A Powerful Martial Artist Reincarnates as a Nun Knight

It did not take much time to secure the hidden first-floor space behind the wall.
The criminals had already lost their composure from Sophia’s initial display. Among those on the first floor, none could regain their senses in time to resist the group’s swift intrusion through that opening.

As initially discussed, the group split into two teams after securing the first floor. Maria and Conra headed for the staircase connecting the first-floor hidden space to the second floor’s.

Had the commotion on the first floor alerted them? The staircase leading up was already blocked by a wall of second-floor criminals descending. However, if they could not proceed due to such an obstruction, they would hardly qualify as disciples of the nun knight Sophia de Chagelle.

“Fair warning, for a while I won’t be able to assist you as I’ll be focused on guarding you.”
“I didn’t expect any help, Brother. Just watch. This won’t be your turn.”

Undeterred by Conra’s grandmotherly remark, Maria confidently stepped forward and cracked her knuckles.

“What’s with all the ruckus? Oh, just some brats? Hey, kids. Didn’t anyone tell you children shouldn’t wander into places like this?”
“Heh, the same could be said for adults playing hideout in a place like this, no?”
“What?”

The exchange ended there. Before the dumbfounded criminal could retort further, Maria showed her sense of timing by striking first without continuing the banter.

“Don’t get rowdy, kid!”
As the criminal who had spoken momentarily faltered, his companions reacted to Maria’s preemptive attack. Quite shamelessly, they did not hesitate to swing their weapons at the young, frail-looking girl.

And right as their swung weapons seemed poised to strike the diminutive Maria:
Her torso moved with the resilient flexibility of a reed. Perhaps because of this, the criminals’ weapons passed by Maria’s figure as if in slow motion. In the next moment, Maria’s form had slipped in like a cat, occupying one criminal’s blindspot as her arms coiled around his neck like a snake.

Conveniently, Maria’s knee pressed against the ensnared criminal’s groin, rendering him unable to resist as she effortlessly flung him aside. This trajectory obstructed the other criminals’ approach, and Maria’s form immediately advanced along the shortest path toward her next target.

“Heh, not bad?”
Initially watching with bated breath, Conra could not help but exclaim in admiration at Maria’s bold yet calculated movements. Knowing that less than a month had passed since she began training under Sophia, he was all the more impressed.

“Could it be that this little sister is an even greater prodigy than me?”
Maria’s performance was compelling enough for Conra to ponder this seriously. She methodically subdued each attacker while steadily ascending the stairs. The full-body awareness honed through the Weighted Sphere Exercise naturally responded to the enemies’ situations and circumstances with each step and moment.

Her attacks targeted the opponents’ flanks. Her extended limbs efficiently disrupted their line of sight and movement paths. The force behind her advances, the steps naturally occupying their flanks or rear, and her serpentine motions ensnaring their vulnerabilities – all were more than enough to subdue and fling aside the larger, stronger criminals.

Some criminals, underestimating Maria’s prowess, attempted to rush Conra from behind as he guarded her rear. However, what awaited those who evaded the young predator only just awakening to her potential was a slightly less youthful predator possessing a warrior’s ferocity and a hunter’s seasoning.

“So there’s nothing left for me to do?”
Unceremoniously slamming the upperbodies of attacking criminals into the walls, fashioning them into rather avant-garde wall decor, Conra lamented with a resigned tone. Maria was performing so well that he sensed there would be little left for him to do – her growth was progressing at an astonishing rate, inadequately described as remarkable.

Maria’s extraordinary growth could be considered a miracle born from the unique nature of the Weighted Sphere Exercise intersecting with inverse muscle and inverse brain cultivation, coupled with her innate talents.

Fundamentally, the Weighted Sphere Exercise awakened the mysteries of spinal extension and whole-body muscle tensioning. While its effects manifested through subtle muscle movements, its essence belonged to the highly perceptive and conscious realms.

Naturally, this shared commonalities with inverse muscle cultivation attuning the astral muscles and inverse brain cultivation attuning the astral brain. Coupled with its aspects of breath control, inner cultivation, and meditation, it generated subtle synergistic effects.

However, if the practitioner lacked exceptional qualities, the Weighted Sphere Exercise would have remained an ordinary training method, unable to produce such remarkable results. Even accounting for its links to inverse muscle, inverse brain, and inner cultivation aspects, the training efficiency of the Weighted Sphere Exercise alone would be merely average at best when viewed from any of those angles.

In fact, considering that the astral muscles and astral brain it generated were solely optimized for the Weighted Sphere Exercise, one could argue its efficiency was exceptionally poor.

Yet when Maria’s extraordinary innate talents for physical mastery were applied, this unique characteristic of the Weighted Sphere Exercise transformed into a factor that boundlessly boosted her growth.

While practicing the Weighted Sphere Exercise, Maria had already unconsciously awakened and internalized its essence in mind, energy, and body. As a result, in less than a month, she had successfully cultivated the astral muscles and astral brain optimized for the Weighted Sphere Exercise – a staggering achievement considering it typically takes three months to half a year for ordinary inverse muscle or brain cultivators to initially generate their astral forms.

