Please, graduates, slay the demon!

"Ma Yuchao, watch your temper," someone shouted in the meeting.

But Ma Yuchao ignored him completely, and instead reached for the long sword at his waist:

"Commander, I disagreed with your decision from the beginning. You said you had your reasons and would give me a suitable explanation on recruit night. I've been suffering terribly. Please tell me your reasons. Why are you protecting these criminals?"

As he spoke, Ma Yuchao drew the long sword from his waist.

"Ma Yuchao, what are you doing! Mind your manners!"

In the ranks, Xu Chuan, who held the same rank, rushed out to try to stop Ma Yuchao's impulse, but Ma Yuchao pointed a long knife at his throat.

"Xu Chuan, you're the one who brought Chen Yang back, the one who killed his family? These days, even our legion commander doesn't care about discipline, and you don't follow any rules either. What are you talking to me about military law for?!"

"I know I'm no match for you, but if you don't give me a reasonable explanation today, I'll fight you to the death, you undisciplined traitors. I, Ma Yuchao, am not rebelling today, I'm killing you traitors."

The chief of staff turned to look at the corps commander:

"Commander, we were all against you doing this, but you said you had your reasons. We trusted what you've done for the entire legion over the years, which is why we let you do it. Now, don't you have to give us an explanation?"

The files of everyone in the convict camp were circled around the conference table before returning to the legion commander's hands.

Before the legion commander could speak, he simply turned his gaze to Old Man Sun, who was smoking across the table:

"Old Sun, explain this to everyone."

"OK."

Old Sun grinned and looked at Ma Yuchao beside him:

"Captain Ma, you worked under me two years ago. You kept begging me to teach you the breathing techniques for the Marrow Cleansing stage, so I had you stay in my shop to forge iron for a month. Do you remember?"

Ma Yuchao calmed down considerably, but he never lowered the long knife in his hand:

"I remember. You made me work as a blacksmith for a month, and then told me that I didn't have the talent and couldn't learn the breathing technique you created. No matter how much I begged you afterward, you never taught me. To this day, the breathing technique I use is one of the ones that Zero City discarded."

"So, Captain Ma is implying that I, the old man, am targeting you by making you a blacksmith and deliberately not teaching you?"

Old Sun threw his cigarette on the ground, stomped it out, lit another one, and looked around at the crowd.

"South wind, is South wind there?"

Xu Chuan shook his head: "Shen Nanfeng's rank is not high enough to attend this meeting. She is my subordinate. Master Sun can ask me if you have any questions."

"Alright. Female soldier Shen Nanfeng is the only one who has learned my Marrow Cleansing Breathing Technique. Captain Ma can ask Xu Chuan, or even Shen Nanfeng herself, whether she has only been doing blacksmithing during her time at my shop?"

Ma Yuchao was momentarily speechless, and Old Man Sun continued to add:

"Over the past five years, a full five years, I've taught no fewer than a thousand people, all of them top performers in each recruit's training period, but only Shen Nanfeng has truly mastered it. Captain Ma, if you don't believe me, you can go ask those other people; didn't they all come here to do blacksmithing?"

Xu Chuan confirmed, "Master Sun is right. Nanfeng said when he came back that he did this when he mastered the breathing technique."

"The Marrow Cleansing Method is a breathing technique that cleanses the body of impurities and absorbs spiritual energy to temper the body with maximum efficiency. When I created this breathing technique, I relied solely on inhalation and exhalation. Later, I improved the hammer used for blacksmithing and strictly regulated the blacksmithing movements because it was easier to understand with this method, but still, no one could master it."

Upon hearing this, Ma Yuchao's long sword trembled slightly.

"Who do you think is the best recruit this year? Yang Ji, that guy with connections, or Zhang Wei, Zhao Kexin? If these guys met me back in the day, I could take on ten of them by myself, and kill each of them ten times over," Old Man Sun continued.

Ma Yuchao put down the long knife in his hand:

"But you can't place your hopes on a group of people with tainted reputations."

Old Man Sun looked at Ma Yuchao and answered irrelevantly:

"Captain Ma, and everyone here, do you know? My twenty men from the criminal camp learned the Marrow Cleansing Technique in one night. Shen Nanfeng took three months, and you, Captain Ma, haven't even learned it yet."

For a moment, no one in the room spoke.

The only sound was the old man lighting his cigarette with a lighter.

"That guy Chen Yang took ten minutes, and that Qi Zijian took at most twenty minutes. After the Zero Government issued that order, most of the geniuses went to the central city. How many geniuses like Shen Nanfeng who are going to the battlefield are there? So I can only pick up the new recruits that the Zero Government doesn't want, Captain Ma."

Old Sun exhaled a smoke ring:

"Finally, I'll say something that will make everyone here very uncomfortable. I've never believed that humanity's hope lies with the Survey Corps."

At the conference table, some people expressed their dissatisfaction:

"Master Sun, the Survey Corps has been holding the line for humanity for so long. If the soldiers below heard you saying something like that, wouldn't it be too disheartening?"

Old Man Sun looked at Ma Yuchao:

"Captain Ma, you're from the Ma family in City Five, aren't you?"

Ma Yuchao nodded.

Old Man Sun continued:

"That makes sense. Back when that prodigy from Zero City led his troops to retake Twelve City, he sent a message saying that he had severely injured a Grandmaster-level demon and hoped that humans would send reinforcements. In the end, the Zero Government ignored the matter, and your family member probably died out there along with that human prodigy."

"That person is my great-grandfather," Ma Yuchao muttered to himself.

Old Sun turned his head to look at the legion commander:

"Old man, tell them what happened after I obtained the breathing technique from the great demon."

The legion commander remained silent for a long time before speaking:

"Back then, Old Sun disappeared shortly after leading his troops on an overseas investigation. Three months later, a secret report arrived. The report contained..."

Everyone present stared intently at the legion commander.

Everyone knows that this carefree old man Sun possesses the strongest breathing technique in human history and has unfathomable martial arts skills.

But after he acquired the breathing technique, he voluntarily relinquished his military rank and became a leisurely old man in the shop.

No one knows what happened to Old Man Sun outside.

All that is known is that after Old Man Sun returned, he created more than a dozen advanced breathing techniques.

He taught these breathing techniques to the Survey Corps, but remained silent about the breathing technique he inherited from the Great Demon.

The legion commander continued:

"The secret report states that Sun Wen, the commander of the First Army, discovered the ruins of City Twelve overseas and successfully killed the only Grandmaster-level demon within City Twelve. However, Sun Wen and his men are seriously injured and request the government to send a ninth-rank expert to support them in retaking City Twelve."