Chapter 409 Fancy Fist and Ineffective Legs

As night fell and dawn broke, the starry sky gradually brightened.

After finishing the last set of push-ups, Xu Nian's arms went limp, and she collapsed onto the ground, her chest heaving as she struggled to breathe.

Long Teng, standing beside him, stopped the stopwatch in his hand and nodded in satisfaction.

"Not bad today, much faster than yesterday."

It took Xu Nian a long time to calm down before the rise and fall of her chest gradually subsided, and the suffocating feeling of being on the verge of death slowly faded away.

He raised his hand and clenched his fist, clearly feeling a surge of power flowing through his limbs and bones.

It's not a deliberately tense stiffness, but a firmness that's settled deep within the muscles.

The grueling training these past two days was so intense it was like being skinned alive; every single exercise left him breathless.

Undeniably, the results are real.

Putting everything else aside, Long Teng managed to finish today's 20-kilometer run without even letting the dogs out.

My physical fitness has indeed reached a new level, but the amount of training is terrifying.

Every day after the day's work, all my muscles feel like they've been disassembled and reassembled, and I'm so sore I can't even lift my arms.

He propped himself up on the ground and sat up, rubbing his sore and stiff shoulders.

"How much longer do I have to practice like this?"

Long Teng raised one finger.

Xu Nian was taken aback, a sliver of hope rising in her heart: "One day?"

As soon as he said it, he shook his head.

A trainee trained for two and a half years to become a basketball superstar. How could he possibly become a martial arts master in a single day?

"A week? A month?"

Long Teng shook his head: "Guess again."

"A year?"

Long Teng shook his head again.

Xu Nian's lips twitched, a bad premonition rising within her.

"Keep training." Long Teng patted his shoulder and said seriously, "Training is like rowing against the current; if you don't move forward, you fall behind. If you stop, this physique and fitness you've worked so hard to build will soon go out of shape. Look at me, and everyone in the team, aren't we all training every day?"

"It's not that." Xu Nian scratched her head. "I just... want to learn some self-defense skills, to become a bit better at fighting. Just focusing on physical training, no matter how strong you become, you still can't directly fight someone."

Before coming here, he always thought that Long Teng would teach him martial arts such as Muay Thai and military boxing, how to use minimal force to overcome great strength, and how to defeat an enemy in one move, so that he could protect the people he wanted to protect and no longer be at the mercy of others.

Unexpectedly, Long Teng only dragged him to train his physical fitness, as if he had a personal grudge against him. He did squats, long-distance running, and weightlifting, without mentioning any combat techniques or fighting skills, which disappointed him.

Long Teng smiled and said, "Take off the sandbags you're wearing."

Xu Nian didn't understand, but she nodded and untied the sandbags wrapped around her wrists and ankles one by one.

Those sandbags were heavy, and after being wrapped around his body for two days, they had long since made his limbs ache.

The moment he took it off, he felt a sense of lightness throughout his body. An unprecedented feeling of comfort swept over him, as if a heavy burden had been lifted. Even his breathing became much easier, and his shoulders felt much more relaxed.

Then, Long Teng clenched his fist, bent his arm slightly, and assumed a standard defensive stance, looking intently at him: "Attack me with all your might."

"Attack?" Xu Nian was stunned.

"Yeah, attack me however you like." Long Teng nodded, adding, "Don't hit my face, I need this face to pick up girls."

"You said it yourself." Xu Nian's eyes lit up, she clenched her fist, her knuckles making a soft cracking sound, and a malicious smile curled at the corner of her mouth.

Damn it, he's been utterly humiliated by Long Teng these past two days, and he's finally got his chance to get revenge. He's going to show Long Teng what a mastermind he is.

He took a few deep breaths, his eyes narrowed, and he swiftly threw a punch, using all his strength to slam it heavily onto Long Teng's arm.

"Bang!"

A muffled thud was heard, but Long Teng remained motionless, standing straight, without even a faint mark on his arm.

It was as if that attack just now was merely a mosquito bite.

