Chapter 2: A God-tier Opening
The sunset gradually descended.
Beams of afterglow scattered over the ruined martial arts hall. The floor was devastated, and mouse heads popped up one after another from the cracks, swaying around, giving Lin Qi an indescribable sense of reassurance.
“Player Fang Zhen, age 29, testing physical fitness: strength 76 kilograms, speed 3 meters per second.”
“Review?”
“Elementary school student.”
Lin Qi looked at the notebook in his hand, scratched his head, crossed out “elementary school student,” and added seven new characters after it.
Kindergarten senior class, pending.
“Having to act like an npc and also make them obey, this team is really too hard to lead.”
Lin Qi put away the notebook and could not help letting out a sigh. His gaze glanced toward a corner at the bottom of his vision, and then a translucent panel slowly appeared.
System: martial arts transmission system has been activated. Current task one: “completely repair Obsidian Martial Arts Hall.” Reward: Coach B6-type training machine. Maximum player count that can be brought in increased by
Host: Lin Qi.
Age:
Martial arts level: reserve quasi-apprentice.
Strength: 92 kilograms. （quasi-apprentice standard: 100 kilograms）
Speed: 9 meters per second. （quasi-apprentice standard: 10 meters per second）
Maximum player count that can be brought in: 10（current host-limited online count is 1, current reservation count is ）
The martial arts transmission system could let people from the other side of Blue Star come to this world by launching through a game. It could also sever the connection between the players and this world at any time, and when players died and resurrected, he paid no price. Its ability could be called defying the heavens.
But for now.
Lin Qi felt he had come to understand this system anew.
Although the system could bring players over, their physical fitness was obviously not great.
Bang!
Bang! Bang!
“This secondhand generator really is unreliable. Even the basic power supply keeps cutting in and out, and like this they still dared to sell it to me for 500 bit. That black lizard’s heart is really as black as his name.”
In the lounge, Lin Qi patted the roaring iron lump in front of him and muttered in a low voice.
Lin Qi had originally been a 25-year-old entrepreneur on Blue Star. He had worked desperately since university, founded his own game technology company, and had finally just achieved financial freedom and could start enjoying life. But fourteen days ago, he suddenly transmigrated to this world.
Transmigration would have been fine, but they had not even kept a single piece of clothing for him; he came over completely in his original state, which was a bit too much. Fortunately, his luck was good. From the start he transmigrated into the now-abandoned martial arts hall.
While searching for clothes inside the hall, Lin Qi rummaged out quite a few old books and magazines, which let him roughly learn some basic information about this world.
This Blue Star was completely different from the Blue Star where he previously lived. It was not only a high martial arts world where the myriad races gathered, but its level of technology was even higher, and the dangers were beyond imagination.
In July 2025, the sea surface of Blue Star suddenly cracked, and the great disaster descended from then on.
The wilderness was filled with powerful monsters that did not fear thermal weapons. Beast tides that appeared from time to time could easily crush cities one after another, making the living space for humans on this planet grow ever smaller.
Fortunately, in their subsequent development, humans found a way to respond: martial artists.
By learning martial arts and breaking through the human body’s own limits, life itself was evolved, allowing humans for the first time to gain the strength to resist those powerful monsters. Then the myriad races appeared, martial arts flourished for hundreds of years, and even now, martial artists were still what people pursued, the hope of defending the human race. All countries and races across the world set martial arts as a compulsory course in high school, and the college entrance examination relied heavily on martial arts exam scores.
If your martial arts exam score was not up to standard, even if you were a liberal arts student with full marks in every other subject, you could forget about going to university. And if you wanted to attend a martial arts university, the martial arts exam was even more crucial.
As for finding a job after university graduation, that went without saying. In hr interviews at major companies and enterprises, the first thing they did was have the candidate take a punch.
If you could take the first punch, then in the second round you took the second punch. If you cleared all three rounds, you needed no further assessment and could start working directly.
