Chapter 6: One Sword Cuts The Waters, Ten Thousand Rivers Run Dry
Blue Star, Ku Rong City, Storm Shadow Club.
“Xiao Zhen, what is going on with you today?” The crew-cut young man in a blue and white high-neck jacket looked at Fang Zhen as he walked out of the virtual pod, his expression a bit gloomy. “Your face is pale, and even during training your spirit is scattered. You can’t cooperate with the others.”
“Have you, during this time, by any chance…”
“Been playing some game you really shouldn’t be playing?”
In an era of explosive growth in virtual games, every kind of virtual game existed. You could say that anything you could imagine, there would be one for it.
“Captain Li, I haven’t. I just stayed up late, too many late nights, that’s all.” Fang Zhen hurried to explain as he looked at the crew-cut young man’s darkening face.
Although Li Ranxing was not very old, only turning 22 at the end of this year, the Storm Shadow Club had paid a high price to hire him as the team captain.
With Li Ranxing’s addition, the Storm Shadow Team had gone from being unable to qualify for Mecha Continent’s national competition to directly reaching the Top 32 in the Nation, and in the individual competition he even achieved Sixth Place with an excellent result.
For this year’s Mecha Continent national competition, Li Ranxing could be said to be full of ambition. In this year’s individual circuit tournament he had three wins and one loss, and defeated last year’s Third Place, the Blood Flame Spear Princess, Chen Ya.
So this year Li Ranxing planned to lead the Storm Shadow Team to directly attack the Top 8 in the Nation. During this period they were undergoing insane special training, from eight in the morning all the way to six in the evening. As for Li Ranxing himself, he was even harsher, from eight in the morning until midnight. You could say that aside from sleeping, he was constantly honing his mecha techniques, like a madman.
“Staying up late?” Li Ranxing said with some doubt. “At three in the morning, when you’re not resting, what are you doing?”
“Doing squats and digging holes,” Fang Zhen said, a bit embarrassed.
From yesterday’s seven-thirty live stream of High Martial Arts Descend until three in the morning, he had finally managed to obtain a cultivation method. After nearly another hour of exploring, he finally figured out the way to log off from High Martial Arts Descend.
Sleep.
This method had been thought of by Twilight of the Gods. Since death would make players leave the High Martial Arts World, then sleep, which was closest to death, was very likely the way to log off.
After several tests by the three of them, they could already confirm that both sleep and unconsciousness could let players log off. It was just that after a player logged off, the body would not disappear and would still remain, so they had to find a safe place to log off. Otherwise, if the body died, the player would still count as dead.
The High Martial Arts World was incomparably dangerous. Even within the Obsidian Martial Arts Hall there were many radiation-polluted areas. If one wanted to log off safely, they could only spend Martial Arts Hall Points to rent a safe zone to rest.
“That damned hall master. Just sleeping on a broken wooden plank and he actually charged me 2 points.”
Thinking of how last night he had to earn 2 points, not only died twice, losing two 648s, but also kept busy until after seven in the morning, then washed up and rushed straight to the club to train, Fang Zhen felt it was simply unbearable.
At this point someone would definitely ask, then why not just die and wait to resurrect next time he logged on? But if something delayed him and he did not resurrect within 24 hours, the account would be canceled. By then he would not be able to play even if he wanted to.
“Squats? Digging holes?” Li Ranxing felt his brain could not quite process it. He did not understand when this veteran teammate of his had developed such hobbies, and then reminded him, “At your age, wanting to exercise your body is a good thing, but pay attention normally. The simulation match is next week. If your performance is bad, it will be hard for me to talk to the coach for you.”
“Thank you, Captain Li. I will pay attention next time,” Fang Zhen said gratefully.
In the team training room, after veteran teammate Fang Zhen left, a new member who had joined Storm Shadow not long ago walked over to Li Ranxing, his gaze full of doubt.
“Captain Li, didn’t the coach say that next week’s simulation match will be Brother Fang’s last competition?”
“Some things are better not known. Either way, it’s his last match. Leaving a bit more relaxed is better than becoming a laughingstock.”
