that horrifying. And this girl, only sixteen, was already researching the Foundation Establishment level. A true genius.
The bell rang, and Teacher Hoang entered the classroom. His sun-darkened face was covered in scars, his gaze was as sharp as a blade, and his metal arm made a cold clack as he placed it on the desk. The entire class instantly fell dead silent.
"Today," Teacher Hoang said, his voice raspy, "we will not be studying empty theories. Watch this."
He projected a video onto the screen from a soldier's helmet cam. The image shook violently. A heavily armored soldier was confronting a Qi Refining Realm enemy. The soldier fired his weapon repeatedly, but the Madakaros simply shielded its face with its arm and closed the distance with ease. It swung its arm once, and the soldier's alloy shield was dented and sent flying. Then, a blood-curdling scream, and the screen went red.
The video ended. The class was submerged in silence; many of the female students' faces had turned pale.
"That is reality," Teacher Hoang slammed his hand on the desk. "The textbooks say we can use tactics, firepower. But in the face of absolute power, everything is meaningless. One of our most elite soldiers, facing a mere enemy grunt, still stands no chance. So I ask you, what are we to do?"
Silence blanketed the room. It was a question filled with despair.
To Quyen bit her lip and raised her hand. "Sir, we could use weapons with greater destructive power, like personal anti-tank missiles..."
"Useless!" Teacher Hoang cut her off. "By the time you've aimed, it would have already torn you into a hundred pieces. Anyone else have a different idea?"
Not a single hand went up. The harsh reality Teacher Hoang had just laid bare had extinguished any naive thoughts the students might have had.
Just as the atmosphere reached its heaviest, a lazy voice piped up from the back of the class.
"You're wrong, sir."
All eyes swiveled towards Lam Minh. He had stood up, hands in his pockets, the very picture of nonchalance.
Teacher Hoang's eyes narrowed, his metal hand tightening its grip. "What did you say? Where am I wrong?"
"You said that in the face of absolute power, everything is meaningless," Lam Minh said slowly. "But you're mistaken. Their power isn't 'absolute.' It's just a form of energy we don't yet understand. And any form of energy has a source and a pathway. If you can sever the pathway, no matter how powerful the machine, it's just a pile of scrap metal."
The class was bewildered. To Quyen frowned, trying to process his words.
Teacher Hoang snorted coldly. "Easy to say. How do you sever it?"
Lam Minh smiled. "The body of a Madakaros is like an electrical grid. The dantian is the power plant. The meridians are the wires. Its punch is strong not because of muscle, but because 'electricity' is channeled there. So why do we keep trying to destroy its fist, when we could find the 'master switch' and flip it off?"
"Master switch?" Teacher Hoang found this kid's talk increasingly absurd.
"That's right," Lam Minh pointed at the image of the Qi Refining enemy on the screen. "On their bodies, there are points called 'acupoints.' They are the intersections of the meridian lines. A few of them are extremely weak. They aren't well-protected by 'qi.' For example, the Taiyang acupoint at the temples, or the Qimen acupoint below the third rib on the right. A single stab from an alloy dagger to those spots with enough force will instantly throw their energy flow into chaos. For about two seconds, they will revert to the state of a humanoid creature with slightly superhuman strength. And two seconds is more than enough time for a soldier to finish them."
When Lam Minh finished, a deathly silence fell over the classroom.
Acupoints? Meridians? A master switch?
These concepts were too new, too... fantastical, like something out of a historical wuxia film.
But Teacher Hoang didn't think so. As a veteran, he had been lucky enough to witness a similar scene once. During a desperate close-quarters fight, one of his comrades had accidentally stabbed his knife into a strange spot on the enemy, and the previously ferocious Madakaros had frozen for a split second. At the time, everyone thought it was a fluke. But now, hearing Lam Minh's analysis, a spark ignited in his mind.
To Quyen looked as if she had been struck by lightning. She was a researcher. Lam Minh's argument, while it sounded bizarre, opened up an entirely new avenue of approach. "Sever the energy flow instead of confronting the physical power." It was a revolutionary way of thinking!
"You..." Teacher Hoang asked, his voice trembling slightly, "How do you know these things?"
Lam Minh used his old excuse, shrugging. "I read it in an old traditional medicine book my grandfather left me."
This time, no one believed him. But no one dared to refute him either. What he said was too logical, too detailed.
Lam Minh sat down, slumped onto his desk to "sleep" as usual, leaving the entire class with their minds reeling.
He wasn't sleeping. He was laughing inwardly. "Acupoints are just the beginning. Just wait until your daddy uses a flying sword to take your worthless dog lives from a thousand miles away. Then you'll know what a real party looks like."
In the eyes of his classmates, he was a lunatic spouting nonsense. But in the eyes of Teacher Hoang, and especially To Quyen, the student in the back row had just cracked open a door that could change the entire course of the war.
To Quyen stared intently at his back, a single thought dominating her mind: "I... I have to talk to him."