Because of the rise of martial arts, all kinds of martial arts halls sprang up like bamboo shoots after the rain. The Obsidian Martial Arts Hall where Lin Qi now lived was one of the human race martial arts halls established when the City of Light Chasing was first founded.
Now, although the area where Obsidian Martial Arts Hall stood had become an abandoned area of the City of Light Chasing, a place even stray dogs shook their heads at, the hall still covered more than eighty thousand square meters. Even in ruins, it still had some spots that could shelter from wind and rain, so Lin Qi did not have to sleep on the street.
“As expected, this generator is really hard to salvage.” Lin Qi gave it another strong pat. The power supply in the hall was still intermittent and the lights flickered, clearly not fixed.
“This is a generator, precision equipment. Do you think it’s those disobedient brats you can fix by smacking twice?” A woman over two meters tall, with fair skin, a high ponytail, and a mechanical prosthetic arm walked straight up beside Lin Qi and kicked the iron lump several times. Each kick made the surrounding floor crack inch by inch. After a dozen kicks, the lights in the hall finally stopped flickering. “There, your strength is still a bit lacking. You still need to train more.”
“Thanks.” Lin Qi looked at the brightly lit training ground and could not help sighing in admiration. “You really are worthy of being a licensed mechanic in the City of Light Chasing. Your strength is truly beyond ordinary people.”
Luo Qi, 24 years old, an employee of a weapon shop in the suburbs of the City of Light Chasing, was also the benefactor who had saved Lin Qi after he transmigrated into this high martial arts world, the one who truly helped him understand this world, this City of Light Chasing.
“Stop flattering me. I won’t knock off a cent for you.” Luo Qi rolled her eyes at Lin Qi, lifted her mechanical prosthetic arm, and pointed outside the hall at the old car parked there. “I’ve already transported everything over and left it there. I’ll throw in ten alloy shovels for free. Three composite longbows with nine black steel arrows. All these weapons are high-end goods made from A5-grade alloy. Those quasi-martialist young masters usually use this kind of thing too. The total is 15,000 bit. Are you planning to pay in installments or settle it in one go?”
“15,000 bit, that cheap? I heard the rent in the city is about to go up, isn’t it?” Lin Qi looked at Luo Qi in surprise. “And your younger sister just started her first year of high school, right? It’s exactly the time she needs extra tutoring. Selling to me this cheap, you’re going to earn a lot less this month. Don’t tell me you just landed some big order?”
Making weapons took quite a bit of time. As an employee at the weapon shop, Luo Qi made only five or six pieces a month and earned a bit of manual labor fees. A5-grade alloy was expensive. At 15,000 bit for three A5-grade weapons, it was almost at cost.
Money in a high martial arts world was extremely hard to earn and usually never enough. Good jobs generally required martial artist apprentices, while an ordinary person with legal status only made about 2,000 bit a month.
Luo Qi, being a mechanic, was slightly better off, but still only within limits. Earning an extra five or six hundred was already good. Living in the suburbs, half her income went to rent each month. The labor fee for making three weapons was equivalent to half a month of her salary gone.
As for attending high school in this world, the cost was anything but low. Tuition alone was 6,000 per semester. Add in all kinds of nutrition expenses needed to train blood qi, and it was very hard for ordinary people to afford, even more so for someone raising a child alone.
“Recently, rent in our area is indeed going up, and it’s not just us. All races are the same. The Half-Scale Race had some dumb luck and produced several genius martial artists, and their status in the City of Light Chasing suddenly shot up. With the Half-Scale Race paying a bit less rent, it’s only natural that rents for the other races go up.” When Luo Qi mentioned martial artists, envy flickered in her eyes.
It was never easy to become a martial artist. Achieving martial artist status before 25 was even harder. Among their human race side, it had been over twenty years since a true genius martial artist had appeared.
After a moment of sighing, Luo Qi looked at Lin Qi and said, “Don’t worry about my situation. I’m a mechanic after all, I’m not hurting for your money. How many years do you plan to spread the payments over? I suggest ten years. The interest is a bit high, but at least you can afford the monthly payments.”
