Chapter 42: The Strength He Chose to Hide

For three long seconds, nobody moved.

Nobody even seemed to breathe.

The wind had died down. The rustling of clothes had stopped. Even the faint hum of the surveillance drones overhead seemed to disappear.

Nearly two thousand kilograms.

Two tons of pure kinetic force.

This wasn’t the kind of strength an ordinary student could produce. It was the raw physical power expected from an elite Stage 2 Martial Warrior, someone who had built an exceptionally strong foundation before breaking through.

"My... my god..."

A student in the third row finally managed to speak, his voice trembling as though he had just witnessed something impossible.

Then the entire arena erupted.

"One thousand nine hundred and fifty kilograms?! Is she even human?!"

"Stage 2! She’s already reached the Second Stage of the Martial Warrior realm! And it’s only been three days!"

"An S-Rank Divine Beast... The legend is real! Her foundation is incredible!"

"She’s a genius! A true heavenly prodigy!"

Shouts of shock and admiration swept through the stands like a tidal wave.

At the front of the student formation, Eric Vance stood completely frozen.

It felt as though someone had just poured a bucket of cold water over him.

The pride that had filled his chest only moments ago was gone.

His shoulders sagged, his face turning an ugly shade of purple-gray as he stared at the number on the display.

1,950 KG.

His own result suddenly looked painfully insignificant.

Six hundred kilograms.

Only moments ago, Eric had been basking in the glory of that number, convinced he had reached the peak of Silverwood Elite High School.

Then Evelyn had casually thrown a punch worth more than three times his entire output.

She hadn’t even broken a sweat.

She hadn’t grimaced.

She had barely seemed to put any effort into it.

The gap between them was so enormous that it felt like an invisible iron palm had slapped Eric across the face in front of the entire city.

Evelyn, however, couldn’t have cared less about the crowd’s reaction.

She didn’t even look at the display.

She simply pulled back her slender fist, brushed a loose strand of hair behind her ear, and turned to return to the formation.

As she passed Lucian, her cold eyes softened slightly.

The corners of her lips lifted into the faintest, most playful smile—one that only he could see.

Lucian caught her gaze and quietly chuckled.

Show-off.

"Quiet down!"

The chief examiner’s voice thundered from the main dais.

His words carried the suppressive aura of a Martial General, instantly forcing the chaotic stands back into silence.

He watched Evelyn’s retreating figure for a moment, clear admiration in his eyes, before taking a breath and looking down at the next name on his digital roster.

His brows twitched slightly.

"Next candidate. Student Number 053, Lucian."

The loud chatter across the arena gradually died down, replaced by mocking laughter, quiet snickers, and openly contemptuous stares.

"Here comes the freeloader."

"The slum orphan with the D-Rank Shadow. Let’s see how much strength he managed to scrape together."

"I bet he won’t even break two hundred kilograms. D-Rank talents are weak by nature. Even if he stuffed himself with the Sterling family’s tonics, trash is still trash."

Lucian stepped out of the crowd without the slightest change in expression.

He seemed completely unaffected by the hostility surrounding him.

With his hands casually tucked into his jacket pockets, he walked toward the testing pillar at an unhurried pace.

Soon, he stopped in front of the battered black-iron pillar, which was still faintly groaning from Evelyn’s previous strike.

Lucian looked at the thick crimson strike pad.

But while everyone around him was busy guessing how badly he would perform, his thoughts were somewhere else entirely.

Forty-five thousand eight hundred kilograms...

Earlier that morning, inside the Sterling family’s private training chamber, his baseline physical strength had been measured at nearly sixteen tons.

But after two days of four hundred Shadow Soldiers hunting beasts without rest—and the explosive feedback from his breakthrough to the Ninth Stage of the Martial Warrior realm—his physical strength had quietly climbed to a terrifying level.

45,800 kilograms.

Nearly forty-six tons of raw, bone-crushing force.

And now, he only had to decide how much of it he could safely reveal.

If Lucian planted his feet, activated the Floating Pagoda Mysterious Skill, and threw a full-strength punch, the black-iron pillar wouldn’t simply register a number.

The three-meter alloy pillar would probably tear free from its concrete foundation, crash through the retaining wall on the other side, and explode into a shower of molten metal.

And then what?

Magnus Sterling’s stern warning suddenly echoed through his mind.

Numbers like these aren’t human. If the underground bio-labs or the Outer God Cult learn that a high school graduate possesses the physical density of a Martial Master, they’ll pay billions to get their hands on you and cut open your Soul Sea.

Lucian had no intention of becoming a laboratory specimen.

He certainly didn’t want every high-altitude satellite in the Federation tracking him before he had even grown strong enough to protect himself.

Control. Total control.

Lucian took a small step forward and drew a slow breath.

His divine sense turned inward.

With the precision he had developed through the Shadow Kill Secret Canon, he began forming spiritual seals throughout his 1,080 meridians.

One layer after another.

The dark energy surging through his body was forced back and locked deep within the core of his obsidian Spiritual Seed.

He suppressed ninety-seven percent of his skeletal strength.

His back muscles relaxed completely.

Then, after carefully calculating the amount of force he could safely reveal, Lucian allowed only a tiny fraction of his physical power to flow into his right arm.

Approximately three percent.

Just enough to look like a strong Stage 1 student—someone who had trained hard, eaten well, and successfully condensed a Spiritual Seed.

Strong enough to stand out.

Not strong enough to make the military start asking questions.

Lucian drew his right hand back.

He didn’t roar.

He didn’t tense his muscles or deliberately build momentum.

He simply stepped forward and threw a clean, effortless straight punch.

His knuckles struck the center of the pad.

Thump!

A crisp impact echoed across the training ground.

The heavy black-iron pillar shuddered slightly, absorbing the force without so much as a dangerous creak.

The digital display flickered once.

Then again.

Finally, the numbers stabilized.

1,150 KG.

The entire central arena froze for the second time that morning.