"All of you, positions."
The training field moved at once.
Disciples stepped back into formation around the iron pillars and the open stone ground, each one returning to the stance of the Iron Blood Tyrant Body Art. The hesitation from a moment ago was gone. Nobody wanted to be the fool who kept doubting after Qin Zhen had bowed his head in public.
Jun Jie stood at the front with Elder Ren beside him, the old training elder broad as a wall, arms crossed over his chest, watching the field with a face carved out of old iron.
"Begin from the first sequence," Jun Jie said. "Slowly. I want to see where you waste force."
They obeyed.
The field filled again with heavy breathing, shifting feet, tightened shoulders, fists driving forward in rough unison. From a distance it looked solid enough. The disciples of the Iron Blood Body Sect had all trained this art for years.
Jun Jie saw the rot inside it almost immediately.
One disciple raised power too early into the shoulders and turned his torso stiff. Another forced the breath upward instead of sinking it. A third planted his feet wide enough to look stable, but the weight in his hips drifted wrong, stealing force before it could rise.
He clicked his tongue.
'The old version really did cripple them from the beginning.'
Nya's voice came with her usual lazy amusement, softer this time, less mocking than before. [You're really going to teach all of them? Why? You could keep growing alone. Faster too.]
Jun Jie kept watching the field.
A disciple near the left row drove a punch into the air and nearly twisted his own waist out of line.
'Maybe I could.'
[Then why do this?] Nya asked. [Why hand them something this valuable?]
Jun Jie stayed quiet for a breath, long enough for a few disciples to start glancing at him from the corners of their vision.
'Because the old Jun Jie ruined enough here already.'
Nya did not interrupt.
Jun Jie's gaze passed over the field, the younger disciples sweating through bruised stances, the older ones trying to hide their tension, the servants at the edge pretending not to listen.
'Hundreds of people in this sect were dragged through filth because of him. Mocked because of him. Made to lower their heads because of him. I woke up in his body, with his name, his room, his debts, his mess. If I have a second life, why would I start it by doing the same thing?'
Nya went strangely quiet.
Jun Jie kept his expression flat as he stepped down from the platform.
'This sect gave me a body with talent, a position, resources, a chance to stand somewhere higher than I ever did before. If I can fix what he damaged, I should. Better to do it properly from the beginning.'
A faint pause followed.
When Nya spoke again, her tone had changed just enough for him to notice. [That was almost noble. Careful, host. You keep talking like that and I might start respecting you.]
Jun Jie's mouth tilted faintly.
'Don't overdo it.'
[I'd hate to ruin our dynamic.]
Elder Ren's eyes shifted toward him.
Jun Jie had not spoken aloud, not truly, but something in his face must have changed. The old man kept staring for one extra breath before his brow drew together.
Jun Jie did not give him time to press it. He stopped in front of the first disciple and struck the boy's shoulder with two fingers.
"Lower this."
The disciple flinched and obeyed.
"Again."
The boy punched.
Jun Jie shook his head. "Your shoulders are climbing before the force leaves your waist. You're trying to look powerful instead of building power. Sink the breath lower. Stop choking your own body."
He moved to the next one.
"You. Your right foot is dead. If someone hits you from the side, you'll fall like wet wood."
A few disciples stiffened.
Jun Jie kept walking.
"Your spine is crooked. Straighten it."
"You are forcing the second breath."
"Your elbows drift too wide."
"You're clenching the fist before the strike is born."
The training field changed under his voice. Not loudly. Not all at once. It came through the faces first. Confusion gave way to concentration. What sounded like criticism at first began to cut into places they all knew, places that had troubled them in training for years without anyone naming them so plainly.
Qin Zhen watched every step.
Jun Jie stopped in front of him last.
"Show me the opening sequence."
Qin Zhen moved.
Even injured, his form was cleaner than anyone else's. Heavy, disciplined, hard from repetition. Jun Jie let him finish half the sequence before stepping in, one hand pressing lightly against Qin Zhen's sternum.
"Here," Jun Jie said. "This is where the sect version robs you."
Qin Zhen's jaw tightened. "The force rises too early."
Jun Jie looked at him once.
Qin Zhen caught it immediately. His expression changed, not from pride this time, but hunger.
"Again," Jun Jie said.
Qin Zhen reset and moved once more. Slower. He sank the breath deeper, held the shoulders loose, let the waist lead.
The difference came out in the last punch.
A short, dense thrum rolled from the strike and stirred dust from the stone.
Three nearby disciples turned at once.
Elder Ren's arms uncrossed.
Qin Zhen stared at his own fist, breathing harder than before, and something fierce lit in his face.
Jun Jie gave a single nod. "There."
One of the outer disciples near the second row blurted it out before he could stop himself. "It really changed."
That broke the restraint in the field. Murmurs spread. Disciples began adjusting their stances with new urgency, reworking breath, shoulders, hips, feet. Jun Jie moved through them again, faster now, correcting, stripping away rough habits, forcing them back into the art as it should have been.
A thin disciple from the outer court, one Jun Jie vaguely remembered as being mocked for weak striking force, tried the corrected opening and drove his fist forward.
The iron pillar in front of him rang.
The disciple froze.
His own eyes widened first. The others around him looked just as stunned.
"I... I hit harder."
Jun Jie did not let the moment scatter.
"Again."
The boy did.
This time the sound came heavier.
Now the entire field understood.
This was not the young master showing off his own insight. This was the sect's inheritance changing in front of them.
Elder Ren stood above it all, looking down at Jun Jie with the kind of hard silence that only came when an old man felt the ground shift under years of certainty.
The young master really had changed.