“No, I’ll pay in full.” Lin Qi reached into his clothes and pulled out eighteen crisp bills, each worth one thousand bit.
“So you really took that step.” Luo Qi looked at the bills in her hand, then looked at Lin Qi with a complicated expression. “Which gang? How much did you borrow?”
“The Gorilla Gang over at the suburban warehouses.” Lin Qi did not hide anything from Luo Qi. “I borrowed thirty thousand, pay back sixty thousand in two months.”
On his very first day in this world, Lin Qi had been thinking about how to become a martial artist. But on his way to the city proper of the City of Light Chasing, he encountered two high school students from a martial arts class. The two were sparring under a bridge, which caused the bridge to collapse, and many passersby fell and were seriously injured. He was one of them.
Luo Qi happened to be on the bridge at the time. Just before he fell, he gave her a push so she did not fall with him. Afterward, out of gratitude, Luo Qi took the badly injured him to the hospital.
As an unregistered vagrant, Lin Qi was completely ignored by the City of Light Chasing and received no compensation. With no money on him, Luo Qi paid 2,000 upfront and gave him another 1,000 so he would not starve. The hospital cured his injuries, but he owed it 10,000 bit, to be repaid interest-free in four installments, about 2,500 per month.
For an unregistered vagrant living in the City of Light Chasing, paying 2,500 bit a month was basically impossible. Unregistered vagrants only did illegal jobs, and even their daily meal money usually did not exceed 5 bit. Forget 2,500 bit; earning even a fraction of that would be good.
As for becoming a martial artist, even a basic cultivation method from a city library costs tens of thousands of bit. And practicing a cultivation method blindly was useless; you needed specialized guidance. The guidance fees were several times the cost of the method itself, completely out of reach for someone like him.
“You borrowed that much, you’re not planning to go into that line of work, are you?!”
“Yes.”
“You’re crazy! You’re gambling with your life!”
“Making money always involves some gambling. As for farming, I think I have a pretty good shot.”
In these days since coming to the high martial arts world, Lin Qi had come to understand how hard it was for an unregistered vagrant to survive, and that there were only two ways to make big money in the City of Light Chasing.
One was to become a test subject for major enterprises and companies, and the other was to farm.
Even for real martial artists, the wilderness of the high martial arts world was extremely dangerous. But city areas were limited in size, heavily populated, and food had always been in short supply, especially foods that could accelerate the growth of blood qi.
For ordinary people seeking to become martial artists, blood qi cultivation consumed huge amounts of the body’s energy, and normal food could hardly meet the demand. Fortunately, technology in the high martial arts world was very advanced, and they developed many special plants, including blood essence rice.
As long as blood essence rice was planted where energy was dense, it took only ten days to mature and contained rich energy. Most major cities were built atop energy veins that provided ample power sources. The closer to the city center, the denser the energy, and blood essence rice naturally became the main crop in major cities.
But each city only had so much land, and the blood essence rice produced was far from enough. Meanwhile, there were many places in the wilderness rich in energy, so wilderness farming became a good way for unregistered vagrants to make money.
If you could grow one batch of blood essence rice in the wilderness, even just ten jin, at the City of Light Chasing’s market price of 200 bit per jin, that was 2,000 bit. The cost for ten jin of blood essence rice seed was only 500 bit. Fourfold profit was enough to drive many people mad, especially unregistered vagrants.
“You really are crazy. That line of work isn’t something ordinary people can touch. Even martial artist apprentices who’ve stepped into martial arts don’t dare set foot there lightly. You should give up. Never mind whether your scrawny body can find a hidden energy-rich spot in the wilderness and defend your blood essence rice. You should know that line is controlled by the gangs now. If they find out, the outcome won’t be pretty.” Luo Qi was speechless. “You’ve really been going to bars too much if you think anyone can become an urban legend.”
“Fang Jin the jackal of the wilderness, Qi Lan the steel light chaser, they did break through the gangs’ blockade as unregistered vagrants, became martial artists, and turned into legendary figures all the vagrants yearn for. But among the tens of millions of vagrants in the City of Light Chasing, how many legends like that can there be?”
