Ken had never undergone any formal combat training, and naturally possessed neither professional footwork nor refined defensive techniques.
Yet his reaction speed, strength, and agility were all of the highest caliber. The latter two were still within the upper bounds of ordinary human limits, but his reactions—sharpened by his now extraordinarily sensitive senses—had long since surpassed those of normal people.
Almost the instant the coach made a move, Ken could discern the direction of the attack and evade it with effortless composure. His footwork and movements were entirely instinctive, flowing naturally, without conscious thought.
Though he lacked the textbook sliding steps, bouncing footwork, and retreats of trained fighters, he was nevertheless able to avoid the attacks with ease.
After dodging several strikes, however, Ken suddenly planted his feet. He raised both arms to guard his head, tucked his elbows against his ribs, and allowed the coach's blows to land squarely on his body.
He neither evaded nor counterattacked. Ken was deliberately testing how much punishment the other man's fists and kicks could inflict.
"Thud! Thud! Thud! Smack! …"
Gloved fists slammed into Ken's arms and midsection, while whipping kicks lashed against his thighs, each impact resounding loudly with unmistakable force.
After landing several solid hits in succession, the coach hesitated slightly, as if gauging whether Ken could truly endure it. Even seasoned sparring partners from the sanda team would struggle to stay upright after taking such full-powered kicks to the thigh, and after such a continuous barrage, the coach himself was already beginning to feel his stamina wane.
Yet Ken merely curled his wrist and beckoned, signaling him to continue.
After absorbing a few more strikes, Ken abruptly lowered his guard. He took several punches directly to the abdomen—and then, astonishingly, turned his face to receive a swinging hook head-on.
The punch drove him back two steps, until his spine met the ropes. He opened his mouth and worked his jaw and neck. Even for him, taking a punch squarely on the cheek was far from pleasant. He could feel the inside of his mouth split open, warm blood seeping forth.
The moment the punch landed cleanly, the coach stopped. He had not expected to connect—and he knew perfectly well the weight behind his own blows. Ken wore no protective gear, and the coach feared he might seriously injure him.
The older coach, who had been acting as referee, stepped between them, waving his hands to signal the end of the sparring session, then moved in to check on Ken.
The younger trainees watching from the sidelines erupted into applause for the young coach. From their perspective, the newcomer who had come to "challenge the gym" had been completely suppressed from start to finish, never throwing a single punch—nothing more than a big, foolish brute taking a beating.
Ken waved off the older coach to show he was fine, then turned and walked straight out of the gym.
That brief "exchange," though it appeared that he had taken a one-sided beating without throwing a single punch, had in fact yielded considerable insight.
He made his decision on the spot: he would not study combat techniques at places like this.
He understood now that whether it was boxing, sanda, Muay Thai, or any other striking art, decades of refinement had been built upon the physical limits of ordinary humans—strength, agility, reaction speed, anatomical weaknesses, all of it.
Ken's body, however, had already diverged sharply from that baseline. And in the foreseeable future, that divergence would only grow wider. Combat techniques designed for ordinary people might, for him, prove not only inefficient but fundamentally misguided.
This was not to say that he no longer needed combat training. Rather, the techniques he required would have to be redesigned entirely around his unique physical capabilities. In gyms like this, he could neither reveal his true abilities nor expect others to understand them, let alone help him tailor a fighting system to suit him.
As before, he would have to do everything himself.
…
The sanda coach was visibly surprised when he saw Ken again.
The reason he and the others knew Zhu Ke'er and Yang Rui was that he was friends with Coach Shen from the upstairs gym. Coach Shen's girlfriend was a yoga instructor who was close to the two women, and they all shared a group chat, often organizing hiking, climbing, cycling, and other outdoor activities together.
Zhu Ke'er, cute, attractive, and single, naturally attracted the attention of several single men in the group. Yet while she appeared cheerful and outgoing, the moment anyone hinted at intentions beyond friendship, she shut them out completely.
So when word spread that Zhu Ke'er was bringing a man along this time—and that he was reportedly a blind date—several of the guys immediately felt hostile. They had even privately agreed to give him a show of force. The young sanda coach had been the most eager of them all.
What he hadn't expected was this.
The man who showed up… was Ken—the same Ken he had sparred with in the gym just yesterday.
Unlike the trainees who had watched from ringside, the sanda coach had never believed that Ken was "crushed" simply because he didn't fight back.
In fact, after Ken left the previous day, the older coach—who had served as referee and was the gym's actual owner—had quietly told him that while Ken might lack systematic training, in a real fight he would stand no chance. Their resilience to punishment alone was on entirely different levels. His punches simply couldn't threaten Ken.
As for Ken's fists—though he hadn't thrown a single punch in the ring—wasn't it precisely because the coach had tried to show off earlier and taken one punch from Ken, only to collapse instantly, that he'd flown into a rage?
Now, thinking back calmly, he knew the older coach was right. At the beginning, when Ken was dodging, he had launched multiple combinations without so much as grazing him. The only reason he landed any blows at all was because Ken deliberately stopped moving. Later, Ken had even lowered his guard on purpose, allowing his face to be hit—clearly testing the power of his punches.
So seeing Ken again today, he had no desire to spar a second time or prove anything. A gap in strength was a gap in strength; they weren't even on the same level. Provoking him again would only invite humiliation.
He simply nodded to Ken in greeting and stepped aside.
Coach Shen from the gym, meanwhile, approached Ken with a broad smile. The two had long since become familiar faces during Ken's regular workouts.
When the sanda coach—previously the most aggressive about confronting Ken—backed down at first sight, the other men grew curious and gathered around him in low whispers.
The sanda coach didn't go into details about what had happened the day before. He only told them that Ken was far more formidable than he himself. Then, when Coach Shen later revealed that the bald man before them was the same powerhouse whose bench press, squat, and deadlift numbers had shattered expectations, the way they looked at Ken changed instantly.
Ken, of course, was oblivious to their thoughts. Running into Coach Shen and the sanda coach he had sparred with the day before was unexpected, but he gave it little consideration—and had no intention whatsoever of fighting again.
From the moment he stepped off the bus, his attention had been wholly consumed by the surrounding mountains and forest.
To begin with, Ken had been reluctant to join this hike at all. His time was tight. Based on previous patterns, tomorrow would be the next moment when hunger returned—when he would need to feed on blood. Before that happened, he needed to complete as much training as possible to influence the direction of his body's mutation and evolution.
Yet once he arrived, he felt as though he had been shut indoors for a long time, only to suddenly throw open a door and step outside. His sensory range seemed to expand instantly—doubling, at the very least.
And that was during the daytime, when his physical functions and senses were still partially suppressed.