“Oh. Then, Captain Li, will your duel with Chen Ya this time be affected?”
“You punk haven’t had a competition lately. Are you too idle? You’re doing extra training with me until midnight today.”
…
Fang Zhen’s live stream room went live on time at seven-thirty.
“So many people?” Fang Zhen rubbed his eyes as he looked at the backend online count.
265,876 people.
This online count was absolutely the peak since Fang Zhen had started streaming, more than ten times his usual numbers. His popularity shot straight to number one on the game chart.
“Brother Zhen, you’re finally here. My sabre can’t wait any longer.”
“Brother Zhen! Only after watching your stream yesterday did I realize my hobby is actually watching people do squats and dig holes.”
“Damn, upstairs has some heavy tastes. Don’t tell me I’m the only one who came to see the goddess?”
“My god. When I saw Wu Shang yesterday, I couldn’t believe my eyes. That’s one of Pilgrimage’s top ten Sword Saints, One Sword Cuts Water, Ten Thousand Rivers Cease Flow, Luo Wu Shang. Her real appearance is actually even prettier than in Pilgrimage. I even washed my eyes before coming today. You know what I mean, streamer.”
The viewers in the live stream room were completely boiling as they watched Fang Zhen go live.
“So this is the celebrity effect?”
Seeing the viewers’ comments in the live stream room, for a moment Fang Zhen did not know whether to cry or laugh.
There was no need to talk about Pilgrimage’s status in the virtual game world. It could not even be compared to Mecha Continent. And Sword Saint was one of the highest titles in Pilgrimage. Ordinary players had no chance to see such peerless experts, and these experts disdained streaming. After all, just joining any first-class guild in Pilgrimage would give them treatment that even top tier professional players could only dream of.
Now that a living person like Pilgrimage’s Luo Wu Shang could appear in the live stream room, it was natural that many players who admired her in Pilgrimage would come.
“All right, I’ll fulfill everyone’s wishes today.”
Fang Zhen did not waste any more time. He directly clicked High Martial Arts Descend and entered the game.
City of Light Chasing, Obsidian Martial Arts Hall.
“Master of the Pavilion, is there something you need?” Fang Zhen stood up, looking in surprise toward the doorway at Lin Qi holding his notebook. His gaze made it seem as if he had seen a fat sheep.
“Nothing. I just came to see whether you all are training.” Lin Qi looked Fang Zhen over carefully, then looked at his notebook, his heart full of doubt. “Did I remember wrong before?”
Player Fang Zhen, age Physical fitness test: strength 4 kilograms, speed 4 meters per second.
Although the increase was small, Fang Zhen’s strength had risen by 4 kilograms, and his speed had increased by 1 meters per second.
“Could inhaling poison gas also help with growth?”
Lin Qi watched Fang Zhen get up to go dig holes and could not help analyzing what was different between Fang Zhen and the other two yesterday.
Today Twilight of the Gods and Wu Shang both logged on, and their physical data had no changes whatsoever, but Fang Zhen was different. His values clearly did not match what Lin Qi had previously recorded in his notebook.
Although the increase in these values was very small, if such numbers kept rising like this, it would take only a few days for Fang Zhen to go from kindergarten level to elementary school.
If people outside learned of this rate of progress, they would probably grab Fang Zhen for research—the very expensive kind of research. After all, being able to go from kindergarten group to elementary in just a few days was exactly what countless parents in the City of Light Chasing dreamed of.
And the biggest difference between Fang Zhen and the other two was that he had inhaled more poison gas.
Yesterday Twilight of the Gods and Wu Shang had each only been poisoned to death once, while Fang Zhen had been poisoned to death four times. Fang Zhen had even inhaled it very diligently, almost always in high-intensity movement without a pause.
Yet just as Lin Qi was about to have Fang Zhen inhale more, a system notification suddenly sounded in his ear.
System: congratulations, Martial Arts Transmission System reservation count has exceeded ten thousand. Reward: level one merit-based admission authority.
(This chapter is finished.)
