In the scorching heat, a man stood covered in sweat from head to toe under the shade of a small grove, swinging the several meters long Glaive up and down, left and then right, in arcs that kept changing directions every single time.

"Seven thousand and twenty-four, Seven thousand and twenty-five, Seven..." he counted every single swing in a monotone, almost robotically.

He was only wearing tight shorts so as not to hinder his movements, flexing the almost stupendous muscles that covered his every inch every time the glaive swung down. Gusts of air blew the dry dust away like a fan, even leaving slight indentations in the ground beneath.

This was, of course, Hao Xuan.

With nothing else to do due to the Chaos Ki running amock he could only do two things. One, practice martial arts or two, focus on understanding the Chaos energy.

And with Baracus's help, he had come up with a way to do both at the same time.

As for martial arts, he once again started working on the mysterious "Imperial Glaive Doctrine" that he had bought with the contribution points back in the Mei Kingdom (CH 144).

Even though it had been more than a year since he bought it, Hao Xuan had almost completely ignored it due to the many inconveniences that had plagued him there onwards. He had been jumping from one precarious situation into another and barely had any time for himself.

Not to mention there wasn't enough information about the "Imperial Glaive Doctrine". It had an unknown number of parts and Hao Xuan only possessed the first one.

But Baracus reminded him that the chances of finding the other parts for it in the library of the 'The Academy' were pretty high because that was one of their core principals, i.e collection and storage of all forms of manuals, arts, doctrines, battle skills, sacred texts, and scriptures found within the Beast World.

So with that in mind, he had Baracus come up with a faster way to help him progress.

With the nanotech within him, Baracus was able to control Hao Xuan's body like his own. So when Hao Xuan was focused on understanding the Chaos energy, Baracus was in control of his body, practicing the basic steps mentioned in the Imperial Glaive Doctrine.

Of course, this method had its own limitations as well. Baracus could only control Hao Xuan's outer body and nothing else.

Hao Xuan still had to practice the steps on his own but doing it like this imprinted these movements onto his neural pathways which cut down the amount of work he had to put in by over 70%.

Meaning his body remembered the movements by itself and with just a few strikes, he would be able to remember them even if his mind initially couldn't.

It had been more than two weeks since he started following this regiment, stopping only to eat and sleep.

The walking city had kept moving without pause as well, occasionally stopping near a large settlement.

A few dozen meters away from the currently zoned out Hao Xuan was Henrik's group which seemed to have gained several new people. They were sitting beside the lake idly, drinking and eating under the sun.

There were skirmishes between the resistance and the participants almost every day and almost a quarter of the participants had dropped out due to either being killed or incurring heavy injuries that could not be healed on planet.

This left many of the groups with fewer members than were needed to venture outside so they banded together around Henrik and formed a party.

Henrik was very popular among the royal children even before the tournament due to his 'party-all-night' attitude and the fact that he didn't discriminate against those of lower backgrounds, he gained even more traction against the rogue cultivators and common people.

That along with the fact that his party had almost a 100% completion rate for all missions, they gained more and more recognition which led to their group almost tripling in size.

A bright young man in his late teens along with a few others were throwing occasional stares towards Hao Xuan as if looking at a monster.

"How long has it been?" he asked with an exasperated sigh.

Another teen that seemed like a malnourished beggar looked at his spirit band before answering, "Fourteen hours straight."

"Damn, just looking at him makes me tired man."

"True true," all of the youngsters nodded their heads in unison.

Just then a girl walked over from behind them and slapped the first youngster on the back of his head, "Wern, if you had even 10% of the will power as senior brother you wouldn't have been beaten so easily by those resistance fighters."

Wern rubbed the back of his head and smiled sheepishly, "Come on, how can you compare little old me to Senior brother Hao, Brina? I'll try to do better in the fight tomorrow, eh? Eh?"

Brina seemed like she wanted to say a few other things but looking at Wern's face she blushed and walked away while mumbling, "You better, you good-for-nothing. Can't even ask dad for my hand in marriage, what a loser..."

Everyone heard her mumbling and laughed, a few of the boys even punching Wern in the arm.

"You lucky bastard!"

*Clap*Clap*

"Everyone gather around, its time to discuss your roles for tomorrows fight," Henrik's voice came from behind them, getting their attention.

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