Chapter 37: Winning Streak! Winning Streak!
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Hongmeng Network, Personal Lobby.
Qian Mingjie stared blankly at the screen.
What had just happened? How could this unranked martial artist be so strong?!
He had been dismissed with only two strikes of the staff?
He might have been Bronze, but Bronze had its dignity too, all right?
Bronze was the future King. A Bronze who did not aspire to become a King was no proper Bronze at all.
Qian Mingjie naturally possessed a King’s heart as well, which was why he had been cultivating desperately for the past two months.
He had already fought more than three hundred ranking matches.
That made him a veteran among Bronze-ranked martial artists.
Yet never before had a battle ended so quickly.
He had been crushed as effortlessly as rotten wood beneath a storm!
He glanced at the battle record. Fifteen seconds...
The corner of Qian Mingjie’s mouth twitched.
Could this fellow actually be a future King?
Every King had climbed up from Bronze.
He opened the recording and watched it again.
“Damn...”
Qian Mingjie drew a deep breath. From beginning to end, the man had made no unnecessary movements.
It was not that he had failed to react. He had simply waited for Qian Mingjie to charge foolishly at him.
Qian Mingjie looked again at the other fighter’s ID: Ten Feathers.
The IP address showed Southern Lake Province.
He was from the same province!
Which university could such a powerful newcomer be attending?
He murmured, “He only logged onto Hongmeng during the summer vacation, which means he must have established his foundation not long ago.”
“His foundation-building speed is slower than mine, so he must have devoted considerable time and effort to martial techniques.”
“He isn’t from Central-South University, so he can’t be my fellow student.”
“Could he be from Southern Lake University, Tanxiang University, or Nanhua University?”
Qian Mingjie ran through the famous universities of Southern Lake Province, but found no answer.
He then uploaded the battle recording to his own video channel.
For its title, he chose a name designed to attract traffic:
Shocking! An Unranked Bronze with the Potential of a King!
Cultivating the martial path was no easy matter. Qian Mingjie also ran a small media account in his spare time to help cover his expenses.
...
Elsewhere, Shi Yu saved the battle recording as well.
After all, it had been his first battle. Though his opponent had been far too weak, it was still worth commemorating.
Through that battle, he had also gained a new understanding of the Heavenly Dipper Cosmic Staff Art. It truly lived up to its reputation as a technique created by an extraordinary martial artist who stood as one of Great Xia’s pillars of national strength!
Its might was vastly beyond that of ordinary Grandmaster-grade staff techniques.
After his victory in the first battle, the system finally rewarded him with several sets of clothing and equipment.
Shi Yu selected a few items at random and finally cast off his status as a bare-handed novice.
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He immediately began the next ranking match.
Five battles in succession, five victories.
In a single evening, Shi Yu had already risen to the upper reaches of the Bronze tier. He was about to enter the top one hundred of the Bronze division, and his rate of advancement was astonishing.
...
The next day.
Shi Yu continued his martial cultivation with steadfast determination.
In the morning, he practiced the Five Peaks Origin-Gathering Art. Although the environment lacked the uniquely abundant vitality of Flower-Fruit Mountain, his cultivation speed remained impressive, far surpassing that of ordinary students.
In the afternoon, he began studying the second stance of the Heavenly Dipper Cosmic Staff Art—Wind Sweeps Away the Clouds.
He practiced the movements again and again, striving for perfection in every motion.
Once he had mastered the stance, he would take it back to the world of Journey to the West and teach it to the Great Sage. Then he would copy it back from the Great Sage, allowing the technique to reach complete mastery.
Night fell.
Shi Yu put on his equipment, logged into the Hongmeng Network, and began his march into the top one hundred!
The most basic rules of the competitive ranking matches were as follows: a victory earned six to ten points, a draw earned zero to two points, and a defeat cost six to ten points.
The exact number of points was determined by the system after taking the circumstances of each battle into account.
If a martial artist achieved a winning streak, they would receive additional points based on the strength of their opponents.
Two consecutive victories: five to ten points.
Three consecutive victories: ten to twenty points.
Four consecutive victories: twenty to forty points.
