Chapter 61: Advancing Again and Again

Chapter 61: Advancing Again and Again

I stood in the arena, smiling back at him just the same. Cupping my hands, I said, “My apologies, Senior Brother Huang. Seems I’m holding up your promotion. Tell you what—invisibility against invisibility. Let’s fight an invisible match. Wouldn’t that be fun?”

The Jianghai Gang’s contestant, surnamed Huang, looked a little surprised that I could still smile at a moment like this. “Afraid I’ll crack your invisibility technique, are you?” he said. “Relax, I’m not planning to beat you to death this time. You can keep your five achievement points. I’ve got plenty of matches after this one and need to save my strength. Come on, Referee, can we start already? Hurry it up. I’ll even let you strike first.”

The referee raised his hand, and I turned invisible at once, shielding my consciousness waves.

A stir rippled through the stands—most of the spectators could no longer sense my presence at all.

Huang didn’t spot me right away either.

But the Jianghai Gang disciples ringing the arena started shouting at once, one voice picking up after another from all six directions. Wherever I moved, the disciples in that direction shouted it out. Clearly the Jianghai Gang had some weapon capable of cracking my invisibility.

My guess was an infrared penetrating-wave sensor.

Same-frequency sensing could pick up brainwaves, and once I shielded mine, that channel went dead. But infrared penetrating waves, produced by equipment, really could see through invisibility, since infrared was simply one of the ways the human body shed heat. A person could not help but emit it.

Contestants couldn’t carry equipment into the arena, of course. So the Jianghai Gang must have prepared for this in advance, setting up infrared penetrating-wave equipment off the field and feeding the readings to disciples posted in six directions, who then called out my position for their fighter’s benefit.

The Great Grandmaster of the Ziyun Sect immediately raised his hand in protest, but the referee ignored him. By the rules, what the Jianghai Gang was doing didn’t technically count as a violation. Call those disciples in six directions a cheer squad, and there was nothing anyone could say against it.

Even so, exposed as I was, hitting me wasn’t going to be easy. Sound took time to travel, and a person’s reaction took time too.

I could have kicked Huang off the arena at any moment, the same way I’d kicked Min Long. But I didn’t want to. Beating my opponent too fast would be as good as announcing to everyone that Song Chenfeng’s soul had already changed hands—and then they’d waste no time coming up with ways to deal with me.

Huang and I, as it turned out, were thinking along the same lines: draw the fight out, climb the ranks slowly, and earn more along the way.

Huang swung at me dozens of times without landing a single blow. Sweat soaked his forehead, and his strength was draining fast.

The Great Grandmaster of the Ziyun Sect, who had already given up hope entirely, suddenly found it rekindled. He kept shouting encouragement, urging me to hold on. In his mind, surviving half an hour meant a draw, and a draw was all he’d wanted.

My footwork was clearly faster than Huang’s. He simply could not touch me. Even with the Jianghai Gang disciples shouting directions from every side, I stayed a full second ahead of him.

Near the end of the match, with the half hour almost up, I struck without warning—slipped behind him and slapped him twice across the face.

The slaps did little real damage. The insult, though, was considerable.

Time ran out just then, and the referee declared me the winner on the spot.

Huang only saw my face clearly once the referee lifted my hand in victory. Furious, he lunged forward to hit me, but the referee blocked him—an expert in his own right, and not about to let Huang land a blow.

I cupped my hands and said, mockingly, “Much obliged for your concession, Senior Brother Huang. Don’t forget to wire me the money after the match. I’m nearly broke. I’m counting on your money just to eat.”

That set Huang off completely. He kept charging forward until the disciples with him hauled him back.

The Great Grandmaster of the Ziyun Sect came over then, laughing. “Do you want to keep fighting the later matches?” he asked. “Under the rules, as long as you keep winning, you can keep going. Just use that same trick. The Sect Master and I have already discussed it—every match you win, the sect adds one more gold-patterned pill to your reward.”

One more pill for every win? That meant one gold-patterned pill for the first match, two for the second, three for the third, and so on.

Win five matches, and that came to fifteen gold-patterned pills—fifteen hundred achievement points, nearly seventy-five years’ worth of labor in the real world. And on top of that, I’d have cleared the first tier of the virtual world outright.

I said to the Great Grandmaster, “My thanks to you and to the sect for thinking so highly of me. I feel fine, honestly. I never actually attacked, so I barely spent any strength.”

The Great Grandmaster raised his hand happily, signaling to the Dao Alliance that the competition could continue.

The second match brought up a rank-four fighter. Rank four wasn’t much stronger than rank three—especially given that Huang himself was actually at rank-five level. The Jianghai Gang had never intended to use this rank-four contestant at all; the plan had always been for their rank-five man to fight at least through a rank-five opponent.

So, unsurprisingly, I toyed with this one until he was thoroughly dizzy. Even the Jianghai Gang disciples off the field couldn’t be bothered to shout anymore.

Their rank-five contestant went down without much drama either. I eliminated him with ease.

The fourth match brought a rank-six fighter, and he came in with an aura heavy enough to press down on the crowd. He fought with weapons—a pair of steel maces—and from the opening moment he swept them through the air in a dense, unbroken barrage, striking in every direction at once. His style rendered my invisibility and footwork useless. I had no choice but to meet him head-on with the steel fork I’d chosen.

I’d assumed I could clear five matches without much trouble. After all, by Shi Youcheng’s estimate, I counted as at least rank seven. I hadn’t expected a rank-six opponent to give me this much trouble.

