After Chen Bitong killed the second grand commandant, he continued on. Soon, the third grand commandant appeared, but the results were the same. Again, with a spear in hand, he went over and killed him with a single thrust.

It was as if the grand commandant was completely powerless before him.

Chen Chuan saw the entire thing clearly. Chen Bitong did not display some supernatural strength to kill the grand commandant. The key behind his success lay in using his mental energy to attack the grand commandant’s mind the moment he thrust the spear.

This led to a lag in the grand commandant’s mind while switching consciousness to the stronger one. The original consciousness remained in control, and due to it being trapped in the process of the transfer and the transformation, the body’s movements were a second slower than they should be.

This slight pause led to Chen Bitong gaining a chance to take him down.

Strictly speaking, this wasn’t an advanced technique. It was a skill formed through long years of fighting and observation, along with a certain degree of martial arts foundation.

Sometimes, even if a person knew how to do a certain thing, they were unable to do it because they did not have the skill or were not in their usual condition.

The attack looked easy, but behind it was a foundation built through years of hard work.

Chen Bitong didn’t continue attacking the grand commandants. He put the butt of the spear on the ground and turned around. “You’ve learned the basics of mental training, so it shouldn’t be difficult for you to do this. Try it.”

As he spoke, the corpses of the three grand commandants disappeared. Chen Bitong had lit up the first corpse to show him how to deal with the remnants, but here, he didn’t need to do it. He could just erase them from the domain.

Chen Chuan did want to try. He lifted the Frost King Saber and turned to a newly generated grand commandant.

When Chen Bitong used his mental attack, Chen Chuan had tried to get a sense of it through his biofield. Since it was a demonstration, Chen Chuan was able to get a clear read of what was going on.

He knew how to do it, but doing it was a different matter.

Chen Chuan walked forward. This time, the grand commandant didn’t give him the chance to seize control of the fight. He immediately transformed. Chen Chuan swung his saber at the grand commandant. He copied what Chen Bitong did and pushed his mental energy with it.

This was his first try, so his timing was a little off. Yet this slight misjudgement was enough for the grand commandant to speed up and bring his saber up to block Chen Chuan’s attack. Chen Chuan was able to gain control of the fight and kill his target in less than three attacks, which was better than last time, but he didn’t get the results he wanted.

It was an improvement, but not what he was looking for in this training.

Chen Chuan stood still and observed the grand commandant. Then, he came to a realization: He had to become more accurate when using his mental energy. He couldn’t be too fast nor too slow. If he used it too soon, the grand commandant would have time to adjust, while if he was too late, he would miss the chance.

“Captain Chen, I mentioned that you have ten minutes. You have around nine minutes left,” Chen Bitong said.

Chen Chuan regulated his breathing and nodded.

Then, he kept fighting against the copies of the grand commandant. Every time a corpse fell on the ground, another would show up.

Since Chen Chuan was frighteningly effective, even if he was unable to reach his goal, he was able to kill them almost as soon as they showed up. After around two minutes, he was able to master the technique. What he needed to do was to thrust his saber through the mask, send a wave of refined force inside, and blast the brain to bits.

Chen Chuan stood still for a while to get a sense of what had happened. After a moment, the memory was imprinted fully in his consciousness and body. Then, he pulled his saber back. 𝒻𝑟𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝑛𝘰𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝘤𝘰𝘮

Chen Bitong didn’t continue creating copies of the grand commandant. He walked over and said, “You did well, Captain Chen.

“We can use domain resources to practice and master techniques quickly. The remnants of the old era can’t compare to us in this regard. While they have similar methods, their versatility can’t compare to ours.

“Still, we can’t underestimate them. They, too, have areas in which they leave us in the dust.

“They have plenty of artifacts from the old era, and they’re working with existences from the other world. They also have the support of certain powers. We should be confident when fighting them, but not overconfident.”

Chen Chuan pondered over this and countered, “But we don’t have the hologram resources to use them whenever we want.”

“That’s why only the true elites are allowed to use them, because you’re more efficient and improve faster. Giving these resources to normal people would be a waste,” Chen Bitong shot back and started walking.

“Let’s continue.”

Chen Chuan cast him a glance before following him.

They walked through the now-abandoned base and reached its rear. Chen Bitong stopped there and said, “You’ll be walking in front from here.”

Chen Chuan continued forward, but after just taking a few steps, he seemed to have alerted something. Pits with cracks around their edges showed up, and Decomposing Insects crawled out of them.