And so on. With each additional consecutive victory, the streak bonus doubled.
Thus, after Shi Yu knocked down his ninth consecutive opponent in the arena, his score had already surpassed the two-thousand-point mark.
His current score stood at 2,536 points.
He had long since entered the top one hundred of the Bronze division.
And compared with the mere nine battles he had fought, that score appeared all the more terrifying.
The Hongmeng Network’s Foundation-Building Division had already pushed recordings of his battles to a prominent position on the homepage.
The title was brief and eye-catching:
2,536 Points! Nine Battles!
Every Foundation-Building martial artist who logged in could see the relevant news and updates at first glance in the personal lobby.
“What... what is going on?!”
Qian Mingjie had never imagined that, after one night, he would see such an astonishing record from yesterday’s opponent when he logged into Hongmeng again.
“That’s terrifying!”
His eyes nearly fell out of their sockets.
He had fought hundreds of grueling battles, yet his score was only a little over one thousand points.
This fellow had actually achieved nine consecutive victories?
Trembling, Qian Mingjie clicked open the battle compilation that the system had pushed to him.
“Damn...”
Only one word remained in his mind:
Overwhelming.
Under Ten Feathers’s staff, no Bronze Foundation-Building martial artist had been able to last more than thirty seconds.
And throughout the battles, Ten Feathers had never spoken a word.
From beginning to end, he raised his staff, attacked, and withdrew it—clean, decisive, and utterly free of hesitation.
Because of the system’s recommendations, videos and posts discussing Ten Feathers’s battles gradually began to multiply.
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“Damn, who is this powerhouse?!”
“Ten Feathers?”
“I’ve never seen this ID before.”
“This person absolutely has the potential to become an Emperor! The potential to become a King!”
“Nine consecutive victories? I’m on my knees.”
“Please, great expert, hurry up and move on to the Silver division. Stop terrorizing the Bronze division...”
“Is there any hero willing to step forward and challenge him?”
“Everyone, I checked. The last record of nine consecutive victories was set fifteen years ago!”
“An Shuangwen, fifteen years ago! Back then, he created the astonishing record of ten consecutive victories in the Bronze division!”
An Shuangwen was currently Great Xia’s most celebrated cultivation prodigy. His talent was widely acknowledged as a once-in-a-century phenomenon, and he was hailed as the grandmaster martial artist most likely to enter the Immortal Realm.
“Could this be another genius comparable to An Shuangwen?”
Just as everyone was arguing excitedly—
Ding!
A system window popped up.
Ten Feathers has begun his tenth ranking match. Enter the Live Spectator Hall to watch.
Qian Mingjie’s eyes flickered. Without a moment’s hesitation, he entered.
He had personally witnessed Ten Feathers’s winning streak from the very beginning. How could he possibly miss this?
...
Bronze Division Ranking Arena.
Ye Zhongyin stood on the stage, staring intently at her opponent, who stood across from her with a staff in hand. Her expression was grave.
This battle would determine who could reach the summit of the Bronze division and become its number one!
It would also decide whether she could advance to Silver.
Ye Zhongyin had won 154 battles, drawn 12, and lost 28. Her longest winning streak was four battles, and her total score was 2,478 points.
Such statistics could be described as outstanding.
But compared with the nine-match winning streak of the Ten Feathers before her, they were clearly inferior.
According to the Hongmeng Network’s matching system, once a martial artist achieved five consecutive victories, the strength of their opponents would steadily increase and the difficulty would rise sharply.
If it were otherwise, no one would have failed to accomplish it over the past decade or more.
In a sense, the fact that Ye Zhongyin had been matched against Ten Feathers was itself the system’s recognition of her strength.
At that moment, the area around the arena was packed with people. Most were Bronze martial artists there to watch the spectacle, while a small portion were Silver martial artists.
Qian Mingjie looked around and sighed. It had been a long time since the Bronze division had seen a ranking match this lively.
Ding!
Ranking Match Countdown: Three, two, one... Begin!
Ten Feathers versus Ye Zhongyin!
Battle for the Top Spot in the Bronze Division!
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