High Martial: I Use Everything as Swords

"At 4:40, he flies the real thing."

Han Feng’s gaze swept over the crowd, sharp as a knife.

"Time to trot it out and see what it’s made of."

"If he can’t get it off the ground, or if it doesn’t meet operational standards, I’ll tear up the X-02 schematics right here and now. After that, you can do whatever you want with this project. I won’t say another word."

"But if it flies..."

Han Feng looked at Councilor Wang, a smirk playing on his lips.

"Then stay out of my projects."

Councilor Wang took a deep breath, his temper flaring at Han Feng’s blatant arrogance.

"Fine! Have it your way!"

"We’ll be watching from the hangar in one hour!

I’d like to see if you can really pull off this miracle!"

With that, he stormed off, heading straight for the nearby lounge.

Li Tiecheng didn’t leave. He sidled up to Han Feng and asked in a low voice,

"Kid, level with me. Is this for real?

You’re doing this in front of the council, the military, and that whole panel of experts. If this blows up in our faces, the project is dead for good."

"Rest assured."

Han Feng patted the Iron-blooded General’s shoulder. "As long as that Wang Rui isn’t a complete idiot, this is in the bag."

...

「One hour later.」

The atmosphere outside Hangar 7 was tense.

Councilors, generals, and experts—all eyes were fixed on the young figure cradling a helmet as he walked step-by-step toward the X-02 Fighter.

Wang Rui’s face was still pale, but his steps were exceptionally steady.

4:40 PM.

The domed doors of Hangar 7 slowly slid apart, revealing an overcast sky.

A sea breeze rushed in, whipping at the clothes of the onlookers.

Wang Rui was in position on the tarmac.

After an hour of intense breathing exercises and medicinal supplements, the look of frailty was gone, though his face was still pale.

In its place was an unprecedented composure.

As dozens of pairs of eyes watched him, he walked step-by-step toward the black Ghost parked in the bay.

No hesitation. No fear.

He vaulted into the cockpit, his movements as fluid and precise as a swift returning to its nest.

The canopy sealed shut.

Wang Rui took a deep breath and slowly donned the helmet that already felt connected to his very soul.

VMMMM—

The moment the helmet locked into place, a strange, resonant hum vibrated deep inside his mind.

There was none of the sharp, stabbing pain he’d expected from the overwhelming flow of data.

In that instant, his perspective suddenly soared, as if he were no longer a man of flesh and blood curled inside a cockpit, but a twenty-meter-tall giant of steel.

The wings were his arms, the engine his heart, and the radar his eyes.

The Rune Arrays that had once made his head spin now felt like clearly visible blood vessels, pulsing joyfully at the touch of his consciousness.

’This feeling...’

Wang Rui couldn’t help but mutter to himself.

’It’s so clear.’

The feel of the wind flowing over the fuselage, the rush of fuel through the lines, even the minute vibrations of the landing gear against the tarmac—it was all fed directly and clearly into his mind.

’This isn’t piloting.’

’This is... incarnation.’

’This fighter jet has become my second body!’

He didn’t panic. Forcibly suppressing the excitement surging within him, he followed the procedures from his simulator training and began a system-by-system check of the fighter’s functions.

’Engine systems, normal.’

’Energy Circuits, normal.’

’Flight control array, connection complete.’

"..."

"Tower, this is Falcon 07, requesting takeoff."

Wang Rui thought the words.

He hadn’t used his throat mic, but the thought, channeled through the Neural Resonance System, was converted directly into a standard radio signal that rang out clearly in the earpieces of the control tower staff and every observer on the ground.

"Tower copies. Runway is clear, you are cleared for takeoff. Good luck, Falcon."

The moment he received the command, Wang Rui didn’t even push the throttle as he normally would.

He merely had a thought:

’Fly.’

BOOM!

The engine nozzles of the previously silent X-02 instantly erupted in a ghostly blue flare.

No taxiing. No warm-up.

The steel beast, weighing dozens of tons, launched forward as if flung by some invisible force.

