Recognizing Limitations, Advanced Internal Martial Arts, and... Are You Pregnant?

Dr. Thomas Tang once said, when martial artists fight, there are only two goals.

First, to win.

Second, to find an answer.

This round of twin sparring? Yeah, it’s definitely not about winning. It’s like your left hand arm-wrestling your right—totally pointless. The only thing that matters here is finding an answer. And, well, we’ve already got it.

"Whew—" Jill Young let out a long breath. The fight hadn’t lasted long, but it was intense as heck, burning through a ton of stamina and focus. Controlling her wild energy was especially exhausting. Meanwhile, across from her, Jack Young’s breathing was still steady. Sure, he didn’t have Jill’s stamina, but he’d wasted a lot less energy, so he actually looked more chill than she did.

"Can’t beat you… If we keep going, you’d definitely win." Jill scratched her head, grumbling, "But don’t get too cocky. I figured something out—if your own vitality is more refined, it’s way harder for Advanced Internal Martial Arts to shake you."

"Exactly." Jack Young nodded and, surprisingly, spoke up: "Old Veteran has three types of energy, but they’re all mixed up—not refined at all. To others, he seems tough as iron, but to us, he’s like a balloon—one poke and he bursts. Our Titan Spirit Method is built up bit by bit, and with our knowledge of the Martial Arts Realm, Insight Technique, and Advanced Internal Martial Arts, we’re way more refined than Old Veteran. It’s a lot harder to mess with our energy flow."

Jill nodded hard. Training step by step might seem slow, but when it comes to controlling your own body, it’s solid. Gene mods and drugs do make you stronger fast—Old Veteran shot up in power with one world and one accident. But that kind of strength? It’s just for show. Advanced Internal Martial Arts could blast him like fireworks.

I mean, look at the real Captain America—right after he got juiced up, he couldn’t even control his own strength and crashed into a shop while chasing a bad guy. That level of control? In the Martial Arts Realm, it’s a total joke.

"But," Jack Young spoke again, his voice cold as ever but with a strict edge, "our vitality isn’t fully refined yet, either. If it was, even basic Advanced Internal Martial Arts couldn’t shake your energy so easily. That’s why we need to slow down and really hammer in the basics."

Jill Young stuck out her tongue. Getting scolded by herself—now that’s a weird feeling. Then another word popped into her head: "Basic Advanced Internal Martial Arts? How come I’ve never heard of that? So you’re saying there’s an advanced version too?"

"Your subconscious remembers it, but your conscious mind doesn’t." Sleepwalking Jack Young explained, "Back during the Death Arc, the night I advanced to the fourth layer of Insight Technique, I used my arrector pili muscles to perform Advanced Internal Martial Arts and killed a mosquito while meditating. That level of subtlety—well, you could call it Advanced Internal Martial Arts Plus."

"Holy crap!" Jill’s jaw dropped and her eyes lit up. Using arrector pili muscles to kill a mosquito with Advanced Internal Martial Arts? That’s some next-level superpower stuff! I’m this awesome and didn’t even know it?

Jill instantly got hyped, slapping Jack’s shoulder and egging him on: "Come on, show me! Let me see how awesome Advanced Internal Martial Arts Plus really is! Hit me with it!"

Jack gave her a look, didn’t move at all. But the next second, a strange vibration burst from Jack’s shoulder, shooting through Jill’s arm and spreading across her whole body in an instant.

Then Jill just toppled over, and Jack caught her in his arms.

Jill shook all over like she’d been hit with a high-voltage shock, her whole body twitching in tiny, rapid spasms. She barely managed to open her mouth, her voice trembling: "This… is… why… you… don’t… ask… for… trouble…"

As she spoke, Jill clenched her fists and tried to coordinate her whole body to shake it off. It took her a full ten seconds to stop trembling. She let out a long breath, still freaked out: "This Advanced Internal Martial Arts Plus is insane. If you don’t have Subtle Change Sense, you might never recover—like having permanent epilepsy or something."

If basic Advanced Internal Martial Arts is about intercepting and redirecting internal energy flow, then this advanced version acts directly on the energy itself. Like, if energy is water, normal folks stir it up to make waves. Regular Advanced Internal Martial Arts turns those waves at the last second so they crash into their own dam. But this advanced stuff? It’s more like a sonic weapon, shaking every drop of water until it explodes.

Even with Subtle Change Sense, Jill needed ten seconds to shake it off. If your skills aren’t up there, you’d probably go down in one shot—no resistance at all.

"Sigh…" Jill Young sat cross-legged on the floor, resting her chin in her hands. "If you think about it, Advanced Internal Martial Arts has a pretty bright future. On the plus side, I sleep, you wake, and together we’re unbeatable. But on the flip side, what about External Martial Arts? Fighting the Alien Queen is already tough—fighting you would be impossible…"

Jill was really stressing, her eyebrows all bunched up in worry.

