In many lower-tier countries where martial talent was scarce, martial artists were treated like celebrities.
To improve their national rankings and secure better funding from the World Martial Arts Association, countries regularly competed in international matches.
One forum post featured a video from a tournament, showing a young man standing on a mountain. The clip was a reminder of just how powerful martial artists could be.
In the video, he simply raised his leg and kicked the ground with some force before the entire mountain fell.
As I watched the video, I couldn't speak. In the past, he could kick a boulder to crush it, but bringing down a mountain?
With just a simple kick to the ground? that was impossible!.
However, I quickly found out why martial artists in this world were so insanely strong.
Turns out, it was all because of something called the Martial Soul.
The first step to becoming a martial artist was gathering these things called soul threads from the environment. Once you had enough, you had to shape them into a circle.
That's when you officially stepped into the realm of a Low Stage Martial Recruit.
Most people were stuck at that level — even those who never even tried to advance were technically at that stage.
There are seven known ranks at least what i found on the internet, which were
Unranked
Martial Recruit
Martial soldier
Martial champion
Martial master
Martial Grandmaster
Martial King
Martial Emperor
Each stage was divided into three sub-ranks Low- Mid -High
There were still a lot of things nobody fully understood about the Martial Soul, but one thing was clear: if you wanted to move forward, you had to form rings around the circle.
Generally, four rings are required to advance to the next stage — the Mid Stage Martial Recruit.
Based on the memories, this body should be in the Low Stage Martial Recruit. One could only imagine how poor this body's martial arts talent was.
I stood up from the chair, spread out the mat, sat down, closed my eyes, and started focusing. I didn't know where the Martial Soul or ring was, but there was a trick mentioned in the forum.
I sat down, closed my eyes, emptied my mind, and started breathing slowly.
Inhale
Exhale
Inhale
Exhale
Slowly, white particles started hovering around me in the darkness.
It was like a vortex of white lights swirling around me. I stayed focused and noticed a thin, faint circle in my chest.
I locked onto the particles, gathering them into small clusters and pushing each one inward.
As I kept applying pressure, the clusters began to smooth out. When they started to look like glowing balls of white light, I stretched them into lines, then bent them to connect both ends.
Rings began forming around me. I gathered them, had them circle around three main ones, then made two of those revolve around the single circle in the center of my chest.
Then put the left-out circle in the navel.
I opened my eyes. Even though I had advanced to Middle Stage Recruit in one go, I felt puzzled.
The forum had said those white particles were hard to control, and forming a single ring was tough — which is why so many people stayed stuck at Low Stage.
But for me, it felt way too easy.
I stood up. Just as I was about to dig deeper into the forum, my phone alarm went off.
"I'll check it out later. Gotta get to work first," I muttered, throwing on my clothes, grabbing my bag, and heading downstairs — spotting Klen still asleep in his room as I passed by.
I shut the door behind me and headed to work. According to the memories, he worked as a clean-up boy in a local illegal fighting arena—wiping bloodstains after matches and sometimes stripping dead bodies of their belongings to sell them.
I arrived at a modest-looking hotel. It looked normal enough, with cars coming and going—but it was all just a front to cover up the shady things happening inside, hidden from the mayor's eyes.
I took a detour and made my way to the back of the hotel through an alleyway, eventually reaching the door where a guard stood. Without speaking, I handed him a black card from my pocket. He returned it to me after scanning it, and then opened the door.
I walked through it. This entrance was filthy and dirty in comparison to the lavish decoration of the front entrance. Occasionally, some people would drag the bodies from other arenas through this hallway, leaving blood marks and filling it with the odor of blood.
I continued forward, took the elevator, and pressed for the -4th floor. When the doors opened, I headed straight to the cleaning room. I set my bag down, pulled out the mask and gloves, changed into the all-black clothes from the locker, and placed the rest of my belongings inside.
click
My body tensed as the door opened, but I relaxed when I saw the department manager walk in.
He was a man in his 50s, with a scar running from his neck all the way to his ear. He looked at me, grinned, and said, "You made it. Good. Now listen carefully—you'll be cleaning arenas 6 and 8, and taking care of the bodies too."
He left the room after saying that. As if it was the most natural thing, according to memories. People who worked with him often died, either in the arena, by other fighters, or by VIP guests.
I sighed and sat down in front of the TV, which was showing Arena No. 6, where a fight was about to start.
The arena was already full of excitement before the match even started. There were people all over the place, and on top were VIP rooms where important people were sitting.
Ladies and Gentlemen! THIS IS THE MATCH YOU'VE BEEN WAITING FOR!!
The commentator's voice came through the speakers loud and clear, catching the audience's attention.
"TONIGHT AT THE RAVIL HOTEL, WE'RE WITNESSING THE FINAL MATCH BETWEEN ANIZ AND ROLE!!"
As soon as the names were announced, the crowd erupted, shouting the names of their favorite fighters.
ANIZ!! ANIZ!! ANIZ!!
ANIZ!! ANIZ!! ANIZ!!
ROLE!! ROLE!! ROLE!!
ROLE!! ROLE!! ROLE!!
The entire arena was packed—people were cheering wildly, placing bets, and hyping up the challengers.
The announcer continued, "This match will be a deathmatch between the current undefeated champion… ROLEEEEE!!"
A man stepped out from the hallway and made his way toward the ring, surrounded by deafening chants.
"AND HE'LL BE CHALLENGED BY NONE OTHER THAN ANIZ, THE UNDEFEATED CHALLENGER!! ANIIIIZZZZZ!!"
From the other side, a man walked out, casually raised his middle finger toward one of the VIP booths, and stepped into the ring.
THIS MATCH WILL BE A DEATH MATCH!!!
The two fighters stood opposite each other.
LET THE MATCH BEGIN!!
And they both clashed.