Xu Nian, however, was not so lucky.

He had used almost all his strength in that attack, but the effects of force are mutual, and his fist quickly swelled up with a large bump.

"Ouch! O ...!"

He immediately withdrew his hand, clenched his fist tightly, and his face instantly put on a mask of pain, jumping up and down in agony, his brows furrowed in a knot.

Two and a half minutes passed before the excruciating pain subsided slightly.

Long Teng patted the dust off his arm, glanced at him clenching his fists and grimacing, and said calmly.

"Your attack method is wrong. The strongest part of the human body is the legs. Since there are no restrictions on the way you attack, you should use your feet to kick, not your fists to block."

"Besides, the arm is one of the hardest parts of the human body. If you insist on bumping into something hard, you're just wasting your energy."

"You should target my weaknesses to maximize the damage you can inflict."

After saying that, he resumed his defensive stance: "Come on, try again."

Xu Nian nodded, pondering Long Teng's words.

What are the body's weaknesses? The waist? The abdomen?

He subconsciously looked at Long Teng's stomach, presumably because that was one of his weaknesses.

After all, there are no bones there, just a layer of skin separating the stomach from the bones. If you exert force, it can definitely cause considerable damage.

He took a few deep breaths, suppressing the lingering pain in his heart, and gathered all his strength in his toes.

With his legs slightly bent, he gathered his strength for two and a half minutes, his eyes fixed on Long Teng's belly, and then suddenly exerted his strength, rapidly accelerating his run-up.

Then he leaped up with all his might, using his toes to deliver a powerful kick to Long Teng's stomach.

"Bang!"

This strike was much more powerful than the punch from before.

Xu Nian felt a sharp numbness in his toes, as if he had kicked a hard steel plate, which made his ankle ache.

After he landed, he immediately clutched his foot, jumping up and down in pain and howling.

Long Teng remained unmoved, though the hem of his training uniform was slightly dirty, and a deep shoe print was visible on his stomach.

He glanced down at the shoe print on the hem of his clothes, patted it off, then clenched his fist, veins bulging on his arm, turned and slammed a heavy punch into the tree beside him.

"Thump!"

A deep, muffled thud resounded, causing the surrounding air to tremble slightly.

A deep crack instantly appeared on the trunk of that big tree.

The cracks spread rapidly along the trunk, growing larger and larger. In the blink of an eye, the entire tree began to shake violently, its leaves rustling.

Then, following the direction of his punch, she fell straight down.

The moment the tree trunk touched the ground, it made a loud "boom," the earth shook, and a cloud of dust rose.

In the end, only a bare tree stump remained, standing alone and trembling.

Xu Nian froze, her grip on her foot stiffening in place. The pain on her face was instantly replaced by shock, and her mouth opened slightly, unable to utter a single word for a long time.

The trunk of that big tree was several times thicker than his waist; it was by no means a weak sapling, but an old tree that had grown for many years and was very sturdy.

Long Teng's seemingly casual strike had actually cut it in half and overturned it completely.

Is this even human? This is practically a monster!

"I didn't use any fighting techniques in that last move."

Long Teng withdrew his fist and rubbed his palm.

"If fighting skills are the engine, then strength and physical fitness are its gasoline."

"Even if you have the best engine, if you don't have gasoline to run it, it's still just a pile of scrap metal."

"What you did just now, to me, was more like a little girl whining; it wasn't very effective."

"Even if I teach you the most advanced fighting techniques now, with your current strength, all you can do is use fancy moves and won't be able to hurt anyone."

Upon hearing this, Xu Nian did not refute it, but instead lowered her head thoughtfully.

Long Teng is right. Without sufficient strength as a foundation, even the best fighting skills are just empty talk and cannot be truly effective.

Just like in martial arts novels, the cultivation of martial arts techniques always begins with tempering the body. Only when the body is strong enough can it withstand more powerful techniques.

"When can I start learning fighting techniques?"

Long Teng chuckled and pointed to the fallen tree behind him: "Let's talk when you can knock this tree down with one punch."