But Jack Young shook his head: "I can only use Advanced Internal Martial Arts Plus for a split second. Once my conscious mind wakes up, I probably can’t use it at all. My Insight Technique level is still too low to handle that kind of skill. Besides, we don’t actually know any External Martial Arts, so there’s nothing to develop."

"Huh? We don’t know External Martial Arts?" Jill was stunned at first, then smacked her palm and got it. Her martial arts journey started with Dr. Thomas Tang, who taught her all about Tang Internal Martial Arts theory, but only ever taught her internal stuff—never once explained the external. Maybe he didn’t know it himself. But Jill always felt there had to be more to External Martial Arts than just punching and kicking.

So, strictly speaking, Jill had never actually learned External Martial Arts—she just muddled through real fights using basic moves.

"So basically, I don’t even know External Martial Arts?" The more Jill thought about it, the more depressed she got. Then she turned to Jack: "Hey, do you know how to train in External Martial Arts?"

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Jack Young shook his head.

"Haha, I’m being dumb—you are me…" Except for that Advanced Internal Martial Arts Plus stuff that happened in my subconscious, everything else he knows, I know too, right? If I’m confused, he can’t possibly have the answer. Ever since just now, this blockhead’s been way more talkative—and organized—than usual. I guess I got my hopes up for nothing.

"But," Jack Young spoke again, "Dr. Thomas Tang always said, learning martial arts is about seeing yourself, seeing the world, and seeing all living things. So…"

"So basically, I just mess around however I want, and eventually I’ll figure out what to do, right? No problem—this is my specialty!" Jill jumped up. She wasn’t the type to mope, and now that things made a little sense, she looked way more relaxed. She patted Jack Young on the shoulder, grinning: "Not bad, buddy. Registering you as ‘The Teacher’ was spot on—passing on wisdom and solving mysteries, huh? But how’d you get so smart? You used to be a total blockhead, and now, even though you’re still a bit robotic, you’re actually kinda lively."

"That’s because I had some extra mental energy—but now it’s all gone…" With that, Jack Young actually closed his eyes and fell straight back, like he’d gone to sleep for real.

"Seriously? You just flop down like that? We snuck out together by helping each other—how am I supposed to carry you back alone? Hey, wake up! Hey!"

Jack Young slept for more than two days. During that time, Jill Young took care of him like she was looking after her own parents. Sure, it was technically taking care of herself too, but handling an unresponsive blockhead wasn’t exactly easy.

The worst part? The guy didn’t eat or drink anything—she was terrified he’d starve. She considered prying his mouth open and force-feeding him, but Jill could see that Jack’s blood flow was super slow and his heartbeat barely there. It was like he was hibernating, with all his functions at rock bottom, clearly saving up energy. Shoving food in his stomach wouldn’t help—he wouldn’t absorb it anyway.

Luckily, Jill finally found a quick fix for the problem.

"Another bowl!" In the cafeteria, Jill was stuffing her face, empty bowls stacked three high beside her. Jasper Xiao watched in shock and timidly asked, "Are you okay? Why are you eating so much?"

"Duh, I’m burning energy for two people, so of course I gotta eat more!" That’s right—Jill’s simple solution was to just eat her fill. For some weird reason, the energy she absorbed would get sent over to Jack, like their blood was still connected. Using the purified liquid was risky, so she didn’t overdo it. Good thing the cafeteria served unlimited food, so she just went to town.

With her current digestive powers, food barely hit her stomach before it was almost completely absorbed—no matter how much she ate, she never felt stuffed.

"Two people… you, you—" Jasper Xiao stammered, his eyes about to pop out. "Are you pregnant?!"

"Pfft—!" Jill Young nearly spat water all over Jasper Xiao’s face. She put her chopsticks down and gave him a half-lidded, speechless look, making him sweat buckets. Jasper kept smacking his own forehead—how could he say something so dumb?

Because of her unique energy, Jasper knew for sure that the woman in front of him was definitely single and untouched.

"If you’ve got time to talk nonsense, go get me a bowl of beef!" Jill glared, and Jasper Xiao rushed off to get it, looking pretty well-trained for a rich kid.

During these days, the selection for new pilots continued, and a few more qualified candidates showed up. On the third day, Mark Long finally announced the results. The Level 3 monster’s appearance had sent a wake-up call to the organization, so they decided to bring in a whole bunch of new blood—everyone who passed the initial screening got sent to Hunter Academy.

Even Li Yuncong, who had the second-lowest score, got to go.

As for Jack Young, Mark Long rubbed his temples and finally agreed. When the helicopter came to pick them up, Jack was carried aboard on a stretcher—still not done sleeping. Mark Long just shook his head and secretly found it hilarious.

"Commander, looks like you’re in for some fun." Then Mark Long glanced at the horizon, his expression barely hiding a hint of seriousness. "How many of these candidates are hiding something? At a time like this, humans are still self-destructing… The end isn’t far off."

With candidates streaming in from all over the world, everyone set off for Hunter Academy headquarters. Whether they’d truly become Mecha Hunter pilots depended on how they performed there.