I was struggling, but so was he. He clearly hadn’t imagined that my earlier wins hadn’t come from footwork alone—that I actually had the strength to clash with him directly.

By then the gold-patterned pills had gotten into my head. Losing this match meant losing out on nine of them. Too great a loss to accept.

So I turned to my brainwaves to throw him off. They’d played an important role once before, when I’d faced the Soul Hunter Lu Qingyue while she was parasitizing Zhu Zhaojie.

Sure enough, this rank-six fighter had real strength, but his force of consciousness was weak. I used same-frequency sensing to call his name inside his own head, over and over, telling him I was his mother and he mustn’t hit me. At the same time I forced my consciousness into the consciousness body inside his brain, pushing hard, until he grew so rattled and disoriented that his own maces nearly struck him more than once. After about twenty minutes, he could no longer withstand the interference and was forced to announce his withdrawal.

If he had not withdrawn, I felt I might almost have parasitized my way into his brain entirely.

He was all but carried off the platform. By the time he raised his hand to concede, he’d already collapsed to the ground, his eyes gone flat and lightless.

I didn’t press my advantage to finish him off. There was no need—we had no real grudge between us. Besides, I still had the next match to think about.

When that fight ended, everyone present—including Huang—was struck silent. Before this match, Huang had still been muttering threats at anyone who’d listen. After it, he didn’t say another word, because this time I clearly hadn’t relied on tricks. This had been a genuine clash of strength.

Only then did the Great Grandmaster and the Jianghai Gang realize that Song Chenfeng’s soul had truly changed hands.

The Jianghai Gang concluded that the Ziyun Sect had played them dirty, laying a hidden trap. The Great Grandmaster, for his part, probably began to regret agreeing so easily to hand out that many gold-patterned pills—he’d never expected me to actually beat a rank-six fighter on pure strength.

I didn’t care anymore. I’d already been exposed. Might as well see it through.

For the fifth match, the Jianghai Gang sent up a rank-seven old man wielding a soft whip. One glance told me what it was—a Soul Hunter Whip, capable of delivering an electric discharge that could leave a person’s whole body limp. I knew exactly how dangerous it was.

Luckily, for whatever reason, the Jianghai Gang’s cheer squad had abandoned their usual positions entirely this time. Whether the old man simply didn’t need them, or the Jianghai Gang believed the Soul Hunter Whip alone could deal with me, I couldn’t say. Either way, no one was helping him from the sidelines.

Even I found it a little surprising. Were they just handing me money at this point?

I didn’t waste time wondering. The instant the referee called the start, I shielded my brainwaves and vanished.

While the old man was still still trying to find me, I appeared behind him without warning, gathered all my strength, and drove a flying kick into him—the same move I’d used on Min Long. One kick sent him flying clean off the arena. His ribs had to be broken; I could almost hear them snap.

After the fifth match, I signaled that I wanted to withdraw, claiming I couldn’t fight anymore.

The Great Grandmaster clearly wanted me to keep climbing—it would have taken a great deal of pressure off the other contestants.

But I didn’t want to push my luck further. I understood well enough that the Great Grandmaster and his people might not be entirely honest men. Fight too many matches, and they might simply refuse to pay what they owed.

So I feigned an injury, clutched my foot, and limped my way out of the arena.

Eldest Senior Brother Shi Youcheng came over then, a strange look in his eyes. I understood well enough—he’d surely guessed I was no longer the original Song Chenfeng.

Shi Youcheng was rank eight. His match was next. If I kept fighting, I’d effectively be fighting in his place, and I had no idea whether he’d welcome that or not.

If I won again, he might lose a chance to earn something for himself. Then again, if I’d lost, I would have worn his opponent down for him instead.

But since I didn’t know what arrangements lay ahead, I doubted Shi Youcheng would hold it against me.

So I made my way to the carved balustrade of Xingyue Palace and watched the rest of the matches from above.

That was when the servant boy Liu Tanzhuang slipped over to my side. He gave me a thumbs-up. “Didn’t expect you to be that good! The young lady was standing just outside Xingyue Palace watching the whole thing. Looked to me like she’s taken a bit of a shine to you—kept praising you the whole time, blushing something fierce.”

I smiled at him. “Young Miss Yuan Lingliang is the Sect Master’s daughter. Marry her, and you’re marrying into her family. What’s so appealing about that? I came here to make money. My family’s marginal, dirt poor. Whatever I earn still has to go toward debts. I’ve got no time to spare for romance.”

Liu Tanzhuang said, “That’s where you’re wrong. The Sect Master’s daughter is basically a jar of money. Win her over, and I guarantee you won’t lack money to spend.”

I said, “Everyone here can swap souls. What real feelings could there possibly be?”

“Young Miss Yuan Lingliang is different,” Liu Tanzhuang said. “She’s genuinely the daughter of Sect Master Yuan Jiangyi. He’s the one who founded the Ziyun Sect, and the Great Grandmaster, Yuan Jiangkui, is his own brother. The two of them built the Ziyun Sect inside the virtual world—which is itself a kind of scientific innovation. The sect’s energy actually comes from Treading the Wind, Seeking the Dao in the Mundane World. Whenever someone in the Mundane World plays it, their data gets automatically distilled, enriching and updating the data packages here and producing more immortal pills. In other words, those cyan-patterned pills and gold-patterned pills are nothing more than condensed wisdom packs from other people.”

Hearing Treading the Wind, Seeking the Dao, I froze. Wasn’t that the game so popular across the Mundane World? I already knew it connected to Gao Minjun’s metaverse. What I hadn’t expected was that Gao Minjun’s metaverse was, in turn, connected to this one.