Though the scale was significantly smaller compared to ordinary initial astral muscle and brain cultivation, the difference between having it or not was monumental. Moreover, since the Weighted Sphere Exercise optimized for generating miniature astral forms, the small scale was not an issue.

Rather, this minimum threshold state intersected with Maria’s innate genius, catalyzing a runaway chemical reaction.

“Gah! This monstrous brat!”
“Damn it! Eh? Oh, don’t come any closer!”

Even at this very moment, the more Maria fought, the stronger she grew. By actively applying the perceptive awareness awakened and honed through the Weighted Sphere Exercise in actual combat, her stimulated astral brain and muscles accelerated their growth.

Her movements, including footwork and techniques, became increasingly agile and precise, with fewer mistakes. Her stances grew as flexible as slime yet as solid as reinforced concrete.

Her initially large, dynamic motions gradually became smaller and gentler, and her fighting methods of throwing, striking, and flinging transformed into joint-locking, twisting, and dislocation techniques.

“The monster brat’s movements are getting smaller!”
“The brat’s tiring out! Keep pressing and we can win!”

Some criminals, failing to comprehend the principles behind this martial transition, mistook Maria’s changes as exhaustion, deluding themselves into thinking the tide was turning in their favor.

Of course, the result of such misunderstanding and delusion was their limbs being dislocated one by one, leaving them sprawled on the ground writhing in agony as Maria diligently tended to her assigned tasks. Her fair, pretty hands grew increasingly proficient at creating dislocation patients over time.

This growth and transformation extended to Maria’s blood and inner energy, which had been gradually stimulated through the Weighted Sphere Exercise’s calisthenics, breathing, and meditation.

‘Something… I’m starting to feel something…!’

As she advanced, subduing each enemy, Maria began sensing a flow coursing along her meridian pathways, suspended between sinking and heightened awareness. The energy circulating and generated within her had swelled to the point of awakening her extrasensory perception.

The subtle, gentle circulation she had felt while normally practicing the Weighted Sphere Exercise gradually intensified as Maria’s astral muscles and brain underwent rapid combat growth. Though her inner energy had been too faint for her to sense, its vigorous movement allowed her to perceive it despite its meager quantity.

In the trance of mushin, the state of no-mind, Maria unconsciously began moving along the guidance of her newly awakened energy perception, tracing its flow. Like a fore-and-aft sail tacking against the headwind, like a serpent coiling around an opponent’s sphere of awareness to constrict from a blind angle – her movements became fluid and unhesitating.

The result was over a dozen remaining resisters instantly sprawled on the ground, limbs twitching as they groaned and wailed, in the time it took to blink.

“Sister, you were amazing! You’ve started sensing your inner energy!”

It was at the moment the demoralized criminals could no longer muster a further offensive that Conra exclaimed in admiration. Maria’s shocking feat, a fusion of her innate genius, the astral muscles and brain optimized for specific movements, and her newly awakened energy perception, left even Conra in awe.

“Ah… what was that just now?”
“That was your doing, Sister. How was it?”

As Maria emerged from her trance and belatedly realized the spectacle she had unleashed, wearing a dazed expression, Conra addressed her with an excited tone as if it were his own achievement.

“It seems you’ve sensed your inner energy. It would be good to hold on to that feeling. When you first start perceiving your inner energy, there are often times when you can sense it clearly, and others when it seems to disappear without a trace. How about now?”

“Ah, could the flow of infusing my limbs with power centered on my dantian be my inner energy?”
“Yes. The energy Master also calls ‘ki’ or ‘prana’ – the inner power that takes root through cultivation.”

As they discussed the energy Maria had sensed, the two had gradually cleared the second floor and begun advancing toward the third, with Conra now taking the lead after judging Maria no longer required his protection.

The criminals blocking the staircase to the third floor, seeing the two young predators approaching, began to show dark, gloomy expressions.

It did not take the pair long to secure the third floor’s hidden space as well. However, upon reaching it, Sophia and Conra were disappointed to find nothing particularly significant.

“There were a few mid-level managers, but nothing major. A rough interrogation revealed that a portion of the organization’s main forces had already withdrawn externally.”
“We did find some criminal ledgers, but no sign of the leadership – just miscellaneous underlings.”
“So in the end, either the basement is where the real deal is, or there’s a separate hideout elsewhere…?”

Though they racked their brains continuing the search, hoping for something more decisive, the third floor yielded nothing further.

“In this case, we can only hope Master has uncovered something on the basement side.”
Their attention inevitably turned toward Sophia, who had advanced into the basement.

“I wonder how things have progressed on her end?”
“Who knows? But with Master there, I’m sure any ordinary situation would have been resolved already.”
“I suppose you’re right.”

Indeed, no enemies appeared to impede the group’s descent into the basement. For Sophia, an transcendent among humanity’s peak who had deviated even further, finding anyone capable of obstructing her would be a stretch if she simply set her mind to it. Expecting some common criminal organization to produce such an obstacle was frankly an unrealistic prospect.

However, separate from that, a predicament capable of vexing Sophia was bound to exist.

At the very moment her two disciples pondered the situation below with concern, Sophia grappled with a formidable problem, seeking a solution.