Chapter 6: One Sword Breaks Water, Ten Thousand Rivers Cease Flowing
Blue Star, Kurong City, Storm Shadow Club.
"Xiao Zhen, what's going on with you today?" The flat-headed young man wearing a blue and white high-collar jacket looked at Fang Zhen walking out of the virtual pod, his face a little gloomy, and said, "Your face is pale, and you're even distracted during training, unable to cooperate with others."
"You haven't been..."
"...playing some game you shouldn't be, have you?"
In the era of the virtual game explosion, there are all kinds of virtual games; you could even say there's nothing you can imagine that doesn't exist.
"Captain Li, I didn't. I just stayed up late, too late," Fang Zhen quickly explained, looking at the flat-headed young man's displeased face.
Although Li Ranxing isn't old, only turning 22 by the end of this year, he was hired by the Storm Shadow Club at a high price to be the team captain.
The Storm Shadow team, thanks to Li Ranxing's arrival, went from being unable to qualify for the Mech Continent National Competition to directly entering the top thirty-two nationwide, and he even achieved an excellent sixth place in the individual competition.
In this year's Mech Continent National Competition, Li Ranxing can be said to be full of ambition. In this year's individual tour, he had three wins and one loss, defeating last year's third-place Blood Flame Gun Girl, Chen Ya.
So this year, Li Ranxing intends to lead the Storm Shadow team to directly challenge for the top eight nationwide. During this period, they are undergoing intense special training, from 8 AM until 6 PM. As for Li Ranxing himself, he is even more ruthless, training from 8 AM until 12 AM. It can be said that besides sleeping, he is constantly honing his mech skills, like a madman.
"Staying up late?" Li Ranxing said, a little puzzled, "In the middle of the night, you're not resting, what are you doing?"
"Doing squats and digging holes," Fang Zhen said awkwardly.
From broadcasting High Martial Descent at 7:30 PM yesterday until 3 AM, he finally managed to obtain a training method, and after nearly an hour of fumbling, he finally figured out how to log off High Martial Descent.
Sleeping!
This method was thought of by Twilight of the Gods. Since death makes players leave the High Martial World, then sleeping, which is the closest thing to death, is very likely the method to log off.
After several experiments, the three of them were able to confirm that both sleeping and falling unconscious can make players log off. However, after a player logs off, their body does not disappear but remains, so they must find a safe place to log off. Otherwise, if their body dies, the player is still considered dead.
The High Martial World is extremely dangerous. Even within the Black Obsidian Martial Hall, there are many areas of radiation pollution. To log off safely, one must spend Martial Hall points to rent a safe area to rest.
"That damned Hall Master! It's just sleeping on a broken wooden board, and he wants 2 points from me!"
Fang Zhen thought about how, in order to earn 2 points last night, he not only died twice, losing two 648s, but also worked until past 7 AM, washed up quickly, and rushed directly to the club to train. It was practically impossible to live like that.
At this point, someone is bound to ask, wouldn't it be better to just die and wait to resurrect the next time you log in? But what if something delays you and you don't resurrect within 24 hours? Then your account will be canceled, and you won't even be able to play when you want to.
"Squats? Digging holes?" Li Ranxing felt his mind couldn't quite process this. He didn't understand when Fang Zhen, this veteran team member, developed such hobbies. He then reminded him, "It's good that you want to exercise at your age, but pay a little more attention usually. The simulation match is next week, and if you don't perform well, it will be hard for me to talk to the coach."
"Thank you, Captain Li, I'll be more careful next time," Fang Zhen said gratefully.
In the team training room, as the veteran team member Fang Zhen left, the new team member who had recently joined Storm Shadow walked towards Li Ranxing, looking at him with eyes full of doubt.
"Captain Li, didn't the coach say that next week's simulation match is Brother Zhen's last game?"
"Some things are better left unknown. Anyway, it's his last game. Leaving a bit more relaxed is better than becoming a joke."