It shot straight up from a dead stop, roaring at a near-vertical angle as it tore into the sky!

"Holy shit!"

Someone in the observation group on the ground yelled out.

Councilor Wang’s pupils contracted, and he instinctively tightened his grip on the railing.

’That kind of takeoff... It’s so brutal! It defies all logic!’

But that was only the beginning.

Soaring into the clouds, Wang Rui felt completely and utterly free.

The thrill of true Human-Machine Unity made him want to let loose.

He executed a rapid barrel roll, leveled out in an instant, then dipped the fighter’s nose, performing an extremely dangerous "Falling Leaves" maneuver at that altitude.

The fighter tumbled like a powerless leaf, fluttering erratically toward the sea.

Just as it came within fifty meters of the ocean, when everyone was certain it was about to crash...

A thought flashed through Wang Rui’s mind.

’Stop.’

With no delay, the fighter, which had been in a stall, simply stopped, as if frozen in place by the hand of God.

An instantaneous hover!

Its immense inertia, forcibly neutralized by the Rune Array, blasted a circular wall of white water up from the ocean below.

Then, without warning, the fighter shot thirty meters to the side, dodging a flock of panicked seabirds.

It accelerated again, a vapor cone blooming at its tail as it instantly broke the sound barrier and vanished over the horizon.

The entire sequence was as smooth as flowing water, without a hint of hesitation.

It was like a peerless swordsman, performing a fluid masterpiece of Swordsmanship across the canvas of the sky.

Inside the cockpit, Wang Rui’s breathing grew ragged.

Not from tension, but from pure exhilaration!

’This is amazing!’

’The feeling of the airframe moving in perfect sync with his thoughts—it’s an ultimate experience no conventional fighter could ever offer!’

On the ground, everyone held their breath.

This was far beyond simply "being able to fly." This meant he had already achieved basic mastery over the terrifying war machine!

"This... This..."

Councilor Wang pointed at the sky, his lips trembling, unable to form a complete sentence.

He might not be an expert on aviation, but even he could tell that this level of maneuverability and reaction speed was something no ordinary ace Pilot could achieve.

’This is what they call the ’operational threshold’?’

’This is clearly top-tier combat capability!’

"What’s the sync rating?"

Han Feng didn’t look at the sky. He turned to Zhou Ming, who was clutching a monitoring terminal.

Zhou Ming swallowed hard, his voice trembling. "R-Report, Advisor! Peak sync rating... seventy-eight percent! Stable sync rating... seventy-two percent!"

"The operational standard is seventy percent."

Han Feng nodded. He looked over at the dumbfounded Councilor Wang and the panel of experts, his tone flat and infuriatingly calm.

Councilor Wang stood before the screen, speechless, his expression a maelstrom of conflicting emotions.

He had considered that Han Feng might pull off a miracle, but he never expected it to happen so quickly, so... unreasonably.

In just one hour.

A rookie in the Enlightenment Realm, weak from massive blood loss, had just performed maneuvers that he, a Grandmaster of the Divine Containment Realm, would struggle to execute.

This was beyond the realm of technology.

This was Magic! No, it was an Immortal Technique!

Professor Wu Zhen watched the smooth flight path on the screen, then glanced back at the dumbstruck technical experts. He let out a long sigh and muttered to himself.

"We were wrong again..."

"We keep trying to measure the world of a genius with a Mortal’s ruler."

Hearing this, the surrounding experts all fell silent.

’Yes, they were wrong.’

They were still obsessed with cost-effectiveness, with feasibility reports, with training costs.

But Han Feng, in a way they could not comprehend, had just flipped the table and rewritten the rules of the game.

At that moment, everyone recalled Han Feng’s seemingly arrogant words from the project meeting.

"In the world of geniuses, Mortals should stay quiet."

As it turned out, that hadn’t been arrogance.

It was merely the statement of a fact that they were only now, today, being forced to accept.

The gap between them and Han Feng wasn’t one of technology or experience.

It was the uncrossable chasm between "Mortal" and "genius."