“Turn back while you still can. Give up.”
“I know a decent hospital. With your looks, if you stopped being a man, I’m sure plenty of rich people would go for your gentle, girl-next-door type.”
Luo Qi’s words were sincere. Her eyes even seemed to see a bright future for Lin Qi, leaving him a bit stunned.
Girl-next-door?
Lin Qi considered himself not short. On his original Blue Star, he was a tall guy at 86 meters. It was just that in this high martial arts world where everyone trained, middle schoolers averaged 2 meters, and high schoolers were often 2 or At that height he indeed was nothing special, but not so pitiful as to need protecting, right?
“This path is a no-go. The gamble is too big. I don’t have the mental toughness for that yet.” Lin Qi quickly cut off Luo Qi before she could continue. “Do you have a map of the City of Light Chasing showing the wilderness territories of the major gangs and factions?”
Although monsters roamed the wilderness, there were many relatively safe areas. Many energy-rich spots were located there, and gangs typically occupied those areas to plant blood essence rice for sale in the city. Anyone else who wanted to grow blood essence rice had to avoid those territories.
The Azure Crystal Weapon Shop where Luo Qi worked was not a top weapon shop but was still notable in the suburbs. Under the table, they often supplied and transported weapons to major gangs, so she should know something about the gangs’ wilderness activity ranges.
“You really are too conservative.” Luo Qi looked at the determined Lin Qi and sighed at his lack of ambition. She directly sent him an electronic map and turned to leave, but still gave a reminder before going.
“If you really can’t repay the money before the deadline, remember to tell me ahead of time. I don’t think you’d want your body falling into those gorillas’ hands. I have connections. I can probably sell you at a good price and maybe even leave you one kidney for future use.”
“I can still keep one?” Lin Qi looked at Luo Qi in shock, not expecting her connections to be that solid.
Sixty thousand was no small amount, equivalent to two years of income for an ordinary registered resident of the City of Light Chasing. Lin Qi guessed that his body was worth only sixty or seventy thousand; otherwise the Gorilla Gang would not have lent him just thirty thousand.
“How about letting that twenty-nine try instead?”
“Sixty thousand at once. Even quasi-martial artists don’t make that much, and he can keep one kidney and live. It’s perfect!”
Watching Luo Qi disappear into the night, Lin Qi could not help feeling tempted, but he shook his head and quickly dismissed the idea.
Players were different from ordinary people; they could resurrect infinitely. If some faction noticed something was off and realized there was an endless supply of little fruits to pick, they would eventually track him down, and then he would be in real trouble.
Two hours later, in the basement of Obsidian Martial Arts Hall.
“Good stamina, you have potential.” Lin Qi looked at Fang Zhen, who was barely still standing, and nodded. With that kind of stamina and perseverance, he would definitely be a great little farming hand. In his heart, Fang Zhen’s evaluation rose a lot, and the word “pending” could practically be crossed out. “By the way, how are your kidneys usually? How do you feel right now?”
“How are my kidneys? Feel? Do weak legs count?”
“No other feeling?”
“Brother, am I supposed to feel something?”
Fang Zhen looked nervously at Lin Qi outside the iron bars, panicking inside. After making him do two thousand squats in two hours, now he was asking how his kidneys felt, what sensations he had.
What the hell was he supposed to feel? What was this guy expecting him to feel?
Good? Great?
“Sigh, kindergarten senior class really doesn’t cut it.”
“???”
Lin Qi sighed softly, glanced at the time on his watch, and then looked at Fang Zhen as if waiting for something. Fang Zhen was about to speak when he felt a sharp, indescribable sting in his brain and his kidneys. He spat out a mouthful of black, clotted blood, and everything went black.
System: you are dead.
“A game? This is a game?!”
Fang Zhen stared wide-eyed at the system notification, completely dumbfounded.
Game manufacturers nowadays played this hard?