"Oh, then, Captain Li, will your match against Chen Ya be affected this time?"
"You haven't had any matches recently, are you too idle? You're doing extra training with me until 12 tonight!"
...
Fang Zhen's live stream started punctually at 7:30.
"Are there this many people?" Fang Zhen couldn't help but rub his eyes as he looked at the online viewer count in the backend.
265,876 people!
This online viewer count was absolutely Fang Zhen's peak since he started streaming, completely blowing away his usual numbers by more than ten times. His popularity and buzz directly ranked first on the game list.
"Brother Zhen, you're finally here! My greatsword can barely wait."
"Brother Zhen! After watching your stream yesterday, I realized that my interest is actually watching people do squats and dig holes."
"Holy crap! The person upstairs has some heavy tastes! Am I the only one who came here to see the goddess?"
"Oh my god! When I saw Wu Chang yesterday, I couldn't believe my eyes. That's one of Holy Land's Ten Great Sword Saints, One Sword Breaks Water, Ten Thousand Rivers Cease Flowing Luo Wushang! Her real appearance is actually even more beautiful than in Holy Land. I washed my eyes before coming today, streamer, you understand."
The audience in the live stream room, watching Fang Zhen start broadcasting, also completely erupted.
"Is this the celebrity effect?"
Fang Zhen looked at the audience's discussions in the live stream room, momentarily unsure whether to cry or laugh.
Holy Land's status in the virtual gaming world goes without saying; it's simply not comparable to Mech Continent. And Sword Saint is one of Holy Land's highest titles. Ordinary players simply can't see such peerless masters, and these peerless masters wouldn't bother with live streaming. After all, just joining a first-rate guild in Holy Land offers treatment that top professional players only dream of.
Now that Luo Wushang from Holy Land, a living person, can appear in the live stream room, naturally, many players from Holy Land who admire her will come.
"Alright, today I'll fulfill everyone's wishes."
Fang Zhen didn't waste any more time, directly clicked on High Martial Descent, and entered the game.
City of Light Chasing, Black Obsidian Martial Hall.
"Hall Master, is there something you need?" Fang Zhen stood up and looked outside the door in surprise at Lin Qi, who was holding a small notebook. His gaze was like he had seen a fat sheep.
"Nothing, I just came to see if you were training," Lin Qi carefully looked at Fang Zhen, then looked at his small notebook, his heart full of doubt. "Did I write it down wrong before?"
Player Fang Zhen, age 29, detected physical stats: Strength 77.4 kg, Speed 7.4 meters per second.
Although the increase was small, Fang Zhen's strength increased by 1.4 kg, and his speed increased by 0.1 meters per second.
"Could it be that inhaling toxic gas also helps with growth?"
Lin Qi watched Fang Zhen get up to dig holes and couldn't help but analyze what was different about Fang Zhen compared to the other two yesterday.
Today, when Twilight of the Gods and Wu Chang logged in, their physical data showed no changes. But Fang Zhen was different; his data was clearly different from what he had recorded in his small notebook before.
Although this numerical increase was very small, if it continued to increase at this rate over time, it wouldn't take many days for Fang Zhen to go from kindergarten to elementary school.
If people outside knew about this rate of progress, they would probably capture Fang Zhen for research, the kind where the research fees are very expensive. After all, being able to go from kindergarten to elementary school in just a few days is something countless parents in the City of Light Chasing would want.
And the biggest difference between Fang Zhen and the other two was that he inhaled more toxic gas.
Yesterday, Twilight of the Gods and Wu Chang were only poisoned to death once each, but Fang Zhen was poisoned to death four times. Moreover, Fang Zhen was very diligent in his inhaling, almost constantly engaged in high-intensity activity without stopping.
However, just as Lin Qi was planning to let Fang Zhen inhale more, a System notification sound suddenly came from his ear.
System: Congratulations on the Legacy Martial System exceeding ten thousand reservations, rewarding a Tier 1 Preferential Admission Authority.