One of them was less than half a meter away. Chen Chuan recalled what Chen Bitong had done and shoved one of its limbs. The Decomposing Insect flipped to its side, as if it was about to topple over, but after wriggling its limbs a bit, it was able to correct itself and regain its balance.

This made Chen Chuan think before he shoved it again. The insect lost its balance, but steadied itself once more. After trying around ten times, Chen Chuan was finally able to find what was going on and was able to make the Decomposing Insect fall on its back.

Upon seeing this, he stopped tormenting it and continued forward. Whenever he passed by a Decomposing Insect, he would shove at it. In the beginning, his movements were rather awkward, but as the number of successes grew, his movements became more assured; he was even beginning to move in a similar way to Chen Bitong just now.

Chen Bitong nodded behind him. When he was walking up to the base, he had used this method to shove the insects away for one single reason: To show Chen Chuan the easiest, most energy-saving method to deal with them.

He wasn’t going to teach his students any martial art techniques, but certain knowledge. Whether they could pick it up and how much was going to stick would depend on the students’ efforts.

Aside from teaching Chen Chuan how to do it, he also showed him that flipping them over was worthwhile. Once Decomposing Insects were turned over and couldn’t move, they could be moved back to the bases after a battle. Their tissue was a great source of medicine and biomaterials.

The military in the merged space might only care about results, but some of the commercialized departments and the R&D Department preferred soldiers who could help them in their quest to generate profit.

“That’s enough, Captain Chen. You’ve mastered the technique, but you need to pay attention to your vitalization rate. While your brain tissue won’t go through true vitalization here, once your vitalization rate goes over a certain number, your assessment points will become really low,” Chen Bitong said sternly.

Chen Chuan cast a glance at his vitalization rate and found that it was at sixteen. Since this domain was a hologram, if Chen Chuan used his second self, he might just end up leaving the domain. That was why his vitalization rate had gone up.

He immediately used the breathing technique he learned from the military to lower his vitalization rate.

“You should have started mental training, so let me teach you a better way to maintain your sense of self.” Chen Bitong threw something at Chen Chuan.

It resembled a scale dial. The needle was swaying left and right, while the surface of the dial was divided into red, green, and yellow zones.

“Since your biofield and mind are both incredibly active and constantly changing, they’re highly susceptible to being corrupted by vitalization. But if you keep your biofield and mind secured in the green or yellow zones, you can avoid vitalization.”

Chen Chuan tried it, but it was quite difficult keeping his biofield and mind in the right zones, especially since he was trying to do it at all times. He put the scale dial on his belt hoop and kept regulating his biofield during the lesson.

“You need to master it as soon as possible. This hologram is your safest training place,” Chen Bitong said.

Chen Chuan nodded. While he had his second self who could absorb the effects of vitalization, he didn’t mind having another method to prevent vitalization. Also, he had a feeling that this method might be the foundation for other techniques.

Just then, Chen Bitong looked up. “Many of our threats come from the sky.”

Chen Chuan turned his head up and saw huge insects flapping their wings. They resembled dragonflies with huge compound eyes, a powerful chest covered in downy features, and a thin, long abdomen. There were many of them, and as their wings made buzzing sounds, their shadows covered Chen Chuan and Chen Bitong.

The insects seemed to be going for the flipped over Decomposing Insects. When they landed, they inserted their needle-like proboscis into the Decomposing Insects’ bellies to inject some sort of digestive fluid before placing their tails inside them to leave their eggs inside them.

“The Decomposing Insects and some other insects are the breeding grounds for these King Dragonflies. They’re also a threat to us.

“Whenever we build a new base in the merged space, the first thing we need to kill are these creatures, aside from the dangers on land. Sometimes, we use special medicine to help us with that. At other times, we capture them with baited traps.

“They have food right now, so they’ll ignore us, but if you run into them in the wild, you must be careful, especially if you run into a swarm. It’s difficult to fight against them alone. Even Third Limit martial artists will be in danger in such a situation, so you have to rely on your speed and look for cover to avoid them.

“If you run out of stamina, you’re going to die. That’s why the forts are so important to us. Without the rear as support, we can’t move at will in undeveloped territory.”

Chen Chuan cast a glance at the sea of King Dragonflies and agreed wholeheartedly with what Chen Bitong said. Once these things formed a group, no single person could hope to fight against them. The only exception were people who could kill them in one hit.

Chen Bitong cast a glance at his Realm Pass. “We still have plenty of time. Considering the strength and intellect you showed, I’m going to increase the difficulty level of your lesson. Next, I’m going to make you face tougher enemies. Be ready.”